TO SERVE AND PROTECT...???

All in the attempt to apprehend a shoplifter.  More like boys wanting to play with their toys. I'm just waiting for the video of the (literally) boys in blue hootin' and hollerin' it up as they destroy this man's home.

Justice?

Another day, another grand jury decision guaranteed to inflame an already infuriated citizenry.  The grand jury in New York declined to indict NYPD officer Daniel Pantaleo in the choking death of Eric Garner.

Here is a video of the incident, with commentary before and after.  The action in question starts at around 1:00.



There are many issues here.  I start with the more trivial and work my way to the deadly serious.

First off, is this the best use of police assets?
...to focus on people selling "loosies," single cigarettes?  Why is this even against the law?  Aren't there more serious criminal matters to attend to?  And did you see how many cops were there?  You'd think they'd cornered a serial rapist-murderer.

Do these cops know the community they are policing?
If not, why not?  If so, then they know this is a nonviolent man.  So why did they take him down so violently?  There are techniques to get nonviolent suspects to comply, and the best ones don't resemble WWF spectacles.

Do they still teach Verbal Judo techniques to police officers?
I ask that because so many seem so quick to go for the shoot or the take down.  Mr. Garner was textbook non-compliant.  That immediately put him in danger of being on the bad end of escalating compliance techniques.  Still, why the inept attempt at an MMA-style rear naked choke (that turned into a forearm across Garner's windpipe)?  Is this all trained law enforcement professionals have in their toolbox? 

What happened after the takedown is just as egregious
Do police know CPR?  Can they identify if someone is in immediate medical distress?  After the struggle, Mr. Garner was down, clearly not moving and apparently not breathing and the cops just stood there dumb, poking at him every now and then or gently nudging him as if to try to wake him up.  Start watching the video at around the 3:00 mark, and keep watching.  If you are not angry and saddened by the 4:45 or even the 5:00 mark, you have no human compassion in your soul.

Mr. Garner was not a gun-wielding maniac.  He was not on PCP and slinging people through plate glass windows.  He was giving the cops some attitude and flinching away when they tried to cuff him.  Non-compliant?  Yes.  But he attacked no one, and had no recent history of violence.

This is the best New York's "finest" can do?

I am not anti-cop, but I must wonder where are police departments getting these people, and what kind of training are they providing them?

We could contract out policing to street gangs and get the same result.

* - Here is a different compilation, with the aftermath first:
Eric Garner Choke hold Death

Impersonating a Cell Phone Tower

When this

ACLU

 Looks like this

Photo: Joe Ravi

We've talked about this before

In an ACLU case in Florida, in order to prevent access to records and in violation of both Florida law and the courts, the US Marshals Service swept into a Florida police station and seized records pertaining to the use of Stingray.

In other cases the federal government has invoked the Homeland Security Act to prevent the release of records, despite the fact that the use of Stingray had nothing to do with homeland security.

Wired

Stingray

Stingrays “emulate a cellphone tower” and “force” cell phones to register their location and identifying information with the stingray instead of with real cell towers in the area.

Stingrays can track cell phones whenever the phones are turned on, not just when they are making or receiving calls.

Police State

From cellphones to landlines, Google to Facebook, Twitter to email, the NSA to the US Marshals Service, each perhaps taken alone seemingly innocent and reasonable, you need to ask yourself one question...

When do all of these small individual acts become " a long train of abuses and usurpations, each pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under Absolute Despotism"?

Justice, Integrity, and Service my Ass!

 

The Right of the Government to Keep and Bear Arms Shall Not Be Infringed?

Armed Agencies

We'll skip the routine law enforcement and military agencies that one expects to be armed and highlight some interesting other agencies that maintain their own armed law enforcement.

National Institute of Standards
Defense Logistics Agency
Department of Education
National Institute of Health
Department of Housing and Urban Development
Department of Veteran's Affairs
US Government Printing Office
US Supreme Court
NASA
Office of Personnel Management
Railroad Retirement Board
Smithsonian Institute Office of Protective Services

And that is just to name a few.  Do you think there is budgetary cost savings to be realized by having one branch of federal law enforcement?  Do you think we may be overdoing it a bit when the Smithsonian has its own police force?

Here is an interesting story of a raid conducted by the Department of Education in the Washington Post

Po Po it's RR5-0! 

"I Am An American"

A fabulous remix of the U.S. government-funded "I am a Ukrainian"!  Good video up to 2:50...

And while we are at it, a prescient film from 1946 that hits a little too close to home:  "Despotism".

- Hugh