For years, the standard drill after a police beating or shooting, when it was a citizen’s word against a cop’s and the cop’s testimony was backed up by his Brothers in Blue, was “administrative leave” with pay for the cop — until a review board found “no evidence of official wrongdoing” and that “all official procedures and policies were followed.” The exceptions — such as the Rodney King beating and the Abner Louima case — were rare cases in which the offending thugs were stupid or careless enough to get caught.
The same is true of police violence at demonstrations. Compare the Occupy movement’s effective use of police violence video in Oakland, Portland, NYC and UC Davis with the state of affairs a decade ago in the period between Seattle and the anti-FTAA demos in Miami. Cell phone video and online video hosting back then were still in an undeveloped state. About the only place you saw documented info about police riots at anti-globalization events was Indymedia. Mainstream news almost totally adhered to the official narrative of masked Black Bloc vandals smashing windows at Macy’s.
These days, when amateur video goes viral, there’s no way the mainstream media can ignore it.
Regardless of the actual law, police in just about any jurisdiction in the U.S. will falsely claim that recording them is illegal, and probably smash your phone (and your face) in the bargain.
But with rapidly cheapening real-time Web uplink capabilities, we’re approaching the point where the only thing smashing a phone will get the cop is a viral YouTube video — not only of the original misbehavior, but of the entire interaction, from the initial threats to the scuffle to take the phone away.
Frankly, I don’t even care what penalty the sham investigation winds up imposing on Lt. John Pike of the UC Davis campus police. I think I’d actually prefer he retire on disability in a few more years after a nervous breakdown, and spend the rest of his life afraid to leave his house. He’s hardly yet begun to grasp just what hell the rest of his life is going to be.
He wears the mark of Cain. His phone number, email address and street address are already widely publicized. Even if he isn’t discharged from the force, every time he encounters a student in the course of his duties he’ll wonder if that’s a sneer of contempt or just his imagination. Every time he deals with a server or cashier, or meets anyone new, he’ll see that brief look of recognition followed by a frozen mask of politely suppressed revulsion. As the saying goes, “You can run but you can’t hide.”
This probably marks the first time the new rules of the game have been really impressed on the minds of cops everywhere. You can rest assured the lesson isn’t lost on Pike’s colleagues, or on their contacts in the national law enforcement professional grapevine. The viral images of his face and body language, as he sprays human beings like insects, are well known to them. Even if he stays on the force, watching his ongoing transformation into a defeated wreck of a man will be the best object lesson his buddies in uniform could ever receive. Being publicly recorded behaving like a pig will guarantee, beyond the shadow of a doubt, spending the rest of one’s life in the same solitary hell as Lt. Pike.
This is just another example of how self-organized networks are increasingly empowered to take on powerful institutions, in ways that once required the countervailing power of other institutions. The problem, back then, was that so-called “oversight” bodies more often than not clustered in complexes of allied institutions with those they were supposed to oversee. Hence the largely pro forma “investigations” by police commissions, civilian review boards, and the like.
But now we have a people’s police commission of our own. It’s called amateur video. And it will do to criminal scum like Lt. Pike what a whole world of police commissions, pretending to act on our behalf, couldn’t.
Translations for this article:
- Portuguese, Vídeo Amador: A Comissão da Polícia do Povo.
Citations to this article:
- Kevin Carson, The People’s Police Commission, Counterpunch, 11/23/11
Bravo Kevin!
Well said, Kevin. Here's to the triumph of "Little Brother." New technology, combined with heightened public awareness of police abuses will make sham internal affairs units obsolete. Cheers!
Excellent article. The only problem I see is that there are hundreds of Lt. Pikes. There can only be so many iconic photographs and if you scanned through hours of video and testimony eventually you just have too many cops to dox. Amazingly, the media is already trying to localize the extent of police violence over the past few months into this once person. They want this to be perceived as one “rouge” event, despite this being relatively mild compared to other police violence towards the protestors available online.
Individual shaming is a productive start, but what we need is a mass rejection of the police in general. We need a society-wide change in dialogue and attitude towards police; people treating cops as the subhuman animals they act like. The badge should be a mark of shame…a confession to being an active participant in crimes against humanity. And you are right to be optimistic Kevin, the whole world is watching them now.
If it were only as you depict it!
My recent post The Occupy demonstrations
As Masebrock mentions, yes, there are plenty more cops of Pike's ilk, but not all cops are of said ilk. More than one bad cop is one too many, however. Still, the following statement from your article sums it up well, I think, that all cops must now recognize they do not want to be up to such shenanigans.
"Even if he stays on the force, watching his ongoing transformation into a defeated wreck of a man will be the best object lesson his buddies in uniform could ever receive."
My recent post Occupy Consciousness
While I hope that Kevin is correct, I doubt it will be so. It is far more likely that the cops will defend their own behavior to themselves, and blame the UC Davis students in all of this. They will see the kids as having "deserved it", the administration as cravenly caving to the media, and themselves as misunderstood heroes. Among cops, Lt. Pike will be seen as a martyr or a victim of political correctness or some other such nonsense. Regardless, the cops will form a phalanx around their comrade. as do the men in all of these various organizations of violence. No lessons will be learned by the cops.
I also see it more likely that the "authorities" will see posting the name address, email etc. of the cops online as a threat. Steps will be taken to protect the State's enforcement arm, and in turn these steps will be misinterpreted, and used against anyone who stands up against authority.
This is not going to be a case of cops having a "come to Jesus" moment, realizing they are wrong, and giving up their violent ways. Rather this is going to escalate and it is liable to become very ugly.
While I hope that Kevin is correct, I doubt it will be so. It is far more likely that the cops will defend their own behavior to themselves, and blame the UC Davis students in all of this. They will see the kids as having "deserved it", the administration as cravenly caving to the media, and themselves as misunderstood heroes. Among cops, Lt. Pike will be seen as a martyr or a victim of political correctness or some other such nonsense. Regardless, the cops will form a phalanx around their comrade. as do the men in all of these various organizations of violence. No lessons will be learned by the cops.
The police may be "fighting back" against citizen photographers. See the Occupy Houston attempt to block the Port of Houston at http://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/article/2… and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-F9bEW5Fwqc . According to the article, the "large red tent" was ostensibly placed over the protesters to "prevent sparks" as the police cut away the devices the protesters used to link themselves together. This "tent approach" can also be used to prevent citizen photographers from documenting the events taking place between the police and protesters.