Police problem is unaccountable attitude

[Anti Federalist]

Police problem is unaccountable attitude

http://www.usatoday.com/story/opinio...lumn/14576871/

Glenn Harlan Reynolds 5:34 p.m. EDT August 26, 2014

Police officers act like they're in a war zone, forgetting they face citizens, not enemies.

Often, if you wait long enough, an idea comes around. Back in 2006, I wrote a piece for Popular Mechanics on how the federal government's transfer of surplus military equipment to local police departments -- sometimes in very small towns -- was leading to "SWAT overkill."

My complaints didn't get much traction with either the Bush or the Obama administrations. But now, in the wake of what many consider to be an overly militarized police response in Ferguson, Mo., President Obama has ordered a review of federal programs -- in the departments of Defense, Justice and Homeland Security -- to arm local police with military weapons.

Lawmakers -- from Rep. Hank Johnson, D-Ga., and Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., to Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., who quoted my 2006 piece in an op-ed in Time Magazine -- are looking at legislation to limit transfers. This is good. There's a role for SWAT teams in limited circumstances, but they've been overused in recent years, deployed for absurd things such as raids on sellers of raw milk. The problem is, when you have a hammer, everything looks like a nail. And when you have cool military equipment, there's a strong temptation to use it, just because, well, it's cool. (Federal regulatory agencies have succumbed to SWAT Fever too.)

I don't entirely blame the police. If somebody gave me a Bradley fighting vehicle, or an Apache helicopter, I'd take it.

But blurring the lines between civilian policing and military action is dangerous, because soldiers and police have fundamentally different roles. Soldiers aim outward, at the nation's external enemies. Civil rights and due process don't matter much, because enemies in wartime aren't entitled to those. Nor are soldiers expected to be politically accountable to the people they shoot.

But police turn their attention inward. The people they are policing aren't enemy combatants, but their fellow citizens -- and, even more significantly, their employers. A combat-like mindset on the part of police turns fellow-citizens into enemies, with predictable results.

I sometimes think the turning point was marked by the old cop show Hill Street Blues. Each episode opened with a daily briefing before the officers went out on patrol. In the early seasons, Sergeant Phil Esterhaus concluded every briefing with "Let's be careful out there." In the later episodes, his replacement, Sergeant Stan Jablonski, replaced that with "Let's do it to them before they do it to us." The latter attitude is appropriate for a war zone, but not for a civilized society.

This attitude is more dangerous than a Bradley, and the main danger of giving police military equipment isn't that they'll be well-armed, but that it fosters a war-zone mindset. The notion of unaccountable power is what does the real harm. A recent Washington Post column by an LAPD officer saying "If you don't want to get shot, Tased, pepper-sprayed, struck with a baton or thrown to the ground, just do what I tell you," illustrates the problem.

How do you control unaccountable power? By making it accountable. How do we do that with police? I think there are three key actions.

First, we should abolish police unions. All public-employee unions are suspect, given that they're basically organizations to take more money from taxpayers while minimizing accountability, but this is even more troubling where the employees in question carry guns.

Second, we should equip all patrol officers with body cameras that record everything that they do. This actually benefits both officers and the citizenry: When San Bernardino adopted them, it found significant drops both in complaints against the police and in police use of force. In fact, though calls for body cameras initially came from police-reform proponents, now many police support them too.

Third, we need to revisit the idea of "qualified immunity." Right now, police officers enjoy immunity from lawsuits so long as they act in "good faith," and courts stretch the notion of good faith pretty far. This change from the common law -- where police weren't immune to lawsuits -- was not the product of legislation and debate, but of judicial activism: There's nothing about it in the Constitution; judges just thought it was a good idea.

I think we need to take another look at that. If nothing else, any legal immunities enjoyed by public employees should come from the representatives of the people -- legislatures -- not from unelected judges. Public employees shouldn't act like public masters. It's time we made that clear.

[Acala]

I agree with the suggestions. But I think it is also necessary to limit cops to enforcing laws as to which there is a consensus. When cops are asked to enforce laws that millions of people think are wrong and disobey regularly, alienation is inevitable.

[Deborah K]

They seem to have developed an "us vs them" mentality.

[Anti Federalist]

I'll drop this off here as well:


Contradictions

by eric • August 28, 2014

http://ericpetersautos.com/2014/08/28/contradictions/

No one likes a hypocrite – which helps to explain why thinking people increasingly tend to dislike cops. They routinely ignore or violate the laws they spend their days forcing us to obey. Everyone, for example, has seen cops insolently ignoring the posted speed limit. Frequently, while not wearing their “safety” belt. Insolently, because they are well-aware that they can do both with impunity, since we have no legal power to pull them over.

Here’s another – put into black and white (literally):

A guy in Massachusetts painted his Maserati in cop-style regalia. He did not claim to be a cop. But his car kind of looked like it might be a cop car. He was charged with impersonating a police officer – a serious crime.

But cops routinely – and legally – impersonate us. That is, they pretend to be ordinary citizens, for the purpose of entrapping us in the act of committing some “offense” or other. The obvious example is, of course, “speeding.” Instead of driving around looking for them in a marked cop car, the cop will go chameleon and drive around in an unmarked car – one deliberately shorn of external light bars and insignia and painted in “civilian” colors. Cops will even go so far as to dress to look like construction workers – and erect a fake “work site” – again, for the purpose of blending in so as to more efficiently catch their prey. In TN, the cops were (and may still be) driving around in big rigs, for the same purpose.

Why can they impersonate us - but it’s a “crime” for us to do the same?

You know perfectly well why. Because the game is meant to be rigged – in their favor.

Cops are also legally entitled to lie to us – but if we lie to them, it is a chargeable offense. Even our silence is no longer golden. The courts in CA have ruled that unless we specifically invoke our rapidly fading away right to remain silent, we do not have the right to remain silent. That is, our silence can be construed in court as evidence of guilt (no, really … see here).

There is also a movement – by them – to forbid us from owning body armor. It is of a piece with prior efforts to forbid the possession by us of any firearm that can fire automatically, or which is above a certain caliber. Indeed, to deny us the privilege of owning any firearms at all.

While extending to them virtual carte blanche to point firearms at us.

There is the extreme example of the bullet-head in Ferguson, Missouri who literally threatened to “$#@!ing kill” a journalist covering the unrest – and backed up the threat by lowering the muzzle of his loaded assault rifle and pointing it at the journalist. We all know what would happen to one of us if we were to point a loaded rifle at a cop and threaten to “$#@!ing kill” him.

Cops can lay their hands on us – with legal impunity. If we so much as raise our hands to defend against this, we have committed a “crime” (“resisting”) and can expect to be punished.

Severely.

As happend to protestor Cecily McMillan, who was sentenced to several months in jail (she faced years in jail) for the “crime” of reacting instinctively to the grasping from behind of her breasts by one of New York’s Not-So-Finest back in ’12. The 25-year-old graduate student was lectured by the court that “A civilized society must not allow an assault to be committed under the guise of civil disobedience.” But it’s ok for an assault to be committed under the color of law – and we’d damned well better not “resist.”

All this stuff is obvious – to such an extent these days that one would need to be deliberately oblivious (that is, in denial) not to be aware of it. From the murder in the street by chokehold of a man for the “crime” of selling cigarettes to the now-sanctioned-by-law digital inspection of our body cavities (which would be sexual assault were any of us to do the same thing) the cop class has become a protected class.

There is a legal double standard on the front and back end.

They may do things to us that we may not do to them – and even when they do things to us that are beyond their already generous mandate to run amok, they rarely if ever face the kinds of consequences you and I would for doing the exact same things.

For doing lesser things.

Even when a cop is caught blatantly disregarding the laws he’s (supposedly) bound to obey – for example, the law in NY that forbids the use of chokeholds to “subdue” a “perpetrator” – typically, the very worst that will happen to him is that we he will be “taken off the streets” (briefly) and assigned “desk duty.” Or “suspended” – with pay. That is, he will enjoy a paid vacation, at the expense of the very people he spends his days abusing.

This rot now transcends American society. From socialism for the rich (and rent-seeking) to the not-so-free market for the rest of us. If you have pull – connections, an official title (and by dint of that, some form of qualified immunity) then you’re more or less free to do as you like. Of course, thus has it ever been. But what sticks in the craw is the now-nauseating warbles about “freedom” and – the worst one – the “rule of law.”

Just as in any Third World Dear Leadership state, the rulers both make – and are above – the law. Which is whatever they say it is, subject to interpretation at their whim.

Lenin described it as follows: The system rests “directly on force, not limited by anything, not restricted by any laws, nor any absolute rules.” (V.I. Lenin, “A Contribution to the History of the Question of the Dictatorship,” October 20, 1920, in Collected Works, 4th Russian edition, p. 326.)

So, please. Spare us the claptrap about serving and protecting. We know what you’re up to – and what you’re all about. You may have us under your power – for now.

But you lost our respect – and earned our contempt – a long time ago.

Throw it in the Woods...

[Seraphim]

The consensus should occur at the legislative level and jury level, in my view. The latter already in place. When a law is passed, a 245 to 198 vote should not be enough to pass a law. That's ridiculous. There should be at least a 95%, overwhelming majority.

I'm not sure if that's what you meant by consensus or not...

I agree with the suggestions. But I think it is also necessary to limit cops to enforcing laws as to which there is a consensus. When cops are asked to enforce laws that millions of people think are wrong and disobey regularly, alienation is inevitable.

[Anti Federalist]

They seem to have developed an "us vs them" mentality.

I sometimes think the turning point was marked by the old cop show Hill Street Blues. Each episode opened with a daily briefing before the officers went out on patrol. In the early seasons, Sergeant Phil Esterhaus concluded every briefing with "Let's be careful out there." In the later episodes, his replacement, Sergeant Stan Jablonski, replaced that with "Let's do it to them before they do it to us." The latter attitude is appropriate for a war zone, but not for a civilized society.

...

[Anti Federalist]

The consensus should occur at the legislative level and jury level, in my view. The latter already in place. When a law is passed, a 245 to 198 vote should not be enough to pass a law. That's ridiculous. There should be at least a 95%, overwhelming majority.

I'm not sure if that's what you meant by consensus or not...

Most of what we labor under to remain "in compliance" with are not laws by any definition.

That is, duly represented, debated, agreed to by majorities of the House, Senate and signed by the Executive.

They are regulations, written without accounting, and given full force of law.

Regulation without Representation.

[DamianTV]

The problem is Unaccountable Authority, not just at the level of the Beat Cops, but all the way up the $#@! Ladder. Think its just a problem with Cops? Try holding an entire System of Corruption accountable, any damn one of em. Fox watching the henhouse.

[Pericles]

I agree with the suggestions. But I think it is also necessary to limit cops to enforcing laws as to which there is a consensus. When cops are asked to enforce laws that millions of people think are wrong and disobey regularly, alienation is inevitable.

This is why it was set up particularly at the federal level, to make it very difficult to pass a law. If there is not overwhelming consensus, it is better that nothing happen in the legislative sphere, and let courts decide disputes based on common law.

[Acala]

The consensus should occur at the legislative level and jury level, in my view. The latter already in place. When a law is passed, a 245 to 198 vote should not be enough to pass a law. That's ridiculous. There should be at least a 95%, overwhelming majority.

I'm not sure if that's what you meant by consensus or not...

Ultimately, I mean the right of individual secession. But certainly super-majority is a good idea as well. And, of course, the old standby of actually sticking within the very limited powers granted by the Constitution. Haha.

[XNavyNuke]

'Paramilitary police state on parade’ — Lindy Vopnfjörð performs No Knock Raid

XNN