The Derek Chauvin Murder Trial

 Finally justice?

No.

Antsy

We're still pretty much confining ourselves to home. Not that we can't go out if we want, and I go out for supplies or to get the mail fairly regularly, but we still don't do or go places like we used to. I notice, too, that we're spending more than we did before the pandemic-shut down, even though we're not eating out or traveling. It seems to me, though I can't be certain, that basic food and supplies are costing 20%-30% more, and that's the main reason why our expenses are higher.

There is still no hand sanitizer, disinfecting wipes, isopropyl alcohol, disposable gloves or face masks to be had locally. It's not because people are still hoarding -- though they certainly did at the beginning. The lack of these essential supplies is due almost entirely now to the fact that they are not being delivered or are being delivered in such small quantities the supplies are immediately sold out. Everything is back-ordered, and those orders are not being filled, and may not be for months to come. I suspected this was happening at the beginning when people were panicking. Merchants put out what stock they had, sold it -- in part to hoarders -- and that was it. Weren't no more to be had.

Toilet paper and other paper products have reappeared in limited quantities, and washing products like soaps and bleach are available, though we're still sometimes seeing unfamiliar brands and prices are sometimes high. This is true of flour, sugar and other baking supplies as well. Yeast is still not seen all the time, though it does periodically appear on the shelves. In some cases, prices are double or even triple pre-pandemic prices for some essentials.

I don't know what it's like in more populous places. We don't go shopping out of town. We get some things online, but there are problems with delivery that can sometimes be complicated. When we order, we don't necessarily know how the items will be shipped and we can't find out until after the shipment is processed. Sometimes, merchants will say they use UPS or FedEx, for which we must provide a street address. Then we find out they are actually using SurePost, which means the items go to the post office for final delivery. Trouble is, the post office here doesn't deliver to street addresses, only to PO Boxes. Every time this happens, items risk being returned to sender. Some people we know have not received packages they ordered because of this quirk, and the post office is no help much of the time. On the other hand, even when things are shipped UPS or FedEx, skipping the post office, the street addresses can be tricky for drivers, and boxes wind up on our porch that we didn't order and we wind up being the final delivery service to neighbors who did order the items. So we confine ordering online to things we're certain we need and can't get any other way.

And for the record, free Target's "two day shipping" is a cruel joke. Ordinarily it takes a week, on occasion, it will take two weeks. I think only once was shipping actually "2 days" -- from Albuquerque.

All of these things are minor annoyances magnified by the fact that we're focused on them because we are at home most of the time. I think that factor had something to do with the armed "Haircut Rebellions" that swept the nation a while back and seemed to force the immediate "reopening" of some businesses that had been shuttered during the lockdowns. It was really amazing how suddenly state and local governments complied with the demands of "Haircut Rebels."

Antsy. People were getting antsy at having to stay home so much. They still are. Even though many or most restrictions on movement and activity are lifted in most places. And in many of those places, the virus is having a party.

Of course it needs to be said that the armed rebels who stormed around were not met with force by the authorities. Far from it. There were few rebels, for one thing, and their firearm fetish didn't result in more than empty and/or implied threats. Nevertheless, most of their demands were instantly met.

On the other hand the mass marches in the streets against the lethal brutality of the police have been met with -- more and worse brutality. Dozens of people have had their eyes shot out by so-called "less lethal" projectiles, and uncounted thousands have been injured, some severely. No count has yet been made of the dead but police killings continue apace. Police have been killed, too, but so far, all of them have died at the hands of "Boogaloo" and other rightist bands of brothers. Interesting, then, that police action is almost entirely focused on suppressing what they think of as "leftist" rebellion. And simply put, US police forces in too many places too often outdo their Hong Kong colleagues in brutality and vicious tactics. It's gotten so bad that there are international calls for US police to be condemned for egregious human rights violations.

It's still surprising that "Defund the Police" is a seriously considered thing, that it is being done in some places, and that pissed off police are refusing to go to work unless they are "appreciated."

Oh my.

Police are being fired right and left, police chiefs are resigning, some police are being charged with assault, manslaughter, even murder, far faster and in far greater numbers than ever before. We've never seen anything like this shake up of police forces, and the suddenness of it is shocking. What is going on?

Obviously, people who matter are calling the shots, and they are simultaneously demanding that "leftist" rebellion be suppressed and that misbehaving police be held to account immediately, not years down the road which had long been the protocol. Police are in shock, but so is the public. What is going on?

The more the situation devolves, the more antsy the public becomes. Limited police "reforms" are being far more widely instituted than ever before, but the brutal suppression efforts and police killings continue almost as if "reform" was not happening. Like it hasn't happened so many times before. Cosmetic changes aren't enough, but maybe that's all we'll get this time, just as in the past.

I've referred to this period as a paradigm shift, but it's looking more and more like a generational shift. We're entering a different era and doing so with considerable difficulty. People my age are mostly not going to be around to see the outcome, "bye-bye Boomer!", but some of us had something to do with setting the stage for what's to come. Let's hope it's better for everyone.

"The Police Just Went Nuts"

I've been reviewing some of the stories of police abuse coming out of literally everywhere since the start of the George Floyd protests. I thought I had been shocked to the core by police misconduct years and years ago and that nothing would come close to events I'd witnessed in person or virtually in years gone by. Little did I know.

The George Floyd murder-by-cop in Minneapolis triggered mass demonstrations in the streets all over the country and all over the world. It was an egregious -- and very deliberate -- act of police power over the black body of a man pleading for his life while that life was being crushed out of him by one officer whose knee on his neck wouldn't be removed until George Floyd was good and dead. Three other officers either participated in the murder or idled nearby doing nothing to intervene. All captured on video taken by bystanders, some of whom attempted to intervene but were blocked by officers.

I've seen similar scenes before, many times, but nothing quite as appalling in its tortuousness and murderous intent. Second and third degree murder charges have been laid against the officer whose knee eventually killed George Floyd and the other officers have been charged as accessories aiding and abetting, but the calls for first degree intentional murder charges have only increased as the anger against police brutality has led to massive demonstrations that continue to this day.

The police response in many cities has been grotesquely out of control. That lack of discipline and control is the essence of what is being protested, the reason why so many people are marching against police brutality, and over and over and over again, day in and day out, police are showing themselves to be unworthy of public trust or support.

One of numerous incidents in Philadelphia involved police firing chemical weapons and rubber bullets at thousands of protesters, many trapped on an embankment with nowhere to retreat, injuring hundreds, and arresting "dozens." The fourteen minute overhead video captures much of the scene, but doesn't really show the affect on so many.



This was perhaps the worst of what I've seen so far, but it's by no means unique. The police in many cities have adopted a hostile and deliberately cruel attitude toward protesters leading to constant abuse of the public, much of it documented on video, far too much of it defended by police chiefs and elected officials because somebody did something somewhere at some point, and order must be maintained.

We see this justification from the White House practically daily as the blowback from the "clearance" of protesters from DC's Lafayette Square on Monday using tear gas, munitions, mounted officers and brutality intensifies. All so Trump could pose in front of St. John's Church, holding aloft a book he claimed was a bible and then assemble his sycophants for more pictures before shambling back to the White House bunkers.

Damn,

There have been a few contrasting scenes of police trying to show solidarity with the protesters by marching with them, kneeling with them, expressing outrage at the murder of George Floyd, etc. But those are rare compared to the violence and yes, murder by police committed too often in too many places as unrest continues.

Our rulers like to try to shame China for the treatment of demonstrators in Hong Kong, but truly, Chinese police and troops in Hong Kong have been utterly restrained compared to the US. The world looks on in bemused horror.

I don't know how this episode of police outrage will be resolved, if it will. But many see it as the death rattle of a failed regime -- not simply the Trump regime, but the general apparatus of neoliberal rule. Maybe. We'll see.

In the meantime, given everything that's going on -- pandemic disease, economic collapse, wilding by police, looting by the overclass -- the next few months will be somewhat more than "interesting."

Stay well and safe.

On The Apology For Past Racial Policing

I've been fuming about this for a while. It's not that the statement by the head of the International Association of Chiefs of Police (a new outfit for me) isn't welcome, it is that it frames the problem of abusive policing as historic, not current, and it essentially absolves police themselves of responsibility, blaming vague social and political forces for the policies and actions of departments and officers.

That argument can be made, but it is just that, an argument. It's not an apology, it's not a correction, it's not restitution, it's not reform.

Here's what the statement said:

There have been times when law enforcement officers, because of the laws enacted by federal, state, and local governments, have been the face of oppression for far too many of our fellow citizens. In the past, the laws adopted by our society have required police officers to perform many unpalatable tasks, such as ensuring legalized discrimination or even denying the basic rights of citizenship to many of our fellow Americans.

While this is no longer the case, this dark side of our shared history has created a multigenerational—almost inherited—mistrust between many communities of color and their law enforcement agencies.

Many officers who do not share this common heritage often struggle to comprehend the reasons behind this historic mistrust. As a result, they are often unable to bridge this gap and connect with some segments of their communities.

While we obviously cannot change the past, it is clear that we must change the future. We must move forward together to build a shared understanding. We must forge a path that allows us to move beyond our history and identify common solutions to better protect our communities.

For our part, the first step in this process is for law enforcement and the IACP to acknowledge and apologize for the actions of the past and the role that our profession has played in society’s historical mistreatment of communities of color.

At the same time, those who denounce the police must also acknowledge that today’s officers are not to blame for the injustices of the past. If either side in this debate fails to acknowledge these fundamental truths, we will be unlikely to move past them.

Overcoming this historic mistrust requires that we must move forward together in an atmosphere of mutual respect. All members of our society must realize that we have a mutual obligation to work together to ensure fairness, dignity, security, and justice.

It is my hope that, by working together, we can break this historic cycle of mistrust and build a better and safer future for us all.

The lead in to this statement asserted that thousands of police officers have been killed and hundreds of thousands injured in the line of duty "over the years," and this apparently is to make palatable the coming "apology" among the Brethren in Blue. If you want to play the Dead Game, it might be worthwhile to point out that "over the years" hundreds of thousands of Americans have been killed by police and millions have been wounded. Families have been ripped to pieces and whole communities have been oppressed and destroyed by abusive and violent policing. The relatively few officers who have lost their lives in the line of duty, generally more in car wrecks, accidents, and heart attacks than by any other means, cannot begin to compare to the number of lives lost in civil society by the actions of police.

To cast this as historical and ignore the current situation simply beggars belief.

But that's where we are in this Land of the Free and Home of the Brave.

That's where we are. And a number of commentators have pointed out that this statement is "better than nothing." "It's a start..."

I've pointed out that -- statistically -- we're in a less violent period of policing and social violence than at almost any other period of our history. It doesn't seem so in part because there is far more available documentation of police violence now than there has been in the past. Some of it is truly horrifying, and so much of it demonstrates that police too often shoot or otherwise engage in violence when objectively there is very little or no threat to them or anyone else, and their use of violence is simply not necessary.

They do it because it is expected of them and because they can.

They can do essentially anything in the line of duty and get away with it so long as they use the Magic Words, "fearing for my life and the safety of others".

That's what's wrong. Police are jacked up to fear literally everyone and every thing. Their lives are always in danger from some shadowy source; the safety of others is constantly at risk. Even when there is no objective threat. They fear that something might happen and react to the potential rather than the actual threat.

When force protection is the prime directive, as it seems to be, then harming and killing those who are perceived as threats becomes the means to implement the directive.

And it so happens that men and boys of color are perceived as definitional and existential threats to police officers, far more than white men or most women.

The perception does not match the reality, but that doesn't matter. According to the law and much police training, the officer's perception at the time is all that matters -- so long as it conforms with a mutable standard of "reasonableness." That standard is that another officer would perceive the situation and the necessity to use force (lethal or non lethal) in the same way. If all of them are trained to perceive black and brown men as existential threats of course they're going to see the situation and the need to use force the same way. Even though there may be no objective threat at all.

When their chief requires them to use force, including lethal force, whenever they perceive a threat -- which might be nothing more than disobedience -- it's no surprise that's what officers do. They follow commands -- for if they don't, they'll be disciplined or fired. Under those circumstances and rules of engagement, it's better for the officer to use force, even if the situation is dubious, than risk the wrath of their commanders for not using force.

It puts civilians in a bind, because under many circumstances, there is no way for them to comply to avoid the use of force against them. As we've seen, in some circumstances, black males purported  to be threats, not actual threats at all, have been shot and killed on sight, simply because someone said they were threatening. In other cases, black males who do not immediately obey confusing or conflicting commands are shot and killed. Black men "armed" with cell phones or packages or nothing at all are shot and killed and the officers who kill under such circumstances face little or no consequence. "Reaching" for anything -- including ID pr a cell phone -- is cause enough for summary execution.

We can go on and on and on listing the many ways a black or brown man can be legally murdered by police. It happens essentially every day.

Hundreds are killed every year -- God only knows how many are injured -- who are objectively no threat at all, except to the fevered and fearful perceptions of police officers who kill them.

Even most of those who are objective threats do not "need" killing. I've said and I will repeat that police killings can be cut by 90% or more -- which some cities have done (prominently, New York City) by changing the rules and the authorities under which police use force, including lethal force.

It's not rocket science. It can be done.

To apologize (sort of) for historic injustices is fine, but to do so without acknowledging the current problem of racialized and violent policing gets us nowhere. To assert that the situation isn't as bad as it looks, since so relatively few individuals are abused or killed by police -- relative to the number of police encounters overall, for example -- is beside the point when it is possible and necessary to further reduce abusive and violent policing to the point where it is essentially nonexistent.

Ideally, police should be modeling 'good behavior' not violent and abusive behavior. I would say that for the most part, 'good behavior' is what they try to show in most of their encounters with the public. Most officers try not to be overtly racist, abusive or violent most of the time. Most of their encounters are resolved peacefully-- or at least nonviolently.

The excreptions tend to involve young men of color far more often than white men or women of any color, or they involve disobedience, unsubstantiated reports by callers to 911, misunderstandings of police commands*, misperceptions of threat by police officers, inability to obey due to mental or physical problems and/or (ab)use of substances, or some combination of these and other factors.

[*Note: police should not be in the business of issuing "commands" to civilians. It is completely the wrong relationship between the People and those charged with serving and protecting said People. Officers follow the commands of their chiefs and supervisors, they should not be issuing commands to the public.]

The fact is that there is a current and ongoing problem of abusive and violent policing, a good deal of which grows out of the historic patterns and practices of police departments. They started in many instances as slave catchers and militias for the purpose of chastising Indians and other undesirables. That's kind of hard-wired into many police departments. Apologizing for history is fine, but it's not enough. Corrective action is necessary, and there's no indication that this association of Chiefs of Police recognize that.

That is not to say that there is no recognition anywhere within the police culture. In fact, recognition that correction is necessary is relatively widespread among police chiefs. And it is strenuously resisted among police officer unions -- whose members feel threatened every time they put on the uniform, and who, despite abundant evidence to the contrary, assert they are under assault every moment of every day.

Resolution of that contrast of perception may not be possible, though certainly many officers and chiefs are trying to find common ground.

The "national conversation" about race and abusive policing has been going on -- and on and on -- for years, and it seems always to be stuck in the same place, as the dead continue to pile up. There have been changes in some police departments that reduce the killing, but in others, there's no change, and the number of dead at police hands is still about 100 a month, year in and year out. To change that, requires a goal -- to cut the number killed by police in half year by year until the number is reduced by 90% or more.

It can be done.

But the goal has never been set let alone met in more than a few jurisdictions. It must become a national goal.

The chiefs have to set the goal for their departments.

Cianna Oliphant (sp?) Explains It All For You

At the Charlotte City Council meeting last night.

Damb. I couldn't keep the tears back myself...

"Armed" and Disobedient and Black -- and the Lies Police Tell

As my handful of readers may know, I've been involved in anti-police violence campaigns for a couple of decades now, starting with an effort in Sacramento spearheaded by the NAACP to curb police brutality in the mid-'90s. In those days, killings by SPD were rare (I wish they still were), but Sacramento police were notorious for essentially arbitrary and random violence and brutality toward civilians. The reports that we collected from citizens were horrifying and graphic. They were used as part of a long campaign to bring accountability and reform to the Sacramento Police Department, a campaign which was partially successful.

The important part of the success of the campaign, at least to me, was that there was a significant reduction in the use of brutal tactics by the SPD and a consequent rise in public respect and regard for the police. This was not simply a matter of implementing a "stop beating us" comand from the top -- there were many components to the reform effort -- but that was a big part of it.

Although the campaign was spearheaded by the Sacramento NAACP, the reports and statistics we collected demonstrated clearly that most of those subjected to police brutality at that time were white, for the most part poor whites. Hispanics, Asians, American Indians, and Blacks were not exempt by any means, nor, interestingly were women exempt, but there seemed to be a pattern of police brutality toward poor whites that was intended to leave a message of pain and terror in poor white communities, regardless of any actual criminality.

The same message was being delivered to other poor and ethnic minority communities in Sacramento. " Get outta line, or just be in the wrong place at the wrong time, and we'll beat the shit out of you."

(Note: Sacramento Sheriff's Department was -- and arguably still is -- worse by an order of magnitude, but the Sheriff's Department was not the direct target of the anti-police brutality campaign at that time. Nevertheless, they, too instituted some reforms as a result of the campaign -- as well as a result of numerous lawsuits brought against them for death and injury to civilians.)

One of the factors discovered during this campaign years ago was the litany of lies the police (and sheriffs) told to justify and excuse their brutality toward the public. These lies were ingrained into the culture of policing, so woven into that culture that I don't think the police even knew they were telling lies any more; lying was all but unconscious. But it was a fact.

They would routinely claim, for example, that the individual "resisted arrest," when it was patently untrue -- but nobody (who mattered) questioned police accounts, so why shouldn't they lie about their behavior and that of the public they supposedly served? Why shouldn't they? They lied about struggles that never took place. They lied about reasons for encounters. They lied about crimes supposedly in progress, flights of suspects that weren't and so on.

These lies were caught out and called out again and again, but this was before body cameras and the ubiquity of cell phone cameras, so it was the officer's word against the public's, and for the most part, the officer's word -- even if it was a lie -- trumped the public's testimony every time.

Every time. That was an immense frustration, of course, and if it hadn't been for the intervention of the police chief, the mayor and the city manager, I don't believe there would have been any change to police behavior as a result of our campaign.

There was a lot of media coverage, however, and those individuals did intervene, and there were reforms. Accountability mechanisms were put in place -- not the one we wanted, a civilian review board, but at least there was something -- and behaviors were modified. Community policing programs were instituted (we can argue about that another time), and the number of complaints of brutality against the police dropped remarkably. While people might not have trusted them completely, the level of respect and trust between the police and the public improved substantially.

So. Success? Partially, yes. The situation seems to have deteriorated since then, and there's apparently been a lot of backsliding within the police department, but I'm not close to that situation any more, so I can't really comment on it -- except for the singular recent episode of the SPD killing of Joseph Mann which I have referred to in past posts and will refer to again in this one.

As I say, Sacramento police were not known as notorious killers back in the '90s and they still aren't in comparison to some other cities. Oakland, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago, etc. The number of killings by SPD is still quite low, although it has "ticked up" over the years. But the killing of Joseph Mann was shocking for the lies the department told to justify it, and for the obvious execution that took place in front of multiple video cameras.

It was a parallel incident to many of the outrageous street executions that have been taking place all over the country, documented by video and horrifying the public over and over again. Homeless, black, "armed", and in crisis, men (and some women) are targeted by police for summary execution nearly everywhere it seems. How did we descend to such depths of depravity where such conduct by police is acceptable or more and more routine?

That was one of the issues that ran through the campaign to stop police killings in Albuquerque, a campaign I was peripherally involved with. Over and over again police were killing.executing homeless, mentally ill, "armed" individuals (mostly men, but one woman notoriously) and they seemed to relish the job. They would routinely lie about it, too.

People in ABQ finally said "enough" when police snipers Dominque Perez of the SWAT team, and
Keith Sandy of the Repeat Offenders Project shot and killed James Boyd in the foothills of the Sandia Mountains in March of 2014. Boyd was homeless, mentally ill, and disobedient. He was "armed" with two small folding knives which he used to ward off police on scene. Ergo, he was subject to summary execution. Perez and Sandy did the job, and they are now on trial for murder 2. During the trial, I learned there was another police sniper on scene who would have done the job -- except for the fact that Sandy and Perez and another officer were in the way. Oh for fuck's sake.

How did we descend to this level of depravity?

The absence of mental health care services, crisis intervention, and de-escalation/non-lethal tactics and options by police is well known, indeed it's notorious, throughout the country. The Boyd case is quite a bit more complex, however, and I won't go into that right now. The upshot over and over again is that people who shouldn't be dead are killed by police routinely. Police show "depraved indifference" for the lives of whole categories of individuals whom they kill with near total impunity, despite studies and task forces and reports, and particularly despite protests which have one message: STOP THE KILLING!

In some places -- including Albuquerque at least temporarily -- the message gets through. But in others? No. Not yet anyway.

If you are considered "armed" -- whether you are or not -- disobedient, and (particularly) if you are black, and you are in a confrontation with police, most often if the police are white, but not always, be prepared to die, because they will kill you.

They believe sincerely that killing you is their job. They have been rigorously taught and conditioned to believe you are an existential threat to be "neutralized," and almost always, when they perform their job in "neutralizing" you -- ie: killing you -- they are absolved of criminal liability, indeed, in many cases they are rewarded.

Recent cases include the street execution of Joseph Mann in Sacramento in July, police dashcam and private surveillance video of which has been released within the past week. There was a shaky and distant civilian video released in August, but it did not clearly show what happened. Sacramento police refused outright to release their dash cam and/or body cam videos of the incident claiming that doing so would "compromise the investigation." When the civilian video was released by Mann's family's attorney in August, however, it strongly suggested that the police account of what happened was a lie. Then, last Monday, the Sacramento Bee obtained and released a relatively clear surveillance video of the shooting, demonstrating all but conclusively that SPD had in fact lied about what happened, and showing without any doubt at all that Mr. Mann was summarily executed on the street, as have so many disobedient black men been executed.

The next day, SPD released three dash cam videos showing parts of the incident, confirming that indeed SPD had lied about what happened, and yes, Mr. Mann was executed by two police officers -- who I have been told will be fired within the next few months. The police chief has announced his impending retirement. The mayor has declared that "something" (unspecified) "should be done" about this... later clarified as "more transparency" which is not a solution at all, but he did appoint a subcommittee to review and make recommendations about "protocols..." I'm not holding my breath.

Meanwhile in Tulsa, a disobedient but unarmed black man, Terence Crutcher,  was shot and killed by a clearly panicking police officer, "in fear for her life," (the take away quote being, "I have never been so frightened in my life!") because... ???

Crutcher was not (apparently) obeying her "commands" -- when did police obtain the authority to command civilians, and who granted that authority? -- but he was not threatening her in any objective way, either (disobedience is not a priori a "threat.")  The initial statements from Tulsa police about the incident were lies, but that's standard protocol it seems.

Crutcher was not armed, and he did not "reach into" his vehicle for a weapon (there was none) as stated by police, nor did he "reach for" a weapon in his waistband or pocket (there was none.) According to his family's attorney, he could not have reached into the vehicle because the driver's side window was rolled up. The police account that he had done so was a fantasy, or it was a deliberate and cynical lie.

The statement by the officer that he was not showing her his hands (thus justifying her panic and fear) was shown to be... "inoperative" when video from police dash cams and a helicopter camera showed Crutcher walking away from the officer (with her gun drawn) with his hands raised high over his head. He disobeys her (in that he does not stop and get on the ground) but he does not in any way whatsoever threaten her. When he reaches his car, he does not reach into the vehicle and he does not reach into his pocket (contra the statements of police) yet he is shot with a taser and police bullet essentially simultaneously. He falls, gravely wounded, while police back away "infearfortheirlives and thesafetyofothers," as Crutcher bleeds out on the street -- standard protocol in police involved shootings. Later, the officers involved in firing upon Crutcher are seen crouched behind a police car while other officers tend to Crutcher, some (astonishingly) surprisingly not infearfortheirlives and thesafetyofothers, and actually providing something like first aid -- all but unheard of in cases of police involved shooting.

Betty Shelby, the officer who fired the fatal shot, was promptly charged with manslaughter.

Her panic and fear apparently not overriding clear evidence that shooting and killing Terence Crutcher was not justified in the eyes of the district attorney.

We'll await results of a trial.

In Charlotte, Keith Scott was shot and killed by a black police officer for reasons that are unclear despite statements by CPD that he was armed and disobedient -- and black -- and we know what that can and too often does lead to.

The Charlotte police department has adamantly refused to release body and dash cam video of the incident citing the ongoing "investigation," but also describing the videos as "inconclusive" and "ambiguous" as to whether or not Mr. Scott was armed and/or "threatened" the officers.

His family saw one of the videos (or perhaps more) and stated through their attorney that one can't tell what -- if anything -- Mr. Scott has in his hand, whether a gun or a book or anything at all, but also stating that police accounts of Scott "advancing" on officers or threatening them in any way are simply false. No such thing happened.

But who knows, as police will not release the videos, and a North Carolina law is shortly to go into effect forbidding  release of police video absent a court order. Oh my.

So Keith Scott's wife released her own video of the incident, a video which does not show Mr. Scott until after he's been shot, but which, interestingly, suggests that the still photo which CPD released which they claim shows the gun Mr. Scott had and "brandished" at police and "refused" to drop at police command, may not be a gun at all, and which shows conclusively that no such object was at Mr. Scott's feet shortly after he was shot.

Charlotte police not only have not released their own videos of the incident, they have been lying  ("as is standard in cases of police involved shootings" as I put it in a previous post) about what happened and have been issuing false information (such as the photo they have circulated showing a "gun" at Scott's feet.)

"Armed", disobedient, and black is too often a death sentence in this country. "Armed," disobedient and mentally ill in this country is too often a death sentence in this country. The mere report of someone "armed" and disobedient can too often be a death sentence in this country. And too often, police are protected from criminal culpability when they kill someone in this country.

On the other hand, police in this country are trained and conditioned to believe that a  disobedient black or mentally ill individual represents an existential threat to be "neutralized" -- regardless of whether he or she is "armed." Preferable "neutralization" is death.

Many police departments have designated killers whose specific job duty is the "neutralization" of threats. Most police departments place "force protection" (ie: protection of police officers) at the top of their priority list. Safety and protection of civilians -- particularly of suspects/subjects -- may not even be on their list of priorities at all.

Police are trained and expected to be confrontational, authoritarian, and aggressive in most cases where they suspect or encounter disobedience or anything less than immediate compliance with their often contradictory or incomprehensible "commands." In most cases, police are given free latitude to use any level of force they deem appropriate or necessary to gain compliance or to neutralize a threat based solely on their perception at the moment.

"Second guessing" their "split-second decisions" is forbidden. The only standard recognized by courts and many departments is the stated perception of the officer at the moment he or she uses whatever force the officer deems necessary including lethal force -- ie: "fearingformylifeandthesafetyofothers", invoked as a mantra. Thus it is almost impossible to hold police officers criminally liable or even administratively responsible for anything they do under color of authority (apart from some sexual misconduct.)

Killing is fine; lying about it is "standard protocol"; having an affair can (but most often won't) get them fired. Domestic abuse and/or rape might get them in court...

I ask again, how did we descend to such a level of depravity? And what does it take to reverse the descent?

That's a topic for another post. The issue is complex, but the problem is not hopeless. "Reform" is not always the answer, nor is it always possible. Sometimes "abolition" is the only way forward. It has been done a few times when irredeemably corrupt police departments have been abolished altogether, but the movement for abolition of police departments is only in its infancy. There is a growing recognition that something is terribly wrong with policing in this country, but the rot infects the entire justice and corrections systems, top to bottom. That rot is paralleled in the social service realm, education, economic and political sectors as well.

The United States has been on this downward socio/political spiral for more than a generation. Not that everything was perfect before -- far from it. What we need to do is recognize that the current course -- including police impunity, but not limited to it -- is unsustainable and there needs to be a collective determination to institute fundamental systemic change.

The To-Do Over "Making a Murderer"

Well this was interesting.

I'm not usually in to murder shows on the television like "Dateline" and the others. I find them vapid, manipulative, and ultimately all the same. But apparently audiences lap them up because they love their murder mysteries, oh yes they do. I'm told that Nancy Grace still has a following, too. Now there's a believable character...

But over the weekend, I read about a series that was being presented on Netflix called "Making a Murderer," which was described as something one "had to see!" It was "OMG! What the actual fuck!"  And on and on. Oh my. A man in Wisconsin was wrongly convicted of a crime he didn't commit, spent 18 years in prison for it, was exonerated on DNA evidence, was released and campaigned for justice reform, sued the principals and the county which had pursued injustice against him, and just as he was about to settle the lawsuit, he was arrested for murder most foul: the assault, murder, dismemberment and burning of a woman who had come to his property to photograph a van he wanted listed in Auto Trader Magazine.

We don't have cable (yay!) but we do have Netflix, so... Sunday I started watching the ten-part series, and I have to say it was mesmerizing and memorable, truly a "must watch" E-ticket ride for anyone interested in the issue of justice reform in this country.

It was a textbook case of police and prosecutorial misconduct from the get-go, and how they were able to get away with it was shocking. Judge and jury both went along with the prosecutors even in the face of extraordinary doubt raised by the defense. That didn't matter for some reason. All that seemed to matter to the police, prosecutor, judge(s) and juries was putting away these two people (a man, Steven Avery, and his nephew, Brandon Dassey) for.ever.

In other words, even though Steven Avery was wrongly convicted of sexual assault the first time and spent 18 years in prison for it, he was never truly exonerated in the eyes of the police and prosecutors -- indeed not in the eyes of much of his community as well -- and his subsequent prosecution and conviction for the murder of Teresa Halbach was considered something of a trophy by the police, prosecutors, and judges... whether or not he did it.

This gets right to the heart of how the so-called "justice system" works, it seems to me. Truth does not matter, winning does. Police and prosecutors want numbers of victories, and courts are often happy to oblige -- regardless of fact or truth.

It's called "justice" because it's a process, it's the way things have been done for many a long year, and it's just too damn bad that sometimes the innocent are swept up in it... too.dam.bad.

In this case, Steven Avery and his nephew Brandon Dassey both went to trial for the murder of Teresa Halbach. Both were convicted, but the evidence against them was scant and/or bizarre to say the least. A conviction in both cases required an enormous amount of police and prosecutorial misconduct on the one hand, repeated instances of judicial "discretion" let's call it favoring the prosecution, and juries willing -- eager? -- to suspend their disbelief and set aside any reasonable doubt about the guilt of these two fellows to convict them.

There were strong indications that the police planted evidence; just a little bit to be sure -- a key, blood stains, and bits and pieces of other evidence -- but there were also strong indications that the accused had nothing to do with Teresa Halbach's murder, that someone else had done it and had essentially framed Avery for the crime -- and got away with it.

If so, that means a murderer is loose in that part of Wisconsin, just as a serial rapist was loose in that part of Wisconsin while Steven Avery was in prison for a crime he didn't commit. That rapist, by the way, committed two more rapes during the time Steven was in prison wrongly convicted.

Steven Avery's nephew Brandon Dassey made a series of obviously false confessions, sometimes coerced by the police, but in one case -- shockingly -- coerced by his own defense attorney's investigator, implicating himself and his uncle in the murder. He was obviously making shit up to satisfy his interrogators, and yet, somehow the "system" bought these confessions whole and treated them as if they were true and factual, when in fact they were anything but. Nevertheless, the prosecution relied on these false confessions for a good deal of their cases against Avery and Dassey. It didn't matter that the confessions were patently false. What mattered was the fact that there were confessions at all, on the premise that "innocent people don't confess to crimes they didn't commit," one of the most egregiously wrong notions in this whole sorry affair.

The truth is, I don't know who murdered Teresa Halbach but I'm pretty sure -- from what was presented in the documentary anyway -- that Steven Avery and Brandon Dassey didn't do it. They couldn't have. They certainly couldn't have done it the way Dassey described the murder in his repeated false confessions (that she was tied to the bed, sexually assaulted, she was strangled, her throat was cut and she was repeatedly shot -- for investigators found none of Teresa's blood anywhere on the premises of the Avery compound where both Avery and Dassey lived. Her DNA was only found on a bullet fragment discovered in a garage months after it had been repeatedly swept for evidence, strongly suggesting the bullet or the DNA had been planted. Or, even more likely, that Teresa's DNA was a test contaminant -- like that of the tester's -- and was not actually on the bullet fragment at all.

There was no uncompromised evidence that tied either Avery or Dassey to Halbach's murder. That alone should have raised a "reasonable doubt" in the minds of the jurors, but for some reason it didn't-- at least not enough of a doubt to acquit either one.

Why not?

That gets us to how the system really works. Avery was targeted as the culprit almost from the outset, when Teresa was reported missing. She had last been seen on Avery's property where she went to photograph a van he wanted to list for sale in Auto Trader magazine. Her car and what was left of her burned corpse were found on his property, her ashes mostly in a burn pit not twenty feet from his mobile home.

But her ashes also turned up in a quarry at the other end of a 400 acre property, and in a barrel found elsewhere on the property. This indicated that her body was burned in the quarry (a quarter mile or more from the mobile home where she was allegedly murdered) and her ashes were then transported in the barrel to the burn pit beside Avery's mobile home where they were later discovered.

None of her blood at all was found anywhere on the property, but her blood was found in the cargo section of her car. It appeared that she was transported while bleeding from a head wound, but where or why? Her car was found in a corner of the Avery compound, inexpertly covered with branches and debris. It was found almost immediately by a civilian searcher who was given permission to explore the property (on which the Averys had hundreds if not thousands of derelict vehicles -- they worked as auto dismantlers) by one of Avery's brothers.

The prosecution ultimately theorized that Teresa was sexually assaulted in Steven Avery's bedroom, then she was taken to the garage where she was shot and killed, and then her body was put in the back of her SUV for transport the couple of hundred feet to the burn pit beside Avery's mobile home where her body was burned in a bonfire that night.

Except there was no blood evidence anywhere except in her car.

She could not have been killed in the garage without her blood being essentially everywhere inside, and there was none, not a drop.

As many observers have said, the actual and objective evidence does not lead to either Avery or Dassey as her murderer. But she was clearly murdered. So who did it?

That's a question the police and prosecutors never examined.

That alone should be seen as malfeasance.

 But it wasn't and isn't. Wisconsinites seem to believe that both Dassey and Avery "got what was coming to them" -- pretty much regardless of their actual guilt. It literally doesn't seem to matter in the minds of many of their neighbors whether they did it or not. They have convicted these two in their own minds because "nobody liked the Averys" and their extended family, and they were nothing but trouble anyway, so it's just as well that these two are in prison for the rest of their lives. Because they were no good. Neither of them.

They may be punished for a crime they didn't commit, but so what? There were other things they did that made it appropriate to put them away. Justice may be served sideways, but it's served just the same. These people were and are scum. They can rot in prison forever as far as their neighbors are concerned.

Some of those who investigated the case called them "evil incarnate" -- not because they did the crime, but because of their reputation and their lifestyle, which was not approved of by the community apparently. And if you go against community norms, it would seem, you are literally taking your life in your hands. Tolerance, apparently, did not extend to the Averys and their large number of relatives.

They were dirty. They were not necessarily honest. They were slow-witted, sub-par IQ. They drank and smoked cigarettes. They were accused of inappropriate sexual behavior (ie: masturbating in public). They didn't raise their children right, and they were always getting into minor trouble with the law. Nobody liked them.

Nobody liked them.

That was apparently the key right there. "Nobody liked them."

Thus they could be accused, tried and convicted with nary a nod to justice. It was nothing more than taking out the trash. White trash in this case, but trash nonetheless. Getting rid of "trouble."

This is actually what happens in courts all across the land, day in and day out. Law enforcement is focused on certain elements in the population which are considered 'undesirable' by the community or the powers that be. There is often a racial bias in this focus, to the extent that practically all the law enforcement focus is on people of color, particularly poor people of color, whose communities are under constant and unrelenting siege by the police. Accusations, arrests, trials and conviction go on all the time, many for the most minor offenses, and very often, perhaps most often, the victims are induced to confess or plead out to crimes they have not committed, on the premise that if they plead or confess, they will receive a lighter sentence than if they contest the accusation at trial.

90% or more of convictions (they say) are actually due to plea bargains or false confessions. It's really quite remarkable. And millions are in prison due to these factors.

Every day in every way, this is how the court system works. It's based on lies, falsehood, and bargains, not on truth, justice, and the American way.

For police and prosecutors, it's about numbers of convictions. The judges go along. They know and don't care that what is presented in court is frequently false and that millions are sentenced based on these false claims. It doesn't matter to them.

When people protest, they rarely get anywhere in part because the people in power like things this way, believing as they do that even if the "innocent" are shot or convicted, it serves as a means of suppressing the inherent criminality of the lower orders, so what's to worry?

That's why "Making a Murderer" is to me an important document in the struggle for dignity, justice, community and peace, because it shows just how far into realms of bizarre fantasy the "system" goes to get convictions, regardless of the guilt or innocence of the victims.

It's amazing, aggravating, and true.

What do we have to do to fix it?

The Insanity Continues -- Three Shot by Police in Chicago This Weekend, Two Dead

American police "fear for their lives and the safety of others" all the goddamned time. ALL the time. And because they are always in such existential fear almost all of their many-many killings are "justified" by definition. If they weren't in fear for their lives and the safety of others, don't you see, they wouldn't have killed. They just wouldn't. Don't you see?

But when they're always in fear for their lives and the safety of others, they kill almost at random. There is a certain arbitrariness in police killings, as if they see themselves in a video game combating phantoms and arbitrarily appearing opponents. It's that mystical "split-second decision" thing.

So this weekend came news that Chicago police shot and killed two people at the same house Christmas overnight. The police had been called to help restrain a young man who was having a mental health crisis (never ever ever ever call police in such a situation, EVER. However, if you do call 911, the police will be dispatched, even if you don't ask for them, so don't call 911 if a loved one is having a mental health crisis unless you want your loved-one dead.) He was shot dead on sight. The other victim, according to some reports, was standing behind him and was shot in the cross fire. Except there was no crossfire. As is so often the case, the only ones armed and firing in this situation were the police.

Since it is a holiday weekend, the story is incomplete, but it seems the young man who was shot and killed was raging about something at some point prior to the arrival of the police and had taken up an aluminum baseball bat which he was pounding here and there in an apartment that belonged to his father. The other person shot and killed by Chicago's Finest was the downstairs neighbor lady who was trying to keep an eye out for the police.

From the somewhat sketchy accounts, the police rolled up, saw the man who "fit the description," and an officer commenced firing -- because they feared for their lives and the safety of others, specifically because they saw the young man standing in the doorway holding a baseball bat. They referred to that as as "confronting a combative subject." That was all they needed to commit yet another summary execution of a black man, armed and dangerous, one of hundreds this year. Trouble is, the neighbor lady also got executed. Oops. That, they say, was a "tragic accident." Accidental killings are big with police this year. Cf: Paradise, CA.

Oh well, if you don't want to die in a hail of police gunfire, just obey, right? Nah. Doesn't work that way. Never did. Whether you get shot or die in a police encounter seems to depend ever less on your behavior than on the mindset of the officer involved. Too often, that mindset is on fearing for his or her life and killing...

It's got to stop, but apparently nobody with the power to stop it wants to, or perhaps they don't know what to do... I don't know.

I know that not all jurisdictions are filled with killer cops. In fact, most seem to be free of the fear-killer mindset that afflicts so many others. In New York City, the rate of police killings plummeted by 90% in a very brief period -- I believe it was two years -- simply by changing the rules under which use of lethal force was authorized and holding police to account every time they drew or used their side-arm.

 In Oakland, the police kill-rate was reduced to zero for a while on the basis of similar rule changes and requirements that police account for their actions.

In Albuquerque, similar rule changes and requirements to report and account for actions also cut the police kill-rate significantly.

It's not rocket science. It can be done. But there has to be a will to do so, and that will has to originate at the top. Police departments are strict hierarchies. Police officers do what they do based on what their commanders expect and require of them. And what they're allowed to get away with.

Throughout the United States, the problem police departments -- the ones where killing seems to be a routine -- are commanded by chiefs (who themselves are often the creatures of city managers) who are authorizing or allowing their officers to kill essentially at will without being held to account.

In too many cases, this results in a death-squad mentality that permeates entire departments. They operate as killers not as protectors.

Many other departments may not be subsumed into a death squad mentality, but they conduct their business with levels of prejudice and violence that is almost as destructive to individuals, families, and communities.

This has to change. The social cost of violent and death-dealing policing is too great. But changing it is hard as activists have come to find out. You think you've made progress in one area only to find something worse is happening in another. Police departments that have adopted a death squad mentality are fiercely resistant to change -- partly because they legitimately fear for their safety and security. If they are held to account for their actions, some are liable to go to jail. Can't have that, oh no.

So they want assurances first that all prior acts will be forgiven.

That can be a problem.

Ultimately, it seems to me, abolition and starting over is the only real solution, and that would have to encompass the entire criminal (in)justice system, top to bottom, an enormous, and indeed revolutionary undertaking.

Americans aren't up to that yet but may be one day.

The whole damn system is rotten and guilty as hell. It has to change or be changed one way or another.

Maintaining the current course is insanity.

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....

Ah, the Po-Po, they sooooooo scared....

Jebus.

I listened to this the other day. It is a recording of the aftermath of a police assault on the residence and person of Fay Wells in Santa Monica, an assault that was detailed in a Washington Post piece that has gotten quite a lot of play thanks to Black Lives Matter and the whole "national conversation" about race and policing.

Yes well. What a goon show.

I listened to this the other day while I was doing other things, so I might have missed some aspects of the to and fro between Ms Wells and her police assaulters, but damn. The po-po, they are so damn scared of so damn everything. So scared of so damn everyone. They behave as if they are mindless automata chasing their fears.

WTF?

I mean, seriously, W. T. F.?

A man, possibly drunk or high, calls up 911 and says, "Hay, I'm watching some people break into a neighbor's apartment. Send someone over." So they do. Sixteen, seventeen, eighteen or nineteen officers (counts vary) and a police dog descend on the apartment allegedly being broken into. Chaos ensues.

Ms. Wells, wondering what in the hell is going on after being let into her apartment by the locksmith she had called (because she'd left her keys inside), goes to the window, sees a dog barking its fool head off and someone who doesn't identify himself (so she can understand at any rate) demanding that she come out with her hands up. He's got a gun and he's pointing it at her. What is she to do? Well, she comes out, as demanded, but she demands to know what is going on. Nobody says. Nobody will respond to her questions at all; they just hold their guns on her and order her downstairs, away from her apartment where she has her ID and the locksmith receipt and all of her personal possessions which the police now want to ransack. Because somebody called 911.

Well, now at least she knows they are police. At first, she didn't even know that because they were too scared to tell her, and -- apparently -- "protocol" doesn't require them to tell her until after she, the "subject" or suspect and the scene are "secure."

Well, no. That's not quite the case. They are required to announce themselves, which one of the officers says he did. Only he acknowledges that Ms Wells may not have heard his announcement over the damn fool barking of the police dog they were sending up the stairs first. They are required to announce; they are not required to respond to the suspect/subject.

Or something.

She was trying to find out what was going on. They wouldn't tell her until after they were sure of their safety and the scene was secure to their satisfaction.

In other words, once Ms Wells was identified as a "suspect not in custody" (which I'll try to get to in a minute) she had no rights the police were obligated to respect or acknowledge. They could have beaten or killed her outright and gotten away with it simply by invoking the magic phrase: "Fearing for my life and the safety of others..." because they didn't know who she was or what form of violence she would perpetrate on them.

The count of the dead so far this year at the hands of police is edging ever closer to 1,100 and it will probably surpass it soon if it hasn't already. Many of those killed were unarmed and non threatening, but that doesn't matter when police are trained to be and expected to be scared of their own shadows. How hopped up on adrenaline and fear are they? Leaving steroid and other drug abuse out of the equation for the moment, from the discussion between Ms Wells and several of the officers in the recording, it's clear that Santa Monica PD officers live in constant holy terror every minute they are on duty. Every encounter is seen by them as a potentially deadly encounter -- for them; they really have no concern for civilian casualties -- and overwhelming force is their standard response to these ever-present threats they are in constant fear of.

The terror their actions impose on civilians is neither of interest nor concern to the police. The problem, as they see it, is entirely a matter of compliance -- immediate and complete compliance -- to the commands of police.

The civilian "suspect not in custody" has no rights -- at all. He or she may only obey or suffer the consequences, which can and too often does include summary execution.

Because the police are afraid, and their fright overrides every other consideration at all.

Time after time, her police interlocutors tell Ms Wells that since they didn't brutalize or kill her she should quit her bitchin'. Everything turned out "well," you see. Everyone's safe and no one got hurt.

Right? No.Not right at all. Her question is basically why were they approaching a clearly non-threatening situation as if it were an "active shooter" scenario, and why did they treat her with such disrespect?

Why, in other words, did they terrorize the shit out of her, and why did they not even bother to find out whether she lived there before they assaulted her?

Because what they did was an assault, in this case an armed assault, which, if civilians had done it would have led to serious jail time.

The answer she hears over and over but cannot accept is essentially, "We were scared."

Of what?

They didn't know what was going on, you see, so they had to arrive at the scene in force, because they didn't know anything about the situation except that the caller had said someone was breaking in to a neighboring apartment. There could be hostages! There could be gangs and drugs and who knows what all! They could be armed and ready to shoot it out! There could be anything!!!!!

Never once did it occur to the police (at least not so far as I could tell from the recording) that a resident might have locked herself out of her apartment and called a locksmith to let her back in. That scenario, the correct scenario, did not enter their fevered, fear-filled minds. Not once. Instead it was all about the gangs and their fears and imaginings of hostages and gunfights and all the rest of the action movie or video game they seem to be living in.

Oh, how many times have we seen just this sort of fear-fever lead to tragedy? How many times? And how many more times is it going to happen before someone in a position of authority says, "STOP!"

The police are so riven by fear they cannot even imagine let alone process the notion that someone or some situation is not a threat to them. It's not even conceivable.

This attitude is what leads to so many deaths at the hands of police, just as it led to so many deaths of innocents in our various battlefields overseas. Hundreds and hundreds of Iraqis were killed on the roads and at checkpoints by scared-out-of-their-wits soldiers who saw drivers not in compliance or obedience to orders/commands which the Iraqis in many cases didn't understand -- if they were issued at all -- as terrorists. This happened over and over and over again, and the response of one general was, "Well, maybe if we kill enough of them at checkpoints they'll learn to obey."

Disobedience="terrorist" in the minds of police and soldiers. Oh. Suspects not in custody are by definition mortal threats to police and soldiers, and they are to be neutralized by any means necessary including lethal force.

At one time in Iraq, soldiers were authorized to shoot and kill any Iraqi they saw -- or thought they saw -- with a gun, under any and all circumstances. An armed Iraqi was a mortal threat to be neutralized. The continuing drone killings are justified in every case by reference to the perception of the drone operators -- that those killed fit certain parameters that are judged to be those of suspected militants, regardless of reality.

So it is with police in their constant battle with criminals. Everything and everyone is potentially a mortal threat, and every call to 911 must be responded to with overwhelming force (unless it's not responded to at all, but that's another issue for another time.)

We are dealing with madness.

Ms Wells was terrorized but she was not physically injured or killed, so it's all good, right?

One of the police officers said he wished there were twice as many responding officers as there were -- he was that frightened.

It's insane.

It's all too real. Just watch what's been going on in response to the attacks in Paris. The same sort of insanity that leads police to fear everything and everyone and respond the way they did in the case of Ms Wells and her key problem is being demanded and implemented against any and all "threats" -- even where there are none. Police and security agencies can't afford to find out.

When everything is perceived as threatening and fear rules like it does, what can be done?

Again -- Patrick Lynch is All Butt-Hurt and Killer Kop Kompetition Comes to ABQ

What a week.

When James Blake, retired tennis pro, was ignominiously tackled by a wilding NYPD detective and trussed up like a roast while he waited for a ride to Flushing Meadows the other day there was something of an outcry about, oh I don't know, police brutality and excessive use of force. Yet again. NYPD has earned quite a reputation for targeting black and brown men for, shall we say, scrutiny, on the presumption of guilt just because. It's a quality of life issue, right?

At any rate, Blake was trussed up and left sitting there on the sidewalk while a plain clothes detective, who apparently did not identify himself to Blake at any time, went about his business of curbing identity theft or whatever assignment he was on until such time as another officer told him that he had collared the wrong man.

Oh.

Blake was let go. But he made one unholy stink about what had happened to him, and before you knew it, the Mayor and Police Commissioner of New York City were holding news conferences to say, "Ooops, sorry." Well, sort of.

The problem here is not that the wrong man was targeted and detained. Nor is it even institutional racism (although pretty obviously enters into it.) The problem is that anyone could have this happen to them at any time, for any reason, or for no reason at all, and most victims would never receive an apology, even one as tepid as Blake received. They would be treated as if they were criminals of the worst order, and they would be expected to accept this treatment as routine police practice. If they didn't like it, there were procedures they could follow to file a complaint, which more than likely would be ignored, or if not, it would be sent to a sham CRB which would find that the officer acted "within policy," ergo, the complaint would not be sustained.

This happens all the time all over the country. When there is an outcry, as there has been with the James Blake matter, there may be some public contrition or even a monetary payout, but little or nothing will change.

In this case, the public outcry included a scathing editorial in the New York Times which called for the firing of the officer involved and a complete overhaul of NYPD's practices. Oh my.

This led directly to today's statement by the PBA President Patrick Lynch, who never misses an opportunity to whine and kvetch about how misunderstood the brave and true officers of the NYPD are, so leave them alone!!!!!

What a whiny little pissant.

But then, that's what's come to be expected from police officer union heads. They cannot believe there are real problems with policing in this country, one of them being a first option resort to violence.

Speaking of, Albuquerque hosts the umpteenth annual Killer Kop Kompetititon this weekend.

Last year, there was a media firestorm about it. This year, not so much. In fact, I can't find anything online about it. Interesting. Well, helpfully, the NRA has an extended pdf (54 pages) providing all sorts of detail about the excitement soon to engulf the culture of violent policing.

There will be a march and protest at the hotel where the killer kops are staying this Saturday, sponsored and organized by the Peace and Justice Center. I'd like to think there will be a big turnout, but somehow I doubt it.

Once James Boyd's killers were charged and eventually, more than a year later, indicted (and are now out on their own recognizance until the trial next August, yet another year gone by) and once James Boyd's family settled their lawsuit against the city of Albuquerque the public anger level declined noticeably. The Albuquerque Police Department has instituted a number of reforms and has held off shooting suspects quite as often as they once did. Even though Albuquerque still hosts the Killer Kop Kompetition, the likelihood that APD will shoot and kill you has been severely curtailed.

As for those hundreds of other po-po gathering to get their kill on, who knows? The rate of police killings has actually increased this year, despite the fact that violent crime is at an all time low. Police forces all over the country have convinced themselves that the public is conducting a "war on police" -- a war for which there is no evidence at all, inasmuch as the likelihood of a cop being killed by a bad guy is close to nonexistent.

People know that Patrick Lynch has serious personal issues that should be addressed outside his duties.

But then that would be true of many cops, wouldn't it?

Why?

This is a video of an encounter with someone who appears to be Officer Tensing of the University of Cincinnati police department a little over a year ago when he had been on the job for just about a month:



What the actual fuck?

Why is he doing this? What does he think he will accomplish? Where does an officer's need to feed his ego and authority come from?

Ray Tensing is the officer who killed Sam Dubose in an incident very similar to this one. Ray Tensing is charged with murder but is out on bail because his father, a Cincinnati fireman, came up with the $100,000 surety on his son's million dollar bail. Tensing was fired from the UC police department but demands his job back.

 WCPO would like you to believe he was always polite...

Bawlmer Rising

Baltimore officers charged in the death of Freddie Gray

I've tried to follow events in Baltimore as best I can through the internet, relying on WBAL's livestreaming and news reports, the Baltimore Sun's reports, and to some extent on Twitter (Deray is there) and the deplorable coverage by the Washington Post.

I've been to Baltimore and Maryland a number of times and have had friends there (dead now, but that's how it goes). I thought for much of my life that my ancestors on my father's side were from Maryland but have recently learned that they weren't. They passed through, some of them, on their way to Ohio and Iowa, but were never residents.

Nevertheless, I feel a certain kinship with the people and the place. There's much about Baltimore and Maryland that I like; there's much about it that I don't like at all. Over the course of the recent events, I've seen some remarkable transformations growing out of the unrest over the death of Freddie Gray. Those transformations give me more hope than I've felt in quite a while.

There are terrible legacies in the history of Baltimore and Maryland, one of them of course being black chattel slavery. A lot of white folks want to make believe that Slavery Time was a long time ago, and it shouldn't matter now. Some black folks go along with that point of view, and I think that it's partly that unity of perspective between well-off whites and (largely) well-off Negroes -- who form the political and administrative class in Baltimore -- that led to the events surrounding the death of Freddie Gray.

Freddie didn't share the unified perspective of the well-off Baltimoreans (or "Baltimorons" as they can sometimes call themselves when they've had enough to drink) because he couldn't. He was born in and of the Projects, and had been subjected to a very different kind of life all his (short) life. He was only 25 when he died.

The Projects out in West Baltimore provide somewhat better than the worst living conditions to be found in Baltimore City, but they're not ideal by any stretch of the imagination. Gilmore Homes was the Project Freddie was from, and I'm sure that some people, looking at it from the outside would think it was pretty nice all things considered. Well, that may be. The problems of poverty, drugs and violence, however, were the living truth that Freddie and all his neighbors and friends knew from the cradle. Freddie and his twin sister had also been victims of lead paint poisoning (how many Americans have suffered that) which may have affected his cognition.

Due to the nature of policing in the Projects -- the "zero-tolerance," or "broken-windows" practices instituted by Martin O'Malley but derived from the so-called best practices as pioneered in New York by Bill Bratton -- Freddie had been arrested on false charges of drug use, drug sales, and various infractions of The Rules. Many, many young men in the Projects were the victims of this kind of policing which essentially presumes that all black men, particularly young black men, are criminals to be run to earth, hounded, harassed, arrested and incarcerated en masse.

This is a legacy of Slavery Time and Jim Crow, both of which were partly predicated on the notion of inherent black criminality -- for which the discipline (arbitrary though it may be) of slavery and segregation and the chain gang were considered specific cures, or if not cures at least controls.

Let's not deny it. It is a fundamental and systemic belief among the powerful and mostly white  ruling class that Those (Savage) Negroes are inherently criminal and would, if not intensely policed, run wild and rape all the white women. Or even worse, they would burn down not just their own communities but they would destroy all the wonderful things that white folks have done and built over the centuries.

Of course it's ridiculous, but that's the thinking that you find right out in the open on numerous online comment and message boards, and that's the belief system that's not quite so open but is deeply ingrained in the principles and practices of "broken-windows" policing -- which led directly to the death of Freddie Gray and which plays a part in the thousands of brutalized and dead at the hands of police all over the country that I've been railing about for years now.

But something has happened in Baltimore that may lead sooner rather than later to some systemic and unprecedented changes in the way policing is handled in communities like the one Freddie Gray came from.

As we've seen elsewhere, at least since the egregious execution of James Boyd last year in Albuquerque, violent policing has become intolerable to those who have been subjected to it for lo these many years. It must end. Ending it means holding violent police to account, and in Baltimore it has meant holding those police who contributed to or caused the death of Freddie Gray to account.

And yesterday, astonishingly, six Baltimore officers were charged with a whole raft of crimes including murder, manslaughter, dereliction of duty and false imprisonment. This follows a series of indictments of police officers for all kinds of misconduct all over the country. Convicting officers for anything besides sexual misconduct is still nearly impossible, but the fact that so many police officers are facing charges is nearly unheard of, certainly in recent history, when practically anything police did under color of authority was ruled "justified" simply because it was done by police.

A mantra became standardized: "Fearing for my life and the safety of others". By saying those words, practically any death or brutalization at the hands of police was deemed acceptable by supervisors, district attorneys, courts and juries.

Those words became a magical incantation thanks in part to a number of Supreme Court rulings over the past few decades which protected violent police from accountability and effectively encouraged them to be as violent as they wanted to be -- within rules, of course.

So long as they followed the rules of engagement of their departments -- most based on "best practices" which were adopted almost everywhere -- police could and did routinely get away with murder. They almost never face charges, but if by some happenstance, they do, they almost always get off, either acquitted or given very light sentences if convicted.

The case of Freddie Gray in Baltimore may be a game-changer, much as the killing of James Boyd was declared to be by the mayor of Albuquerque.

Freddie Gray was not shot by police, the way so many are in this country, around a thousand every year. No, he was falsely arrested for having committed no crime, he was injured in his apprehension, he was dumped, unsecured in a van and driven around the rough streets of West Baltimore for the next 45 minutes until he was so severely injured that he died a week later from a broken neck and apparently a head injury. Freddie never awoke from a coma.

The issue here is not that he was shot and killed, the way so many are. It is that he was injured badly enough to require medical attention, and none was called for or offered. This is a commonplace practice by police and correctional officers everywhere. Injuries and illnesses of suspects, detainees, and inmates are routinely ignored. Often enough they are caused or compounded by the actions of officers, despite policies which require medical attention those in their custody who ask for it or who are clearly injured. Freddie Gray was both clearly injured and repeatedly asked for medical attention. He was ignored.

Deliberate and callous indifference to the suffering of those in their custody is so routine it barely shocks the conscience any more. Such indifference leads to hundreds of deaths in custody -- perhaps far more than we're aware of -- and exacerbates injuries and illnesses which don't necessarily lead to death right away. Deliberate and callous indifference of this sort devalues the lives of those in custody just as surely as outright murder does.

And for once in Baltimore yesterday, the killers of Freddie Gray -- who acted with malice and indifference combined -- were charged with crimes.

Whether they will be convicted remains to be seen, but merely charging them is unusual.

The fact that they join dozens of other officers also facing charges ranging up to first degree murder is also unusual, and I suspect it represents the potential for an end of violent policing and the wildly disproportionate over policing of selected neighborhoods -- such as the one Freddie Gray came from.

While many observers have been quick to condemn the violence of the "rioters" in Baltimore -- who burned buildings and took merchandise but not lives -- too many have had nothing to say about the violence of police which triggered the recent uprising in Baltimore and elsewhere. "Riots" must be suppressed, but police violence apparently is all good. Or it was...

 Maybe not so much anymore.

We'll see.

We need an end to violent policing. We need an end to racially and class disparate policing policies. We need an end to police impunity. We need an end to police brutality and killing.

There are signs -- in Baltimore and elsewhere -- that the message is being heard. Action to correct the manifest problems of policing in slow, but it is happening. The bravery of those who are protesting and the surprising responsiveness of some public officials is encouraging.

People's Tribunal in Albuquerque

Last Sunday, ABQJustice conducted what they called a tribunal with regard to the long and disreputable record of the Albuquerque Police Department's racist and violent policing.

I wasn't able to attend, but I have seen the videos (Part I and Part II) of the event and I've read the report that formed the basis of this tribunal.

This wasn't really a tribunal as there was no means of adjudication and only certain testimony was allowed. There was no "other side" in other words. Thus there was no way to weigh the testimony and evidence. Further, the focus was not on racism and violence by APD, it was on historical resistance and utilized the indirect testimony from victims of APD's history of racism and police violence.

Nevertheless, I am a strong advocate for People's Tribunals and courts as a means of highlighting social problems and solutions, and of making a public case for change while holding those who commit public violence responsible to the public.

Such tribunals can be very dramatic and very effective -- at least as long as they stay focused on the issues they're organized to examine and they are able to render a judgement based on the evidence, including testimony, presented.

Unfortunately, that wasn't the case here. I can only speculate on the reasons why.

Part of the problem may be that APD's rate of killing has fallen dramatically since last July, when for all intents and purposes, the killer cops were told to stand down -- and to a degree I never anticipated, they did.

With the kill rate so surprisingly reduced, the point of the protests and actions against police violence in Albuquerque may have been lost, or there may be some other agenda in operation, one that sees the killings that triggered so much outrage in the spring and summer of last year as merely a starting point. I don't know.

At any rate, while the report on police racism and prejudice in Albuquerque is welcome, it lacks the kind of statistical basis and focus on police violence that I would like to see and that I think is necessary to catalyze real and lasting reform -- if reform is even possible and the desired outcome.

For example, if you're going to accuse the police of racist and prejudiced policing, it can help immeasurably to have and to show statistics that back it up. Unfortunately, the report lacks those statistics, though there is plenty of evocative testimony that suggests as much.

The objectives of the report are not entirely clear, although there is a list of desired "Expectations" which include:

1. An independent agency with the authority to discipline officers and make policy changes. 

2. Routine extensive outreach to collect complaints against APD.

3. The acceptance of anonymous complaints against APD. 

4. The decriminalization of homelessness. 

5. Police officers who use unjustified force must be held criminally accountable. 

6. The publishing of all officer shift rosters at the end of each week, and the immediate online posting of all lapel camera video. 

7. The recruitment of officer candidates who hold degrees, or have experience, in, social work or allied fields. 

8. Limiting promotion to officers who have experience in, or show an inclination for, community-based policing.

I don't know how ABQ Justice came to these expectations, but they seem in the aggregate to lack cohesion. Even if adopted by APD and the city -- which is unlikely -- they don't lead to reform (assuming reform is the desired outcome.)

What is most surprising to me is that they aren't based in concepts of racial and social justice. Instead they are aspects of information desired and the interests of those who developed the report.

Let's go one by one:

1. An independent agency to discipline officers and make policy.

As far as I know, no police department anywhere in the country has such a truly independent agency. The issue is "independence." How do you judge that? How to you ensure that? Police departments are the creations and creatures of civic authority, authority which is nominally vested in the elected representatives of the citizens, but which is actually almost always controlled and implemented by appointed officials, usually the City Manager or the equivalent. You can create a commission or review board or oversight agency, but the vexing problem is assuring its independence and authority outside the chain of command of the city's government. This is quite apart from the problems of oversight caused by police unions and their enforceable agreements. There is no "independence" in other words. Discipline has historically been a contractual matter, pursued internally; policy is ostensibly the purview of the elected representatives of the citizens, but policy recommendations are largely and implementation is entirely at the discretion of the City Manager and his/her delegates -- such as the police chief. If you want to change that, you have to change the whole structure of authority in city governments.

2. Routine extensive outreach to collect complaints against APD. 

By whom? Police? Nonsense. The problem that is mentioned in the report is that those who might be making complaints of police abuse and misconduct are terrified of the police. Police, therefore, are not the appropriate civic authorities to do such outreach, but who is? Social service organizations? Perhaps. But the problem for most of them is that they are already overwhelmed and severely restricted in their abilities to perform services as it is. How are they to add further outreach to their responsibilities. And who would they report to? What would be done with these complaints? Would they go to a powerless quasi-independent agency to languish and eventually be dismissed -- as most complaints typically do? Or what?

3. The acceptance of anonymous complaints against APD.

That should be a no-brainer, but acceptance doesn't mean action.

4. The decriminalization of homelessness.

Homelessness per se is not a crime. Sleeping on the sidewalk or urinating in public may be crimes. The problems of homelessness are manifest, and the solutions are relatively obvious, but for whatever reason, policy makers largely refuse to employ them (ie: provide housing.) Using the criminal justice system (such as it is) to deal with homelessness is stupid. The issue isn't so much the criminalization of homelessness as it is a public policy of harassment and humiliation of the homeless, using the police and the so-called justice system to make already miserable lives worse.

5. Police officers who use unjustified force must be held criminally accountable.

Who decides what is "unjustified?" Again, the problem is lines of authority and where decision making lies. In theory, police are already held accountable for the use of unjustified force. The problem is that the police and district attorney in concert decide that (almost) all uses of force are "justified." The public may disagree, but the public has no control over the process and decision-making. There's no current mechanism to ensure that this expectation becomes operative.

6. The publishing of all officer shift rosters at the end of each week, and the immediate online posting of all lapel camera video. 

The objective? The rosters should be available in real time, and there should be a secure (tamper-proof) lapel camera footage repository. In other words, camera footage should be uploaded as it is acquired rather than stored in the camera itself and uploaded at the discretion of the police. On the other hand, making all footage immediately available to the public seems counter productive.

7. The recruitment of officer candidates who hold degrees, or have experience, in, social work or allied fields.

While I understand why this could be desirable, I don't agree that police should be assigned to social work responsibility. This has been one of the major issues of hundreds of police involved shootings every year. Police are sent on calls that need social or medical worker intervention or services, with too often deadly results. Even when the police sent on these calls have special training and experience. The answer is to send social and medical workers, not police. But that means changing policies and protocols, and it means increasing the numbers of available non-police workers to go on such calls.

8. Limiting promotion to officers who have experience in, or show an inclination for, community-based policing.

Who will define the terms? "Community based policing" needs to be defined here. Then policies can be implemented and promotions made on the basis of those policies. Until then, this proposal is too vague to be useful.

If there had been a real tribunal last Sunday, there would have been charges presented against the city of Albuquerque and certain of its employees including the Mayor and the City Administrator and named police officers who have engaged in egregious or violent conduct.

A real tribunal would have then heard testimony from individuals who have been victims of police violence or other mistreatment and abuse, and the city authorities and police would have had an opportunity to present a defense either directly or by proxy.

Then the tribunal would have made a judgement and recommendations.

Instead, the report was presented as a fait accompli. The tribunal made no recommendations itself, nor did it render a judgement.

I like the tactic of a People's Tribunal, and I'd like to see it continued so as to make clear what the policing problems are and what to do about them... and to point out who is responsible.

This report and tribunal didn't quite do that.