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Posts tagged Gangsters in Blue

Siege Mentality (Cont’d)

Despite constant siege-mentality rhetoric, constantly invoked as a reason for police to be ever more aggressively controlling, ever more trigger-happy, ever more insulated from criticism in the name of officer safety, as a matter of fact, there has never been a safer time to be a police officer in the United States.

Shared Article from the Guardian

FBI data showing drop in police deaths undermines 'war on cops' …

Preliminary data show a 20% decrease in number of officers intentionally killed in the line of duty and the second-lowest total in the past 12 years

Jamiles Lartey @ theguardian.com


See also.

No Justice, No Peace. No Killer Police.

To-day in Auburn there was a protest in front of the Auburn Police Department headquarters. About 40-50 of us gathered at the intersection of Glenn and Ross to call for justice for Melissa Boarts, to call for a serious investigation into the police’s role in the death of Recco Cobb, to protest police brutality and the unchecked use of force by Auburn police. The Boarts family was there; the family of other victims of police shootings were there; Bishop Arthur Dowdell was there. I heard about it from my wife who saw the beginnings of the protest around 3:00; I headed down and picked up a sign and we protested until about 5:30.

We want the unedited bodycam and dashcam footage released. We want the names of the cops who shot Melissa Boarts released. We want cops held accountable and an end to the culture of secrecy and impunity around the police’s use of force.

Here is some early coverage of today’s protest from the OA News. For more about the story, see also GT 2016-04-04: Auburn police killed a woman yesterday and GT 2016-04-13: Auburn Police Standards and the Shooting of Melissa Boarts. There’s a few photos from the protest below.

Shared Article from OANow.com

Protesters call for transparency in Auburn

Friends and relatives of Auburn shooting victims are asking the Auburn Police Division for more transparency regarding recent and past deadly incident…

oanow.com


Glenn Ave. M14 Protest: Justice for Melissa Boarts

Photo by Todd Van Emst, Opelika-Auburn news

Photo by the author.
Photo by the author.

No justice, no peace. Abolish the police.

#JusticeForMelissaBoarts #AbolishThePolice

See also.

Detroit City Council Vs. the city of Detroit: a Curfew for Freedom Festival

So the city council of Detroit is now debating plans for the city’s upcoming River Days and Freedom Festival firework shows, held each year in downtown Detroit. This year, one of the plans under discussion is whether or not to celebrate Freedom Festival by imposing a city-wide curfew. If passed, the curfew would make it so that nobody 17 or younger would be allowed to be outside on their own in public, anywhere in the city of Detroit, at any time starting at six o’clock in the evening. If you want to celebrate yer Freedom, you can do it only in the presence of a guardian; and the curfew would allow the police to demand papers from anyone at any time after six, in order to prove their age and identity.

This is, of course, yet another assault on the basic civil liberties of teens and children, and yet another massive increase in the police's power to harass, punish and detain young people, from the Detroit city government. It is an intolerable assault on the city of Detroit — i.e., on the people who live in Detroit and on their ability to inhabit and enjoy the city that they call home. The proposed Freedom Festival Curfew is a shameful measure. It ought to be rejected out of hand, and if passed, it deserves to be ridiculed and defied as much as possible.

#!!!@@e2;20ac;17d;Detroit!!!@@e2;20ac;ac; !!!@@e2;20ac;aa;#!!!@@e2;20ac;17d;Curfew!!!@@e2;20ac;ac; !!!@@e2;20ac;aa;#!!!@@e2;20ac;17d;AbolishTheCityCouncil!!!@@e2;20ac;ac; !!!@@e2;20ac;aa;#!!!@@e2;20ac;17d;FreedomFestivalIsntFree!!!@@e2;20ac;ac;

Shared Article from Reason.com

Detroit Debates Draconian Curfew Plan

Would place strict limits on kids and teens movements for four evenings

Jesse Walker @ reason.com


See also.

Casebolt Resigns

Shared Article from Crime Blog

McKinney officer Eric Casebolt resigns; police chief calls actio…

Editor's note: This post was last updated at 9:30 p.m. Staff writers Charles Scudder, Sarah Mervosh and Naomi Martin report.

Sarah Mervosh @ crimeblog.dallasnews.com


McKINNEY – The police officer whose aggressive response to an unruly teenage pool party ignited a national controversy resigned Tuesday, leaving many here feeling relieved but disappointing some police supporters who considered the man a "hero."

McKinney Police Cpl. David Eric Casebolt, a 10-year veteran of the department, voluntarily stepped down amid an internal police investigation and surging public pressure, including death threats.

The officer's terse, two-word resignation did not include an apology or acknowledgment of wrongdoing, said McKinney Police Chief Greg Conley, who on Tuesday condemned Casebolt's actions as "indefensible" and "out of control."

. . .

Tuesday's developments came four days after Casebolt, who is white, was captured on video cursing, pulling out his weapon and slamming a 15-year-old black girl to the ground. Casebolt, 41, will keep his pension and benefits, but could face criminal charges pending an investigation, the chief said Tuesday.

–Sarah Mervosh, McKinney officer Eric Casebolt resigns; police chief calls actions at pool party !!!@@e2;20ac;2dc;indefensible'
The Dallas Morning News Crimeblog (9 June 2015)

Well, that’s 1 down, 899,999 to go. Meanwhile, over on the Cop Humor Facebook Community page — a cesspool of cranky old man these kids today! grumping, blue-fascist appeals to following orders, bizarre racist and homophobic tangents, and look at how much I do for you entitled whinging, all of which qualifies as Humor only in the most tenuous, formalistic sort of sense — we have the following genuinely delightful thought experiment.

Here's a photo of a person sitting on a tropical beech, holding a half-empty bottle of corona. The caption reads:
WHAT IF … ALL COPS TOOK THE NEXT 30 DAYS OFF AND JUST DID THIS?

Oh, well, please don’t stop on my account. Do it.

I’m serious.

Seriously, take as much time as you need. No hurry. Don’t feel like you have to come back, ever.

#DoIt #DooooooooooooooIttttttttttt #JustOneSolution #AbolishThePolice

Dr. Anarchy Answers Your Rhetorical Questions

Today’s question comes from The Agitator (2011-01-20), about a recent police raid on a medical marijuana dispensary in the suburbs of Metro Detroit:

Dear Dr. Anarchy:

Earlier this month, police in Oakland County, Michigan raided a medical marijuana dispensary in the town of Oak Park. The deputies came in with guns drawn and bulletproof vests, with at least one wearing a mask.

They made no arrests, but they did clean the place out. The confiscated all of the dispensary’s cash on hand and–in a particularly thuggish touch–also took all of the cash from the wallets and purses of employees and patients.

… Under Michigan’s asset forfeiture law, 80 percent of the cash the deputies seized will go directly to the Oakland County Sheriff’s Department. The other 20 percent goes to the local prosecutor. Medical marijuana is legal under Michigan law but is of course still illegal under federal law. And apparently there’s some debate about the legality of dispensaries. All of which means this particular dispensary will have a hard time proving it earned the seized cash legitimately. I doubt the patients and employees will get their cash back, either. The cost of challenging the seizure is likely several times more than the amount of money most people carry on their person.

In light of all this, Balko asks, So how is this different from armed robbery?

The short answer to the rhetorical question is that it isn’t. The longer answer is that, aside from the gang colors, there are two differences between an official armed robbery like this one, and the stereotypical armed robbery carried out by freelancers.[1] The first difference is that when gangsters without badges rob you, you could in principle go to the police about it and try to get the robbers arrested. But when the gangsters who robbed you are the police, and are happy to arrest you if you complain about the robbery, then who do you go to?

The second difference is that after gangsters without badges rob you, at least they usually let you go on your way; they spend the money on private indulgences, and leave you alone. But when gangsters with badges rob you, they take the money and use it to finance the more raids, more arrests, more brutality, and more efforts to control the behavior of people like you and force you to submit to their insane and arbitrary laws. As Spooner writes in No Treason 6.3.5:

The highwayman takes solely upon himself the responsibility, danger, and crime of his own act. He does not pretend that he has any rightful claim to your money, or that he intends to use it for your own benefit. He does not pretend to be anything but a robber. He has not acquired impudence enough to profess to be merely a protector, and that he takes men’s money against their will, merely to enable him to protect those infatuated travellers, who feel perfectly able to protect themselves, or do not appreciate his peculiar system of protection. He is too sensible a man to make such professions as these. Furthermore, having taken your money, he leaves you, as you wish him to do. He does not persist in following you on the road, against your will; assuming to be your rightful sovereign, on account of the protection he affords you. He does not keep protecting you, by commanding you to bow down and serve him; by requiring you to do this, and forbidding you to do that; by robbing you of more money as often as he finds it for his interest or pleasure to do so; and by branding you as a rebel, a traitor, and an enemy to your country, and shooting you down without mercy, if you dispute his authority, or resist his demands. He is too much of a gentleman to be guilty of such impostures, and insults, and villainies as these. In short, he does not, in addition to robbing you, attempt to make you either his dupe or his slave.

So, the only difference between police forfeiture raids and the more stereotypical forms of armed robbery is that police forfeiture raids are worse.

  1. [1]Stereotypical, not typical. Armed robbery by government officials is just as typical as armed robbery carried out by freelancers. It’s just not discussed to the same extent.
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