Gangsters in Blue

This police beating of Kelly Thomas is one of the most heartbreaking videos I’ve ever seen. Not just for Thomas, although quite obviously for Thomas. But also for the sheer depravity—the staring-you-in-the-face confirmation that your fellow human beings are capable of this sort of thing.

Of course, the point is also that these aren’t just any human beings. You can find violent videos at sites like World Star Hip Hop that are every bit as soul-crushing. But these are the people we entrust with the exclusive power to use coercive force—which we do in the interest of protecting the public. Days after the beating, one of these animals called into a radio show to boast about it. The night of the beating, one of them demanded treatment for a scrape on his elbow as Thomas lay dying a few feet away, looking like this.

Public officials closed ranks. A “special assistant to the DA” was brought on to defend the officers. The police department shut down the flow of information, then released misinformation (though another public official later found no fault with that). The city then tried to pay Thomas’ father $900,000 to go away.

Were it not for a citizen with a cell phone camera, the agitation of a local blog, and the determination of Thomas’ father, himself a former cop, we may never have known about Kelly Thomas. And these animals could well still be on the police force in Fullerton.

It’s difficult as hell, but you should still sit down to watch this video. Once you’re done, you can restore some optimism with this video from Reason.tv, which explains how technology and social media eventually shamed Fullerton officials into taking action.

(Via Carlos Miller, who has much more.)

• Pre-boom photos of Dubai.
• Fox reporter files breathless report after ride-along with the Maricopa County SWAT team. This time, no puppies were burned alive.
• “…the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine asks the White House to issue an executive order banning staged photo opportunities that show the president, the first family, the vice president, and members of the president’s cabinet eating unhealthy foods…”
• Gary Johnson: Not a spoiler.
• Stephen Colbert vs. Miracle Whip.
• Asshole dog.
• But for video: Bronx edition.
• Last week, the ever-earnest Michael Gerson defended the way Obama has used drones, even though they’ve killed hundreds of innocent people. This week, Gerson argues that Obama is ruthless . . . because he’s mean to Republicans.
• The first sentence of this paper (PDF) ends with what might be the best misplaced metaphor I’ve ever seen. That, or there was much, much more going on in those mortgage derivatives than has so far been reported.

The 7th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals has struck down the onerous Illinois wiretapping law.

The ruling from the 7th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals in Chicago is the strongest blow yet to the law, which is one of the strictest in the country and makes it illegal for people to audio record police officers in public without their consent.

The ruling follows last month’s announcement by Chicago officials that they would not enforce the law during the May 20-21 NATO summit when potentially thousands of people armed with smart phones and video cameras are expected to demonstrate in the city.

The ruling from the appeals court stems from a lawsuit filed in 2010 by the American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois. The suit sought a preliminary injunction barring Cook County prosecutors from enforcing the law.

A federal judge denied the request, prompting the ACLU to appeal to the 7^th Circuit. In its ruling today, the appeals court agreed with the ACLU, saying, “The Illinois eavesdropping statute restricts far more speech than necessary to protect legitimate privacy interests.”

The ACLU of Illinois welcomed the ruling. Its legal director, Harvey Grossman, said that the “widespread accessibility of new technologies make the recording and dissemination of pictures and sound inexpensive, efficient and easy to accomplish.”

“In order to make the rights of free expression and petition effective, individuals and organizations must be able to freely gather and record information about the conduct of government and their agents – especially the police,” Grossman said in a statement.

There was one dissent. And with it, I think it’s officially time to stop pretending that Judge Richard Posner has any kinship with libertarians.

Judge Richard Posner dissented, saying the legislature in 1994 might have had good reason for requiring two-party consent — a higher standard of privacy than other states — even when it comes to recording police officers on public streets: “A person who is talking with a police officer on duty may be a suspect whom the officer wants to question; he may be a bystander whom the police are shooing away from the scene of a crime or an accident; he may be an injured person seeking help; he may be a crime victim seeking police intervention; he may be asking for directions; he may be arguing with a police officer over a parking ticket; he may be reporting a traffic accident,” Posner wrote. “Police may have no right to privacy in carrying out official duties in public. But the civilians they interact with do.”

Or it might be the alleged victim of sexual assault by a police officer, attempting to document the fact that the internal affairs cops to whom she’s trying to report the incident are bullying her into dropping her complaint. Posner  apparently thinks she should go to prison for that.

Keep in mind, this is the same Posner who is unconcerned with warrantless cell phone searches, and who in just about every other context seems to believe that privacy is dead.

Just not when you’re recording on-duty cops.

The Philadelphia Fraternal Order of Police is looking to strip a retired captain of his union membership, because he had sex with a 14-year-old girl illegally raided immigrant-owned bodegas across the city, then stole from and threatened their owners illegally arrested and nearly killed a man for legally carrying a firearm beat his girlfriend and threatened to “stamp” her “heart out” sexually assaulted three women during drug raids  . . . hmm. It appears to have been none of those.

So what could he possibly have done?

The retired Philadelphia police captain committed an act so heinous, so unforgivable in the eyes of the FOP, that union president John McNesby filed a rare grievance that could result in Lewis being permanently expelled from the FOP and stripped of union benefits such as life insurance and free legal assistance.

“It’s quite unusual. We had to dig into the books to see what we could do and couldn’t do,” said FOP pension director Henry Vannelli, who made the motion to refer Lewis’ case to the union’s grievance committee. “We don’t want that guy around.”

Lewis’ inexcusable offense?

He wore his police uniform to the Occupy Wall Street protest in Zuccotti Park last year. He wanted to show the world that the economic-equality movement is not just the pink-haired potheads and scatterbrained anarchists that some media outlets tend to focus on. He makes sure to tell people he’s retired.

“They thought everyone thought of them as dirty hippies. I made their concerns legitimate to the masses,” said Lewis, 60, explaining how he was greeted by the protesters last year. “Their gratitude was overwhelming.”

Lewis, who wore his police uniform to Southwest Philadelphia’s Elmwood Park on Tuesday for a May Day rally with Occupy Philly and labor leaders, became somewhat of an Occupy celebrity, appearing in Time magazine and on cable news.

All of which continues to infuriate McNesby and other FOP officials. The grievance committee could complete its Lewis investigation by the end of the month.

“He’s not respecting the uniform,” McNesby said. “People died for that uniform. It’s not Halloween.”

Not only should Lewis be punished by the union, McNesby said, he “absolutely” should be locked up every time he sets foot in Philly with his uniform on.

Only problem: Nothing Lewis did was illegal.

Also, here’s a bonus, fun glimpse at police union logic:

But if it’s all about the uniform, why doesn’t the FOP take issue with Philadelphia lawyer Jimmy Binns? The wannabe cop has been photographed with a Glock on his hip in a look-alike Philadelphia police uniform on a Harley-Davidson that says “police” on the side and is nearly identical to those ridden by city cops.

Simple, the FOP’s Vannelli says: “Binns is a very good friend of police.”

• How deep things are.
• Kentucky Supreme Court bars the unfortunately named town of Liberty from setting up roadblocks for sticker inspections.
• Supermoon photos.
• Police brutality cases crack up the town of Colwyn, Pennsylvania.
• Fun photos of New York City rooftops.
• “I was abducted by aliens.”
• The physics of spilled coffee.
• But for video, Broward County, Florida edition.

• Striking photos from the most populous place on earth.
• The real data on immigration.
• Headline of the day. (Also a really bizarre story.)
• Runner-up.
• I predict lots of squirrel-related programming.
• Let’s give some due praise to Jefferson Parish, Louisiana Sheriff Newell Normand.
• Gary Johnson wins the LP nomination for president. This is a good thing for the LP. Best thing in years, in fact.

• Murder of journalists is on the rise. As a journalist, I find this newsworthy.
• Favorite new panic story: New “trend” in which kids are climbing into trees, then drinking until they fall out.
• Chuck Schumer isn’t going to like this.
• No indictment in the police killing of Kenneth Chamberlain.
• Federal court gives John Yoo immunity from torture lawsuit.
• The Clap is back, and this time it’s angry.
• Former Bush speechwriter Michael Gerson finds a reason to praise Obama: His willingness to kill people.
• Headline of the day.
• Jacob Sullum on the outrageous prosecution of Marissa Alexander.

• The Washington City Paper profiles food freedom fighter and Agitator pal Baylen Linnekin.
• The U.S. government is not looking good in this Chen Guangcheng story.
• Speaking of China, the Chinese government has reluctantly agreed to allow dissident Mao Yushi leave the country . . . in order to accept an award from the Cato Institute for his work to advance the cause of freedom.
• Lies, Damned Lies, and Drug Czar Speeches.
• Former ICE intelligence chief, other top ICE officials scammed $600,000 from U.S. taxpayers. Seems like a more important story than, for example, the Secret Service hiring prostitutes in countries where prostitution is legal.
• Headline of the day. The actual story likely of interest to regular readers here. Still. Quite a headline.
• Two city officials in Dallas attack a reporter’s hat.
• Pennsylvania cop under investigation for Tasering a juvenile nine times while the kid was in a jail cell.
• Philly cop alleged to have sexually assaulted a woman during a drug raid won’t be be prosecuted because the DA’s office failed to bring the charges in time.

• But for video, Canadian edition.
• I’m a little late to this, but via Lucy Steigerwald, here is the “Texts from Drone” Tumblr. More biting than funny. But definitely biting.
• The most hilariously paranoid lede you’ll read today.
• Celebrities with vintage cameras. Oddly compelling.
• The bottom one percent.
• Glenn Greenwald takes on Democrats who celebrate Obama’s warmaking.
• U.K. photo homage to Greek mythology gets Ashcrofted.

• TSA to 79-year-old woman: “There’s an anomaly in the crotch area.”
• Last week was the hearing for Regina Tasca, the New Jersey police officer who lost her job after pulling two of her fellow cops off of the unarmed man they were beating.
• Who can and can’t get away with “structuring.” (Hint: It has something to do with whether or not you hold political office.)
• Georgia police kill a man, then arrest his parents for getting angry about it.
• Reuters does the reporting on George Zimmerman that should have been done a long time ago. Turns out, the guy is a three-dimensional human being.
• Shorter judicial philosophy of the New York Times editorial board: “Judges should exercise restraint when we like the law under review, and be aggressive when we dislike it.”