When Cops Run Amok

[xchrom]

http://www.villagevoice.com/2011-11-23/news/when-cops-run-amok/


C.S. Muncy
Luis Veras: from magna cum laude to 'Get the fuck out of the car, asshole.'

n the annals of the NYPD, there are good arrests, bad arrests, and downright bizarre arrests. The case of Luis Veras, a recent Lehman College graduate, might fit into the latter category.

What started as a routine, if dubious, traffic stop on Prospect Avenue in the Bronx, somehow resulted in police officers smashing Veras's car window, slapping him with five misdemeanors, a violation, a summons for reckless driving, and five traffic tickets, and manhandling the motorist to the point that, a year later, he still suffers back pain. Veras also got a face full of pepper spray and 16 hours in a holding cell. Police officers processed him through the system; he spent only two hours in the precinct and the rest in booking. And all that happened after Veras called 911 because he was so disturbed by the officers' behavior.

Veras's lawyer, Eric Milner, maintains that the officers were trying to hit their monthly ticket allotment when they initially stopped him.

"He was stopped to fill a quota," Milner says. "Two different officers wrote him tickets. One ticket was for not signaling a lane change on a road that had only one lane. The tickets were ridiculous. I've never seen anyone ticketed for anything like that in my life."

[Sarah Ibarruri]

1. For starters, I believe there's a tendency for bullies to join law enforcement

Bullies, psychopaths, people with some serious mental problems. Not all, of course, but I think it's a magnet for men with plenty of reason to be in therapy and/or locked up.

[HereSince1628]

2. I believe throwing misbehaving authority figures in with the mentally ill

is a disservice to the mentally ill. Which isn't to say that members of law enforcement cannot and havent ever suffered from mental illness. It's almost a certainty that some people in law enforcement have had mental illness simply because mental illness is common.

But mental illness doesn't have a very strong association with unsanctioned violence. Now multiple studies in Europe and the US suggest that even the seriously mental ill are only slightly more likely than the population at large to engage in violence. Violence is much more common in substance abusers, this is blamed on the loss of inhibition from the chemical actions on the brains of the users.

The sort of violence Lt Pike manifested doesn't seem to stem from personal fear or substance abuse. It doesn't seem to be a consequence of a manic episode, or an instance of 'intermittent explosive disorder'. It appears to be the willing and deliberate application of a chemical weapon by a person who is calm, cool and collected. As many have observed Pike appears downright casual about it. For him, it's just a part of his job.

What Pike did is abuse of authority. He pepper sprayed because he could. The OC was part of his police kit. It was given to him by his employers. His employers provided it to him because they expected someday he would use it. The UC-Davis pepper-spraying was institutionalized violence, not mental illness. What went wrong could be that Pike slipped through the psychological screenings, but it seems more a product of conservative thinking that dominates in the pumped up fear of our times.

[DCKit]

3. Sorry to disagree, but authoritarians are, in my experience, mentally ill.

They are always right, and anyone who doesn't agree with them is (obviously) wrong.

The lack of empathy alone is, in my opinion, the main indicator of a broken brain. Every authoritarian I've ever known is seriously lacking empathy, and that means they're lacking humanity. If they can't be diagnosed as sociopaths, they're surely right on the border.

[HereSince1628]

4. Feel free to disagree...it's ok with me.

Pike may or may not generally lack empathy which if other criteria were met, might meet criteria for Anti-social Personality Disorder (there currently isn't a Sociopath or Psychopath diagnosis recognized by the APA and ASPD captures many of the traits commonly associated with those).

Most police academies and many police forces employ psychological testing to screen such people out of policing (I am sure that will be part of the reviews of his misbehavior and the CYA operation at UCD).

While I can't say Pike isn't anti-social, I don't think anyone can get sufficient evidence or has credentials to actually diagnose that he -is- via a YouTube clip.

Pike certainly acted in a manner that showed a lack of emotional display concerning the pain he was causing. But a person could be emotionally detached during such an event and not be generally lacking in empathy. I suspect that bomber/predator drone pilots and people who program coordinates into cruise missiles also do what they do with much emotional detachment.

I've often wondered about the applicability of Milgram's experiments to the manner in which police apply non-lethal force. Milgram wrote about an "agentic state" where a person comes to view themselves as the instrument for carrying out another person's wishes, and they therefore no longer see themselves as responsible for their actions. I think that such a state would free a person from guilt and emotion and enable the sort of detachment that we saw not only in Officer Pike, but in the scores of law enforcement personnel who have attacked the Occupy movement.