Taser torture

I don't think Tasers should be banned.

The company touts them as a non-lethal weapon to use in situations where police officers would otherwise be forced to shoot people. This is a good thing. Not just because of the inherent saving of a life, but because of important side benefits such as saving police officers from the trauma associated with taking a life and mitigating those case where a mistake is made and an innocent person is targeted by police due to the fog of war.

Unfortunately there's increasing evidence that police are overusing Tasers in situations where they would not be using deadly force. They are using Tasers to force compliance from suspects and even Tasering people for verbal remarks rather than physical resistance. And, it seems sometimes they are simply Tasering people because the Cop got pissed off. I really don't care what kind of an asshole a guy in a wheelchair might be, I can't see how it's justified to use a Taser on him.

Your papers, please

Seems a 68-year-old man can't walk down the street without ID these days, even when he's white (and famous!).

Video proves police corruption

The more these kinds of things happen the mroe I think video should be a regular part of all police operations. It will protect the good gops and deter the bad ones.

http://news.aol.com/article/video-clears-suspects/526114

Power will always be abused if unchecked

Here's a Texas county that uses the drug forfeiture laws to shake down black motorists passing through.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-texas-profiling11-2009mar11,0,507135.story

Policeman doesn't tell the truth

I know, it's shocking.

Right.

Still, it's part of a pattern of disdain for First Amendment and other constitutional rights that seems to have become ingrained in law enforcement recently.

In this case (Details here: http://www.philly.com/philly/wires/ap/news/nation_world/20090313_ap_videoraisesquestionsaboutconnpriestsarrest.html)
a police officer's statement seems to claim that he didn't know that the "shiny metal object" in the priest's hands was a video camera even though the camera's videotape itself shows differently. I guess the priest should be thankful the police officer didn't decide the camera looked like a gun and that the officer was in "reasonable" fear of death or injury and needed to shoot him.

It's hard to fight off the cynicism.

Police can do no wrong

Details: http://www.khou.com/news/local/stories/khou090207_mp_police-thought-girl-was-a-hooker.2bbb0691.html

Basic facts: Four white plainsclothes cops beat up a 12-year-old black girl in her own yard because they thought she was a hooker. Girl is being tried for assaulting a police officer.

It's this kind of thing that results in a large swath of American society (namely blacks, Hispanics and any whites who know any) having no faith in the police.

No matter how outrageous the police conduct is, the system protects them and their abuse of power. Gun down a black guy with dozens of bullets? No problem. Beat up a child. No problem.

Cops get stung

This will bear close watching: http://nevergetbusted.com/node/178

To Serve and Protect

The Richland County, S.C. , sheriff has an M113 APC with a .50 caliber MG.

This makes sense, right?

Bainbridge on the Calvo case

Conservative blogger Steven Bainbridge takes note:
The Calvo case, however, had several other factors working for it that I think help explain why it got so much media attention. Mayor Calco and his wife are white, middle class progressives, who live in a two-story, red-brick house in a Washington suburb. In addition to being a part-time mayor, Calvo works at a nonprofit foundation that runs boarding schools. His wife is a state finance officer. All of which suggests they’re in precisely the same demographic as most MSM reporters. The Washington Post or NY Times reporters look at this case and immediately think: “It could happen to me!” So the story gets saturation coverage--even in Great Britain!
Meanwhile, the MSM ignores the plight of African-American and Latino minority communities caught in the War on Drugs’ crossfire between paramilitary SWAT stormtroopers and gang thugs. How many brown and black families per year are terrorized by cops erroneously executing no knock warrants on the wrong premises? We don’t know because the media only pays attention to collateral damage from the War on Drugs when it happens to people like Mayor Calvo.
What happened to Calvo and his dogs is inexcusable. But the real tragedy is that the same sort of thing happens every day in places like South-Central Los Angeles and nobody cares.
It’s time to declare a cease fire in the failed war on drugs. It’s time for a rational program of legalization and regulation. It’s time for common sense.

So at what point do citizens say enough?

Is it when cops taser a man with a broken back 19 times because he can't get up? http://www.newshoggers.com/blog/2008/07/cant-think-of-a.html

Or is it when a police SWAT team shoots to death the two dogs of a town's mayor during a no-knock raid? http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/07/30/AR2008073003299_2.html

Or maybe it's when witnesses who don't parrot the police side of the story are detained, interrogated and intimidated: http://www.reason.com/blog/show/126284.html

Here is a list of drug war victims: http://blogs.salon.com/0002762/stories/2003/08/17/drugWarVictims.html

Bell shooters acquitted

The details are here: http://wcbstv.com/local/sean.bell.verdict.2.708321.html

I really have to say I expected little else.

Under the current circumstances it's virtually impossible to hold police officers responsible for recklessly killing civilians, especially if those civilians are male minorities.

Now, there's no doubt that modern policing situations can be very stressful and split-second decisions can mean life or death for the police officers and members of the public. There are some ruthless and deranged killers out there. And the majority of the time most police officers react with commendable restraint. I know that I. personally, do not have the temperament needed to deal with the assholes cops routinely have to interact with.

But, there's also a real problem here when police officers, to whom we give the literal power of life and death and are armed by the state and have the power of the state behind them, are not held accountable for acting with due regard for the public's safety. Policing is different from war, where overwhelming force is expected an necessary. In police work there always has to be a balance struck between safety and necessary force. We don't expect jaywalkers to be Tasered, handcuffed and billy clubbed just because it might be safer for the police officer that way.

Right now it is perfectly rational for male minority civilians to be very wary of the police. The fact of the matter is that you can be simply minding your business, entering your own home and gunned down by police officers so long as they think you are a threat, regardless of what you were doing. (Diallo) So far, the only time police seem to be held accountable is when their abusive conduct is egregious and conducted outside a street situation. (Louiama).

Sean Bell and his friends do not appear to be blameless. They could have acted with more sense. But he's dead, isn't he? So he faced consequences for his recklessness. But the 50-shot fusillade from police was not censured here. And therefore we will see it again.