On Tuesday in Santa Rosa, California, two of that city’s “finest” cowered behind a car door and gunned down a thirteen-year-old boy carrying a toy rifle. This little boy, Andy Lopez Cruz, was walking down the street with a fake plastic rifle when the two “heroes” boldly got out of their police cruiser, hid behind the passenger side door, and called out to him. When Andy reacted like any human being would and turned to face them, our brave boys in blue shot a child carrying a toy, because they were scared.
Physical courage is hardly the highest virtue, nor one linked particularly closely with any other measure of moral worth. But physical courage is a virtue all the same, and one sadly lacking today in our cowardly police departments, who hide behind a comical array of war machines and gun down anyone of any age or species who inspires the slightest tremor of fear in their faint hearts. Family pets, the mentally disabled, the elderly — seemingly anything that can move can terrify our brave police officers, so overwhelming them with abject, presumably pants-wetting fear that they draw their weapons and open fire willy-nilly on whatever has their teeth chattering in terror.
In July in Hawthorne, California, a police officer was so overcome by fear at the sight of a little doggy less than a quarter his size that he had no choice but to fire five shots into the animal in front of its owner. Of course one can hardly blame the officer in question, as he only had three of his colleagues there with him and could not possibly have prevailed against the ferocious animal, which reached nearly to the officer’s waist when on its back legs. Letting the owner calm the animal down was also plainly not an option, as the owner was a dangerous villain guilty of a heinous crime — annoying the police while black.
In January in Maryland, a 26-year-old with Down’s syndrome and a reported IQ of 40 was murdered by not one, not two, but three off-duty police officers because he dared try to see a movie twice without buying a second ticket. The possibility that such an offense might not be worth taking a man’s life over never occurred to our fearless officers, who were put in mortal fear of their lives by his anger at being asked to leave that they were forced to tackle him and “subdue” him until he asphyxiated. Down’s syndrome has such a classic, easy-to-spot presentation that even lay people can readily diagnose it in newborns, but it seems these heroic officers had never watched “Life Goes On.” And who can blame them for their fear? Their victim stood all of 5’6” and weighed nearly 300 pounds, presumably all muscle.
In June, back in California, police officers with the Los Angeles Police Department thought they smelled the trademark smell of someone enjoying an illegal chemical and burst into the home of an eighty-year-old man who, startled in the night by strangers in his home, drew a gun and was immediately killed by a fusillade fired by the heroic officers in question, who boldly executed an old man in his bed. Why these officers could not explain who they were or back out of the room to avoid the old man’s fire is unknown, but one thing is certain — we are all safer now that this eighty-year-old man cannot brandish a pistol at strangers who burst into his bedroom in the middle of the night.
Discussions of police abuses usually turn back to policies and procedures that should be changed and the need for increased accountability. These things are important, but also important is addressing the unbelievable degree of cowardice we tolerate in our police officers today. If you’re so afraid of danger that you’re a danger to those around you, you have no business in any kind of dangerous job and should consider going to work in some nice comfy office somewhere. Physical courage isn’t the greatest virtue, but it is a virtue all the same.
Translations for this article:
Citations to this article:
- Jonathan Carp, Cities’ Finest: Armed, Brutal and Cowardly, Eastern [Los Angeles California] Group News, 10/31/13
- Jonathan Carp, Cops Unbound, Counterpunch, 10/25/13
Excellent piece. I don't know if it boils down to a problem of cowardice though. I tend to see it more as pathological sadism: the state has inmersed American society in such a hyper-paranoid social zeitgeist via the War on Terror/Drugs that it has severely hurt the public's traditional skepticism towards the state's security forces. On the other hand, the security forces themselves have become ever more organized and technified. All this has emboldened security officers to a point where they feel so powerful and super-human that they start seeing the rest as inferior creatures, as human garbage that needs to be cleaned up. I guess that's why they focus on particularly defenseless people like children, the elderly and the mentally/physically disabled, and domestic animals. I keep comparing it to the behavior of police forces in developing countries where I have lived and worked, particularly in Latin America, where the problem arises from the opposite phenomenon, namely security forces that operate within a highly disorganized, ineffective and low-tech state aparatus. While police forces also become corrupt and abusive under those circumstances, the character of the abuse is entirely different: it tends to take the form of the security forces becoming one more crimnal gang that assaults and bribes people to some degree or another. But I have never seen such a systematic, sadistic targetting of the weak and defenseless even in the most chaotic countries of the region as you see it in the US nowadays.
My recent post The Minimalist Workout
It's true. I wrote this piece at mises.org – http://www.mises.org/daily/6545/Government-Polici…
public police have an entitlement mentality….
I'm no fan of cops but characterizing a 13 year old as a "little boy" is a bit much. So is "cowering behind a car door." You realize that an AK-47 can shoot through car doors like they weren't even there.
The federal government has spent billions militarizing local police forces and training them deal with citizens as the enemy. Plus most cops are ex-military, who have the us vs them attitude deeply ingrained from invading and occupying foreign countries.
The key to unlock the cage we all find ourselves in at this time is the judiciary. This branch of government was created, in part, to protect the people from the ambitions and excesses of the other branches of government. Nearly all important issues are ultimately determined in a courtroom. Citizens no longer have direct access to grand juries and find that their complaints are first filtered through the political office of the district attorney. Litigants are routinely denied standing or due process in the courts to frustrate those who seek justice from the state.
In Marbury v. Madison the supreme court ruled that an unconstitutional statute is void "ab initio" or from it's inception. It reasonably follows that one of the first issues before any court should be the constitutionality of the law involved. Judges swear an oath to support and defend the constitution, within which is found your right to due process of law. Why is it that a denial of due process, the very definition of a void judgement, never renders any judgement void or results in prosecution of the judge for perjury of his oath?
Judges are the gatekeepers of society. We depend upon them for redress and remedy. They have failed. In order to obtain remedy we must take back our courts by holding judges accountable.
"Jail For Judges" is a concept which creates an external review board to hear complaints of judges actions and negligence and to sanction judges up to and including imprisonment. When judges must choose between according due process to litigants and going to jail for failure to do so, that is when people will receive due process and not a minute before. When "Jail For Judges" becomes law in any single jurisdiction, i.e. any state of the union, a person need only move to that state long enough to establish residency in order to qualify to petition the court for vacation of a facially void judgement, which is the court record of a case which demonstrates a denial of due process.
People must qualify ballot initiatives to institute "Jail For Judges" and re-institute direct access for the public to grand juries to facilitate indictments against govt. actors who commit crimes. In this way the system may be used to purify itself and to return our country to a constitutionally restrained republic.
Don't blather about the Santa Rosa tragedy. Your spin is quite superficial.
Some one,or,ones should infiltrate the Academies to see if the brave cops are somehow drugged,or,if their minds are taken over,or,see how the academies recruit some demonic animals.
You make some good points. Anyone familiar with school shootings understands that a teenager with a semiautomatic rifle can do plenty of damage. Also, Carp's use of the word "toy" is disingenuous. The pictures I've seen don't show some multicolored water gun. It was a pellet rifle that looked pretty authentic (no orange cap on the muzzle, for example). This does NOT mean the shooting was justified. Personally, I'm waiting to see if any dash cam footage was preserved or if other witnesses step forward. I agree with many of the criticisms of law enforcement that Carp made. I've made similar remarks myself. I personally opted out of a career in policing because of similar concerns. But this piece was hampered by its deceptive, propagandistic tone.
Agree with all except that part about "one sadly lacking today in our cowardly police departments". I oppose all attempts to paint those unconstitutional entities with ANY virtue(s) AND any calls for the same. They are to be ridiculed into non-existence with every breath/written word by those who defend freedom. You get what I mean.
KTF,
John Boanerges pain in the ass Redman, blogging at johnboanerges.blogspot.com, Quaker War, Cops Being Cops, others
JIM we have not had a judge in America since 1871 , (they are administrators ) , also ALL court rooms are held under Roman civil law or Admiralty Law , the constitution is not allowed into there courts, quote it and you will get contempt of court . The only way to win in these courts is by not setting foot into them . A notice to appear is an invitation , so you file a notice to the court thanking them for the invitation , but tell them there services are not needed and to you decline there offer . If you look at the flag in a court room it has a gold edge this is to say that we are under bankruptcy law and that court is NOT American land it is a ship in dry dock operating under Admiralty law , once you step passed the railing you are on a ship in international waters and the captain will do whatever he wants with you .
well, even though it is a tragedy, what sane parent would allow their son to just casually saunter down main street with a plastic gun??? especially these days?
It isn't as if any rational person still believes the USA is a free country. Think about it. No-warrant wire taps, indefinite detention of citizens without charges, approval of rendition of prisoners and torture, stop and frisk without probable cause, search and seizure without a warrant, no-knock entry, confiscation and destruction of cameras that might have been used to film police acting illegally, police brutality, police shootings that go without investigation, managed news, and the civil-rights destroying "Patriot" Act.
Acts of police behaving illegally, with shootings, Tasers, and unwarranted violence now appear almost daily. Rarely are these offenses punished. Most often "an investigation" is claimed, but soon forgotten.
In addition, the USA, with 5% of the world population, has 25% of all of the prisoners in the world. That means the USA has the most people in prison of any nation in history. Even by percentage of residents incarcerated, not just sheer numbers. USA is # 1
Does any of that sound like a free country?
As Dwight D. Eisenhower said about communism, "It's like slicing sausage. First they out off a small slice. That isn't worth fighting over. Then they take another small slice that isn't worth fighting over. Then another and another. Finally, all you have left is the string and that isn't worth fighting over, either.