The human body is not essentially…pornographic, and I think to make it so is a mistake. – Pat Robertson
This was one of those weeks in which I couldn’t be sure who was going to take the top position; it went back and forth several times before Radley Balko took it with six. Popehat and Grace were tied for second place with four each (“irony”, “911”, “nanny”, and “fireman” for Popehat; “Palm Beach”, “3rd”, “hair”, and “spray” for Grace); Jesse Walker (“gothic”, “Pat Robertson”), Cop Block (“10”, “20”) and Edward Cunningham (“together”, “test”) had two each, and the rest of the links were provided by Franklin Harris (“RIP”), Walter Olson (“physics”), Police Misconduct (“cop-lovers”), Jasper Gregory (“scrolls”), Jason Kuznicki (“cost”), Jemima (“strip”), Mike Siegel (“ABC”), and Lenore Skenazy (“sign”). The Via North Carolina Harm Reduction requested I share the second video, and I discovered the first while reading this article in order to answer a reader question.
- Cops torture man into false confession, charge him with “lying to police”.
- Cops arrest & charge old man for being given the wrong prescription.
- Another day, another trespassing cop, another murdered dog.
- Cop who tried to burn his family alive gets slap on the wrist.
- The DEA teaches agents how to lie to courts
- A nominee for the Inspector Javert award.
- Oh, the irony.
- Gothic cosmology.
- Palm Beach’s finest.
- R.I.P. Arthur Rankin.
- Fighting fascism with physics.
- So much for the 3rd amendment.
- Pat Robertson is slowly going sane.
- Libertarianism even happens to cop-lovers.
- 911 brings the cops, so don’t call that either.
- Cop fractures 10-year-old’s leg for recording him.
- The searchable online copy of the Dead Sea Scrolls.
- I don’t think “cost” is the most important concern here.
- The UK strives to match the US in mindless nanny-statism.
- Cops arrest woman for being drugged, then hack off her hair.
- Georgia cops now strip-searching passengers in minor traffic stops.
- Government is just a word for the things we choose to do together.
- Florida demands blind, comatose, dying boy take standardized test.
- Cops arrest man for being in a place they decided to spray with bullets.
- ABC discovers that inanimate objects tend to stay where you put them.
- School officials upset by gun-banning sign that displays outline of a gun.
- Cop arrests fireman for trying to save someone’s life instead of obeying his parking instructions.
- Man imprisoned for 20 years after cops torture him into confessing to two murders committed while he was under arrest on a minor charge.
From the Archives
- Cookie Monster, swans, monsters, tag, Stairway to Heaven, prohibitionism, cops, government, language, drugs and huge ships.
- Libertarians want government out of our bedrooms, but some politicians want people out of their bedroom clothes.
- Some “sex trafficking” fetishists waited until Super Bowl Sunday to trot out their claims last year.
- “Police have a special inclination toward confabulation…[and] an incentive to lie“.
- Kansas Supreme Court rules strippers are employees, not contractors.
- African countries which are more civilized about sex work than the US.
- When the state turns custom into law, most people don’t even flinch.
- Look past the “sex slave” rhetoric to what’s actually going on here.
- “For $11 per minute, patrons…can ask for the…butt pillow…service“.
- Atlanta’s police chief wants to “banish” sex workers from “his” city.
- The high standards of American journalism have reached Pakistan.
- Femen protests are less annoying if you just look at the pictures.
- My little sister’s peerless recipe for chicken and andouille gumbo.
- What advice do you have for an escort who’s losing regulars?
- The namesake of my “That Was the Week That Was” feature.
- Another would-be sex worker “ally” who should just shut up.
- Follow-ups to examples of cop violence against sex workers.
- Video of a thought forming in the brain of a larval zebrafish.
- A study identifies the genes that cause gendered behavior.
- A short biography of the wild and extravagant Cora Pearl.
- Must every strong urge now be described as an addiction?
- Is the United Kingdom learning from her former colonies?
- In Saudi Arabia, a war between humans and baboons.
- Indian politicians try to quietly criminalize prostitution.
- Machines built by bigotry work to grind up everybody.
- Another bogus “meat kills” study from radical vegans.
- More good stuff about sex work with disabled clients.
- Why are some women attracted to mass murderers?
- Yet another debunking of the “gypsy whores” myth.
- Do you know what it means to miss New Orleans?
- Man says female IRS agent coerced him into sex.
- There’s more than one way to skin a lawhead.
- Harvey Silverglate reviews Unlearning Liberty.
- Cult hysteria meets “sex trafficking” hysteria.
- Judge sends man to prison for comic books.
- Dr. Brooke Magnanti on the “pimp” myth.
- My two previous columns for Imbolc.
- Two excellent posts by readers.
- Another “dog bites man” thing.
- All prohibitionism is the same.
- What Would Orrin Hatch Do?
- The hooker vote.
One of the NOLA cops was bitching to me in the bar (tonight) … his partner shot a Rottweiler. I said … “so what’s the big deal there?” He says … “Motherfucker will be out of action for a week – you shoot an animal in New Orleans and you have to go through “sensitivity” and “animal cruelty” training!” LOL.
He also told me the COPS have a term … it was noisy in the bar but it was something like “SIDS” – Sudden In Custody Death Syndrome – for when a perp dies “inexplicably” in the process of arrest.
Please don’t EVER use the slag term “perp” on this blog; it’s a symptom of modern police culture, and I won’t have it. “Perp” is short for “perpetrator”, i.e, “one who is guilty of something”. And at least 80% of the time (given the proportion by which America’s prison system exceeds everyone else’s), that is not true. If anyone cops arrest is a “perp” regardless of guilt, then I propose we start calling all cops “murds”.
Hahaha! No problem! 😛
Any cop who shoots a dog with no reason ought to be “out of action” a lot longer, like forever.
Apparently he had a choice between a week in animal cruelty training – or a lifetime without his testicles since the Rott had him flat on his back on the ground! He chose the former!
The reason it was funny to me is – I know this guy (I call him “Bam Bam” after the Flintstone cartoon character). He’s actually about 5’6″ and 190 – built like a little tank – low center of gravity. A pretty nice guy from what I’ve seen in the bar but you know how little guys can get – they always want to prove something! He told the cops … “Gimme that fuckin’ ram and I’ll get that door down myself!” Then he “threw” the ram through the door of the house!
But my buddy says that dog fired right out of the house and “tackled” him like the dog was Mean Joe Green or something – flipped the dude right off the porch! He said the look on “Bam Bam’s” face was absolutely priceless! 😛
I was planning to ask for a little elaboration about “Bam Bam’s” story (what your reaction was, if Bam Bam bothered to explain what happened), but you’ve already done that, so I’ll just proceed to the other thing I wanted to say.
I know I’m dredging up something from a few weeks back, but I wanted to touch on something you said on one of Maggie’s previous Links columns (paraphrasing just a bit):
“Fixing local police is fairly easy – and it happens all the time… [F]or smaller towns – police ROUTINELY get calibrated …”
I wanted simply to note that your comment was the first time (in my memory) since I first started reading Maggie’s blog and becoming aware of the outrages she lists weekly that someone had something to say that suggests that the problems with police and government abuse aren’t always one-way and irreversible (or at least not irreversible without resorting to the ‘torches and pitchforks’ mentality). It was refreshing, to say the least
Furthermore, this passage:
“This is not to say that SOME cops in small towns go off the reservation and commit heinous acts – and, Lord knows – they get published nationwide when it happens – but in many towns those are just isolated incidents. The police in NYC aren’t connected to the police in Lafayette, Louisiana. We are not talking about a nationwide cartel here controlled by a few – each of these police agencies function in a finite jurisdiction and are subject to the will of the voters.”
Makes me wonder how much good in the long run folks like Mr. Balko and the people who write at Popehat are going to do. Unless you live in the area where the outrage is committed (or are willing to pack up and move there) and (as you also said) are willing to pay attention and get involved in change, how much use is fulminating from the distance of the internet? Probably very little.
I’m not one of those “pound the table” kind of guys. I believe in fixing problems and, to do that – you cannot constantly complain about the lack of humanity of the opposition. You have to work with those guys too – in order to solve problems.
Now, Popehat and Balko can talk about “Never call the cops” … but let me tell you – when the shit hits the fan – and they’ve got one or two bad guys outside (or inside) their house and they have no way to deal with them – THOSE guys WILL call the cops! Then they’ll eat a lot of crow when the police show up and bail them out of their situation. That kind of “over the top” rhetoric that seems just totally detached from reality creates a credibility problem in my mind wrt to these guys. That’s not to say that they don’t write some good stuff – hell, Rush Limbaugh says some great things too – but you have to watch all of these guys carefully to ensure you don’t buy into a line of crap.
Democracy still works in the US at the local level – it better, because if it has been compromised at the local level it’s indicative that humans can’t govern themselves on even the smallest level and – there goes a good chunk of the whole Libertarian philosophy if that is true.
My whole political “activist” ideology was influenced by many years of working in the Navy – where I was held accountable for RESULTS – not the quality or volume or cleverness of my complaining. I had to do distasteful things in order to effect the changes that I thought were crucial – like kiss the asses of people I really didn’t have a lot of respect for. LOL – I never had a problem with it – if it got my agenda from “point a” to “point b” – and it always did … a helluva lot better than shutting people down would have.
Guys like Balko have never had to push an agenda in a large organization. They’ve never had to compromise in order to effect change because they’ve never worked with anyone who opposed them. Balko is a writer – an analyst … I don’t think he’s ever PRODUCED anything – therefore how can he really know what it’s like, and how hard it is, to effect change when not everyone agrees with him? He simply doesn’t know this – because he hasn’t been there. He’s a great voice … “on the sidelines” but he is not in the thick of the action and problems will be solved by people who get into the action and are willing to deal with the opposition as human beings.
Very easy to sit in the stands and complain about the Quarterback … quite a different thing when you ARE the Quarterback and you’re on the field in the thick of things.
Thank you for taking the time to write all that out, Krulac. I know we’ve had disagreements in the past, but you are definitely a man I’d like to sit down and chat with over a drink.
I’m a good guy … everyone who meets me loves me! But my ability to articulate things in writing aren’t as good as say … Maggie’s terrific skills! So a lot of that gets “lost” in the two-dimensional universe that is the internet! 😀
Krulac wrote,
” I don’t think he’s ever PRODUCED anything…”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cory_Maye#Controversy
He stopped the judicial murder of a victim of police incompetence and police prejudice. I’d say that’s producing something. A better outcome than the PTBs had in mind.
Look, Krulac, I know that you have soft spot for the guys on the front lines. To a certain extent, I do as well. My grandfather was a deputy sheriff in Montana and Wyoming in the 1930’s and there were a lot of cops around when I grew up; our lay clergy leader was the Colonel of the State Police.
But the fact of the matter is that, with the expansion of laws, Tony Scalia’s “New Professionalism,” the Drug War (the original excuse for militarizing the police), and most of all, the Immunity enjoyed by LEOs, Prosecutors, and Judges, our Criminal Justice system is best understood by treating the first word as a modifier of the second, not as a compound term.
About 20 years ago in my town, we were having some very serious problems with police misconduct. It culminated in unjustified killing of two brothers from out of state who themselves had gone through their own state’s police academy and who were concealed carry licensees. One of our “finest” was killed in the shootout that the police precipitated and as a result, any objective assessment of the event was not going to happen. (It never did anyway, but this made it particularly unlikely.)
This was about the time that the documentary, “Waco: the Rules of Engagement” had been released, and the local ACLU was sponsoring a showing. I had contacts among a number of the local 2nd Amendment organizations and some of the local gun stores and I organized and distributed flyers to the gun stores to get out the Pro-2nd amendment supporters out to support a worthy cause.
We had a massive turnout – the pro-2nd Amendment guys far outnumbered the ACLU people – and that was the point of my exercise. To demonstrate to the ACLU folks that 2nd Amendment types weren’t gargoyles and to point out to the 2nd Amendment guys that the ACLU also had some principled ground upon which both sides could meet.
Among those 2nd Amendment types were a large number of the small business community. Law and order types. Establishment squares – to use the counter-culture epithet. And after the film was shown, the Q&A done and the mingling began, what was the primary topic of conversation? That the local police were out of control.
These “square” pillars of the community were telling stories about how the police were abusing their employees; one had his car impounded because the cop wasn’t happy with finding nothing in the car; another had an employee hospitalized because the cops had put the plastic cuffs on so tight that it caused permanent nerve damage to her hands – and the original charge was thrown out as unsupported.
During this same time period of 18 months, I had 11 encounters with police; 1 friendly, 1 justified, and 9 that were plain police abuse bullshit. One time, a cop, trying to set me up for “attempt to evade” claimed that my 1980 Toyota Corolla with 300,000 miles managed to run away from his Crown Victoria Police Limited “for the last 10 miles.” (I told him that wasn’t possible, and when he belligerently asked why, I pointed out that my last delivery was to the State police substation – 3 miles from here.)
So this wasn’t a case of “Cop Haters” making up bullshit stories to make the police look bad. It was acknowledged near universally among that part of the social strata that are usually cop supporters to a fault.
Then the two brothers were killed by our “finest” and the discontent manifested itself. Three successive city council meetings were shut down by massive numbers of citizens of both the ACLU and 2nd Amendment and small business types besides, demanding that they be given time to speak. One session went until 3:00 because when the council head tried to shut it down, the citizens in attendance weren’t having it.
After the 3rd session, the mayor tried closing the sessions, so the citizens just mobbed city hall. When the council, faced with the possibility of recall elections, agreed to sanction a police ombudsman, the mayor twice tried to subvert the action; first, by installing one of his cronies, and second, by nominating a girl (I use that term deliberately because that’s how she came across) of 22 years whose only job previously had been the police liaison in the prosecutor’s office. The third time around, a competent professional was nominated and, looking with the hindsight of 20 years, has done a stellar job.
You see, Krulac, we changed the institution – but not necessarily the cop culture – for the better because we did pound the table and we did not compromise. The cop culture here is much the same as it was but the difference is that they know that their actions will be reviewed by an outside authority rather than members of their group of cronies. And that has been enough to moderate their behavior.
I would imagine – correct me if I’m wrong – that those instances of conflict you cite from your own experience still took place in a hierarchical structure where responsibility and accountability were significant factors in decision making and outcomes. These are precisely the things missing in law enforcement and prosecutorial offices and judicial practice today. And while your method is the best under those parameters, they do not work in the unaccountable and corrupt environment that pervades the legal system today.
I know that this is a “Wall O Text” comment. But I wanted to give an instance where activist voices on the sidelines produced real change for the better by educating and motivating people who could then, by pounding the table and not compromising, actually solve the problem at hand.
There have been 3 subsequent attempts to close the ombudsman office. It appears that even successor politicians have institutional memory. Only a fraction of the citizens showed up to oppose the closure. But the history remains; the city council has tabled the proposal each time. Oh, and the originator of those closure motions? The chief of police. Hmmm. I wonder why…
I didn’t say there was not a role for activists. I said they don’t “produce” anything. Saving an individual or two is an accomplishment – it’s not a production of a tangible change as “judicial murder” – you would agree – still occurs no? So no lasting or even semi-lasting change has occurred in spite his efforts. A good lawyer could have “produced” the same – and in fact, should have.
Wow – what you guys did was outstanding and I applaud it! But do you see the “compromise” in what you guys did? You brought the ACLU and Gun Rights Guys – not to mention the “capitalists” of the community all together for a common cause. You could not have done that burning bridges and demonizing the different factions you needed to effect this change. For instance – the ACLU believes in a “collective right” when it comes to the 2nd amendment – not an “individual right”. The capitalists could have easily cut a deal with the police to give them a “bye” in the future to stay out of it. YOU guys somehow got all these cats herded together and did a good thing.
Also remember – I’ve never said that compromise is always a good thing – there are times you have to make a solid stand. However, on a national scale – you cannot effect change like this without compromise – the government is just too big and the constitution has too many checks and balances – not to mention the 50 states – which can throw up their own obstacles to change.
I don’t think that is pounding the table – you used the local government to effect the change the way it was designed to be changed.
Not really – the military is still an agency of government – and there is almost zero accountability in government at the top. The accountability comes at the bottom – with the little guys – they are held responsible but the guys at the top – no. There is no one more scathingly critical of the Flag Officer Corps in the military than I am – and it’s quite sickening how the Flags invent “core values” such as “Honor, Courage, and Commitment” and hold the guys on the bottom accountable to them but exempt themselves from them. Example – Benghazi. We had military resources in the area who could have possibly saved those people – or at least attempted to do so REGARDLESS of what “Killary” wanted or our esteemed commander in chief. It would have cost a flag officer his job – but putting resources into motion to make an attempt was the right thing to do. The ex-Navy SEALS that made the attempt – at the cost of their lives – recognized this. But then again – these men were from the “bottom” of the government food chain.
Thanks for the reply, Krulac. I knew that the military was really screwed up in the Vietnam era, but I thought that there was an interim time when things weren’t a constant CharlieFoxtrot. I know that they are today because I have friends whose sons are serving – one at an FOB in Afghanistan.
My oldest brother was nominated by one of our Senators for West Point but ended up declining the appointment, in large part because my uncles, one a Navy Machinist in WWII and the other a Seabee, put him in touch with people who gave him the lowdown on how completed screwed up the military was, particularly the Army.
I’ve read about screw-ups in policy or ROE and wondered if there was more to the story than was being let out. But given the feedback on ROE from my friend’s son in Afghanistan, it looks to me to be a political exercise with complete disregard for the lives of US soldiers. That really pisses me off.
So with what you’re saying, combined with what I know of the bookends (Vietnam and Afghanistan) there apparently hasn’t been any time in the last 50 years when the military wasn’t SNAFU. Maybe that’s just the institutional hazard of having a rigid hierarchy. I dunno.
Once I got to the USA, as a teenager, I lived for a while with my mom and step dad in a very rural area. We never once called the cops. It wouldn’t have done much good, as it would have had to been the county or state responding, and in good weather that could have taken a half hour minimum. More likely it would have been 45 minutes to an hour. Much can happen in that time.
A lot of the reason we constantly call cops these days is that there isn’t much community left. People don’t know their neighbors, and won’t try to openly and honestly work things out. They would rather pit law against law. All that does is fragment and destroy the community even more.
The authorities would like us to believe that they are absolutely necessary, that we can’t get along without them, that they must be involved in our every move. When we believe that, we’re had. we are done for.
THIS. Times three, in the ritual sense.
comixchik wrote,
The authorities would like us to believe that they are absolutely necessary, that we can’t get along without them, that they must be involved in our every move.
So true. Of course they also try to institutionalize this so that it becomes illegal to resolve things without their say-so.
A few years ago there were two cars involved in a “bumper thumper.” (That’s an impact so slight that it can’t be called a “fender bender.”) Unbeknownst to the drivers involved, some third party had called 911. The drivers themselves agreed that there was no damage and went their separate ways. The police followed up and charged both with “leaving the scene of an accident.” (I did note in my Wall O Text post that we hadn’t changed the cop culture, right?) The papers didn’t carry the resolution of this absurd charge, so I don’t know what ended up happening. In my fantasy dreams, they fired the cop and stripped his pension, but that’s just pure fantasy.
There are other instances at the State and Federal level where attempts to do things between consenting adults end up being trumped by some asinine law or regulation. Usually to some lobbying industry’s benefit.
The mantra is … “never, ever, call the police for ANYTHING” … or something to that absolutist effect.
Well – any first grader knows that when the chips are down and you’re about to forfeit your life … unless the cops can save you … yes, in that instance YOU WILL call the cops.
This is where the “credibility” problem comes in for me – I can’t understand why an intelligent human would ever make such an absolute statement – it’s detached from reality.
Wrong. I’ve never called the cops, and I never will. Not even if my life is in danger. Because whatever it is, they’ll almost certainly make it worse. You only feel otherwise because you’ve never been raped by them, literally or figuratively; my husband was the same way until he accumulated enough secondhand experience from black and Hispanic friends and from sex workers.
http://www.9news.com/news/local/article/263867/188/SWAT-enters-home-man-with-knife-shot-with-Taser-
“FBI sniper shoots mother in the head whilst she is holding her infant child and while not being held hostage by her husband.”
http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-17229465.html
No one, not even Radley Balko, doubts that a SWAT team, properly used in the proper circumstances, as in violence already committed or reasonably likely to be committed, can save lives. But this is not what is happening. They’re using armored cars or SWAT to serve warrants to non-violent offenders. They’re using them for people betting on sports among friends. They’re using them for pickup poker games. They’re using them in instances where the evidence is so spotty that they can’t provide their “probable cause” even after the fact and have to make up bullshit like “he had a ‘ICE’ baseball cap in his possession” even when the agency in question was selling the damned things to the public. I could go on and on.
None of these uses of force were justified and it’s these kinds of things, including instances where the police called to ‘help’ have actually killed the people in question, that people like Ken White and Radley Balko are protesting.
Unaccountable police violence is a blight on the former republic and left unchecked, will (or has) create(ed) the kind of culture that will finish with a descent into the police state. They call them police states for a reason – because they represent, (From an Enlightenment POV) the corruption of the police power from its rightful employment to protect individual rights, to the violation of those same rights. Based on our prison population today, which activity do you think dominates police procedures? Protecting? or Violating?
Look, during that 18 months the cops were out of control, there were several times that cops jacked me up just because they were bored and I had an early am delivery route and so was available for their amusement. After one instance – the Crown Vic one with me driving the supercharged 300K 1980 Toyota Corolla 4 banger – I thought about how much worse it could have been if I’d been a minority guy instead of a white guy.
I had a friend whose wife was abused by cops who asserted she was intoxicated because she had Bells Palsy and was neurologically unable to follow their pen in their little roadside sobriety test. They arrested her, arrested him when he protested that they were making a mistake, impounded the car and gave them the old “you may beat the rap but you can’t beat the ride” mantra. They both lost their jobs as a result of this; the tox-screens came back negative and they didn’t even get an apology. He filed a formal complaint with the police and the only thing that happened is that they would come by his trailer – ya know, he was jus’ trailer trash anyway – and shine their spotlights in his windows at all hours of the night. They’d stake out his new job and pull him over and harass him on his way home from work. When he went out to stop the cops from shining their lights into his trailer at night, they arrested him for “obstructing an officer.”
Krulac, these are the things that evil people do. They may be childishly or adolescently evil, but they are still evil. Their fellow cops knew what was going on and did nothing to censure or stop them. In my book that makes them accessories. It’s not a “few bad apples.” I used to think that was true. It’s not. It’s the whole damned barrel.
Now maybe the cops I grew up with were this corrupt and just did a better job of hiding it. I don’t know. But I do know, based on my experience and reading, that if I’m ever a juror, I will accord less veracity to any cop’s testimony than that of anyone else. The majority of cops I’ve dealt with over the last 30 years have lied to my face on numerous occasions. I have no other group that I deal with that has that distinction.
Hey look – I’m the guy that kicked off a jury for giving the cops a less than stellar grade for their ethics … so I’m no “cop lover” by a far shot.
However – what I’m saying – and I’ll leave it here at this – in MY parish, we have THOUSANDS of police calls that are made each year. I can’t even remember the last time one went “wrong”.
But lets’ say – let’s stipulate, that two or three of them go dreadfully wrong for the caller each year. That’s only a fraction of the calls that are made that end in disaster.
So when Radly Balko says … “Never ever call the cops” … he is ignoring the overwhelming statistics that end positively for the caller. I wish him luck with that but, for Mr. and Mrs. John Q Public … as they say down here in the South – “That puppy don’t suck”.
It’s irresponsible to say that – and it undercuts his credibility.
Whoa, let’s make one thing nice and sparkling clear: “Never call the cops for any reason whatsoever” isn’t Balko’s catchphrase, it’s mine. He has a similar one, used rarely, that has some qualifiers in it, but the absolute version is mine and only mine. If anyone’s “credibility” is being undercut by advising people that cooperating with a police state is both morally wrong and extremely foolish, it is mine. So let’s assign blame accordingly, shall we? The person whose credibility you’re questioning (whether correctly or incorrectly) is not someone who doesn’t read these comments and won’t reply, but your hostess. As they say at Popehat, “Govern yourself accordingly.”
Krulac,
Yes, if we go by the count, you’re right. More such calls go right than go wrong. But then, a murderer doesn’t kill everyone he comes in contact with. Yet I would hesitate to praise his social skills thereby. We still prosecute the murder even if he has only killed 1 person out of the 1000 that he knows.
I would lay odds that fewer cops are killed by citizens than are citizens killed by cops. I’ll go further and say that fewer cops are killed by citizens and criminals combined than innocent citizens killed by cops. Yet strangely, that fact doesn’t stop the cops from treating innocent citizens as if they were criminals in every fricking traffic stop I’ve seen or been subject to.
In the final analysis, justice is an individual matter; equality under the law is the raison d’etre of Enlightenment society. If an agent of the state violates the rights of a citizen, he needs to be appropriately sanctioned; such sanction to be determined by his fellow citizens, not his cop cronies. And if such a thing occurs, it doesn’t matter how many times he got it “right.” He should be subject to the same gamut of punishments as the citizen is and his percentage of “right calls” should only come into play at sentencing and not before – you know, just like the cops do to us “civilians.”
This has been an interesting series of comments back and forth. But I’m going into another work cycle (and feel fortunate to be healthy enough to do the work now) so I probably won’t be back for a few weeks. Please feel free to reply. I’ll check back later but most likely won’t indulge in followup comments. I’ll be to short on time.
Okay Maggie – you own the phrase! I would not claim it – because it’s irresponsible.
Again THOUSANDS of calls made in my parish every year. Were you to interview the people who called – the overwhelming majority would say they had a positive experience and would do it again.
And yet – you advocate that NO ONE call the cops – not even at the threat of saving their lives – not even if they have no other avenue to save their lives – just die already, but don’t call the cops.
I have even called the Orleans Parish cops about ten times to handle problems in the bar. There are certain things I can’t do. I can’t remove an unruly customer by force unless he’s in the act of committing a felony. I can’t stop a fight or keep drunks from harassing women on the sidewalk because my authority is limited to the inside of the bar. I am not allowed to carry firearm – no one in the bar is allowed to have one (not even the cops who are drinking) … so when a guy is outside with a gun waving it around and threatening – what do I do? Tell everyone to fucking “RUN – HE CAN ONLY SHOOT SIX OF US!” ???
Really?
I have never had a bad experience with the cops (when I have called them – I HAVE been “profiled” by them and harassed when stopped though – nothing that upset me too much as I have thick skin). I have had them show up and even provide initial emergency medical care to people overly intoxicated and passed out on the sidewalk.
You can be critical of cops without resorting to hyperbolic insinuations that everyone who calls them will meet with some dreadful disaster.
Also – as far as the police state … which state are you talking about? The feds do not control parish police – the local citizens do. Orleans Parish – the cops are above-average shit nationally – I’ll give you that. But what THE FUCK in New Orleans isn’t? The schools are shit … the Mayor’s office is shit … everything in Orleans is shit that is run by the local government.
The fault lies with the shitty voters of NOLA – who vote along racial and party lines. The same exact thing happens in Detroit and DC and … most of these police problems come from these kinds of places. It also has to do with the fact that the war on drugs has become so pathetically out of control that even police are frustrated with it and don’t know what to do.
You can keep telling people not to call the cops. All the commenters here can brag that they’ll never call the cops.
Believe me – when the shit hits the fan and they believe their life is about to end – they WILL call.
Believe me: I won’t. Being gang-raped at gunpoint once is enough for one lifetime, thanks.
I agree. We routinely point out that children who gratuitously kill animals are on the road to serial killer status. Maybe we should be glad that these police have sublimated that urge into only a marginally anti-social behavior /sarc
Look, if a cop is actually in danger – not the “I gotta do what I gotta do to get home safe to my family kind of BS that is epidemic in police psychology nowadays – and shoots a dog that is actually attacking him, then yeah, I don’t have a problem with that.
But to trespass – as this officer was doing – and then kill a dog for exhibiting natural territorial behavior – is as scummy a thing as any other petty abuse of power. And time off with no pay, restitution, reprimand, and public shaming are the least they should be getting in the way of punishment for their behavior.
Well – Dogs are animals to me. I live in a society where people advocate the abortion of full term human babies – and I have a problem trying to assign more rights to animals than I would a human. I kind of raise my eyebrows at anyone who thinks late term abortion is “totally cool” but who get absolutely irate when a dog is shot.
Additionally, I AM a carnivore and by my nature I advocate the killing of animals for my own sustenance. Dogs aren’t really more important in the universal scheme of life than cows are.
I DO have a problem with cops destroying private property for no good reason – just because they feel like it. So I am with you to a certain extent on this issue. I have no problem with a cop who shoots a threatening dog in the performance of his PROPER duties though.
I agree with the notion while performing his proper duties so long as that phrase is not taken in the modern cop vernacular to mean an infinitely flexible standard – which is to say – no standard at all.
Cops shouldn’t trespass, unless they have a warrant or are in hot pursuit or seeking to prevent the imminent commission of a crime. This douchebag in the article was taking a shortcut – because he was too good to use the sidewalks? Not a proper performance of his duty because there was no exigency to justify the trespass. This one’s is all on him.
And you know that cops that do this are asserting their authority as a means of intimidation. Nice little house ya got here. Be a shame if we had to do to you what we did to your dog…
That’s why I say, absent exigent circumstances, a cop does this, he’s disciplined. And should be publicly shamed. Because he is either indifferent to the plight of the citizen or is doing it to intimidate. I suppose a third option is the he’s getting his rocks off. This is part of the cop culture out there and it needs to be shut down. In fact, given that defending yourself against a K9 “Officer” carries assault on an officer in its train, perhaps tit for tat is in order. You shoot a citizen’s dog without cause and it’s attempted murder of citizen. I mean if it’s good for the police . . .
SIDS is Sudden Infant Death Syndrome or “cot death”. It’s a very sensitive subject.
Yes it is. My niece lost her first child to SIDS in her 3rd week. And not to start another Wall O Text comment, was then victimized by the county coroner who had a grudge against her father-in-law who had the temerity to fire him from a cushy sinecure at the local community college for not showing up to do the lectures he was being paid to do.
He returned a showing of “Unlawful Killing,” a finding which was so egregious that our defense expert – who testified pro-bono and was the head of pediatrics at the 2nd largest hospital in the state – said that he planned on submitting a petition to have him and the subsequent prosecution witness sanctioned by their respective professional organizations.
They had argued that blood in the brain was a near pre-mortem instance (supporting the prosecution’s theory of “Shaken Baby Syndrome”) when the obvious fact that lysis (breakdown of red blood cells into constituent compounds) had occurred should have honestly led them to the conclusion that it was significantly pre-mortem, in fact, coinciding with the kind of cerebral trauma that occurs normally during the process of vaginal birth.
Sally Clark was the mother of two kids; she was prosecuted after they both died. Statistical evidence from an “expert” helped to convict her; but the “expert” had no idea about statistics. An utterly awful miscarriage of justice.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sally_Clark
(Yes, I declare an interest.)
Having gone through the same issue at one remove, I still get enraged when this kind of “miscarriage” happens. Anymore, I don’t buy the miscarriage analogy because I think that the system and the people populating it make these travesties happen. I no longer give the benefit of the doubt to these people and would cheer to see them subject to karmic retribution. And if I were in a position to give Karma a little nudge…
Thanks for posting that Hungarian cartoon. It’s not mentioned in the cartoon itself, but on your twitter feed you mentioned that the drug Naloxone, which is specifically mentioned in that cartoon, is not widely available in the United States thanks to prohibitionists who would rather see people die than one person take heroin.
krulac’s cop drinking buddy, in one unmentionable word, has said all there is to know about the culture of the police in the US.
What word was that?
Maggie requests that we don’t mention it. See above.
Oh – THAT word! No … the cop I was talking to didn’t use that specific word – I inserted it on my own. It was a little after 5am in the morning and I had just gotten off shift at the bar when I made that comment. I was pretty tired but do remember thinking “What word should I use here” … I chose that word simply because it’s used so often. My apologies – prolly should have used the term “detainee” instead.
But the word the cop used to describe the “detainees” was “motherfuckers” – which isn’t any better, I admit … but that’s a term he even applied to his partner (the one that shot the Rott).
Oh also – I don’t drink in bars … I might RARELY have a rum and coke when I get off shift when the bar is closed – but I don’t have any “drinking buddies”. For the most part I don’t drink enough to even really say that I “drink”.
I’ll sheepishly admit I had you figured as someone who partakes, if not to excess, then at least regularly. I’m actually glad to hear you say you don’t ‘drink,’ in bars or otherwise, because I don’t either. I’m practically a teetotaler. I was trying not to embarrass myself by revealing that earlier, because while I think you and I are similar in outlook, we are miles apart when it comes to life experiences, skills and physical capabilities. Because of that I have loads of respect for you, but I don’t know how much you’d have for me if we ever were to meet on the street.
LOL – my only “vice” is pussy and I’m so eat up with the sickness for it there is no room in my life for other vices! 😛
I go to bed at 7pm / 8pm every night even!
Re: Firefighter arrest
That is just absolutely ridiculous.