People Are Waking Up to the Darkness in American Policing, and the Police Don’t Like It One Bit

[marmar]

from TomDispatch:


The Logic of the Police State
People Are Waking Up to the Darkness in American Policing, and the Police Don’t Like It One Bit

By Matthew Harwood


If you’ve been listening to various police agencies and their supporters, then you know what the future holds: anarchy is coming -- and it’s all the fault of activists.

In May, a Wall Street Journal op-ed warned of a “new nationwide crime wave” thanks to “intense agitation against American police departments” over the previous year. New Jersey Governor Chris Christie went further. Talking recently with the host of CBS’s Face the Nation, the Republican presidential hopeful asserted that the Black Lives Matter movement wasn’t about reform but something far more sinister. “They’ve been chanting in the streets for the murder of police officers,” he insisted. Even the nation’s top cop, FBI Director James Comey, weighed in at the University of Chicago Law School, speaking of “a chill wind that has blown through American law enforcement over the last year.”

According to these figures and others like them, lawlessness has been sweeping the nation as the so-called Ferguson effect spreads. Criminals have been emboldened as police officers are forced to think twice about doing their jobs for fear of the infamy of starring in the next viral video. The police have supposedly become the targets of assassins intoxicated by “anti-cop rhetoric,” just as departments are being stripped of the kind of high-powered equipment they need to protect officers and communities. Even their funding streams have, it’s claimed, come under attack as anti-cop bias has infected Washington, D.C. Senator Ted Cruz caught the spirit of that critique by convening a Senate subcommittee hearing to which he gave the title, “The War on Police: How the Federal Government Undermines State and Local Law Enforcement.” According to him, the federal government, including the president and attorney general, has been vilifying the police, who are now being treated as if they, not the criminals, were the enemy.

Beyond the storm of commentary and criticism, however, quite a different reality presents itself. In the simplest terms, there is no war on the police. Violent attacks against police officers remain at historic lows, even though approximately 1,000 people have been killed by the police this year nationwide. In just the past few weeks, videos have been released of problematic fatal police shootings in San Francisco and Chicago.

While it’s too soon to tell whether there has been an uptick in violent crime in the post-Ferguson period, no evidence connects any possible increase to the phenomenon of police violence being exposed to the nation. What is taking place and what the police and their supporters are largely reacting to is a modest push for sensible law enforcement reforms from groups as diverse as Campaign Zero, Koch Industries, the Cato Institute, The Leadership Conference, and the ACLU (my employer). Unfortunately, as the rhetoric ratchets up, many police agencies and organizations are increasingly resistant to any reforms, forgetting whom they serve and ignoring constitutional limits on what they can do. .................(more)

http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/176084/tomgram%3A_matthew_harwood%2C_welcome_to_cop_land/

[cantbeserious]

1. LEOs - Terrorizing The 99% - To Protect And Serve The 1%

eom

[MADem]

2. Let There Be Light--and Body Cameras on every cop in the nation. nt

[Snobblevitch]

3. I admit I only quickly read the OP,

but from what I read, my response is "what bullshit." yes, there are bad cops who do bad things, but the vast majority of LEO in the U.S. work hard and help the people in their communities. I personally know several LEO, and most of their weekly calls are medicals. They arrive on scene to provide help.

[Logical]

4. You do realize they should be held to a higher standard than the average employee.......

Or do you not agree with that?

The issue with cops is they protect bad cops!

The ones that protect the bad ones are as bad as the bad ones!

Cops have gotten off the hook too many times in the past. Video is making it a apparent!

[Snobblevitch]

5. "...higher standard than the average employee..?"

I don't even know what that means.

Of course there are bad cops. There are cops who protect the bad cops. But the vast majority of LEO in this country are not like that.

Most cops are not the 'thumpers' you seem to believe them to be.

I do agree that there has been a horrifying uptick in uneeded police shootings and violence, but that does not mean that the majority of LEO behave in that manner.

[Logical]

6. Cope have terrible egos and they hire arrogant people.....

The uptick you're talking about is because the video is easily available.

Cops have Been doing this shit forever. Video exposed it.

[Snobblevitch]

7. The majority of cops are not as you described.

[Amimnoch]

9. The majority of cops that have been hired in affluent and non-minority neighborhoods are probably

not.

You might actually want to try to go and read the article posted. That is if you're actually interested in facts, numbers, and statistics. Otherwise, you know a few cops so they must all be good, and you can go back to your bubble.

[Hortensis]

23. Some cops are good, though, as far as the current

systems allow them to be - i.e., they're required to ignore unethical and even criminal behaviors in fellow officers if they want to continue in uniform. Long ago (when I was a young mother and needed to get out of the house and back in touch with the world), I was a volunteer in the downtown division of the LAPD and saw and worked with good cops, clearly potentially dangerous ones, and everything in between. I feel pretty sure there are many today who really want to see this change.

The types making all the reactionary noise are resisting and opposing the changes, and tough crap. They'll just have to get over it. Or get out the hard way -- fired and in some cases prosecuted.

There's nothing new in this response. Conservatives by nature, including cops who want to be good, have a knee-jerk resistance to change -- and support their buddies who also do because loyalty and conformity are also strongly wired in them.

[marmar]

10. There is clearly a systemic problem..........

Leaked Documents Reveal Dothan Police Department Planted Drugs on Young Black Men For Years, District Attorney Doug Valeska Complicit
http://henrycountyreport.com/blog/2015/12/01/leaked-documents-reveal-dothan-police-department-planted-drugs-on-young-black-men-for-years-district-attorney-doug-valeska-complicit/

The US justice department is investigating Chicago police for civil rights abuses and deadly use of force
http://qz.com/567458/the-us-justice-department-is-investigating-chicago-police-for-civil-rights-abuses-and-deadly-use-of-force/

NYPD Harassment Stories: The Unending Abuse of Power by Officers
http://gawker.com/nypd-harassment-stories-the-daily-abuse-of-power-by-of-1672901478

San Francisco Police Pin One-Legged Homeless Man To The Ground
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/san-francisco-police-homeless-man-prosthetic-leg_55d3909ae4b055a6dab1c8f9

....... and these go on and on and on. The Google search was almost nauseating.

[Snobblevitch]

15. Of course you can link specific actions of LEOs acting badly.

Can you provide the links of LEOs providing a service proudly while they are helping their people e ery single day they are on the job? Of course tou cannot, but that is the norm, not cops acting badly.

[Logical]

24. No, I guess 30%. Which is way to much. nt

[rpannier]

17. Then where are the good LEO's turning in the bad ones?

They don't an d that's why there are more good than bad doesn't mean much when the more goods do not hold the fewer bads accountable
IMO police officers should be required to carry malpractice insurance.
Cities like Chicago, pay out millions of dollars every year because of the bad cops who engage in serious criminal behavior but are not held accountable in court

And yes, they should be held to a higher standard than most every other employee... They get to kill people

[Snobblevitch]

21. Of course LEOs should be held to a hire standard.

I know of an LEO who turned in his 'partner' for insurance theft. It does happen. The public does not hear of it.

My problem with this subject is that people stereotype LEOs and think think they are all bad guys. The bad ones are a small minority.

[Amimnoch]

8. So you read a few snippets, drew a conclusion and decided to vomit it up.

Yep, high quality.

[Snobblevitch]

11. Anytime I read a story/blog that says or implies that

all cops are bad is suspect, in my opinion.

[LanternWaste]

25. As is a response which is little more than an allegation itself...

" is suspect, in my opinion...."

As is a response which is little more than an allegation itself, offers no objective evidence and admittedly reads only enough to validate a preexisting bias yet not enough to challenge that bias.

[SoLeftIAmRight]

12. Bullshit

when they start reporting their fellow officers then they are doing the right thing

it is so very rare

[HughBeaumont]

19. Geez, can we ace this crap once and for all that police are above criticism or reproach?

COME on. People are seriously killing me with this #notallcops shit whenever they read a story that makes their precious team look bad.

What you don't seem to get is that even one bad LEO is too many. You don't take this job to abuse power and hope you can legally beat or murder someone, you take it to protect life and preserve order. Stop excusing shitty behavior by pretending it's not epidemic.

[madokie]

20. Thank you Hugh

for telling it like it is

[Snobblevitch]

22. Of course one bad cop is too many.

I get tired of people assuming ALL cops are bad and that is the attitude I see every day on DU.

[Binkie The Clown]

13. I AM THE LAW!

"It's a lie! The evidence has been falsified! It's impossible! I never broke the law, I AM THE LAW!"

--Judge Dredd

[Cassiopeia]

14. Hillary wants the police to have MORE power.

She doesn't know how the technology really works, but the powers that be need more surveillance power.

[Betty Karlson]

16. One more reason to prevent her nomination.

Especially considering the related problems: institutional racism, suppression of free speech, imprisonment of disproportionate numbers of men of colour, extrajudical executions (a.k.a. murder) of men of colour...

[pediatricmedic]

18. Is the 1000 people killed by police verifiable, it would be more then all the mass shootings

It would be twice as many dead as all the mass shootings for the year if true.