In a healthy, moral and civilized society defined by the rule of law, police can play an important role. They should be people who come from the communities they promise to “protect and serve.” They should view themselves as a part of these communities, not as something separate and distinct. Police should see their jobs as having a great degree of risk, and must be willing to accept that risk. This means not pretending to be a solider at war, not choosing the most violent solution to every problem, and not viewing the citizenry as milk cows ready and willing to be drained of their assets via civil forfeiture.
Unfortunately, this isn’t the state of the police in America in 2014, and it’s quickly becoming obvious to everyone. Ferguson was a key moment in this awakening, when white pundits and others typically confined to less distraught communities, witnessed the militarized police in all its SWAT team horror for the first time. In the piece, “A Good Time Was Had By All” – The Obamas Dance the Night Away as Ferguson, Missouri Burns, I wrote:
I believe Ferguson will be seen as a major turning point. The point in which many well-intentioned, but incredibly naive folks in white mainstream America woke up to what we have become. Many people, particularly those in the media, have been willfully ignorant about the destruction of freedom and civil liberties in America. The events in Ferguson have taken a gigantic mirror and successfully pointed it squarely at our civil society and the image it has reflected back is one of a horrific, militarized, authoritarian monster.
Many people have strongly condemned the failure of a grand jury to indict officer Darren Wilson for the shooting of Michael Brown, but a far more disturbing failure occurred yesterday. This relates to a case from my hometown of NYC, where a cop was caught strangling an unarmed man to death in broad daylight for the non-crime of selling untaxed cigarettes. The man’s name was Eric Garner and the entire incident was caught on tape. It’s absolutely horrifying that the cops were not indicted here, and proves that like bankers, the profession is completely above the law.
I know, I know, where’s the proof? Well here’s some from FiveThirtyEight:
A St. Louis County grand jury decided Monday that police officer Darren Wilson will not face trial for shooting and killing unarmed teenager Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri. Grand juries usually return indictments; the one exception is cases involving police shootings. But more than that, police shootings, and allegations of police misconduct in general, almost never make it in front of a grand jury. And officers rarely face legal consequences for allegations of misconduct.
This chart from the site pretty much sums it up. Read it and weep.
Rather than giving cops the “benefit of the doubt,” I would argue that, if anything, police should be held to a higher standard. This is because once the general population starts to lose trust in cops things can get very nasty, very quickly. This trust is important and it needs to be based on reality, not propaganda.
To understand how absurd the lack of an indictment is in the Garner case specifically, the Huffington Post notes:
Grand juries are meant to determine only whether there is “probable cause” to indict a criminal suspect — a standard far lower than the “beyond a reasonable doubt” standard that comes into play when deciding guilt at trial. Federal prosecutors secured indictments in more than 99.9 percent of the 162,000 cases they brought before grand juries in 2010. But in Missouri and New York, two grand juries decided that even that low hurdle had not been surmounted.
How you can watch that video and not see probable cause is simply beyond me.
With that in mind, watch the following powerful video: This Is What Happens When You Call the Cops
The video highlighted several cases that I’ve written about here at Liberty Blitzkrieg.
Here’s a refresher:
Baby Bou Bou: 19-Month-Old Toddler in Critical Condition After Cops Throw Flash Bang Grenade into Playpen
James Boyd: Rebellion in the USA – Protesters Take Over Albuquerque City Council and Attempt to Arrest Police Chief
David Eckert: How a Routine Traffic Stop in New Mexico Turned into a Nightmare of Torture for David Eckert
*Photo at the top from the New York Daily News.
In Liberty,
Michael Krieger
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I saw the protests going on in New York 2 days after the Grand Jury decision announcement. It was a crowd of 4000-ish people — my guess, fresh NYU students — walking around the streets downtown.
I’d really like to see this as an awakening to our police state, but I’m afraid that is exactly what these events are meant to distract from.
Their slogans are not focused on militarization or oppression but race.
“No justice, no peace … the racist police” was their slogan. Notably, I don’t think they went up to Harlem to voice their opinions, nor did they topple any Police watchtowers or block any precinct entrances — by golly, that would be REAL activism!
I fear the race angle is being used as a distraction from the real issues that we are all too aware of. Where were the protests against the treatment of Eric Garner? That’s a much more clear-cut case than that of Michael Brown. Where were the protests supporting Michael Mineo, allegedly sodomized with a baton by two NYC cops back in 2010? Where is the outrage, the media attention, the talking heads when someone whiter than black gets abused by anyone with a badge? Somehow those stories tend to not get as much airtime…
The kids are being told that the problem with the Police is that they are racist. Not that the laws have racist overtones, and not that beat cops have quotas to meet for their bosses and real estate developers. No, it’s just racism. White cops hate black folks, and that’s all we need to know about this story.
So pardon my realist glasses getting in the way of my optimistic eyes. The Michael Brown case was selected for nationwide highlighting to frame police tensions strictly in the frame of race relations. The old Divide and Conquer, if you will.
All I expect to see out of these protests is a few new black Police Comissioners. The beatings will continue. The drones will keep flying. The tasers will keep tasing. But hey, it’ll be okay, because a back cop is going to be pulling that trigger. That is the narrative of these race-baiter organized protests.
Thanks for sharing your perspective, and I think many of the points you make are valid concerns. I will offer my own, somewhat different perspective.
After the financial crisis, there was a clear and concerted effort by the establishment to tap into the rage of the public and make it all “anti-capitalism” or “anti-free market.” This was by all accounts a spectacular failure. Most of the genuine dissent I have seen has been focused in the right places, crony capitalism, banksters, bailouts, a loss of civil liberties, etc.
I don’t think the status quo starts movements so much in the U.S., but rather once they see them emerge naturally, they attempt to co-opt them. So I believe the initial Ferguson eruption was completely genuine and important, but that since then it is as you described. Co-opted by race baiters and suspect.
As you can now see, protests for Eric Garner are erupting all over the country, which I think is a very good thing, precisely for the reasons you described. It is such a clear cut case of police executing a citizen. While I haven’t followed the tone of these protests so far, let’s hope that they aren’t co-opted with the meme you described. Time will tell, but I’m not convinced those who want to simply make this about race will succeed.
Ferguson is Leftisit agitprop, but NY is a true outrage.
The protestors in NY had a marching band at the tail. There was also a “Overcome Racism Through Socialism” group next to the band. The closer you are to the band, the more likely you are to have been close to organizing a protest.
So, self-avowed race-conscious socialists in the protest, which was admittedly organized by race-baiters like Al Sharlton (“We’ll be ready”). If that’s not indication of leftist agitprop, what is?
I’d dearly love to see police militarization and brutality overtake the seed message of racism. But TPTP are getting pretty good at state-managing protests, so I’m not holding my breath…