So the Question is Why? Why Does This Keep Happening?

Victim blamers are a significant portion of those who post on the intertubes, as are compliance fetishists. I noticed this many years ago, somewhat to my shock, since supposedly the intertubes were a bastion for free-thinkers, liberationists and outright libertarians, generally "left-leaning" whatever that meant.

But so many of those who posted on message boards and internet fora were deeply imbued with an authoritarian spirit, no matter what they professed to be their politics, and they practically worshipped at the feet of police and military (thus the pejorative, "bootlicker.")  We've all heard of "Comply or Die" as the underground motto of the police. It was clear that many of those who posted to the internet were dedicated followers of just that belief.

Of course these things are skewed because the internet is attractive to certain kinds of people, not so much to others. How representative the internet is of the general population is hard to know. It seems to be quite a cesspool at times and I'd rather not believe that it is representative of much more than a tiny segment of the population. But what do I know?

Meanwhile the killing by police continues seemingly unabated. WTF? Other murders also continue seemingly without let up, no matter the violence of the police -- or perhaps partly because of it. That's a separate but related topic. It's related in part because police are modeling violent reaction to disrespect and disobedience which has a ripple-effect in society, particularly in affected communities. But it is a separate topic I might be able to get to in another post.

Scholars have pointed out that the number and rate of police killings  (and killings of police) is WAY down compared to earlier times, as are murders in general. Despite appearances, this is actually a far less violent era all around than -- say -- the idyllic '50s I grew up in. I'm aware of that from personal experience. I was shot twice when I was a kid, and many other kids I knew went through worse. My mother was practically raped by a neighbor. There was much more general violence of all kinds in society and in US enterprises overseas -- where wars, overt and covert, were a constant. While I use the '50s as a nostalgic touchstone, I don't romanticize the era. It could be and often was rough. Just to note, we lived in relatively quiet, in some cases new suburban neighborhoods that were considered then and are considered now to be typical lower-middle class to middle-middle class, not in poor or notorious neighborhoods at all.

Crime was not so much an issue in part because not so many acts and activities were criminalized, and there wasn't such an intense need to punish rather than rehabilitate those who violated the law. Filling the prisons was not considered necessary or wise. On the other hand, mental health facilities were prevalent and often full to bursting. While we decry the absence of mental health care facilities in today's society -- and the substitution of punishment and imprisonment and summary execution for what's missing -- we may not understand how the mental health care system was formerly used -- abused? -- as a kind of warehouse for those who didn't "fit in" to society, as well as warehousing all kinds of genuinely mentally ill and mentally challenged individuals. The system was not exactly a prison system, but very often the inmates could not leave the asylum. Many were there for life. And in the '50s that meant that millions were being held indefinitely or for life, many more millions were cycling in and out of the system.

That system held about twice the number of today's vast prison system, 4 million as opposed to 2 million. It is often claimed that half or more of those in prison today are mentally ill, and that American prisons and jails are used as substitutes for mental health facilities (absent "care") far more than they are used to house criminals.

That's one reason why I think we see so much violence in policing -- even though it's less objectively violent than it once was, just as society as a whole is less violent. The problem is that the typical police -- and "corrections" -- response to disobedience, misbehavior, and signs of mental illness is punishment/violence. There is no alternative except death.

They'll either beat you bloody, electrocute you,  or they'll kill you. They have no other viable options for control. They do not have or use de-escalation tactics, they do not know any way except through dominance to approach someone in the midst of a mental/emotional crisis, and they are conditioned not to have empathy or compassion for those in crisis -- particularly if they disobey "lawful orders."

Lack of obedience together with "furtive movements" -- the infamous "reaching for his waistband" -- is interpreted as an existential threat to be neutralized, and that generally means killing the subject (not at that point a human being, only a subject.)

Police are trained and conditioned to react to visual/verbal cues, react almost robotically, no matter the objective reality of the situation. When they detect particular cues, they will kill. If they don't they might be fired from their jobs or otherwise disciplined. That's the reality of the field of policing. Let's not fool ourselves.

Internet apologists will say that all the individual has to do is "obey" and nothing bad will happen to them, forgetting (conveniently) that people in crisis or otherwise disabled cannot necessarily obey promptly or at all, and that even people with their wits about them cannot promptly or properly obey contradictory shouted "commands."

If police are determined to kill you, they will, no matter what you do or don't do, and they will generally get away with it.

Disobedience is a cue to take more domineering or violent action, but obedience will not necessarily save you, as so many individuals find out.

But why do police so often only have domineering or violent -- or deadly -- options, when there are so many more effective an positive alternatives available, alternatives that are based on a respect for the sanctity of human life.

It has to do with how they are expected to see their role in civic life post-Columbine and post-9/11.

This is due essentially to the ravings of two consultants and their teams who go around to police departments all over the country lecturing and training on concepts of use of force and killing.

These men, (Dr.) Bill Lewinski, and (Lt. Col.) Dave Grossman, are probably more responsible for the current state of violent policing than any other two individuals in the country. And they're proud of it.

They make no apologies whatever for the death dealing and violence that goes on every day in police work. They celebrate it, and they defend and celebrate the killers. No matter who they kill or under what circumstances. They are reaching their highest level of accomplishment when they kill -- according to Grossman. And they are serving the public by killing according to Lewinski. Every killing by police is defensible, necessary and ultimately for the good of all. They are removing threats, wolves as Grossman calls them, who would otherwise be preying on the sheep (ie: you 'n' me) . Every kill is a good kill, without exception. After all, a sheepdog would never kill without reason or necessity, no? Even when, sometimes, a sheep is caught up in the crossfire or targeted. No one who is killed by police is truly innocent in any case. All are worthy of death for one reason or other, without exception. They are criminals and threats, now or in the past, and society has no place for the likes of them. None.

This is what Grossman and Lewinski teach. It's what they believe. And it is a belief shared by enormous numbers of cops and chiefs of police and sheriffs and public officials throughout the land. It is the interior culture of policing, indeed, the interior culture of rule. More importantly, it is a belief shared by elites, Our Betters as it were, almost universally.

You and I, the Rabble, have no right to life, liberty, or the pursuit of happiness, no rights at all that police are bound to respect, once you or I are targeted for liquidation. And when they decide to kill, there is essentially nothing we can do to stop them from carrying out their bounden duty.

Many of the examples of police killings we've seen recently demonstrate that belief as clearly as possible. Some are outright murder/summary executions, others are a little more complex, involving stages of force but inevitably leading straight to the morgue. "There is no alternative" once police have decided to kill their quarry. And that's a truism. Once the decision is made, they will kill, guaranteed.

We hear a lot about "split second decisions" but it is rarely that way at all. Police will go into a contact/confrontation having already decided to kill, or sometimes they are designated to do just that. Police departments all over the country employ snipers and shooters whose job it is to kill. When they are deployed, that's what they do. It is not a "split-second" thing at all; their deployment is itself the "decision" to use lethal force.

In other cases, beat cops or special purpose cops -- who are not necessarily or ordinarily assigned to kill -- take it upon themselves to "neutralize the threat" (ie: kill) based on what they are told via dispatch or their supervisors. That is not a "split-second" decision at all; it is a built in requirement of their dispatch to the scene. (Cf: John Crawford III, Tamir Rice and others, killed on sight without the least consideration of the facts but based solely on reports which are often inaccurate or downright false, sometimes purposely so.)

We could go on and on listing other incidents -- recent and historic -- where police kill and get away with it when there is no objective threat to them or anyone else. That's not the point of this post, however. Instead I'm not looking so much at what happens as why it happens, and why it is so difficult to change the pattern of police killings.

Inherent bias and racism is a fundamental and apparently intractable part of the problem of policing in general as well as police killings. The proportion of black and brown men killed by police is way out of proportion to their population, and it is due largely to training and conditioning which assumes a threat from these populations -- and to inherent cultural bias and racism that is fostered in society and particularly within police culture. There is no greater threat to police and society in general than raging and armed white men, but police typically approach them with deference. Black and brown men on the other hand are seen a inherent and existential threats by their nature. They are approached aggressively and often lethally with no recourse for the victim at all. This is racism and cultural bias, but it is also something else: it is a demonstration of Othering, something that is very deep seated in American culture and society.

Black and brown men, especially, are not seen by police as full "members" of society, and they are typically seen as inherently threatening to the "good order" of that society, no matter what they do or don't do.

There are other categories of the population who are "Othered" in the same way, and they are often treated as badly or worse by police, but it is the constant killing of black and brown men by police that gets the majority of the attention. That's not inappropriate at all, though I sometimes see complaints that this or that white victim of police is not being highlighted or featured by the media, and it's so "unfair!!!!" No it isn't, and no these incidents are not ignored. The problem is the proportion of police killings is vastly greater among black and brown victims, and no, it is not because they are all criminals nor does it have anything directly to do with crime in their communities. It generally has absolutely nothing to do with previous accusations or convictions -- often cited in excusing the killing of a black or brown victim -- because police typically don't know anything about that when they kill, and even if they did, it should have no bearing on their current encounter.

I was going to post some videos of Lewinski and Grossman raving about the "science" of their kill--think, but it's really sickening to me. But if you're interested just google up Dave Grossman and Bill Lewinski and you'll find plenty of information and probably hundreds of videos between them. Their poison theories and "science" is a major driving factor in police killings. Changing the situation requires discrediting their bizarre and crazy theories and beliefs, but it also requires putting in place viable alternatives.

That's a subject for another post.

Oh FFS -- STOP THE KILLING

Now we have the incident yesterday in El Cajon, CA, in which a troubled black man was shot dead by police because, jeepers, they were just so damned scared for their lives and the safety of others when the dude acted erratically and didn't follow commands "just so."

How many times do we hear that? How many times has hindsight shown that, whoopsy, dude was unarmed, posed no objective threat, and ultimately there was no necessity to kill him, but them's the breaks, the shooting/killing was "within policy" so the officers involved cannot be held criminally liable for their actions.

In this case, there are reports that the police have confiscated all community cell phone video of the incident and are being tight-lipped as hell -- except to impugn the dude they shot and killed, the way that Standard Protocol has demanded.

Video of the aftermath of the shooting has been posted to Facebook (scroll down, I prefer not linking directly to Facebook as it is so annoying), however, and police deny "confiscating" any citizen video.

No, this has got to stop. The holy fear that says someone (particularly if black) behaving "erratically" needs killing is itself crazier than the disobedient black man on the street. Nine times out of ten if not more often, there is no objective necessity to kill the crazy Negro or other disobedient individual, but it is "within policy" to do so, so why not? Why not kill him/her if there are no consequences for doing so -- except a riot here and there, massive protests all over creation, lawsuits out the wahzoo settled for millions, and plenty of media "scrutiny."

Until the next time, and then the whole sequence of events repeats all over again.

Again and again and again. Nothing changes. Somewhere else, another Crazy Negro (or other victim) is shot down, and again it will be ruled "within policy" even though the cop who kills may be sent to trial for manslaughter or murder.

Almost always such cops are cleared of criminal culpability. They're "just doing their jobs."

I've been watching parts of the trial of Keith Sandy and Dominique Perez in Albuquerque. They were charged with Murder 2 for the execution of James Boyd on a Sandia Mountain foothill trail in March of 2014.

This execution sparked major protests in the city of Albuquerque and the aftermath led to major reforms and DoJ oversight of the Albuquerque Police Department. They hardly kill anyone anymore.

The trial has brought to light a whole raft of issues that were barely touched upon in the initial reports and the protests that followed.

Sandy and Perez were designated killers -- as was suspected -- but they weren't the only ones at the scene (there was another sniper on hand whose view of the crazy Boyd was blocked by the cops who ultimately shot and killed Boyd.) I had no idea there was another police sniper on scene until the trial.

Allegedly, neither Perez nor Sandy went to the mountain side to kill Boyd. This is much like the claim that police "don't shoot to kill" they shoot to "neutralize the threat by aiming for 'center of mass'. In other words, when they shoot they shoot to kill. But they won't admit as much because that's not nice.

So Sandy and Perez didn't go to the mountain side to kill Boyd, they went to "provide cover" for officers who were assigned to arrest Boyd and bring him into custody.

OHKAY.

Boyd was armed with two knives which he refused to drop over several hours of negotiations between himself and CIT officers. He agreed to put them away, but he would not put them down.

Eventually, after further negotiations, he agreed to surrender and was in the midst of doing so when police launched a flash-bang grenade and a dog against him in order to effect his arrest. Boyd took his knives from his pockets in order to defend himself against the dog and turned away from both dog and police at which time he was shot in both arms and his back. He fell, paralyzed, and the dog bit him several times in the butt while officers commanded him to "drop the knives". He said he couldn't do so because he couldn't move (he was effectively paralyzed.) The officers continued to command him to obey.

Finally, they realized he was telling the truth and could not comply. They kicked the knives out of his hands, and sometime later called in paramedics who were stationed below.

Boyd was give first aid and taken to the hospital where one of his arms was amputated, and his other wounds were patched up as best they could be, yet he died several hours later from the combined effects of the gunshots.

From appearances, Boyd's killing was completely unnecessary and outrageous, thus the protests. He was surrendering and posed no threat -- even though he still had knives in his possession -- when he was shot. WTF? Crisis intervention had worked with him for an hour or more until called off by SWAT officers, who then escalated the situation by stationing officers with weapons pointed at him.

At the point he agreed to surrender and was in the process of doing so, they further escalated the situation by firing a flash bang and loosing a dog on him, which caused him to react in self-defense, both to draw his knives again and to turn away from the dog and the police, who then killed him.

The defense is that Perez and Sandy were defending the K-9 officer who was unarmed and in jeopardy of his own life because he was close enough to Boyd to be stabbed by him.

OHKAY.

I've believed all along that Perez and Sandy will be acquitted. Regardless of any objective "fear for their lives and the safety of others," it's been clear enough to me that even though there was no necessity  to kill Boyd, it was within the APD's use of force policy at that time, and therefore it was a defensible act, though it was repugnant and wrong.

[Note: this afternoon, the judge in the trial of Sandy and Perez dismissed the lesser included voluntary manslaughter charge against them. This is significant, and it signals an eventual acquittal on all charges.]

This is the problem that leads to so many of these killings: they don't need to happen, but they happen because police department policies and the expectations of commanders essentially require them in situations where officers perceive a threat from disobedient individuals, particularly if they are black or mentally ill. The designated killer-officers on scene often have little choice -- according to their experience and training and the expectations of their commanders. Regular cops -- not designated killers -- pick up this "ethic" (if you can call it that) and do likewise. They can't help it; they are trained and conditioned to kill when they perceive a threat to their lives and the safety of others, even when there isn't any objective threat. Or the threat is so minimal that other means of handling the situation would be more effective and would preserve the life of both officers and disobedient victims.

I don't know what happened in El Cajon, of course. The police are keeping the facts and evidence under wraps the way they do, and witnesses are notoriously unreliable without back-up evidence which isn't available.

But reports so far indicate that this incident fits the pattern of so many others. Family member calls for help with a erratic loved one, police arrive, and "fearing for their lives and the safety of others" shoots and kills the erratic victim. Protests erupt, police are mum, and eventually it is determined that the killing was "within policy" and probably a large payment will be made to the victim's loved ones.

Then it happens again somewhere else.

It's insane and corrosive and it's got to stop.

Charlotte -- More Fog Than Sunshine

News report from Charlotte

I'm not impressed with Charlotte-Mecklenberg Police Chief Kerr Putney. He's been obfuscating from the beginning of the controversy over the police shooting of Keith Scott, and he outdid himself yesterday when announcing the immanent release of partial police video of the incident -- an incident which has understandably been interpreted by many as police murder.

Putney has said that his "job" is protecting his officers, and so much of what he has been doing since Scott's death is trying to divert attention from what his officers did.

This has been standard protocol for most police departments for many years; officers are presumed to be blameless by their departments. The victims are always and fully at fault for what happens to them.

That's been slowly changing in some cities where protests have followed some of the more egregious killings, but any change in the assumption of police blamelessness and victim fault is strenuously resisted by police unions, officers, and often by chiefs themselves. They simply cannot accept the idea that they are capable of doing anything wrong, particularly when they kill people.

Part of that blameless attitude is due to (Lt. Col.) David Grossman who travels the country promoting his "Killology" concepts to police officers and departments in lectures and trainings which assert that police kill when they have to, only when they have to, and there is no dishonor in doing so. Even, apparently, when they kill the innocent (I guess it's just "collateral damage," too bad so sad) they are serving a higher calling as "sheepdogs" protecting the "flock." This is literally insane, and yet it is the grounding philosophy of much of the policing in this country. (If you've ever seen Grossman speak, it's obvious he's not too tightly wrapped.)

In Charlotte, the police chief attempted to stonewall the public after his officers seemingly arbitrarily shot and killed Keith Scott last Tuesday. He refused to provide more than a very sketchy and incoherent outline of what happened. It was not backed up with any evidence, and he adamantly refused to release police video of the killing, claiming -- absurdly -- that he didn't want to violate the family's privacy and grief.

Not too surprisingly, this stonewalling -- as well as the killing itself -- led to protest. Some of the protest turned violent which got a lot of attention in the media, but overall the protests were non-violent and specific. The protesters wanted the video evidence of what happened, and they wanted accountability by and from the police. Simple, straightforward honesty was what they were and are still after.

Putney refused, citing the ongoing investigation which he said would be compromised by premature release of information and evidence. He promised "transparency" but not "full" transparency. Of course this led to more and more boisterous protest. WTF? Right?

Ultimately, on Friday, Keith Scott's wife Rakeyia Scott released her own video of the incident. Until that time, I don't think anybody outside her circle knew she had video of the police killing her husband.

Stonewalling and misdirection and withholding information is not limited to the Charlotte-Mecklenberg Police Department it would seem...

Pressure mounted on Putney to release police video as well, but he continued to refuse until yesterday.

Mrs. Scott's video does not show her husband until after he has been shot and is lying on the pavement, but it is graphic in that her pleas to the police not to shoot her husband go unheeded. She tells them he is not armed, that he has suffered a TBI (traumatic brain injury) and has just taken his medication. She pleas with her husband to be cooperative, get out of his vehicle and do what they say. The police keep screaming at him to "drop the gun," but Rakeyia Scott keeps telling them he doesn't have one, "he has a book."

All this is happening apparently while Mr. Scott is sitting in the passenger seat of a white pick-up SUV while police with guns drawn shout at him, and Mrs. Scott pleas with the police and Mr. Scott. When the video was released, there was no indication of where Mr. Scott was, and he is not visible -- so far as I can tell, anyway.

Nor -- until yesterday -- was there any indication of why  the police were confronting Mr. Scott at all. It was a complete mystery, largely because of Putney's stonewalling and refusal to provide basic information about what the hell was going on. It was all under investigation, and he would not "compromise" that investigation.

Nevertheless, he insisted that Keith Scott was to blame for what happened to him because he refused to obey commands to "drop the gun," a gun which Putney acknowledged could not be seen in any of the police videos he had reviewed -- videos he refused to release.

He did, however, release a photo found on the internet which he said showed a gun, purported to be Scott's, lying on the pavement at his feet after he had been shot and police had established a perimeter.

Not helpful. In fact, the photo merely inflamed matters more. It was not clear that the object in the photo identified as a gun was in fact Scott's gun, or even that it was a gun at all. There was no way to tell. The photo was too blurry. No such object appeared in Mrs. Scott's video of the scene mere seconds after Keith Scott was shot in any case. What does appear is what looks like police officers on scene repeatedly dropping and picking up black gloves which led to speculation that the black object in the photo released by the police department was a glove not a gun.

As it stands, there is still no way to tell.

Why Putney thought it was appropriate to release that photo under his department's name and cite it as "proof" that Scott had a gun is unknowable. It's part of the bizarreness of this incident and the behavior of the police department in the face of scrutiny and demands of the public for information.

Scott's family insists he was not armed and did not have a gun at the time he was shot. They insist that he had -- if anything -- a book, the Koran as it happens, which he liked to read while waiting for one of his children to get home from school. He was innocently waiting for his child to get home, reading a book in his truck while he waited, when he was set upon by screaming police with guns drawn.

According to Putney, the police were on site to serve a warrant on someone else. He would not say why, instead of serving that warrant, they turned their attention to Keith Scott, ultimately killing him.

Again, Putney's stonewalling caused intense speculation and a widespread belief that the police had no business confronting Mr. Scott at all, that it was in essence a random and arbitrary execution of yet another black man.

That is what Rakeyia Scott's video seemed to confirm. The police were out of bounds and out of control, and they shot and killed Keith Scott for no reason at all -- except that they could and would be almost certain to get away with it.

While Keith Scott is not shown in his wife's video of the incident until after he has been shot and is lying on the pavement surrounded by police still yelling at him, he is shown very briefly in one of the police videos released yesterday. He is seen slowly and cautiously getting out of the passenger side of the pick-up truck SUV and slowly backing away from the truck with his arms at his side. Within seconds, shots ring out and he falls to the ground.

There is no apparent reason for the police to open fire. Mr. Scott may not be doing exactly as they say, but he is not visibly threatening (such as raising a gun toward police as some reports said he did.) He is simply walking slowly backwards with his arms at his side. It is clear that there is nothing in his right hand. His left hand is not visible in the video. At any event, no gun is visible in Scott's hand.

The other video released by police yesterday does not show Scott being shot, though one does hear the shots, but it shows the aftermath of the shooting from an officer's point of view. At one point, while officers continue to shout at Scott and handcuff him, he is heard moaning and a police officer's hand is briefly in view. It is covered with blood -- we can assume it is Scott's blood -- and the officer asks for his bag in the back of his own truck. He needs gloves and equipment to staunch Scott's wound.

Interesting...

Particularly interesting due to the claim that Scott's blood, DNA and fingerprints were found on a gun recovered at the scene, and that is claimed to be proof that Scott was armed at the time he was shot. Unfortunately for police, that is not proof due to the fact that an officer is seen seconds after the shooting with blood (presumed to be Scott's) all over his hand, and at no time is there any visual evidence that Scott had a gun in his hand -- or anywhere else on his person.

Police assert it, but they cannot show it.

Later yesterday, Charlotte police released a photo of a gun lying on pavement, a blood smeared holster and an alleged half-smoked blunt. They claimed that these were Scott's.

During his press conference yesterday announcing the imminence of the police video release, Putney for the first time stated why the police confronted Keith Scott rather than serve the warrant they were there to do.

It was, he said, because the police observed Scott with marijuana, saw him rolling a joint in his pick up truck SUV and saw a gun. They claim they saw him "waving" the gun.

Putney claimed that the presence of marijuana and a gun was criminal, and therefore the police had to act for "public safety" reasons.

According to some reports, they left the scene to put on their bulletproof vests and then returned to confront Mr. Scott.

According to Scott's wife, he did not have a gun, but the police on scene insisted they had seen one in the truck.

According to police, the photos they released yesterday of a gun, a holster, and a blunt were Keith Scott's and they presumably were presented as the evidence that justified the shooting.

But absent any visible linkage between these items and Mr. Scott, and given Putney's propensity to stonewall and obfuscate, who knows whether these items are in fact Mr. Scott's, and further, who can say whether mere possession of such items is justification for a summary execution?

That's the problem here. That's the problem in many police killings. While they may eventually be ruled "justifiable" -- or "within policy" -- and the victim may be blamed, the killing itself indicates again and again that the officers involved have no interest or concern for the sanctity of human life; their only interest is in neutralizing a perceived threat, whether on not there is any objective threat to themselves or anyone else.

In this case, it appears that Mr. Scott was not at any time threatening the officers in any way. It is not certain that he had a gun, nor if he did, is it clear that he "brandished" it or threatened the officers with it. There has been an unconfirmed claim that he "pointed" it at officers, but there is no proof, and it has not been claimed by the police that he threatened them with a gun.

What has been claimed is that Mr. Scott disobeyed the officers' repeated commands to "drop the gun."

He may or may not have disobeyed. It's impossible to tell. There is no visual evidence he had a gun in his hand when he exited the pick up truck SUV. Even Putney acknowledges that. There is no visual evidence that Scott pointed a gun at police or that he threatened them in any way.

There is visual evidence that he attempted to comply and was shot down as he did so.

There is testimony from his wife and others that Keith Scott was involved in a road accident (motorcycle?) about a year ago in which he sustained significant injuries including traumatic brain injury. Whether that affected his response to police "commands" is worth considering. At any rate, there is no sign at all that Mr. Scott was threatening or aggressive or even particularly defiant.

In other words, there was no objective and visual reason for the police to shoot him, even though the shooting may eventually be ruled "justified."

This goes on all the time, essentially every day, throughout the country and it is long past time for it to stop.

I've claimed and I continue to claim that 90% or more of police killings are unnecessary. They happen because police are scared out of their wits by their contact with the public -- fear and loathing which is partly due to their training and conditioning -- and they are expected to shoot when they are so frightened they "fear for their lives and the safety of others."

So long as they make that claim, they're almost certain to be absolved of criminal liability -- and they will often be praised and promoted for "keeping us safe." So what if some Negro is dead?

That's the commonplace attitude among officers and their commanders, and that is wrong. It is a moral abomination.

It must change.

Right now, I'm more involved in activism from a distance over the killing of Joseph Mann in Sacramento, and step by step, I and others are taking action (me mostly by writing) to try to ensure that nothing like that happens again.

The killing of Keith Scott in Charlotte is catalyzing similar activism, and hopefully the police culture that allowed that killing will change -- and sooner rather than later. I have zero confidence that Kerr Putney will be the change agent, but you never know.

In Tulsa, the killing of Terence Crutcher has led to the arrest of his killer, but whether that will significantly affect police culture in Tulsa is hard to say. She may be a scapegoat, and nothing will change. We'll have to see.

Meanwhile, here are the videos so far released of the shooting of Keith Scott: (Via NYT)






















"As Is Standard In Police Involved Shootings..."

Sacramento Police Department issued a false narrative -- a series of lies in other words -- in defense of two of their officers shooting and killing a homeless mentally ill man named Joseph Mann on a main street in North Sacramento last July.

Citizen video contradicted the police narrative almost right out of the gate, but the clincher was the recent release of surveillance video that clearly showed two officers running up to Mann -- and executing him on the spot, from about 20-30 feet away, in a fusillade of bullets, while he was standing still, not "lunging" at them at all, but seeming to question why they were running up to him.

The Sacramento police lied, and they have maintained their lies until today, insisting that their narrative is correct and one should not believe one's lying eyes. Nevertheless, the police chief has announced his retirement (effective in December), and I'm told the two officers who ran up to and killed Mr. Mann are (supposedly) going to be fired.

I would recommend that these officers be fired and prosecuted for murder 2 or manslaughter, but that's unlikely to take place due to the many layers of legal protection police have in performance of their duty.

Apparently part of the duty of modern police is the summary execution of disobedient Negroes, homeless or mentally ill men in crisis, and/or any "armed" Negro whatever. Whether actually armed or not. Doesn't matter.

It is then part of their duty to lie about what they have done, and it is part of the duty of their commanders to back up the lies to the bitter end if need be.

The lies in this case are stark and obvious, while they are not quite so clear in other instances of police killing.

This is the tissue of lies SPD spun on July 11, 2016, the day of the incident, as published in the Los Angeles Times:

A man was fatally shot by two Sacramento police officers Monday morning after he acted “really crazy” and charged the office[r]s with a knife, police said.

The man, who was in his 50s or 60s, was spotted about 9:25 a.m. waving a knife in the 1100 block of Lochbrae Road when police were called to investigate, according to Sacramento police Sgt. Bryce Heinlein. 

Callers complained to a police dispatcher that the man was not making sense and was behaving irrationally. 

When the first officer arrived on the scene, the man charged at him, prompting the officer to lock himself in his police cruiser. The officer called for backup and tried to leave the area, but the man walked around the police cruiser and blocked it with his body.

When two backup officers arrived, the man with a knife took off running. The officers began chasing him on foot, and one of them suffered a non-life-threatening injury to his lower body during the pursuit, according to police. 

Heinlein said the man refused to comply with the officers’ commands and acted “really crazy.”

When the officers approached the man, he turned around and charged at them, Heinlein said. At that moment, both officers fired their weapons, striking the man. 

The man was taken to an area hospital, where he died later Monday morning. The injured officer remained in the hospital for treatment. 

The officers have been placed on paid administrative leave. The Sacramento Police Department, Sacramento County district attorney’s office and Office of Policing Accountability are investigating the shooting. Police recovered a knife at the scene, officials said.

Heinlein said the incident happened rapidly.

“This is a very quick evolving situation that occurred,” he said.

The officers were not wearing body cameras, but their police cruisers were equipped with dash cams, which filmed the incident. Officials were reviewing the video footage on Monday, Heinlein said.

So far, only 30 officers who work bike patrol in downtown Sacramento have been fitted with body cameras as part of a pilot program, he said.

Although body cameras haven’t been made available to all officers, the police department hopes to expand the program.

I've highlighted the lies. As shown in the videos which were later released from a civilian, from dash cams, and from a surveillance camera, Mr. Mann never "charged at" police during the entire incident and pursuit. He instead tries to get away from them, or failing that, tries to make them go away. He is clearly having a mental health episode, perhaps aggravated by illicit substances, and he does act "crazy" at various times during the pursuit.

The officer in the first patrol car is not "blocked" by Mr. Mann from leaving the area although Mr. Mann does cross in front of his vehicle (in a crosswalk no less!!). The officer does not try to leave the area. Instead, he follows Mr. Mann at a discreet distance, shouting at him through the loudspeaker to "drop the knife." Whether Mr. Mann has a knife or is brandishing one during this slow speed pursuit is difficult to tell from the video, but assuming he did have a knife in his hand, he is not threatening anyone with it. He is clearly attempting to get away from the officer pursuing him.

At this point, it is necessary to note that the first dashcam video starts out in a very fancy neighborhood of Sacramento called Woodlake where Mr. Mann is walking on the sidewalk near some very expensive and fashionable real estate. It's as if he were strolling around Beverly Hills or Bel Air.

Apart from being black and possibly carrying a knife and acting "strange" Mr. Mann shows no threatening behavior during the initial contact with  police. He does not, however, obey.

There is no "foot chase" at all. Instead, officers arrive in some numbers following Mr. Mann's attempts to get away from the initial officer following him at a discreet distance and issuing orders over his loudspeaker. All the arriving officers stay in their vehicles. Mr. Mann picks up something from the median of Del Paso Blvd. and throws it at the first police car, but what it is is impossible to tell.

Other police cars attempt to surround and contain Mr. Mann as he darts from one side of the street to the other. Finally, he runs along a sidewalk on the south side of Del Paso Blvd (I'm familiar with the area because I lived there at one time), stopping to catch his breath at one point, then continuing on, as two officers on foot, guns drawn, confront him beside a brick building. They do not chase him, they run up to him. They  are at least 20 and possibly 30 feet away. Mr. Mann stands still, raises his arm as if to say "go away", and the officers open fire. Mr. Mann falls, they continue firing, striking him 14 times.

Other officers then arrive on foot. One appears to kick the body as Mr. Mann lay dying on the sidewalk.

If any officer was "injured" it's not visible in any of the video released, and later stories did not mention any injured officer.

The incident does not unfold rapidly. In fact, it takes several minutes, and unfolds quite slowly and deliberately -- that is until the point that the two officers run up and shoot Mr. Mann to death. That occurs within seconds.

The police narrative was filled with falsehoods. False narratives are Standard Protocol in police involved shootings all over the country, however, as we've over and over and over again.

Here is some video which contradict SPD's lies:

1) Video taken by a witness released August 5, 2016



This video contradicts the police narrative, but because it's shaky and distant, it is hard to be sure what is going on.

2) This is a surveillance video obtained and released by the Sacramento Bee on September 19, 2016

It clearly shows two officers running up to Mann and shooting him within a second or so of arrival



3) This is the first of three dashcam videos of the incident released on September 20, 2016 by the Sacramento Police Department



It demonstrates the lies in the initial police narrative

4) This is the second dashcam video released by SPD

5) And this is the third dashcam video released by SPD

Police all over the country lie with impunity about many things, but because of all the attention focused on police killings especially, it is a wonder that they continue to like about the killing of black and brown men in particular, when the truth is so relatively evident in so many videos.

SPD felt forced to release these videos, despite the fact that they contradicted the official story, in part because of the early release of the surveillance video which showed the execution of Joseph Mann with little or no filter.

Whether justice will eventually be served, who can say. But for now at least some of the public interest is being served.

Police Reform? Not If It Is Allowed To Be Solely About Race

Stephanie Lopez was arrested by Bernalillo County sheriffs deputies on charges of child abuse and witness intimidation. This is a real thing.

Stephanie Lopez is the president of the Albuquerque Police Officers Association, ie: the APD officers' union. I've seen her in action for some time thanks to my own activism against police violence in Albuquerque and around the country, and compared to many other police union presidents she seems quite sane and even compassionate. She looks out for her officers' interests, but she's also very conscious of the need for police accountability and for the need to reduce police brutality and the number of police involved killings.

She's on administrative leave from the police department and the union while these matters are sorted out in court. Her replacement as union head is Shaun Willoughby who has not typically been as sane. But then, there's been an element of good-cop/bad-cop in their public presentations throughout Albuquerque's police-reform saga (a saga that's still going on.)

Police reform in Albuquerque has meant that APD no longer routinely kills suspects. At least one of the sniper squads has been disbanded, and there has been a real and sustained emphasis on deescalation of force and crisis intervention. Obviously, the word went out from the top to "stop the killing" and it has almost stopped -- at least by APD. There are other police forces at work in the area, including sheriffs, other city's police departments, and state troopers, none of whom seem to have gotten the message, and all of whom have kept on killing.

Since the reforms kicked in last year, an APD officer was killed and a number have been wounded (one by friendly fire that is suspected not to have been friendly at all...). The two APD officers who executed James Boyd as he was surrendering have been charged with murder, but they are out on bond until their trial sometime next year, and the officer who shot and killed Mary Hawks successfully sued to get his job back despite his repeated failure to follow procedures regarding his body cameras and other matters.

Let's say that reform of APD has meant two steps forward and one back, which is progress, yes, but not enough.

In Albuquerque, though there was a racial component in the abuses that were protested and which ultimately led to reform, the focus was not on race. The focus was on failures by the department and the city which led to so much abuse and killing. Failed mental health care and homeless services. Failed crisis intervention. Failed apprehension and custody tactics and so on. All of which led to a constant litany of death and destruction, most of which was avoidable.

Race and class were part of the overall picture of abusive, violent and deadly policing, but they weren't the whole thing, and the reforms did not focus solely on class and race issues.

The reforms seem to be working, but whether they'll become permanent, who knows? The arrest of Stephanie Lopez, however, makes me wonder. There is so far no sign that her arrest was arranged -- shall we say -- to eliminate her relatively conciliatory approach, but that's the upshot. Willoughby is not a conciliator and may prove to be problematic as the reform effort continues. We shall see.

Meanwhile, there is apparently a media push to acknowledge that the "national conversation" about policing has reached a climax of sorts and that "reform" is now the leading topic of discussion. The reforms being discussed by the "nation", however, appear to be almost exclusively focused on race and the disparate level of police violence and killing employed almost universally in this country against communities and people of color.

Wait. No. The problem of violent policing is not and has never been entirely a matter of race, and if the "national conversation" (which is really a matter of the elites talking to one another and has almost nothing to do with what the public wants/needs) devolves the problem into one exclusively of race, then quite simply the problem will not be solved, in fact, it may be made worse.

I've said many times here and elsewhere that police in general see armed people of color, particularly males, whether or not they are actually armed and whether or not they are threatening others, as existential threats to be neutralized with as much firepower as can be brought to bear. We see the videos of such summary executions -- which is what they are -- all the time, practically every day. They are horrible and in almost all cases, they are egregious, unnecessary. In some cases, regardless of "justifications" they are outright murder.

More white folks die at the hands of police, it's true, but the rate of killing by police falls most heavily on black and brown men. Abusive policing in general falls most heavily on black and brown men. Mass incarceration falls most heavily on black and brown men. Mentally ill black and brown men are exterminated at a profoundly disturbing rate. But they are not the only ones.

What seems to have happened during the media-memed "national conversation" about violent policing is that it has been characterized in almost exclusively racial terms. The Black Lives Matter movement has tried to avoid that exclusivity while at the same time focusing attention on the disproportionate levels of violent policing experienced by the black community. That seems to be recognized relatively widely today, and it is acknowledged as a problem even by many police chiefs. Something should be done about it. 

The problem of disproportionate policing is one thing, the problem of police violence and murder is another, and yet they have been conflated by a media which seems to want to keep the focus on policing the Negros, while barely recognizing that police violence is systemic. One has to deal with both the disproportionate policing that has virtually destroyed millions of lives and families and communities, and the violence the police routinely employ against civilians of any color or gender, violence which can and way too often does include summary execution.

If the issue is allowed to be solely about race, there will be little or no reform of police conduct; the killing will not stop. Mass incarceration may pause for a while, but the destruction wrought by violent policing will not be remedied.

If there is to be real and lasting reform of police conduct, it has to be system-wide, top to bottom, and I detect real resistance at the top to engaging in that kind of reform, starting at the very top with the DOJ and the FBI, neither of which even bother to collect let alone analyze statistics of police violence. At the top, the Attorney General and the FBI Director defend police conduct, almost without exception and almost regardless of how egregious. The FBI Director has falsely and repeatedly claimed that something called the Ferguson Effect (ie: scrutiny of police conduct) is responsible for a spike in violent crime, a spike for which there is no statistical evidence. Neither of the recent Attorneys General will hold police accountable for their actions, pretty much no matter what they do. The numerous consent decrees mandating reform of police departments throughout the country are primarily designed to regularize and professionalize police conduct,  not to reduce the killing and the violence police employ but to rationalize it.

Make it consistent. Make it defensible. This can mean an even greater level of violence by police, because there is no real intent to reduce the violence, at least none that I've seen, in the consent decrees.

Some police departments take it upon themselves to ratchet down the levels of violence they have been using against the public, but many do not. Some actually increase the use of violence in the face of protests, and their chiefs show utter contempt for the public in the process.

That internalized contempt is part of the problem of reform, and part of why I'm not convinced the kinds of reforms that are necessary are possible. Abolition may be the only viable way to do it, but there's very little sign that abolition is even conceivable in light of current "conversations."

Of course abolitionists of yore faced the same -- indeed worse -- odds.

James Boyd was executed by two police snipers as he was surrendering in the Sandia foothills in Albuquerque in March of 2014. Those snipers were later charged with murder, and their trials are scheduled for some time next year. I don't expect them to be convicted, but the fact that they were charged and will be tried is "something." Protests against that killing got under way in Albuquerque soon after Boyd was killed, and they triggered protests against police violence and killing much more generally. Those protests have continued relentlessly all over the country ever since, and it's been almost two years now. People are not letting this issue go.

Many police chiefs have recognized there is a problem with violent policing and mass incarceration, and some have taken steps to address the problem, but so far the rate of killing by police has not been reduced, in fact, it has increased since the protests against it went viral.

Control of police violence has to be exercised from the top. The police departments are hierarchies. When the chiefs and their bosses, the mayors and city managers, tell the police to stop killing, they will. So far, that order has only gone out in a very few cities.

Many more police chiefs need to hear the call and issue the stop killing order before the bloodshed will be significantly reduced. But it can be done.

Maybe next year....

Legally Right -- Mortally Wrong and Morally Bankrupt. The Injustice Endures

After what seem like endless and quite deliberate delays regarding "investigating" the death of Tamir Rice, Tim McGinty has released two reports which justify the shooting and death of young Tamir on the basis of law and court decisions which essentially protect police officers from criminal liability when they kill ("use deadly force") in performance of their duties.

As long as officers declare themselves to have perceived a threat -- even if there isn't one -- and that perception can be considered "reasonable", they're essentially immune from criminal liability for almost any death or injury they cause in the course of performing their duties.

In the case of Tamir Rice, the reports claim that the officers involved reasonably perceived a mortal threat to themselves when young Rice approached Officer Loemann and reached for his waistband thus justifying the immediate use of lethal force.

The perception of a mortal threat -- even though objectively there wasn't one -- had to do with the dispatch reports of "a black male with a gun" in a park outside a community center.

Here's what's wrong with that analysis:

The perception is based on faulty metrics. The fear the officers felt was due not to any objective threat to themselves or anyone else but due -- entirely in my estimation -- to the fact they were told by dispatch that there was a black male with a gun. A black male with a gun. A BLACK MALE WITH A GUN.

That, all by itself, is considered an existential threat to police and civilians in open carry Ohio.

Not only was Tamir Rice shot and killed -- on sight -- by Ohio police because he was said by a 911 caller to be armed and "brandishing," so was John Crawford III, even though neither of them were actually armed (in the sense of having a weapon with which they could do lethal harm to another) and neither, at the time he was shot and killed, was "brandishing".

All it takes is for someone to say the right words for the executioners to act.

The problem here [8 pg pdf] is police training and Supreme Court rulings that protect the officers who use deadly force even though there may be no objective threat to be neutralized.

Because officers cannot be expected to read the minds of individuals and determine intent, they are instead trained to scrutinized individuals’ behavior for telltale signs. An individual’s actions are often the only signals of their intent. Obviously, if the individual being confronted is reasonably believed to be armed, the officer’s attention to those actions will be intensified. In such a situation, officers are taught to focus on the hands of the individual.3 If the hands move in the direction of a “high-risk area” – an area where a weapon may be concealed, such as inside a jacket, towards the waistband of pants, or under the seat of a car, well trained officers will immediately identify this as a serious threat.

When threat identification is combined with the concept of action versus reaction, an officer’s need to make split-second judgments with respect to the use of force becomes evident. Action versus reaction is simply the recognition that there is a certain amount of time required for every person to recognize a stimulus, formulate a response to that stimulus, and then carry out that response. When applied to deadly force situations, action versus reaction refers to the time it takes for an officer to observe the actions of an individual, such as the movement of an individual’s hands, perceive those actions as threatening, calculate possible responses to the treat, determine what level of force is necessary, and then complete the reaction. The reactions of a well-trained officer may be quick, but they are not instantaneous. The time differential between a threatening action occurring and the ability to respond to that threat always puts law enforcement officers in the position of having to catch-up. The practical effect of action versus reaction in deadly force situations is that officers cannot wait to react until they are absolutely certain of an individual’s malicious intent. If an officer waits to be certain that the individual reaching into a high-risk area is retrieving a weapon, action versus reaction dictates that the weapon could easily be used against the officer before he or she has an opportunity to respond.

This is the root of the problem right here. The passage was written by a former FBI trainer now retired, someone whose wisdom, if you want to call it that, has formed the basis for police training with regard to 'threats' and their 'neutralization' for decades. The principle is that perception rules all, and instant action in the face of a perceived 'threat' -- whether there is really a threat to the officer or someone else -- is drilled into the officer over and over, without regard to either the necessity of using lethal force in the first place or to the consequences of the use of lethal force on the victim.

Naturally, under the circumstances, many, many innocent people and people in one kind of crisis or another and many people who are only tangentially 'threats' will be injured and killed. And their injuries and killings will be justified by the likes of this person, for the simple reason that the law allows and protects it and the officer's perceptions of a threat -- perceptions which have been drilled in over and over again -- are all that is necessary to justify a killing or injury by police.

I've long held that 90% or more of police homicides are unnecessary. If there were a different standard of police conduct and a different way of seeing situations (ie: not all hands to waistbands are reaching for a gun; indeed very few are. And even if they were, why should that be a death sentence to be performed by summary execution on the spot? Whatever happened to "due process?") there would be little or no necessity to use lethal force in the first place. If police were trained to see each situation independently (ie: a hand to waistband doesn't necessarily mean a gun will be pulled from said waistband) and not react to each situation as if a deadly threat were present, the number of police homicides could be cut immediately and substantially. If police were trained to be skeptical of dispatch reports based on 911 calls, the number of police homicides could be cut substantially and very quickly. If police were trained to actually assess a situation before going into it guns blazing, the number of police homicides could be cut substantially. If police commanders and chiefs said to their officers that inappropriate use of firearms will result in discipline up to and including termination, the number of police homicides could be cut substantially.

I could go on. The issue is that police are not expected to value any lives but their own, and even then, their self-valuation may be very low. They need to learn to value human life in general, and specifically to value the lives of those who have previously been determined to be disposable.

That day seems always to be far off, but somehow I know it is coming.

These reports that are being cited to justify the police murder of Tamir Rice are shameful, but they represent the state of police belief and practice as it is.

We must change it.

The Killing Spree Continues

But the data seem to be showing a concentration of police killings... interesting.

By state since January 1, 2015:

TX -1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1  (24)
CA -1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 (21)
AZ -1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 (8)
FL -1 1 1 1 1 1 1 (7)
CO -1 1 1 1 1 (5)
OK -1 1 1 1 1 (5)
MO -1 1 1 1 (4)
UT -1 1 1 1 (4)
GA -1 1 1 1 (4)
MN -1 1 1 1 (4)
NC -1 1 1 (3)
AK -1 1 1 (3)
IL -1 1 1 (3)
MT -1 1 1 (3)
MD -1 1 1 (3)
TN -1 1 1 (3)
PA -1 1 1 (3)
KS -1 1 1 (3)
MI -1 1 (2)
ID -1 1 (2)
MS -1 1 (2)
OR -1 1 (2)
WA -1 1 (2)
NY -1 1 (2)
VA -1 1 (2)
NE -1 1 (2)
NJ -1 1 (2)
OH -1 1 (2)
KY -1 1 (2)
MA -1 1 (2)
AL -1 1 (2)
IN -1 1 (2)
LA -1 1  (2)
AR -1 1 (2)
IA -1 1 (2)
NM -1 (1)
NV -1 (1)
HI -1 (1)
NH -1 (1)
ME -1 (1)

The Zero States (so far this year):

ND
SD
SC
VT
DE
RI
CT
WV
WI
WY
and DC

The pattern is stark and obvious.

The killingest states BY FAR are Texas and California. They are ranked #2 and #1 in population, #1 and #2 in police killings, but their populations are not so much larger than states with far smaller kill rates -- such as New York with ten times fewer police killings than California. Something else is happening. It's not just about population.

We could put it simply by saying that the authorities in Texas and California don't put much value on human life and police kill with apparent abandon whenever they choose. Like police nearly everywhere, they face few or no consequences when they kill; it's part of their job, a job that they are expected to do, and so they do.

For all the justified rage about NYPD brutality and killing, New York police do not kill at anywhere near the rate of other police forces. Their kill-rate is almost insignificant compared to others, and not just compared to the rate of killing maintained in Texas and California.

New Mexico has reduced its police kill rate substantially, demonstrating that it can be done without society unraveling and descending into utter chaos.

Arizona and Florida have a comparatively high police kill-rate compared with other states, but Arizona maintains a slightly higher police kill rate with a population only a third of Florida's. On a proportional basis, Arizona's kill rate is among the highest in the nation.

But then perhaps human life, particularly brown human life, has little value in Arizona.

It's barely two months into the year, and already at least 152 people have been killed by police, a national kill rate of one every eight hours, three a day, comparable to the kill rate documented throughout the period "Killed by Police" has been maintaining records gleaned from mass media outlets.

The kill rate has been rock-steady at three a day for almost two years -- despite all the protests and public outrage at the constant bloodshed that arose last year and continues this year.

Almost as if by design. As if a certain number of "sheep" must be culled on a daily basis... to keep the rest of the herd in line?

If it worked, of course Our Rulers would require such a thing. Pragmatists to the end.

The protests continue, though somewhat abated by time and exhaustion. Some things have changed, and there will no doubt be more changes before too much longer.

But it's unlikely the basic premises of policing in this country will change substantially for the better any time soon.

The police state will most likely consolidate and endure, even if its domestic kill rate is reduced (and let's pray it is.)

Mental Health Care and the Problem of Violent Policing

Surely by now many people understand that if they call 911 when a loved one is having a mental health crisis, their loved one is liable to be killed. This is doctrine all across the land. In any case where police are dispatched and they sense a threat of any kind, to themselves or others, they are supposed to neutralize the threat with whatever level of force they deem necessary under the circumstances.

Indeed, even when someone is suicidal and only threatening their own lives, the police doctrine is to "neutralize" the suicidal individual -- with deadly force if needed -- so as to... protect?

Police are dispatched any time a caller to 911 says they fear for their lives, or a loved one is armed and making threats, or there are guns or other weapons in the house, or it looks to them like a scary person is armed, blah blah blah, in other words, most any time there might-could be a threat of some kind to someone or some inanimate object.

If a diagnosed mental illness such as schizophrenia is mentioned, the likelihood of police killing the subject goes way up. Way-way up.

It is what the police are trained and expected to do.

Consequently, I have long said, "Don't call 911 in such cases unless you want your loved one dead."

Often enough in such cases, SWAT teams and snipers are sent on the call, the primary purpose being to kill. Period.

These are rules of engagement the public seems to be oblivious to is unaware of, because practically every day another call to 911 for help in dealing with a mentally ill loved one leads to another death, and families are shocked. "I called for help," they say, "but they killed my loved one instead." Yep. That's right. That's the kind of "help" first responding police are trained and expected to render. Why is this still a surprise? It's been SOP since most of the mental hospitals were closed decades ago.

Because so many loved ones in mental health crisis are killed by police year in and year out -- by my reckoning close to 400 a year, about a third of the total killed by police each year -- there is a nascent movement to revive the mental health care system something like it was before the Reaganite push to dismantle the system in the name of "civil liberties." Yes, that worked out well, didn't it?

Liberty for whom, to do what?

There is no doubt that there was a problem in the mental health care system as it was prior to the Reaganite dismantlement. It was enormous, for one thing. At any given time more than 4 million people were incarcerated in public and private mental hospitals and asylums across the land. This is about double the outrageous current prison population. Too often, patients had no way out, and many were held for life against their will, and sometimes against the will of their loved ones.

Too often, too, the care patients received in state run institutions was abominable. Private institutions were not much better.

The Reaganite solution was just to shut the institutions down and suggest that relatives and communities take care of their mentally ill -- or let the police do it in their stead.

This policy led to an enormous increase in the homeless population to start with, an increase that has never abated. Prison populations skyrocketed as well. It's often pointed out that a third or more of those in prison are mentally ill and most of them receive no treatment -- apart from periodic beatings, solitary confinement, pepper-sprayings and such like.

There are inadequate community mental health care facilities in the best of circumstances, and in many areas, there are none at all. Families are rarely prepared to cope adequately with a mentally ill loved one, and even their best efforts may lead to tragedy. Especially when they call for Emergency Services to "help."

Service providers and consultants milk the system for money while providing as little care as possible. This is how the system, such as it is, is set up. Mental health care budgets are often the first cut when times are tough -- as they have been for years during this Permanent Recession. Too bad for the victims.

Reviving and restoring the previous system of state run asylums and mental hospitals is probably not the best idea under the current regime of public parsimony and brutality. I can see it easily leading to something like the eugenics programs that operated in this country and abroad, most horribly in Nazi Germany.

A better system is one that operates locally not centrally, and is tied in with the communities served. This was supposedly what the devolution of mental health care from the closure of state hospitals to communities was leading to, but it never did. Instead, the police and prison system expanded to take on the difficult cases, and the rest were pretty much left to fend for themselves as best they and their families could manage. That was the "civil liberties" solution.

It's not working.

Or perhaps it is working but not the way anyone of compassion envisioned.

No, it's cruel and deadly. It's violent and catastrophic. It's corrupt and dangerous.

When a third of the police killings in the country are of mentally ill and/or suicidal individuals, it should be plain as day that there is a structural and institutional problem that might be correctable. Unfortunately, pro-police propaganda has worked well to convince many people that the proper course of action toward those who do not obey police is to kill them, regardless of mental health or suicidal tendencies.

If it's only 400 a year, what's the big deal, right? More than that die in a week in traffic accidents. More than that are killed in a week by non-police firearms. This is a violent country. Always has been.

A compassionate mental health care system would not dispatch police, snipers and SWAT teams on every 5150 call. It just wouldn't happen. Instead, there would be crisis teams available to perform interventions, and care facilities would be available that would provide more than a 72 hour observation window and a few prescriptions for psychotropic drugs -- which can cause more problems if not monitored carefully.

There would be mental health care facilities in the community provided as a public service like any other, staffed by professionals and available on an as-needed basis.

Care would not be restricted to certain hours or days of the week, and appointments would not be so limited that weeks or months pass before someone could check in for care and treatment.

A proper mental health care system would include homeless and addiction services, without discrimination toward patients based on the nature of their homelessness and/or addictions.

All this can be done, probably for less money than the current violent policing and imprisonment "treatments" for mental illness, homelessness and addiction cost, but money isn't the real issue. More public money is going to prison systems these days than to higher education in many jurisdictions, and there is little notice, let alone complaints about it. Mental health care spending is a relatively minor component to many public budgets, and what little is being spent is constantly on the chopping block when public budgets need tightening.

In some places like California, taxes were raised specifically to fund more adequate mental health care provisions, and the additional tax revenue was immediately -- and perhaps permanently -- diverted to fund other state budgetary needs.

We need to be clear with one another and with our elected representatives that the current system of incarceration and killing the mentally ill is not acceptable.

But that's only the first step.

Creating and sustaining an acceptable system will take a massive effort, but it can be done.

The question is, when will that first step be taken?

Relentless

Despite the fact that the protests against violent policing continue -- though not on as large a scale as they once were -- nothing seems to have changed, and the killing by police continues as well. Men, women, children (well, not so much children...) shot down or run down in the streets, three a day almost like clockwork, pow-pow-pow. The dead continue piling up.

The dead tell no tales. It's been said that one of the rationales for so many of the killings is to ensure that there will be only one "side" to the tale of what happened, the police side. And of course, we hear all the time that the police are not allowed to "shoot to wound." They are trained to "shoot to stop," which means they must aim for center of mass or head, whichever seems most effective in "stopping" the culprit, and unfortunately for the culprit, that means they frequently... die. Oh well!

The fact that the police and media are eagerly complicit in smearing the dead after their demise has been noted as well. The point of the media campaign launched with nearly every police-involved shooting is to justify the killing on the basis of the deceased person's presumed "badness." It doesn't matter what happened in the incident in question, at least not usually. What matters -- really all that matters -- is the deceased's "long record," his (or sometimes her) tattoos, his/her drug use, his/her demeanor.

So every mug shot will be paraded around, his/her relatives' run ins with the law will be highlighted, the criminal statistics from his/her neighborhood will be bandied about, some traffic warrant from years ago will be cited, on and on.

What happened in the incident that got the culprit killed will not be clearly stated, even who killed the culprit will not be known for days, weeks, or months as the "investigation" goes on. The "investigation" is most often conducted by the killer's own comrades, and it can drag on indefinitely, as the killer's comrades "piece together" the events that led to the killing and the events of the killing itself. Almost always, the killing will be ruled justified and what is "pieced together" is mostly what was going on in the mind of the killer. He or she was scared. He or she was reacting to a "reaching" movement by the culprit. The culprit "lunged," therefore the officer fired in self-defense. There's a litany of approved justifications, and as long as the killer-officer invokes one or more of them, it's all good.

 Investigations tend to be lengthened when there is serious dispute over what happened and the culpability of the police is highlighted. Nevertheless, police will generally not be held liable for anything they do in the conduct of their jobs -- so long as what they do can be excused via policy, protocol and training. Thus, for example, the killing of sweet little Aiyana Stanley-Jones is ruled "just one of those things." The officer walks free. Of course.

There's a must-ness about it. There's a must-ness about three-a-day killings by police, and there's a must-ness about letting officers who kill get away with it, no matter the circumstances of the killing. They must go free (to kill again?)

I'm not the only one who's noticed the relentless pattern and commented on it, but the whys of it remain a bit murky.

*Why three-a-day almost every day?

*Why are killer-police enabled and almost always set free to kill again?

*Why are the victims almost always smeared by the police and media acting in concert?

*Why can't this pattern be broken?

Who do you protect? Who do you serve?

I continually run into claims that the People should be going to City Council meetings and getting in the face of mayors to demand an end to police violence. It's fine if they do, but I point out that doing so will rarely make much difference because the police are usually not under the authority of the Mayor and Council. The person with authority over the police is usually the City Manager or his/her equivalent. The City Manager is not elected, and s/he only listens to the voice of the People to the extent s/he must in order to pursue his/her civic agenda. In other words, the City Manager operates nearly independently of the Mayor and Council. The Mayor and Council can direct that the City Manager (or "Staff") do something, but the City Manager/Staff don't have to comply or can comply in such a way that their "compliance" is actually "defiance."

When it comes to the police, City Managers will rarely ever do what electeds and the public want unless what they want coincides with the City Manager's agenda. There is little or nothing the electeds and public can do to force a resistant City Manager to do what they want. In a pinch, they could get another City Manager, but more than likely any replacement would have the same agenda or a similar one as the Manager who has been dismissed. But even dismissing a City Manager is typically difficult, requiring a supermajority on the Council, and generally requiring a very expensive buy-out of the Manager's contract with the city.

It's much the same with school district administrators, indeed with high ranking civic officials of any kind.

City Managers rarely listen to public officials, rarely have any interaction with the public at large. Often enough, the public has no idea who they are or what their authority really is. In most municipalities, however, the City Manager or the equivalent is the one person in actual charge of every or nearly every aspect of city government. He or she is the one who runs things. Not the Council, not the Mayor, not the Chief of Police.

City Managers talk to one another, and they listen to the Powers That Be in their cities -- the men and women who have wealth, power, and influence. They typically don't listen to the Rabble at all.

The nearly universal practice of violent policing in this country comes from a consensus of City Managers directing their Chiefs to implement certain protocols and policies which are considered "best practices" in the field. They are often not the announced "best practices," they are instead a set of protocols and policies which authorize and underpin a hostile relationship between police and communities. In other words, they are "best practices" which posit the police as a "protective-occupation" force rather than a protective-service force. One of the consequences is a vast increase in the utilization of para-military SWAT teams, often for the most mundane of police activities. Police departments now routinely have and deploy snipers where none are called for. Any Negro-with-a-gun scenario and many domestic violence scenarios are treated as "active shooter" situations in which the police are expected to advance and "neutralize the threat" -- whether there is a real threat or not.

The mentally ill are often treated as if they, too, were "active shooters."

All this comes from a spate of school shootings in the 1990s and the everlasting effects of the 9/11 attacks in 2001.

A so-called War on Crime that had been going on for years was transformed into a War on Threats. Anything or anyone who either posed an immediate threat or might pose one was to be "neutralized" -- often that meant killed -- forthwith. No quarter, no mercy. Potential threats were seen everywhere, in every police encounter, and in every deviation from the norm. To be black was to be an ever present danger and threat. Depending on where you were, to be Indian or Hispanic was also considered an existential danger and threat to police and everyone else.

This has been going on so long, many people just assume it's natural, but it's not.

Violent policing was not always the rule, though it was frequently the exception to the rule.

The relentlessness of violent policing comes from policy decisions made in City Managers' offices throughout the land, made in concert with the "best practices" as determined by consensus of the Managers themselves. Violent policing is the rule because City Managers have determined and declared it to be the rule. They don't want another Columbine. They don't want another 9/11. Not on their watches. So, if a few darkies or other members of the Rabble get a bullet in the head to prevent something much worse from happening, so what? "Protect and Serve," get it?

But who tells the City Managers to implement such policies?

Where do they come from?

They come from people like Bill Bratton and Dave Grossman who have studied the matter closely. Bratton, of course, is NYPD commissioner now, as he was in the past, and he's apparently decided to go full Bull Connor against the uppity Rabble-Terrorists. No more Mister Nice-Guy, beat the crap out of them and kill them he will. Or at least hold the perpetual threat over their heads.

Grossman is in the shadows, whereas Bratton is right out front. Grossman psychs the cops up to kill and kill some more, relentlessly and without remorse. That's his function. Bratton soothes the Rabble with talk of "community and peace." Grossman celebrates and energizes a cult of punishment and death among the police. That is their calling, that is their job, to rain punishment and death on the populace.

The policies of violent policing also come from the Department of Justice in Washington, and from numerous court rulings which say in essence that when push comes to shove, police are above the law and absolved from wrong-doing.

We note that the relentless killing spree and practice of violent policing has not abated -- except for anomalies here and there such as the apparent stand-down of the Albuquerque police and the temporary slow-down of NYPD actions during supposed disputes with the Mayor.

In St. Louis, there are suggestions of reform -- or maybe not. In Seattle, the police continue their resistance to change and acting out violently at the least provocation or none at all.

Chicago, on the other hand, celebrates their reform of the police -- while actually changing very little if at all.

The problem of violent policing is nationwide, almost universal. City-by-city "reform" is not really addressing the problem adequately. How many thousands more must die before "reform" is implemented nationwide?

The way to stop the killing, from a policy perspective, is to put "preservation of life" policies in primary place and remove or reduce policies which posit "neutralizing the threat" as the most important objective of policing.

It's actually not that hard.

The Menace That Is (Lt. Col.) David Grossman

I've mentioned this man on these pages a number of times since I was clued to his ravings about "sheep, wolves and sheepdogs" last year.

Once I dug into some of his arguably puerile if not completely whacked out writings and statements -- after resisting for months because I considered him a crazy-maker -- I began to see him as the primary source of the quasi-religious "philosophy" of policing which is at the root of so much police violence and killing in this country, and forms the principle belief-system which justifies the various overseas military operations the country has engaged in since 9/11.

Apparently in the wildly popular (?) movie "American Sniper" released at Christmas last year, one of the characters expounds about the "sheepdog" theory without attributing it to Grossman, telling the character of Chris Kyle, American sniper, of his calling as a "sheepdog."

Chris Hedges puts it this way in his polemic against the film at TruthDig:

The camera cuts to a church interior where a congregation of white Christians—blacks appear in this film as often as in a Woody Allen movie—are listening to a sermon about God’s plan for American Christians. The film’s title character, based on Chris Kyle, who would become the most lethal sniper in U.S. military history, will, it appears from the sermon, be called upon by God to use his “gift” to kill evildoers.

The scene shifts to the Kyle family dining room table as the father intones in a Texas twang: “There are three types of people in this world: sheep, wolves and sheepdogs. Some people prefer to believe evil doesn’t exist in the world. And if it ever darkened their doorstep they wouldn’t know how to protect themselves. Those are the sheep. And then you got predators.”

The camera cuts to a schoolyard bully beating a smaller boy.

“They use violence to prey on people,” the father goes on. “They’re the wolves. Then there are those blessed with the gift of aggression and an overpowering need to protect the flock. They are a rare breed who live to confront the wolf. They are the sheepdog. We’re not raising any sheep in this family.”

The father lashes his belt against the dining room table.

“I will whup your ass if you turn into a wolf,” he says to his two sons. “We protect our own. If someone tries to fight you, tries to bully your little brother, you have my permission to finish it.”

I haven't seen the film and I won't -- at least not for quite a long time. As a rule, I don't get off on violence, and because so many American movies are saturated with blood and violence, I don't often go to the movies or even watch them on the teevee. But when I read that these words and attitudes are attributed to characters in "American Sniper," I recognized immediately the influence of Dave Grossman and his peculiar notions of "Killology."

Killing being the highest achievement of the... "sheepdog."

I don't know if Grossman is ever mentioned in the film, but he's been selling his claptrap quasi-religious nonsense to military and police forces around the country for decades, conducting hundreds of seminars a year with recruits and seasoned veterans of military and police forces, and he is regarded as something of a guru -- if not a god -- in the police and military fields.

Until recently, Groosman's existence seems to have been overlooked by the mainstream, though he is well-known in the circles in which he runs. I seriously doubt that Hedges has ever heard of him or has any knowledge of his beliefs.

Most Americans seem to be oblivious to him and the menace he represents.

Years ago it was routine to attribute some of the worst aspects of American behavior and government to specific individuals, whether it was Bill Kristol, Dick Cheney or whomever.  Individuals actually were the ones behind the appalling policies that were causing so much destruction and bloodshed around the world, especially after 9/11. But somehow, Grossman escaped notice.

A few days ago, though, Slate ran an article that exposed the connection between Grossman's claptrap and the lines in American Sniper that are taken from that claptrap -- claptrap which is, by the way, believed by many Americans in the police and military forces. It's still sort of their secret religion.

The Slate article puts it this way:

Grossman crafted this analogy in response to 9/11 and the war in Iraq. And it’s not enough to classify the human race into these three simple categories; Grossman—and those who parrot his metaphor—are issuing a call to action to defend yourself against your enemies. In a country where innocent, unarmed, mostly black Americans keep getting killed, it’s a pernicious worldview to hold.

In Grossman’s original essay, now available on his website, he credits an “old war veteran” with first telling him about wolves, sheep, and sheepdogs. He writes:

If you have no capacity for violence then you are a healthy productive citizen: a sheep. If you have a capacity for violence and no empathy for your fellow citizens, then you have defined an aggressive sociopath—a wolf. But what if you have a capacity for violence, and a deep love for your fellow citizens? Then you are a sheepdog, a warrior, someone who is walking the hero’s path.    

In Grossman’s telling, the wolves will do anything they can to hurt sheep. Grossman variously identifies wolves as school shooters, terrorists, criminals, and anyone looking to hurt the innocent. Internationally, think ISIS, al-Qaida, and Boko Haram.

Domestically, think gangsters, criminals, and thugs. Grossman makes it clear that, no matter how much society fears its sheepdog protectors, the sheep need their sheepdogs. That means that a sheepdog cannot “take out its teeth.” In gun rights terms, this means that gun owners should never go anywhere without a concealed firearm: “If you are a warrior who is legally authorized to carry a weapon and you step outside without that weapon, then you become a sheep, pretending that the bad man will not come today.”

And the wolf will come, says Grossman. “If you want to be a sheepdog and walk the warrior’s path,” he writes, “then you must make a conscious and moral decision every day to dedicate, equip and prepare yourself to thrive in that toxic, corrosive moment when the wolf comes knocking at the door.” He emphasizes practicing “when/then” thinking as opposed to “if/when” thinking. He encourages sheepdogs to view their surroundings with fear and paranoia. 

The authors describe Grossman's perspective as toxic, and it is. It's toxic, it's pernicious, and it's lethal. It is due to beliefs like this that people like Tamir Rice and James Boyd -- and so many, many others -- have been killed by police in the recent past, and why so many are still being killed.

It's not because of any actual threat, either to police or the public -- certainly Tamir Rice, John Crawford and Darrien Hunt didn't represent a threat -- it is because of the belief that killing is the highest achievement for an officer of the law or a sniper... They kill to be fulfilled, they kill because they must, they kill because it is who they are -- or who they have been convinced to believe themselves to be.

I've said Grossman is a cult leader, a guru not unlike the various Maha and Raj -Neeshi and other religious cult leaders who have come and gone throughout recent American history. His devotees and acolytes are in the military and the police forces throughout the land. And they kill, mostly without conscience or in many cases without even consciousness, because that's what they've been told they are there to do. It is their mission in life. They are told that killing is their highest achievement. They are convinced -- like Chris Kyle apparently was -- that every kill is a "good shoot." Every one is a "good shoot" because they have done the killing -- which is their highest achievement. It's circular, it's insane, but that's the belief.

Everyone they kill needed killing or they wouldn't be dead. You can't get much closer to a religious faith than that.

I've said that it's going to take a massive level of deprogramming to undercut and eliminate this faith-based killing spree by domestic police forces, and I don't know what it will take to turn the military around.

When even the killing of little Tamir Rice does not move the police to reform themselves but only leads to ever greater levels of rationalization and justification, we should recognize how deep-rooted this faith is among police forces and how difficult it is to change those deep-rooted beliefs.

Part of it will require exposing Grossman and what his nonsense has done to police forces and the military. Grossman must be exposed and rejected before there can be serious reform of police forces.

And then a very carefully designed and implemented de-programming effort will have to get under way at nearly every police department in the land.

It's a huge task. I don't know whether there is the will or the ability to carry it out.

The killing must stop. Stopping it -- when police are inculcated with the belief that killing is their highest achievement -- will be a monumental task.

But I'm glad others are recognizing how pernicious Grossman is.

He is a menace.