Gangsters in Blue

Nick Foley, who found CopBlock.org because of Pete’s arrest for wearing a hat in court, contacted us to share his encounter with New York City Police. I’d like to thank Nick for taking the time to share his story with us and for having the courage to stand up to cops like this. If you have a police story that you want to write about, go for it (personal experience, quick hit on article/topic or a video )! Just click our contact tab above and we’ll help you with the rest.

By Nick Foley

Self-defense laws are contradictory. Our supposed “leaders” love to bellow loudly about respecting Individual Rights and the Constitution of the United States of America while quietly taking away those rights described within it. Like a third-rate magician performing a cheap trick, the modern politician will turn up the music and wave one hand in the air, while the other hand is under the table reaching for the fixed deck of cards.

In the realm of self-defense, the Constitution, which the politician will claim to value, states that “…the right to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.” This is widely accepted to mean that the restrictions regarding the ownership and carrying of firearms are unlawful. True freedom-loving people do and should consider laws discouraging firearms ownership offensive. Today, carrying a gun without government permission is, in most places, a jail-able offense, regardless of whether or not an actual offense has been committed. While this may be unjust, the politicians don’t stop there. In some cities, you may be put in handcuffs and thrown in a cage for carrying an item far, far less dangerous and deadly than a gun…you will be incarcerated for carrying an item that most would never give a second thought about bringing with them during their day’s activities…an item that has many practical uses beyond self-defense. What is this item? A pocketknife.

I know, because I was arrested last spring in New York City for carrying a small folding blade in my pocket. What was my supposed “offense?” Exiting a subway train between work sites, and walking peacefully past a uniformed officer of the NYPD. In the absence of any real threat, the officer only knew I possessed a pocketknife because of the clip of my knife on the outside of my jean’s pocket. When the officer ripped the knife out of my pocket without my permission, I pulled out my phone and began to videotape the interaction (the officer later claimed that he would not have arrested me if I had not recorded our interaction). You can see the interaction here:

Let’s get something straight: I knew and understood the specific New York City laws concerning knives before I carried one, and followed the law under the expectation that I would be protected by the law. I now know better; that all laws are subject to the personal interpretation of the Police and the Courts. The specific portion of the law under which the officer arrested me for criminal possession of a weapon refers to gravity knives. The law states:

“Gravity knife means any knife that has a blade which is released from the handle or sheath thereof by the force of gravity or the application of centrifugal force which, when released, is locked in place by means of a button, spring, lever, or other device.”

The knife I was carrying was not a gravity knife by definition, since the blade was tightened to the point where one could not simply “flick” it open, rather one must use the opposing hand to open the blade. While one may argue all day about the specifics of what a gravity knife is, and if my knife was or was not a gravity knife under New York law, it really detracts from understanding the fundamental violation here: that a peaceful, non-violent, non-threatening individual can be thrown in jail for simple possession, not offensive use of, a common pocketknife.

Under this interpretation of New York City law, it is legal to carry a menacing 4-inch fixed blade, but illegal to carry a 1-inch folding blade. It is legal to carry a 3-foot long baseball bat, but illegal to carry a 1-foot long defense baton. It is legal to possess a .50 caliber muzzle-loading rifle without a permit, but it is illegal to possess a .22 caliber rifle without a permit. See the contradictions?

Fortunately, my personal story of arrest ends anticlimactically; I was jailed for 4 hours, fingerprinted, and released. At my court hearing, I was not even called to the stand: I was simply handed a slip of paper informing me that the “The D.A. has decided not to prosecute” my case. Unfortunately for many others, this kind of story does not end as well. Thousands of non-violent people are incarcerated in the United States each day, for non-crimes ranging from carrying a defense weapon to carrying a certain plant.

The anger and frustration that I felt reminds me of the opening scenes of the original “Rambo” movie, where Rambo is stopped by local police for wearing a buck-knife, is taken to jail for no real reason, then proceeds to fight his way out of the jail. While I am not about about to go “Rambo” on anyone, I do want to stress that wrongful imprisonment, even for just a few hours, is a horrible crime for a government to commit against a citizen.

Self-defense is a universal, moral right which the government must take away if is to maintain its power. An un-armed, vulnerable population is easily controlled. Laws that prohibit an individual’s right to carry weapons of defense only give government the excuse to expand its weapons of offense.

In conclusion, I would like to make a statement that may shock some people: Laws don’t matter. Even if the law is perfect, it is enforced by imperfect beings. In my opinion, the greatest mistake of our generation is to think that freedom can be achieved by elections. The thinking goes: if we could only get Politician X into office, things will change for the better. But to elect better people into government office is to snap a twig off the tree of evil without ever striking the root. As long as there is a monopoly on the use of violence, violence will always be widespread. As long as we hand over all the guns to the state; to political rulers and brutal police, we will always be ruled and utterly, tragically, brutalized.

Visit me at http://www.youtube.com/BookofNick

By Rob and Jenn

As the economy is in a slump and the national unemployment rate is at a horrendous 9.8 percent as of January 2011, it would seem there are better ways to use taxpayer money than marijuana enforcement – which crowds jails with non-violent offenders, imposes substantial costs on non-violent victims and of course, requires considerable public resources.

Recently released figures by the New York Division of Criminal Justice Services indicate that in 2010, the New York City Police Department arrested 50,383 people for low-level marijuana offenses. Some figures have estimated that only 59 percent of murders are solved in NYC, but apparently low-level marijuana use is of greater priority than murder. Drugpolicy.org contends that the rise in marijuana arrests cannot be explained by rise in marijuana use, which peaked in 1980 according to government data (full article here). According to the article, on average, nearly 140 people are arrested every day for marijuana possession in NYC, making the Big Apple the “Marijuana Arrest Capital of the World.”

If you break this down into the most simple form, people are being locked in a cage, fined and jailed for carrying a plant on them.  The way things are going in NYC, with people being fined $2,000 for recycling cans, and ticketing people for playing chess - I’m sure if there was a way to do it, NYC Mayor Bloomberg would arrest all the inhabitants on planet Earth for allowing this plant to flourish on its soil.

Possession of 25 grams or less of marijuana was actually decriminalized 30 years ago. Not that this stops cops from arresting people for it. The Marijuana Arrest Research Project found that marijuana arrests in New York disproportionately fell on minorities, even though usage rates were similar (more here). Kyung Ji Rhee, Director of the Institute for Juvenile Justice Reforms and Alternatives, a juvenile reformist group said, “The NYPD and Mayor Bloomberg are waging a war on young Blacks and Latinos in New York.”

Whether one smokes, enjoys, medicates with or approves of marijuana use, prohibition ultimately is not an endeavor worth the squandering of lives and money, and the perpetuation of gang crime and crowded prisons that enforcement necessarily entails. Americans are frequently bombarded with the significance of liberty and its role in the foundations of this country. However, freedom is a cheap and meaningless concept indeed when it is defined by the only entity that poses any real threat to it – the government.

Government entities, agents and politicians will set forth all kinds of liberty rhetoric claiming the United States is one of the freest societies in the world, but one must really question the truth of this when casual users of marijuana are routinely jailed. According to a summary and analysis of “Freedom in the World,” an annual report published by the Washington, D.C.-based think tank Freedom house, the United States’ utterly dismal score of 15 in terms of drug policy and freedom (or lack thereof) places it at 153 out of 195 countries.

The United States incarcerates more of its own people (proportionally and in raw numbers) than any other country in the world. The US has 5 percent of the world’s population, and a quarter of the world’s prisoners. Many are imprisoned for drug-related crimes. Studies on “Electronic Police States” also show Americans have about as much internet freedom as Russians.  In fact, of 51 countries ranked in terms of government surveillance of citizens, the United States fares better only than North Korea, China, Belarus and Russia (see study here). As if being a police state weren’t bad enough, Americans and their politicians have the gall to go around lecturing and condescending to other countries and populations about human rights abuses, tyranny and democracy, while allegedly promoting the idea of “freedom.”

The entire discourse has almost become a game, whereby politicians and leaders direct the public’s attention to abuses and tyranny overseas, so that the public forgets or becomes apathetic about the exact same abuses occurring on American soil and continues to cheer on the jailing and confinement of their neighbors.

Police pointed a machine gun at a 13-year old girl and threatened to shoot the family poodle, in the latest drug raid gone awry. Several raids were conducted by the Spring Valley, New York police and the federal Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA).  After the raids, 26 people were indicted, having been accused of distributing marijuana around Spring [...]

The NYPD must really be desperate for cash if they have the time to ticket chess players – ya know, the real criminals. I actually thought this was a joke until multiple news articles started showing up. And i’m really surprised, with homicides in New York City up from 471 to 532 in 2010, reported rapes up 15 [...]

• Another flabbergastingly stupid comment from Jim Pasco. Dr. Q, Gangsters in Blue (2010-10-18). Since the issue of filming police became a hot topic in the mainstream press (see here), I’ve been very interested in hearing the arguments that police use to justify placing limits on the right to record cops. To me, the idea that people ought to be allowed to film police... (Linked Monday 2010-10-18.)

• Boofrickityhoo. Unqualified Offerings (2010-10-18). "Now, I do realize that there might be economic repercussions if bankers are unable to recover some of their losses. Fortunately, I have a solution: They can sell their own organs to raise cash." (Linked Monday 2010-10-18.)

• The Explosion of Pink. Rachel, Our Bodies Our Blog (2010-10-12). It’s October, so the explosion of pink products at the grocery and other stores shouldn’t surprise us: it’s National Breast Cancer Awareness Month, the time of the year when we’re asked to eradicate breast cancer by buying pink-ribboned  products. Over the years, many women’s health activists have criticized the pink... (Linked Monday 2010-10-18.)

• Primary Sources for USA vs George Donnelly. George Donnelly, Anarchoblogs in English (2010-10-18). As promised, here are my primary sources for the short film United States of America vs George Donnelly: How US Marshals Framed a Peaceful Photographer. I apologize for the delay. I’m working on getting even more information and hope to release it soon. Here is the raw video footage from... (Linked Monday 2010-10-18.)

• Kathryn Schulz on Wrongness. Igor Kandyba, FiveBooks (2010-10-17). The author of Being Wrong says punditry is conducive to bombast and certainty, both major contributors to wrongness. You are not more likely to be right if you’re on the left, or on the right. ‘If you think like a fox you’re more likely to have a sophisticated, nuanced way of thinking.... (Linked Monday 2010-10-18.)

• Drug cops smash into wrong house, terrorize elderly couple - Chicago Breaking News. www.chicagobreakingnews.com (2010-10-18). Andrij and Anna Jakymec were startled by a late night raid on their home by Cook County sheriff's police gang crimes narcotics unit officers executing a search warrant. (E. Jason Wambsgans/ Chicago Tribune) Cook County sheriff's police on a drug raid smashed into a Southwest Side house late Thursday night, (Linked Monday 2010-10-18.)

• Intellect as Evasion. Mel, BroadSnark (2010-10-14). Normally, I like Jay Smooth.  But this video really irritated me. I understand why people are critical of the anti-intellectualism displayed by right wing populists who seem so disdainful of reading books, processing facts, or critical thinking of any kind.  But it amazes me when otherwise observant people can’t see... (Linked Monday 2010-10-18.)

• To Protect and Serve. Daily Brickbats (2010-10-19). Cops are here to keep us safe. (Cont'd.) By running red lights, crashing into bicyclists, and leaving the scene of the accident. (Linked Tuesday 2010-10-19.)

• Little Miss Muffet. Jill, I Blame The Patriarchy (2010-10-19). “Here is my question,” announces blamer JenniferRuth. “Can arachnophobia be blamed on the patriarchy?” The answer is yes! Patriarchy is the gnarly firmament of dominant culture, and nothing may exist outside it; therefore absolutely everything can be blamed on it. This, friends, is the beauty of patriarchy-blaming. Whenever one encounters,... (Linked Tuesday 2010-10-19.)

• Letters Respond to Lancet Home Birth Editorial With Feminist Perspective. Rachel, Our Bodies Our Blog (2010-10-19). In July, The Lancet published an editorial, “Home Births: Proceed with Caution,” in which the editors discussed the apparent safety of home birth for most low-risk women, contradictory or low-quality evidence on infant outcomes, and the recent, controversial Wax meta-analysis. Perhaps most likely to cause feminist double-takes was the following... (Linked Tuesday 2010-10-19.)

• Civic Engagement is for Suckers. Kevin Carson, Center for a Stateless Society (2010-10-19). I frequently encounter “progressives” who argue that political involvement is the only way to achieve significant change. Refusal to participate in the process is “defeatist” and “irresponsible.” This, apparently, is what passes for gritty realism on much of the “progressive” Left. That argument is pessimistic beyond belief. The events of... (Linked Tuesday 2010-10-19.)

• So, I got married… Anarchoblogs in English (2010-10-20). In steampunk attire, of course. Mazel tov, Db0! (Linked Wednesday 2010-10-20.)

• Molly’sBlog 2010-10-17 17:35:00. mollymew, Anarchoblogs in English (2010-10-17). AMERICAN ANARCHIST MOVEMENT MINNEAPOLIS:RNC (FOUR) AGREE TO PLEA BARGAIN:This the latest from the Defend the RNC 8 group. The four remaining defendants will likely enter a plea bargain next Tuesday. What this means the future will tell. Here's the story.@@@@@@@@@@Important Update on the RNC 8 Case: New Hearing Tuesday 10/19... (Linked Wednesday 2010-10-20.)

• Dissent in the age of Obama. Phil Dickens, Anarchoblogs in English (2010-10-05). Following on from Sunday's post on Barack Obama's appalling civil liberties record, I have come across an interesting opinion piece by Cindy Sheehan. It seems that Obama's line of dissidents carries echoes of the Watergate Scandal and even the Red Scare. Her thoughts can be found over on Al Jazeera;Recently,... (Linked Wednesday 2010-10-20.)

• Genes are left-wing. Cory Doctorow, Boing Boing (2010-10-13). Writing in the Guardian, clinical psychologist Oliver James claims that genetics has turned into a "left wing" science, because it has failed to identify any innate, genetic reasons why some people are winners and others are losers -- suggesting that, instead, it's society's fault that some people end up on... (Linked Wednesday 2010-10-20.)

• Another flabbergastingly stupid comment from Jim Pasco. Dr. Q, Gangsters in Blue (2010-10-18). Since the issue of filming police became a hot topic in the mainstream press (see here), I’ve been very interested in hearing the arguments that police use to justify placing limits on the right to record cops. To me, the idea that people ought to be allowed to film police... (Linked Monday 2010-10-18.)

• Boofrickityhoo. Unqualified Offerings (2010-10-18). "Now, I do realize that there might be economic repercussions if bankers are unable to recover some of their losses. Fortunately, I have a solution: They can sell their own organs to raise cash." (Linked Monday 2010-10-18.)

• The Explosion of Pink. Rachel, Our Bodies Our Blog (2010-10-12). It’s October, so the explosion of pink products at the grocery and other stores shouldn’t surprise us: it’s National Breast Cancer Awareness Month, the time of the year when we’re asked to eradicate breast cancer by buying pink-ribboned  products. Over the years, many women’s health activists have criticized the pink... (Linked Monday 2010-10-18.)

• Primary Sources for USA vs George Donnelly. George Donnelly, Anarchoblogs in English (2010-10-18). As promised, here are my primary sources for the short film United States of America vs George Donnelly: How US Marshals Framed a Peaceful Photographer. I apologize for the delay. I’m working on getting even more information and hope to release it soon. Here is the raw video footage from... (Linked Monday 2010-10-18.)

• Kathryn Schulz on Wrongness. Igor Kandyba, FiveBooks (2010-10-17). The author of Being Wrong says punditry is conducive to bombast and certainty, both major contributors to wrongness. You are not more likely to be right if you’re on the left, or on the right. ‘If you think like a fox you’re more likely to have a sophisticated, nuanced way of thinking.... (Linked Monday 2010-10-18.)

• Drug cops smash into wrong house, terrorize elderly couple - Chicago Breaking News. www.chicagobreakingnews.com (2010-10-18). Andrij and Anna Jakymec were startled by a late night raid on their home by Cook County sheriff's police gang crimes narcotics unit officers executing a search warrant. (E. Jason Wambsgans/ Chicago Tribune) Cook County sheriff's police on a drug raid smashed into a Southwest Side house late Thursday night, (Linked Monday 2010-10-18.)

• Intellect as Evasion. Mel, BroadSnark (2010-10-14). Normally, I like Jay Smooth.  But this video really irritated me. I understand why people are critical of the anti-intellectualism displayed by right wing populists who seem so disdainful of reading books, processing facts, or critical thinking of any kind.  But it amazes me when otherwise observant people can’t see... (Linked Monday 2010-10-18.)

• To Protect and Serve. Daily Brickbats (2010-10-19). Cops are here to keep us safe. (Cont'd.) By running red lights, crashing into bicyclists, and leaving the scene of the accident. (Linked Tuesday 2010-10-19.)

• Little Miss Muffet. Jill, I Blame The Patriarchy (2010-10-19). “Here is my question,” announces blamer JenniferRuth. “Can arachnophobia be blamed on the patriarchy?” The answer is yes! Patriarchy is the gnarly firmament of dominant culture, and nothing may exist outside it; therefore absolutely everything can be blamed on it. This, friends, is the beauty of patriarchy-blaming. Whenever one encounters,... (Linked Tuesday 2010-10-19.)

• Letters Respond to Lancet Home Birth Editorial With Feminist Perspective. Rachel, Our Bodies Our Blog (2010-10-19). In July, The Lancet published an editorial, “Home Births: Proceed with Caution,” in which the editors discussed the apparent safety of home birth for most low-risk women, contradictory or low-quality evidence on infant outcomes, and the recent, controversial Wax meta-analysis. Perhaps most likely to cause feminist double-takes was the following... (Linked Tuesday 2010-10-19.)

• Civic Engagement is for Suckers. Kevin Carson, Center for a Stateless Society (2010-10-19). I frequently encounter “progressives” who argue that political involvement is the only way to achieve significant change. Refusal to participate in the process is “defeatist” and “irresponsible.” This, apparently, is what passes for gritty realism on much of the “progressive” Left. That argument is pessimistic beyond belief. The events of... (Linked Tuesday 2010-10-19.)

• So, I got married… Anarchoblogs in English (2010-10-20). In steampunk attire, of course. Mazel tov, Db0! (Linked Wednesday 2010-10-20.)

• Molly’sBlog 2010-10-17 17:35:00. mollymew, Anarchoblogs in English (2010-10-17). AMERICAN ANARCHIST MOVEMENT MINNEAPOLIS:RNC (FOUR) AGREE TO PLEA BARGAIN:This the latest from the Defend the RNC 8 group. The four remaining defendants will likely enter a plea bargain next Tuesday. What this means the future will tell. Here's the story.@@@@@@@@@@Important Update on the RNC 8 Case: New Hearing Tuesday 10/19... (Linked Wednesday 2010-10-20.)

• Dissent in the age of Obama. Phil Dickens, Anarchoblogs in English (2010-10-05). Following on from Sunday's post on Barack Obama's appalling civil liberties record, I have come across an interesting opinion piece by Cindy Sheehan. It seems that Obama's line of dissidents carries echoes of the Watergate Scandal and even the Red Scare. Her thoughts can be found over on Al Jazeera;Recently,... (Linked Wednesday 2010-10-20.)

• Genes are left-wing. Cory Doctorow, Boing Boing (2010-10-13). Writing in the Guardian, clinical psychologist Oliver James claims that genetics has turned into a "left wing" science, because it has failed to identify any innate, genetic reasons why some people are winners and others are losers -- suggesting that, instead, it's society's fault that some people end up on... (Linked Wednesday 2010-10-20.)

Libertarian activist Antonio “Bile” Musumeci got the feds to say “uncle.” The US attorney in Manhattan settled Bile’s lawsuit for $1500, attorney’s fees and an agreement to inform federal cops of the public’s “general right” to photograph federal buildings. The lawsuit stemmed from Bile’s arrest in Manhattan for videotaping Julian Heicklen as he handed out fully informed jury pamphlets.

“Not only will this settlement end harassment of photographers outside federal courthouses, it will free people to photograph and film outside of all federal buildings,” said NYCLU Associate Legal Director Christopher Dunn, lead counsel in the case. “The regulation at issue in this case applies to all federal buildings, not only courthouses, so this settlement should extend to photography near all federal buildings nationwide.”

Hahahahahaha. Pardon me. That’s absolutely ridiculous. This little settlement, full of loopholes for local regulations and orders, will not stop the harassment any more than the DHS Special Security Bulletin on photography of federal buildings stopped the May 11 attack on me in Allentown. The law you find on the books is academic. Cops make the law. Cops decide who to arrest and on what pretext. That’s where the rubber meets the road. And that’s why we desperately need competition in the sphere of police services. No, not the crony privatization that produced Blackwater. We need to mutualize police services. Let police departments earn their keep voluntarily with direct accountability to their respective communities.

As Reason writer Brian Doherty notes, cops have an enormous ability to make hell for people over nothing at all. All it takes is an accusation. You’re in jail. You have to pay bail and hire a lawyer. Your family is distraught. Your livelihood is at risk. Meanwhile, the cops are swearing out lies to use against you in court. Guilty until proven innocent. Bile’s settlement will not protect anyone against that.

Don’t get me wrong. I commend Bile for his courage and his determination. Congratulations to him on his victory! I just want to place the state’s settlement in the appropriate context. See the text of the settlement below or on Scribd.com.

Photo credit: compujeramey. Photo license.

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Steven Anderson was recently on trial for misdemeanor charges stemming from his refusal to submit to a warrantless search of his vehicle at an internal border patrol checkpoint.  During the jury selection three potential jurors admitted that they are more likely to believe a police officer’s testimony over a non-costumed witness’s testimony, because “they’re trained [...]

Talk about a police state.  Having a smoke in the city will now cost you $250. I’m sorry, Mayor Bloomberg, but smoking a cigarette is not a crime. It may be unhealthy, some may even call it disgusting, but it’s definitely not a crime. The places that are to be affected by this Dictator Mayor are: Times [...]

• Last month AOL News ran an anecdotal Data-less Trend Story about city governments in small towns firing the city government police force in order to cope with budget crunches.^[1] I’d like to know what the actual data here is; typically, cash-strapped city governments react by cutting everything except police and jails. If governments’ financing crises are finally leading them to reduce the number of police patrolling city streets, that’s surprisingly good news. Most of the towns mentioned are very small towns — with populations ranging from about 700 to 4,500. The outlier, Maywood, California, has about 30,000 people living in the town (with a whopping 4 murders in 2008! twice the national average!). Apparently part of the reason they fired the police department was because a lot of the city government’s $450,000 budget deficit, and its trouble securing insurance, came from lawsuits, many involving the police. Government employees and hangers-on are going nuts about all of this. After the vote in Maywood, ex-City Treasurer Lizeth Sandoval told the city council You single-handedly destroyed the city, by which she means that they outsourced the city government. (You won’t find any burned-out buildings, torn-up streets, or dead bodies; the places and people in the city of Maywood, California are still right where they were, going on as happily as they were before; the only things destroyed were the government jobs of tax-eaters like City Treasurer Lizeth Sandoval.) Jim Pasco, national executive director of the Fraternal Order of Pigs, said that decisions to fire local police were penny wise and pound foolish, because sheriff’s departments and state police will be spread thin patrolling larger areas, and no amount is too much to spend on city cops, because The absolute threshold responsibility of a government at any level is to ensure the safety of its citizens.

• For example, consider local hero Officer Bryan Yant, liar and killer for the Las Vegas Metro police department, who by making up lies to obtain fraudulent search warrants and by violently breaking into citizens’ homes late at night, where he ensures the safety of Las Vegas’s citizens by kicking down doors and shooting unarmed black men with his AR-15 assault rifle, based on furtive motions and a glimmer or something shiny that nobody but Officer Bryan Yant ever saw, and which is plainly contradicted by forensic evidence related to the angle of the shot. Local government in Las Vegas has fulfilled is threshold responsibility by once again^[2] ensuring the safety of Officer Bryan Yant from any legal consequences for shooting innocent, unarmed men in the head during a hyperviolent raid to investigate a completely nonviolent, victimless crime, all of it based on demonstrable falsehoods and mistaken identity — oops! my bad! All of which should free Officer Bryan Yant up for a fourth Internal Investigation, in which his government colleagues will once again either exonerate him or let him off without any criminal penalties, for lying and fabricating fictitious search and arrest warrants in at least one other drug investigation involving another hyperviolent late night home raid. The polite term in local media for Officer Bryan Yant’s work ensuring the safety of Las Vegas citizens is sloppy. A better term would be fraudulent and lethally violent. How much safer does it make you feel that this lying, killing 4-time winner is still a fully-paid member of the Las Vegas Metro police force?

• Meanwhile, in El Reno, Oklahoma, government police officers are ensuring the safety of El Reno citizens by forcing their way into an 86-year-old bed-ridden grandmother’s home on a wellness check, and then, if she should object to 10 armed strangers busting into her house, by stepping on her oxygen hose and torturing her with electrical shocks in her own bed, until she passes out from the pain. El Reno Police Chief Ken Brown justified this use of extreme violence against an elderly woman who could not possibly have physically harmed anybody more than a couple feet away from her on the grounds that she was holding a kitchen knife, and she told officers She was in control of her life. Thus, Police were forced [sic!] to use a Taser on the woman until she could be forced into a hospital psychoprison — not because she was actually charged with any crime, of course, but so that she could be cured of her deranged and dangerous belief that she was in control of her own life.

• Meanwhile, in New York, New York, Officer Patrick Pogan, a government police officer working for the New York city government, ensured the safety of New York citizens by body-slamming an unarmed bicyclist to the ground for trying to avoid hitting him, and then lying about it in his police reports, where he claimed that his victim was trying to ram into him, rather than swerving around him. His government colleague Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Maxwell Wiley, in turn, fulfilled his threshold obligation by ensuring that this lying violent thug would face absolutely no criminal consequences whatsoever for the crimes that he had been convicted of.

• Also, in New York, New York, government cop Detective Louis J. Eppolito ensured the safety of New York citizens by taking a second job as an informant and hit-man for the Luchese crime family. He took a special interest in ensuring the safety of Brian Gibbs by framing him for murder — among other things, making up fictional witness statements, threatening witnesses in order to get testimony against Gibbs, withholding evidence that would have proven Gibbs’s evidence, and torturing Gibbs himself until he extracted a false confession. Brian Gibbs lost 19 years of his life locked in prison. The New York Police Department spent years fulfilling its threshold obligation to keep Detective Louis J. Eppolito safe from any consequences for his violent crimes, even though — years before he tortured and framed Brian Gibbs — they had direct evidence that he was working for the Mafia (including having his fingerprints on police reports he had handed off to a fellow gangster). The Incident was, of course, Internally Investigated, and Detective Eppolito was let off without even facing any administrative disciplinary actions. Which freed him up to go on murdering and imprisoning innocent people for the mob. The city government in New York still officially maintains that Brian Gibbs is guilty of murder. However, they’ve decided to sign a $9,900,000 settlement; dedicated public servants that they are, they will send the bill to innocent New York City taxpayers who had nothing to do with the crimes committed against Brian Gibbs.

• Meanwhile, in Sebastian County, Arkansas, government drug investigators are ensuring the safety of citizens by staging heavily armed, late-night raids on citizens’ houses, where they threaten the lives of everyone in the house, including sleeping babies — without bothering to check the address on the mailbox to see whether they are actually even forcing their way into the right house. (Oops! My bad!) Then, after releasing their innocent victims from the shackles they had forced them into, the cops they went down the street to the right house, where they broke into somebody else’s home, threatened three other innocent people’s lives, and forced them into cages at gunpoint, for the completely nonviolent offense of having marijuana.

• Meanwhile, in Universal City, Texas, government police are ensuring the safety of citizens by surrounding innocent women and children in their cars, pointing guns at them and screaming at them to put their hands up, and then forcing their way into the car before they realize — oops! our bad! — that they had the wrong car and the wrong people, and were threatening the lives of a black woman with three children who had nothing to do with the white man they were trying to ambush. Since government police never face any consequences whatsoever for their fuck-ups, no matter how high-stakes, violent, reckless, traumatic or dangerous to the safety of innocent citizens, the police department is waving it off as an unfortunate coincidence. They refer to the use of such high-stakes, violent tactics in uncertain situations, with incomplete information, to terrify and overwhelm innocent women and children, as doing our jobs, and publicly state that We would not change what we did. Of course they wouldn’t; who’s going to make them?

• Meanwhile, in Tavares, Florida, government police are ensuring the safety of citizens by interrogating and then arresting Latina women who are not suspected of any crime, for not giving her name fast enough or producing identification papers on demand. The government police officer told his victim that she had to provide ID because he needed to put her name in a database. When she said she needed to go to the car to get it, the cop arrested her for resisting arrest and had her locked in a jail cell for 5 hours.

• Meanwhile, in Hamilton, Ontario, government police are ensuring the safety of citizens by staging hyperviolent drug raids, forcing their way into apartments at gunpoint, forcing the citizens in them to the floor, then slamming their faces into the floor and kicking them when they try to explain that the cops have the wrong address. Po Lo Hay’s safety was ensured so good and hard that he ended up with stitches above his eye, a bloody nose, welts, and a broken rib.

• Meanwhile, in Bridgewater, England, government police are ensuring the safety of citizens by threatening them with electrical torture devices and then accidentally hitting them with a 50,000 volt electric shock to their genitals, in the course of an unnecessary traffic stop intended to investigate whether or not they were committing the completely nonviolent offense of driving without government-mandated corporate car insurance. For accidentally inflicting the worst pain that this innocent man has ever been subjected to in his life, government cops are offering an Oops! Our bad!

I sure am glad that government cops are out there to ensure our safety, and local governments are there to extract tax dollars to force us all, on threat of prison, to pay for this threshold obligation. If government cops weren’t there to harass, threaten, torture, frame, jail or kill innocent citizens, all with complete legal impunity so long as they can shout an Oops! My bad! that some fellow cop or other government employee will believe, who would keep us all safe?

1. ^[1] When city governments fire police forces, county sheriffs or state police forces generally take over the busting of heads and jailing of suspects. But the shift does mean that patrol cops are fewer and farther between, and local taxpayers are much less likely to get soaked with local tax increases to pay for salaries or benefits packages. ↩
2. ^[2] Yant has gunned down three people during his police career — killing two of them, including Trevon Cole — and has been exonerated by the police department and the Clark County government’s coroner’s inquest. ↩