Don’t turn your back on the Wolfpack
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Here are three things that you ought to know about how Metro decides who doesn’t belong,
and how they get the bad guys off the street.
First, cops in the saturation team
gangs pick and choose whether or not to come down on any given person who is breaking the law. They openly state that they make these decisions based on who they want to hassle and bust and pull off the street, and they openly state that they decide that based on where you’re from, how much money you make, and other proxies for racial and socio-economic status.
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Second, as you may have already guessed, if one of Metro’s sat gangs decides that you’re the sort of person they want to lock in a cage, rather than the sort of person they’ll shake hands with and let go, they will use any chickenshit charge they can make up in order to justify getting in your face, demanding that you explain yourself and justify your existence to them, and, if they aren’t satisfied, grabbing you off the street and throwing you in jail.
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They use whatever laws are at their disposal
because, of course, they don’t actually give a damn about the law. This is outcome-driven policing, and the law is just an excuse to bust the people that they’ve already decided don’t belong.
That’s because the purpose of these teams is not to stop or respond to crimes; it’s to control people, and in particular to force the the socio-economic cleansing of undesirable people from the cop-occupied neighborhoods. For example:
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This kind of arbitrary rousting of someone, based on absolutely nothing other than a paper-thin pretext and the cop’s conviction that somebody’s probably up to trouble
, is dignified by Las Vegas Metro cops and their sycophants at the Review-Journal as old-school policing with professionalism
and an innovative, proactive approach to policing.
Third, here is how members of the saturation gangs talk about themselves to a sympathetic press:
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And:
Twenty people were booked this night during the shift. Nine were for felony crimes, including one for a stolen moped.
Honestly, best job in the world,Boehm says.I’m living the dream.
And:
We’re like wolves,officer Justin Gauker says.We travel in a pack.
Well. I feel safer already.
I should say that when I refer to cops as a
street gangor Gangsters in Blue or what have you, I’m not indulging in metaphor. I don’t mean that cops act kinda like gangsters (as if this were just a matter of personal vices or institutional failures); I mean that they are gangsters — that is the policing system operating according successfully to its normal function — that they are the organized hired muscle of the State, and that the outfit operates just like any other street gang in terms of their commitments, their attitudes, their practices, and their idea of professional ethics.—GT 2008-11-26: Professional courtesy, part 2: thugs on patrol
And let’s just say that Metro’s new roving wolfpacks have not done very much to make me reconsider that analysis.
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I’m not sure what’s more amazing, their openness about their depraved actions and intent, or the blind sympathy and adoration of the press and public.
I actually think they came off looking better than average in this story. Usually when I read stories about the cops I don’t see a plausible rationale for their actions making an area more livable.
For more of my libertarian heresy on law enforcement see I’m with Stevens against Scalia for less restrictions on cops.