Gangsters in Blue

Barber ticketed for working on a Monday. Apparently, that’s against the law in Houma, Louisiana.

You will have fun, dammit.

Weezer goes viral–24 times.

Advanced shadow puppetry.

Even drug dealers are switching to the Euro.

Whoops.

Ryan Frederick’s preliminary hearing is today.

As is so often the case, there is no underlying charge here. Concerned that uniformed thugs are brutalizing someone and dare to make noise about it? Well, that’s “interfering with police duties”. Twitch a little when 50,000 volts is zapped through your body and when you’re already incapacitated by pepper spray? “Resisting arrest”. Moss Point [...]

Foster, remember, is the former Ohio State University football player accused of shooting and wounded two police officers during a drug raid in Columbus. He had no prior criminal record, had a conceal carry permit for his gun, wasn’t involved with any illicit drugs, and has a spotless record of employment as a code inspector for the city of Columbus. Foster admits he was at the house the police raided to shoot dice, but says he had no idea the raiding officers were cops.

From the article:

"What I heard was a boom," said Derrick Foster. "Like somebody was trying to kick in the door."

Foster, who played football at Ohio State, told 10TV News that he never heard anyone identify themselves as police officers.

"The first reaction from everyone inside was we were being robbed," Foster said. "We’re being robbed."

Foster admitted that he went to the East Rich Street house to gamble. He also said he brought his gun - which he had a license to carry - for self-defense.

"My whole mentality was, if there were robbers, I want them to know somebody’s in here with a gun," Foster said. "Go away."

According to Foster, someone else inside the home fired the first shot.

"Whoever was outside fired back in, and that’s when I un-holstered my gun and I fired two shots," Foster said. "Basically, I was firing two shots, like a warning shot."

[...]

"They feel like, hey, this guy’s a criminal," Foster said. "I’m not that. I’m not that — and I want them to know I’m not that."

"I’m more remorseful than any person could ever be. This is something that has to stick with me for the rest of my life."

The police don’t seem to have any such regrets.

Officers Garrison and Gillis did not comment on the pending court case, but said anyone who opens fire on another person needs to be held accountable.

"I think any person that has a firearm and is willing to shoot at any person is a dangerous person," Garrison said.

I wonder if that would include the officers who blindly fired back into the house.

Incidentally, this was the third drug raid of the night for the Columbus narcotics SWAT team. The police say the house Foster was in was "a suspected crack house." That doesn’t appear to be the case. No one in the house has been charged with any drug crime. The only charges stemming from the raid are the attempted murder and felonious assault charges against Foster and Michael Gravely for their reaction to the raid. It looks like there wasn’t even enough gambling going on to merit a charge.

It would be nice to see the Columbus media ask some tougher questions, here. Upon what evidence did the police conduct this raid? Why was this "a suspected crack house?" Why no drug charges? What does the affidavit say? Where there any controlled buys at the house? Is it typical for the narcotics unit to conduct three raids in one night? Early reports described a witness who claims to have heard police give an order to smash in the house’s windows just prior to the raid. Did that witness hear an announcement? Was it loud enough to be heard by the people inside?

Lunatic killer cop “sent off duty”, stone-cold Police Superintendent tells outraged public: “We cannot tolerate that emotion spilling over into violence and disorder.” Clown suit defense to follow. From The Daily Mirror: Schoolgirl killed by ’speeding police patrol car’ Sixteen-year-old killed by ‘100 mph patrol car’, then police Taser distraught boyfriend. A witness yesterday claimed a police car that [...]

Arthur Tesler was the only officer to take part in the Kathryn Johnston raid who didn’t take a plea bargain. Despite admitting that he lied, helped cover up Johnston’s murder, and stood watch outside while other officers handcuffed the bleeding 92-year-woman—allowing her to die while they planted marijuana in her basement—he was convicted today only on the charge of lying to investigators. He’ll face a maximum of five years in prison.

The one good thing to come out of the case is we got to see just how vast, deep, and pernicious the culture of corruption and disregard for civil rights ran in Atlanta’s police department. Tesler testified that narcotics officers were required to serve nine warrants and make two arrest per month, or they’d risk losing their jobs. This led to routine lying on warrants and bullying and intimidation of informants. What we don’t know is how many people were wrongly raided, arrested, and jailed because of all of this.

There’s not even an underlying charge here to justify stopping the guy in the first place. “Contempt of cop” indeed. From the Seattle Post-Intelligencer: Seattle to pay for unlawful arrest, excessive force Stencil / Plantilla sobre asfixia policial by lademocracia.es @ flickr In a stunning setback for the Seattle Police Department, a federal civil court jury on Monday found [...]

D.C. Police Chief Kathy Lanier rehires 17 police officers previously fired for misconduct.

Then she decides the city will arm them with semiautomatic weapons.

What could possibly go wrong?

Government cops protect you by roughing up a suspect woman and breaking her arm, then by making up demonstrably false excuses about how she must have been drunk, and besides which, she might have yelled at them and struggled when a cop tried to grab her. I mean, she was a preschool teacher and he only had about 150 pounds or so on her; what else could he do?

But, before we go any further, let’s review.

Cops in America are heavily armed and trained to be bullies. They routinely shove their way into situations where they aren’t wanted, aren’t invited, and have no business being; they deliberately escalate confrontations in order to stay in control through superior belligerence; they commonly use force to end an argument and then blame it on their victim; and they invariably pass off even the most egregious abuses of power as self-defense or as the necessary means to accomplish a completely unnecessary goal. Cops carry a small armory of weapons and restraints that they can freely use to hurt or immobilize harmless or helpless people, and a small library of incredibly vague laws (disorderly conduct, resisting a police officer) that they can use as excuses for hurting, restraining, and arresting their victims, with virtually no danger of ever being called to account for their actions by as long as other cops, who already have a professional interest in minimizing or dismissing complaints about abusive pigs, can figure out some way to fit the use of these incredibly vague offenses into the police department’s incredibly vague Official Procedures for arrests and for the use of force. And they can always count on their fellow cops to make up, and the mainstream newsmedia to dutifully repeat, absolutely any lie at all, no matter how implausible, and a chorus of city officials and freelance sado-fascist bully boys to get their backs and smear the victim in every media outlet that they can befoul. The practical consequence of the training cops get, and the institutional culture of impunity within which they operate, are squads of arrogant, unaccountable, irresponsible hired thugs with massive senses of entitlement, organized into a paramilitary chain of command, who contemptuously regard their neighbors as mere civilians, who treat anyone who dares to give them lip or who questions their bellowed commands as a presumptive criminal, who have no scruple against using pain or arrest in order to force you to comply with their arbitrary orders, and who excuse any sort of abuse by sanctimoniously informing you that it became necessary to stomp on you in order to protect you — whether or not you ever asked for the protection in the first place.

Thus, for example, consider the case of Kelly Medora and Officer Christopher Damonte. Officer Christopher Damonte found it appropriate to pull Ms. Medora and her friend aside over jaywalking, to scream at them, grab them, and then, when Ms. Medora asked for his name and said he was acting improperly, called in his posse to surround them, then grabbed her arm and wrenched it behind her back, breaking the bone with an audible crack.

Kelly Medora, a petite preschool teacher who weighed about 118 pounds, went out with a friend in North Beach one Saturday night in 2005 for some fun.

Instead, San Francisco police officer Christopher Damonte, who weighed about 250 pounds, arrested her for jaywalking, twisted her arm behind her back and broke it with an audible crack.

[…]

Damonte grabbed her friend’s arm, held it up by her face and demanded she tell him her age, Medora said. Damonte said he would cite her, but didn’t say why.

Medora saw the name R. Fitzpatrick on Damonte’s jacket — he had borrowed it from another officer — and asked if that was his name. This seemed to set him off, she said. He said yes and demanded why she wanted to know. I don’t believe you’re treating my friend appropriately, she replied, court records show. You haven’t told us what we’re being cited for. Please let go of her arm.

Medora said Damonte started to scream at her. Fearful, she said she turned and walked up to another officer and complained about Damonte.

By her account, Damonte then demanded Medora’s driver’s license. Medora said she’d give him her license if he told her what she did.

Instead, Damonte said detain her, by this account, and he and two other officers surrounded her. She said she did not resist them, but merely clutched her purse. Then Damonte grabbed her right arm.

It all happened very quick, she testified. Like he physically took my arm and twisted it up back by my neck to a point where I was completely immobilized. And I said ow, ow. And he pulled even harder, and he snapped it.

There was an audible pop, according to a police report.

—Seth Rosenfield, San Fransisco Chronicle (2008-05-11): S.F. settles excessive force suit for $235,000

The violence against women and the hypermasculine domineering control-freak behavior aren’t the only things that this uniformed thug has in common with a walking, talking stereotype of a wife batterer. For example, there’s the self-pitying lies, and the retaliation, and the bizarre victim-blaming excuses.

The city’s lawyer said in court papers that Damonte used an approved method of holding her arm, but she struggled. Then in an effort to escape, she squatted down and broke her own arm.

—Seth Rosenfield, San Fransisco Chronicle (2008-05-11): S.F. settles excessive force suit for $235,000

Let me just pause to say that I wish I could say that I never expected to see another excuse from a violent cop that’s as contemptible and ridiculous as She fell. But honestly, there is no excuse so contemptible and ridiculous that I would be surprised, at this point, to hear it from cops and their defenders. She broke her own arm included. Maybe next week a cop can explain that his victim wasn’t beaten; she just ran into a door.

Medora cried out in pain. Police called an ambulance and cited her for jaywalking.

At Kaiser Hospital, she was treated for a spiral fracture to her right humerus. Medical records state she was not intoxicated.

Medora said she phoned police from Kaiser to file a misconduct complaint, but no one responded.

Instead, an officer delivered a new citation for resisting, delaying and assaulting an officer. The charges were later dismissed.

—Seth Rosenfield, San Fransisco Chronicle (2008-05-11): S.F. settles excessive force suit for $235,000

So, according to Officer Christopher Damonte, Medora assaulted him. By breaking her own arm.

If you’re baffled as to how violent pigs could feel free to indulge in this kind of outrage, and why it keeps happening over, and over, and over again in so many different cities, on so many different police forces, even in these days when brutality like this can no longer be kept in the back of the paddy-wagon, and are easily documented, commonly exposed and widely discussed in newspapers, local TV, on YouTube, on blogs, well, here’s why:

Although Damonte and the city denied wrongdoing, the city recently mailed Medora a check for $235,000, the largest amount ever to settle a lawsuit claiming San Francisco police used excessive force not involving a weapon.

The Office of Citizen Complaints, meanwhile, has found that Damonte used excessive force in the incident and that another officer failed to investigate Medora’s complaint. Damonte faces a disciplinary hearing at the Police Commission and potential punishment including dismissal.

—Seth Rosenfield, San Fransisco Chronicle (2008-05-11): S.F. settles excessive force suit for $235,000

Cops don’t have to give much of a damn about being exposed, because even when they are exposed, cops almost never face any kind of personal consequences whatsoever for their actions, no matter how violent, no matter how widely known, and no matter how obviously helpless, harmless, or innocent their victim. Officer Christopher Damonte, an aggressive, domineering control freak of a man, who flies into violent rages over ridiculous non-crimes and broke a woman’s arms over the slightest questioning of his conduct, will never face any legal consequences for his actions; at the worst, he faces potential administrative discipline from fellow cops, which amounts to either a paid vacation and a verbal reprimand, or else, if they’re really ready to throw you to the wolves, losing your job. If you or I ran up to a woman, a complete stranger, and got in her face about jaywalking, grabbed her, shoved her around, and then, after she dared to ask for a name and object to her treatment, called in our posse to surround her, and grabbed her and broke her arm, we wouldn’t get fired; we’d be in jail, and we’d also be on the hook to pay her money as damages for her injuries and for her pain and suffering. Officer Christopher Damonte, however, has the Gangsters in Blue and the city government of San Francisco to get his back, so instead of him paying damages, the city government will pay it out for him. And then — dedicated public servants that they are — they will turn right around and send the bill for Officer Christopher Damonte’s brutality to a bunch of innocent San Francisco taxpayers, who will be forced to pay for what he did, even though they had absolutely nothing to do with it.

The State will never police itself; the government will never make a serious effort to protect you from your supposed protectors. Why should they, when there is nobody to check their abuses and when they can always force you to cover the bill for their own fuck-ups?

Support your local CopWatch.

(Story via Mike Gogulski @ nostate.com 2008-05-11 and Five Before Midnight 2008-05-12.)

See also:

• GT 2008-05-11: Cops are here to protect you. (#4)
• GT 2008-05-10: Cops are here to protect you. (#3)
• GT 2008-02-26: Cops are here to protect you. (#2)
• GT 2008-02-18: Cops are here to protect you.

It’s mall security time for 4 of these monkeys, at least. From Reuters: Four Philadelphia police fired over filmed beating PHILADELPHIA (Reuters) - Four Philadelphia police officers were fired and four others demoted or suspended after a video showed them beating three suspects after a drug-related shooting, the city’s police chief said on Monday. The eight officers were among [...]

New Chicago PD Chief Jody Weis was brought in to clean up after a series of police beatings, shootings, and corruption scandals forced out former Chief Phil Cline. Granted, Chicago’s had a violent spring. But this isn’t the solution:

One answer to curbing Chicago’s gun violence, according to police, is putting officers on the streets dressed in full battle gear and traveling in vehicles normally used in hostage and barricade situations.

“I think it acts as deterrent,” Chicago Police Dept. Supt. Jody Weis said. “The first thought is that it’s SWAT and they’ve backed off. I think the deterrent factor is important.”

In addition to the battle dress, police will soon add high powered semi-assault weapons to their arsenal.

Keep in mind, this is a police department which over the last few years has endured high-profile videos of officers beating the living hell out of unarmed Chicagoans, as well as a number of questionable shootings, and a general reluctance to hold wayward cops accountable. Of course, none of this is anything new.

Point is, battle garb may well scare the people in the neighborhoods these cops are patrolling, but it sure isn’t going to help the “us vs. them” attitude. What’s more, it’s hard to see how armed-to-the-hilt patrols are going to stop gang-related shootings any more than normal patrols would.

Pat Hill, a former police officer and the president of the African American Police League, questions the message police are sending to the black and Hispanic communities where the battle-ready officers are expected to be deployed.

“This is the stuff you use in war,” Hill said. “This is what you use in Iraq and Afghanistan. So are they telling the community now that they’ve declared us as the enemy?”

I gave a speech a couple of months ago in which, during the Q&A, an ex-military guy (now an academic) vigorously objected to my use of the term “militarization” to describe this stuff. The military, he said, is far more cautious, careful, and accountable than your typical overly-militarized police force. They treat the citizens of the countries we’re fighting better than American police treat the citizens they’re allegedly protecting.

Make what you will of the merits of that argument. It wasn’t one I’d heard before, but it’s certainly food for thought.

Thanks to Mark Draughn for the tip.