Sec. 15. From and after the passage of this act it shall not
be lawful to employ any part of the Army of the United States, as a posse
comitatus, or otherwise, for the purpose of executing the laws, except in such
cases and under such circumstances as such employment of said force may be
expressly authorized by the Constitution or by act of Congress; and no money
appropriated by this act shall be used to pay any of the expenses incurred in
the employment of any troops in violation of this section and any person
willfully violating the provisions of this section shall be deemed guilty of a
misdemeanor and on conviction thereof shall be punished by fine not exceeding
ten thousand dollars or imprisonment not exceeding two years or by both such
fine and imprisonment. Section 15 of chapter 263, of the Acts of the 2nd session of
the 45th Congress, known as the
Posse Comitatus Act
It’s fascinating to watch. Senior
military leaders willing to stand up to the President of the United States to
defend both the Constitution – which all soldiers swear to defend with their
lives – and the military itself, which is generally held in the highest regard
by most Americans on both sides of the aisle. Long past is an army of angry
conscripts that unwillingly staffed the Vietnam War. The entire US military had
then fallen to the lowest level of respect and perceived value in our history
as a result. The aftermath of that war slowly transformed all the branches of
our armed forces into a thoroughly professional, political neutral, voluntary
body of career professionals. Slowly, the US military reclaimed the dignity and
reverence that had prevailed in WWII. Professional soldiers, under civilian
control, ready to respond to their nation’s call.
This revulsion at the President’s
attempt to transform this neutral professional armed force into a partisan
personal Trumpian military rocked the military leadership to its core (corps?).
Sure there are some angry diehards, like Senator Tom Cotton (R-AR) in his June
3rd OpEd piece in the New York Times, as he completely supported the
President’s intention to use federal military troops against protesters,
whether the governors of those states want them or not. Claiming that such
efforts would not violate the provisions of the Posse Comitatus Act set forth
above, separating federal military from police functions except as otherwise
constitutionally justified, Cotton simply chose to dismiss that statutory
prohibition as non-applicable. He was, simply, wrong and probably knew that he
was. The bad habit of repeating a falsehood often enough still does not make it
true.
But using the military for a partisan
political agenda, when senior military officials simply do not believe there is
a constitutionally valid threat to invoke the Insurrection Act of 1807, is
idiocy on steroids. Should the military be deployed as Trump’s politically
driven, personal armed force, all that progress, all that recruitment of
minorities into career military professions, will have gone for naught. While
the President may be the Commander in Chief of all our military forces, he may
only exercise his authority within constitutional limits. The military had
risen above the political fray in recent decades, increasing its prestige and
effectiveness accordingly.
There is another body of armed
governmental forces, often coopted by conservative law and order believers,
whose status and prestige mirrors the military’s fall from grace after the
Vietnam War. Local police and sheriffs. In too many instances, they have have
taken to wearing military assault garb, deploying military tactics and driving
armored vehicles. Too many local law enforcement agencies have developed a code
of mutual trust and support: police must do what they can to cover up the
wrongs of their fellow officers. That may include filling out false police
reports, refusing to testify or even offer information on obvious wrongdoings
of their associates, refusing to intervene even as they witness abusive
behavior by their fellow cops and even planting evidence to justify such wrong
doings. Courts and prosecutors, relying heavily on cooperation from law
enforcement, have all too frequently looked the other way. In some cases,
particularly when it comes to civil liability, legislation has also given law
enforcement officers wide leeway to cross a line that would take a civilian
instantly to jail and yield a civil verdict against the cop for massive damages.
Why do cops press the envelope so often? Because they can.
“The answer
has to do with the latitude most jurisdictions have traditionally given their
law enforcement officers — who sometimes need to make split-second decisions in
dangerous situations involving potentially violent or unstable suspects — and
the political and legal clout of police departments and police unions in many
big cities. It was no accident that one of the chants by demonstrators in New
York City over the weekend was ‘F*** the PBA!’ — the Patrolmen’s Benevolent
Association, the largest municipal police union in the country.” Caitlin
Dickson writing for the June 4th Yahoo News. Civilian standards of
conduct just aren’t applied the same way to errant cops. Usually,
interpretations of “what happened” will follow an officer’s description unless
there is undeniable proof to the contrary with no reasonable exculpatory
explanation. But do we believe our eyes?
Enter smart phone cameras. Seeing video
recordings, which cops have often tried to stop, of abusive behavior escalate
has opened the eyes of civilian watchdogs and the public itself. Statistical
analysis of arrest and incarceration levels, sentencing and plea bargaining,
reveal a systematic and pervasive bias against people of color. The evidence is
overwhelming. The smart phone footage of the killing of George Floyd is
chilling enough, but it is simply a part of a growing body of hard evidence of
what these protests are all about.
There was a groundswell of public
support for police and sheriff officers to wear bodycams during all active
arrests and pursuits. Public trust was waning. Even where required, law
enforcement officers often conveniently “forget” to turn them on when they are about to cross the line. During
the recent protests, it happened yet again, but the local mayor could no longer
ignore the obvious. “Louisville, Kentucky, Metro
Police Chief Steve Conrad has been relieved of duty after it was revealed that
the officers involved in a shooting that killed a local business owner early Monday [6/1]
did not activate their body cameras.” NBC News, June 1st.
But
this is not a “red state/red city” problem. It appears to be a pattern of “us”
vs “them” – cop vs perp – in police’ and sheriff’s departments everywhere. Los
Angeles is not just Dodger blue country, it is a very blue political city. Yet
the Los Angeles Police Department has been scandal ridden for most of its
modern existence, even subject to direct federal judicial control until very
recently by reason of its seemingly unchecked proclivity for racial bias and
evidentiary abuse. LA County has equal issues with the Sheriff. During the
recent protests, more unfortunate videos evidencing that “us vs them” pattern
of abuse surfaced.
“In one video, at least eight Los
Angeles police officers surround a woman lying in a Hollywood street as the
buzz of a Taser fills the air. People scream from apartment balconies for the
officers, who appear to be firing the stun gun at the woman, to stop.
“In another video, an LAPD vehicle
barrels into a crowd of protesters in Pershing Square, nearly driving over one
before backing up and speeding away as demonstrators throw objects at the car.
“On Tuesday [6/2], footage of a
curfew arrest in Hollywood ends with the unarmed arrestee held at gunpoint and
pleading for mercy as a police radio squawks with orders for officers to take
anyone they see into custody. In L.A. County, sheriff’s deputies in one video
appear to shoot pellets out of a moving vehicle at young men on the street, and
those in another video punch and knee a young man on the ground in Compton…
“‘It’s nothing but a confirmation of
what black activists have been saying for decades — that police abuse and
excessive force is real,’ said Najee Ali, a longtime South Los Angeles civil
rights leader. ‘Now, with the spread of social media and everyone having a
cellphone, we can actually document what we feel is abuse. We finally have the
proof.’” James Queally, Kevin Rector and Richard Winton writing for the June 4th
Los Angeles Times.
With a bit over 4% of the world’s
population, the United States has a quarter of the world’s jail and prison
population. That statistic alone should tell you that what we have is
overwhelmingly too expensive and represents a systematic failure of our justice
system, from top to bottom. Decriminalizing many drug offences has led to a
reduction in the numbers of people incarcerated in the U.S. as the above chart
(from June 2019) reflects. Yet African Americans have double the relative
incarceration numbers of whites. Still. Prisons recruit gang members (for life),
train and upgrade criminal skills and place a negative mark on former felons
that deeply negatively impacts lifetime earning power for those released. Who
benefits? Not to mention that COVID-19 infection rates among
prisoners and immigration detainees has skyrocketed.
Cops are overequipped. They are often
attitudinally far removed from the communities that they “serve,” and while
police are obviously necessary, their popularity is falling by the day. That
disengagement from their communities, the tendency to depersonalize those they
believe they are controlling, watching or arresting and that “us” versus “them”
(we’re cops, they’re perps) mentality are about to impact police departments
across the land. In the wallet. Not only do we not want federal troops to
substitute for cops, in too many communities public cries suggest it is time to
contain and reduce the cops we have. As in Los Angeles.
With law and order conservatives
squealing, “Mayor Eric Garcetti had originally proposed a 7% spending increase
for the LAPD, including a lucrative package of raises and bonuses for
rank-and-file officers. But Wednesday [6/3], a day after thousands of
protesters chanted ‘defund the police’ outside his Windsor Square home,
Garcetti said he had changed course [from raising the police budget], deciding
now is not the time to increase the department budget.
“Garcetti said his administration
would look for $250 million in cuts from city departments, including the LAPD,
and steer the funds to invest in job programs, health initiatives and other
services supporting the black community and other communities of color. As part
of those reductions, the LAPD would see cuts of $100 million to $150 million,
he said.
“Council President Nury Martinez and
several of her colleagues proposed the same reductions for the LAPD, which
could eliminate the increase planned in Garcetti’s budget… ‘While a complete
overhaul of the city’s budget will take time, we can begin to slowly dismantle
those systems that are designed to harm people of color,’ Martinez said. ‘A
preliminary cut to the LAPD budget will not solve everything, but it’s a step
in the right direction.’” Emily Alpert Reyes, David Zahniser and Dakota Smith
writing for the June 4th Los Angeles Times.
Time to redeploy that money into
those minority communities… to restore hope and fairness. With all this going
on, as huge crowds press into each other to protest an obvious wrong, you might
not even know we are in the middle of a killer pandemic. But the issues matter
so much to so many people that they are/willing to put their lives in harm’s
way to make their voices heard, loud and clear. The looters, arsonists and
vandals cannot be allowed to distract from a message that must be heard… a
problem that must be fixed. Now. Finally.
I’m
Peter Dekom, and it is time to call those who seek further to divide us, to
tear us apart and try and force each of us to pick a violent side, what they
truly are: traitors and profoundly un-American.
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