OFF THE WIRE
I know it seems like I’m totally being unfair but the truth has got to get
out there. It’s never pretty and the gang-like “bully” alpha dog mentality is
everything we are spending millions of dollars on with a national anti-bullying
campaign to educate our children not to be and teach them that this behavior is
unacceptable in our society. We teach them that bullying is archaic and
animalistic and that it hurts people to their core. We teach that this behavior
will not be tolerated, however, we not only overlook this aggressive behavior in
our law enforcement officers but we promote it, embrace it, and even broadcast
it to millions of homes worldwide. Americans have come to expect this behavior
in our policing agencies. We’re so numb to the abuses that we don’t even
recognize when someone’s civil, natural, and God given rights are being trampled
on.Our great grandfathers sat around a table in a small tavern sipping ale and
smoking ganja while they drafted, designed, and breathed life into this idea of
a government of the people! By the people! For the people! This government we
call a democracy where every man has an equal vote and an equal say in how he
feels the nation should be governed. In this great democracy ALL men are created
equal, prince or pauper. Somewhere, somehow we’ve deviated from that.
This war on drugs has inadvertently created what our forefathers tried so
hard to dismantle. The war on drugs has created a cast system in America. The
drug war has created a lower than low class citizen: the addict, the junkie, the
crack head, meth head, and so on. We give them less-than-human names to match
our less-than-human attitude towards the refugees in this war on a commodity.
How do you defeat a thing? The victims of this mass genocide are our sisters,
mothers and brothers but we no longer see them as human. We look the other way
while the less-than-human get beaten, tazed, and often killed by our law
enforcement officers. The treatment and turn-a-blind-eye attitude we’ve adopted
towards our lowest class citizen has opened the door to our police treating more
and more citizens just like they treat the second class citizens.
Who’s the second class citizen now? The videos of lawless cops are endless.
I’m not anti police; I’m anti abuse of power. No man should be made to submit to
another man’s abuse. When I fist came across these videos, the first one I saw
was of a guy named Paster Anderson; he was at a checkpoint in Arizona 100 miles
from the Mexican boarder. This was like his 5th checkpoint in 30 minutes. After
the fourth time he was stopped, questioned, and searched, he had enough. He
refused to answer their question and refused to be searched, AGAIN. When I saw
what they did to that poor man I was in disbelief. A peaceable man of God was
beat like Jesus before he was crucified. I was angry and ashamed that federal
agents would treat a dog that way much less an American Citizen in America,
nowhere near the border. I began to watch more videos and much to my dismay I
discovered that I was in the G rated section. Paster Anderson got a slap on the
wrist and he is lucky to have been treated so well compared to most videos on
YouTube. A head full of glass and stitches is nothing compared to dead,
disabled, or mentally scarred.
Probably 15%-20% of police abuse videos end up with the guy/girl wearing the
handcuffs also sporting a brand new toe tag. There are thousands of people each
year who are healthy, and non-violent at the beginning of their police
interaction but are mysteriously killed in the field, on the way to the station,
or shortly after being booked. We then ask the involved department to
investigate itself or we ask an outside private agency who, by the way, is quite
well compensated for their unbiased evaluation of the facts and evidence. How
can you possibly get an unbiased rendering of the facts from an agency that is
policing its own officers? A showing of misconduct certainly means a large cash
settlement to the victim’s family, which ultimately effects EVERY person
including me and you. There are court settlements, legal fees, and the cost
associated with investigating the incident (sadly this is the least costly of
the incidentals in most cases).
The private sector suffers as well. Money to hire private contractors is
decreased, road maintenance suffers, city services decline; one person’s bad
choice affects a whole community, but if the death or injury is deemed
justifiable then all this can be avoided. Which way do you think they’re leaning
at the onset of the investigation? From that point on, they are looking for
evidence to clear the involved department by any means necessary and they may
not even consciously realize their doing it. I think police should operate in
pairs. Specifically, the cop you would normally be harassed by whose job it is
to produce revenue for their city, county, state, or the federal government and
a sort of devil’s advocate to interpret and protect the constitution. He would
guarantee that the people’s constitutional rights are intact and advise the
officer as to proper procedure.
Or give the officer a firearm with a remote trigger lock and give the remote
to the people’s advocate, making state sponsored murder a two party decision.
Let the man who’s not holding the gun decide when to use it. The cop is often
drunk with power and the thrill of the hunt. A person in that state of mind is
not thinking clearly. He is thinking in an aggressive, Alpha-type manner and he
feels that he is God; how dare you challenge his power. What is it that
guarantees that he maintains power? The gun gives him the power over life and
death and the badge legitimizes his use of it. Days, months, and years of
carrying your “service weapon,” constantly reminded of its presence due to its
shear bulk alone takes a psychological toll on you, regardless of who you are. I
used to carry concealed everywhere I went before my permit expired. When you’re
carrying, you walk a little slower, you stand a little taller, and you speak
with a particular “fuck you” in your voice. You find yourself walking towards
altercation just hoping somebody makes a stupid decision. “I just hope they give
me a reason to shoot one of them.” You play all these scenarios out in your head
and of course you always end up victorious in the theatre of the mind thus
emboldening you, increasing testosterone levels and reinforcing that warrior
mentality. That combined with that roid rage aggression plus a badge and gun can
be deadly, for me and you.
I feel that an entry level street cop should never be given the power of life
and death. When the police respond to any call, they show up with an army. Give
the majority of them tazers and make them shut down after a reasonable amount of
time. These are used as torture devices and this has been shown to be the case
in most all tazer involved incidents – but it is better than dead. They record
the length of time they are active and it’s obscene the amount of shocks they
expose people to. If the person is on the ground why shock them time and time
again? I’ve seen police shock a man while telling him to roll over. “Roll over
and I’ll stop shocking you.” Everyone knows you have no control over body
movement when being tazed, but according to the officer, the man refused to
comply with his order. That was his excuse for the 30-45 second continuous
discharge of his tazer. Stick your finger in a light fixture for 30 seconds and
then see how much voluntary movement you have during and immediately after.
Extensive psychological testing and field observation should be conducted on
any officer that carries a fire arm. There should be a weapons certification
program initiated that not all officers will qualify for; only the officers that
are the most stable are certified and the ones that are need regular
re-certification. Psychological testing needs to be the primary determining
factor in whether you carry a lethal weapon or a flashlight. This would weed out
most of the cops that have an affinity towards violence. If those cops can’t
carry guns, then their not going to want to be cops. I’m not trying to pretend
that I have all the answers but at least I’m able to see what’s going on and
realize that there is a problem. I feel like there are solutions to the problems
of abuse that should be initiated, but if no one can admit that there is a
problem then there will be no attempts at rectifying the gross abuse of power
witnessed across the nation everyday. The problem is everywhere. Not one of us
is immune.
Please leave your thoughts in the comment section below.
This post was authored by Grayson Miller and sent to
CopBlock.org via our submission tab. Feel free to send your views, interactions
or police abuse stories to CopBlock.org by clicking here.
