Anyone who wants to defund and
disband the police may be making a statement: “the existing system is too
corrupt with embedded authoritarian practices that it cannot be fixed.” We have
some serious rogue police officers just as some of our best and most dedicated,
selfless individuals are also police officers. It’s hard to work in a police
unit, constantly scanning for signs of criminal activity and seeing some of the
worst of humanity, and then avoid a cliquish “us vs them” mentality, seeing
“civilians” as potential “perps.” Cops are trained to keep their eyes open,
looking for what needs to be fixed. And above all, perhaps worst of all, cops
adhere to rule one: never rat on a fellow officer… no matter what.
Yet, the story of excessive police
use of force just seems to repeat itself. This time, on Sunday, August 23rd,
in Kenosha Wisconsin. Another blue on black shooting. Protests morphed into
violence as the governor declared a state of emergency and called out the
National Guard. A young black man, Jacob Blake, had been shot by an officer
seven times — “apparently in the back while three of his children looked on — [which]
was captured on cellphone video and ignited new protests over racial injustice
in several cities, some of which have devolved into unrest. It came just three
months after the death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police
touched off a wider reckoning on race.” Associated Press, August 25th. Why does this still happen? Why
aren’t police officers standing by held accountable?
29-year-old Blake is likely paralyzed
and will never walk again. And by the third day of protests, a white 17-year-old
vigilante, purportedly in support of the police, had shot and killed two protesters.
It must be obvious to all but the most callous among us that something is
seriously wrong with the entire system. It always seems to start with an overly
zealous police finger on the trigger.
Even when legislators try and make a
change, they face stiff resistance. Legislation in Sacramento that would make
cops who fail to intervene, in excessive or questionable tactics from fellow
officers, liable as criminal co-conspirators should there be a resulting crime
assessed against an officer. That bill is stalled in committee. Juries tend to
believe the cops anyway, so it is very difficult to get convictions no matter
how egregious the misconduct. That such misconduct, when discovered, can lead
to undoing convictions over many years is a very serious consequence… not to
mention the millions and millions of dollars of settlements Los Angeles (County
and City) have to dole out every year to civilians wronged by police
misconduct.
Rogue cops have no place in law enforcement,
and those who enable rogue cops need to accept responsibility for inaction or
coverups or be discharged. Here in Los Angeles, the Compton Sheriffs Station is
being investigated. “At the Compton sheriff’s station, it’s called a ghost gun: a weapon a
deputy says he spots on a suspect but that is never found when colleagues
respond to the scene and search for it… That’s because the call-out is based on
a lie. The deputy didn’t actually see a gun, but his suspect could turn out to
be armed and an arrest or recovered firearm could pad his reputation.
“It’s the kind of behavior that plays out regularly at the station, according to a whistleblower who worked
there for five years and recounted other sensational allegations in a recent
deposition obtained by The [Los Angeles] Times in a federal civil rights
lawsuit… ‘In reality, they’ve never seen the gun,’ L.A. County Sheriff’s Deputy
Austreberto Gonzalez said under oath. ‘And then at the end when their
containments are set up, you know, the gun is never recovered. You know,
they’ll call it a day and say, ‘Thank you for rolling. We’re going to call it,’
and a gun was never recovered.’
“Gonzalez says the scheme is employed in
Compton by tattooed deputies who call themselves the Executioners, the
clandestine gang many say runs the station… His allegations add to a growing
body of information about the Compton clique, one of several tattooed deputy
groups within the Sheriff’s Department with names such as the Grim Reapers, Banditos and Jump Out
Boys... The Sheriff’s Department has been
aware of the groups for decades but has struggled to crack down, despite
repeated internal and independent investigations and instances in which members are accused of
misconduct.” Los Angeles
Times, August 20th.
Police unions, good at whipping up their membership
in a frenzy of purported loyalty often blindly supporting any cop accused of
most anything, aren’t doing the public relations job with taxpayers that they
should. Except for law and order diehards, this unquestioning “loyalty” is
precisely what riles the public most. And most of the public does not want to
defund the police or disband their underlying structure. Most of us are acutely
aware of how valuable police officers really are. We really do not want to
defund police or disband police departments. But we also want fairness and
commonsense with less police use of force.
Signs of military repression are seldom
subtle. The police deployment of armored personnel carriers, the use of
military tactics, fatigues, body armor and weapons, and their seeming
acceptance that even as “non-lethal” weapons can still maim and kill, tell us
that these “normal” processes and procedures are approved for general usage. To
many, all these factors are hallmarks of callous enforcement, particularly when
they are called upon to shut down political expression. As long as weapons are
labeled as ‘non-lethal,’ they are used all the time. Killing and maiming still.
Stirring up crowds to escalate violence. In the 1930s, sensing the impending
uber-repressive dictatorship, a German organization called Antifaschistische Aktion rallied
to oppose the rise of Nazism. They were brutally repressed, but that
anti-fascist mantra was later adopted by groups who believed that fascism
anywhere needed to be stopped. Antifa.
Portland, Oregon has always been the
city that best expresses this struggle between those seeking equal justice and
freedom and those who simply believed in white supremacy. They soon embraced
this anti-Nazi call to justice. Melissa Etehad, writing for the August 25th
Los Angeles Times, explains: “Militant protest in the name of racial justice
has deep roots in Portland… It dates back to the 1970s, when leaders of the
hate group Aryan Nation and other organizations dedicated to creating a white
ethno-state began encouraging their supporters to move to Washington, Oregon
and Idaho.
“Racist skinhead groups became a
growing presence in Portland over the next decade, making the city an
increasingly dangerous place for Black people… In 1988, after three skinheads
beat an Ethiopian student — Mulegata Seraw — outside his apartment, activists
began to fight back… Many of them came from the city’s heavy metal and punk
scene — skinheads with a different mission… ‘There was a lot of organizing
between the Black community and white allies after the murder of Mulegata,’
said Walidah Imarisha, a Black historian and activist who lives in Portland.
“Newly formed groups such as
Skinheads Against Racial Prejudice and the Coalition for Human Dignity began
tracking neo-Nazis and white supremacists and outing them to co-workers and
police… They also believed that sometimes violence must be met with violence
and engaged in brawls with far-right extremists… ‘There was some direct
confrontation at protests and rallies,’ Imarisha said.
“The activists also found common
cause with Black residents in calling for accountability for police who killed
unarmed Black men or engaged in other mistreatment… For a time, it seemed like
the activists were winning. Far-right groups stopped holding rallies and
largely disappeared from public view…
“The election of President Trump in
2016 gave the activists a renewed sense of purpose and brought the conflict
back into the open… White supremacists saw the president as an ally — even if
he denied it — and began staging rallies again, often targeting liberal cities.
The activists pushed back with their own demonstrations. Clashes were common.
“In Portland, police often stepped
into the middle, arresting protesters and deploying tear gas and rubber bullets
to break up rowdy crowds — and in the process deepened long-standing resentment
from the left… Increasingly, the activists came to believe that their fascist
and racist enemies included not only white supremacist groups but also police
departments and other government institutions.”
Portland is hardly representative of
America as a whole. But in a world where the President of the United States is
forcing individual Americans to pick a side and dig in, he has provoked the
very eruption of protests and riots he claims to be against. Since the essence
of Trumpian politics is to divide and conquer, political division is his most
basic calling card, we must recognize that he needs those violent protests to
have a shot of winning the election… no matter how destructive that behavior
might be for the very survivability of the nation. He will continue to provoke,
and those fearful of fascism they seem embodied in all things Trump will
continue to supply the President with exactly what he wants. Violence and great
visuals for his political ads.
I’m
Peter Dekom, and for all those who want harder, harsher repression against
protestors, exactly how do they really believe such efforts can work… that the
United States as a whole will benefit?
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