They Tell The Same Story Over and Over and Over Again

From the Los Angeles Times, re El Cajon.

And the National Conversation about "race and policing" spins its wheels. Nothing really changes overall, though city by city small, incremental changes sometimes do take place, sometimes there are big changes, but often they don't last.

Police departments tend to resist any change that doesn't enhance their power and authority. That's their hard-wired system. Protest and uproar doesn't change that; in fact, it can often enhance a police department's demands for more power, more authority -- and of course more money.

El Cajon is repeating the same mistakes as Charlotte in refusing to release the available video of the shooting of Alfred Olango -- citing the "ongoing investigation" -- while having no problem spinning what happened through the selective release of one frame of the video which seems to validate the police department's narrative. In addition, El Cajon is providing a rather abundant set of narrative points -- from the "vape" Olango was allegedly holding when he was shot, to his rather baroque history with ICE and the criminal justice system. Little of which has anything at all to do with what happened in that parking lot in El Cajon, but certainly does fill out the narrative that Olango was a bad dude who needed killing.

Why we put up with this constant noise and nonsense in our National Conversation is something I have never understood, but it has  been going on as long as I have been active against police violence -- a couple of decades now.

El Cajon is repeating the mistakes of Charlotte, and Charlotte repeated the mistakes of Sacramento, by spinning a narrative that protects police not the public. Their narratives include falsehoods and lies. It's the way these things are done, and seemingly police departments in these and many other cities are incapable of seeing or anticipating the consequences. Or perhaps they can see them and they use them to further enhance their power and authority -- and their budgets.

There are reports that the demonstrations in El Cajon overnight "turned violent." I will take those reports under advisement. I haven't read the reports, but in most cases I'm familiar with, the "violence" is frequently initiated by police and consists of resistance to their power and authority -- such as defying orders, throwing back tear gas cannisters, overturning newspaper boxes and trash containers, breaking windows, throwing rocks and/or bottles at the police, and sometimes -- actually very rarely -- looting and arson.

The resistance occurs because the police have (once again) done something violent and apparently inappropriate or unnecessary, such as shooting and killing a black man in crisis. Alfred Olango for example. And so many others.

The resistance also occurs because this has been going on for years and years and police refuse to change their policies and protocols. They keep right on killing as if it were their highest objective and calling. They do not respect or protect the sanctity of human life, and they have zero empathy for the lives they snuff out so casually.

Protest may highlight the issue, but it cannot and does not affect the cult of death police departments subscribe to.

Police are not doing this in a vacuum. They are reflecting the will of those they truly "serve and protect" -- which is not the Public, certainly not the black and brown portions of the Public. They quite unself-consciously "serve and protect" the elite of their communities, the power structure, the monied interests. Everyone else is subject to whatever police want to do and think is appropriate to control them.

Random acts of violence, arbitrary summary executions, night raids, routine escalations during encounters, inexplicable imposition of authority, lack of accountability, mass incarceration, ever widening criminalization, etc. etc, including the multi-million dollar payouts to survivors and family members of victims of police violence, are all elements of control. Some of it is truly arbitrary and random, but much of it is deliberate, gamed out, and intentionally destructive.

It's a strategy to keep control over a restive, increasingly impoverished, powerless and downtrodden population.

It's not a very good strategy and it will ultimately lead to the kinds of blowback we're already seeing signs of -- including the deliberate killings of police in revenge.

They set the standard of violence and reap the whirlwind.

We might see the pattern but so far we are unable to throw a big enough spanner in the works to halt the repetition.

I don't know what it will take to do that. But we're working on it.

Numbers Game

The number of people killed by police in the United States this year has now surpassed 1000 according to the "Killed by Police" website, the most comprehensive and up to date listing of police kill statistics available.

Because there are two months left in the year and historically, police killings tend to average about 100 a month -- three or more a day -- the total dead due to police violence this year will no doubt be considerably higher than last year. The number reported by "Killed by Police" last year was 1108.The total will likely be above 1200 this year.

Dead.

This should not be happening. Period. There is no necessity for the majority of police killings. The number of dead at the hands of police could be cut by 90% or more -- if there were policies in place to generally forbid the use of deadly force (or any force, for that matter) and which specified consequences for officers' use of force/deadly force no matter what the ostensible justification. Of course, policies only matter to the extent they are enforced. Unfortunately, where policies restricting the use of deadly force exist, they seem to be only haphazardly enforced.

And of course courts have long looked the other way in cases of police violence. Too often they've been encouraging ever greater levels of police violence -- in order that the officers involved may "go home to their families" each and every night. Force protection appears to be the prime directive therefore. Force protection means that hundreds of innocent people will die at the hands of police each and every year. Force protection is killing Americans who shouldn't die.

Because there are no official statistics on police killings and/or violent policing in general, and there are competing and conflicting numbers available in the press, those in charge of police and policing in this country get to play a numbers game wherein the current fashion is to claim that there has been a significant rise in violent crime in this country due to the fact that there is so much scrutiny of police and police behavior. Statistics are touted which show this or that city -- where protests against violent policing have had an effect -- has experienced a "spike" in murders or other violent crime. The protests and protesters are blamed. The "anti-police" public attitude is blamed. A "War on Police" is blamed. Albuquerque media, for example, has gone into full-meltdown mode over the mortal wounding of a police officer at a traffic stop. This is supposed to represent a front on the so-called "war" on police, even though statistically it's never been safer to be a police officer in this country. There is no "war on police". If anything, there is a war on the public by police.

In some respects, the police have been engaging in a relatively low-key civil war against segments of the public for decades; some would say it's gone on since the establishment of police forces as slave catching and Indian-killing militias, and policing was transformed into a permanent state of civil war against the public with the establishment of independent civic police forces in the 19th century.

Police for their part see it as their bounden duty to protect the High and Mighty whom they serve against the Lower Orders who run wild without the corrective measures imposed upon them by police violence.

It has ever been thus, no?

No.

It has not ever been thus, and it need not be so in the future.

But changing the dynamic of policing toward something more just and less violent is proving much more difficult than I think many of us may have thought. I've been involved in the effort of transformation for decades, for example, and though I have seen and reported some success in changing the dynamic of policing under pressure, the tendency of police forces is to backslide, revert, to become again what they once were or to become even worse -- once the pressure is off.

It's frustrating as hell. It may be, as I've said from time to time, that it's impossible to reform police forces as they are currently constituted because of Original Sin -- the fact that they originated as slave-catching and Indian-killing militias, going right back to the twin original sins of the nation, Black chattel slavery and Indian genocide.

If that's the case, then what do you do? I'm an abolitionist, preferring to abolish the police -- and indeed the entire so-called (In)Justice System in this country and starting over. But that can't happen in isolation. It would mean a wholesale revolution -- something I don't see coming any time soon, if ever. Instead, we get piecemeal, occasional, partial "reforms." Reforms that often lead to greater injustice and violence which then trigger more studies, protests and reforms in an endless cycle.

World without end, amen, amirite?

We can look back on what happened to mental health care in this country for examples of how that process works, sadly.

But there are many more examples if we care to look.

The current system supports many millions of people who are invested in preserving it as it is or only changing it to be harsher, not to mitigate its abuses.

Police are terrified of abuse mitigation efforts -- because they're afraid they'll be held criminally liable for past abuses, and they might be subjected to revenge by those who have been most abused.

The thinking seems to be that reducing the level of police violence will result in massive increases in violence by the public. It's marketed as "Violent Policing is the Only Thing that Stands Between Us and Chaos."

Yes, well. It's not true.

Current models of policing have precipitated chaos more than preventing it.

The situation has to change.

It is changing, slowly, slowly, slowly. Much of the change seems to be based on theories of public relations, the Edward Bernays approach to problem solving, convincing the public they never had it so good -- and it will be so much better when this or that "something" is added to their lives.

On the other hand, the problem of violent policing and unnecessary death and destruction that results is widely recognized within the policing culture itself as a real thing that must be addressed. Part of addressing it means "finding ways" to "work collaboratively with the community" to "reduce the use of force" and violence within the communities "served" by police.

The point of many of the consent decrees which the DoJ has entered into with police departments around the country is not to directly reduce or stop the use of violence and killing by police but to make it meet "best practice" standards and to rationalize the use of force and violence -- make it be "constitutional."

Since the Supreme Court has essentially provided carte blanche legal protection of police for their use of violence and deadly force, the so-called "constitutional" standard for use of force is easy to meet from a legal standpoint. All they have to do is state that they "feared for their lives and the safety of others" to protect themselves legally from consequences of their violence. But there are numerous department policy issues that can restrict and in many cases eliminate the use of force and deadly force on a "constitutional" basis, and that, I think, is what the DoJ is looking for -- changes in policies which effectively bring the department's use of force into line with the constitution on the one hand and eventually reduce the use of force and deadly force on the other.

But the necessary changes are not happening fast enough or fully enough to seriously impact or limit the destruction wrought on the social fabric by violent policing. The lesson of violent policing is that violence is worthy and the appropriate way to rule. That lesson starts in schools where the presence of police officers (called "resource officers" for some arcane reason) leads to authoritarian violence and worse, resulting in generations of children indoctrinated into a culture of violence and retribution that continues on no matter what.

The numbers suggest that violent policing cannot be ended any time soon. Even if it is reformed, the culture of fear and violence that is fundamentally a part of the police framework will go on.

Blame Game

It's become a trope within the policing industry and community: that public questioning and challenging of violent policing has led to an increase in violent crime -- because the police are less aggressive against criminals -- for fear of being held up to scrutiny and ridicule.

In other words, video-ing the police has made them cower in fear. It's the "Ferguson Effect".

They are afraid of their violence being seen and criticized.

They are cowards.

Of course we've known that for I don't know how long, and videos help to confirm that assessment.

But is it true that there is an overall increase in violent crime? And if so, is there a correlation between said increase and "less aggressive" behavior by police?

The trope is a truism being marketed by police and their media confederates nation-wide, including by the FBI director -- I'm sure with the approval of the Attorney General and the White House. On the other hand, police chiefs and law enforcement honchos, as well as the Attorney General and the White House have gone to some lengths to examine and self-criticize the current deplorable state of criminal justice -- and by extension violent policing that feeds the system.

In some cities, there seems to be an increase (media would call it an "uptick") in violent crime, but there is no lack of violent and "aggressive" policing, as statistics on police kills and other police violence and aggression shows.

On the other hand, in some cities, like Albuquerque, where police violence has been reduced, it appears in the absence of complete statistics that crime rates are about the same -- despite growing media hysteria in the local market over an apparent "explosion" in violent crime, a "wave" as it were, as police back off their use of force, particularly lethal force. Reforms required by the DoJ consent decree actually don't affect the overall use of force or use of lethal force, they simply require that any such use of force be recorded and reported -- and that it fall within particular constitutional guidelines. Consent decrees are never about reducing or eliminating the use of force/use of lethal force; they are about rationalizing and standardizing it according to "best practice" guidelines.

That police violence has been reduced in Albuquerque is a result of decisions made at the top of the command chain, not because of the DoJ, but because the killing spree the police had been on for years was costing the city a huge amount of money in payouts to victims and their loved ones, and in lost business because the city's reputation for violence by the police (as well as by the alleged criminal classes) was in the toilet. Something had to be done and fast.

The order went out to stop the killings.

So let it be written, so let it be done.

Now police and media are trying to whip up public hysteria over particularly egregious or bloody incidents -- including the recent shooting of a police officer (who survived...)

Well, no. My advice to them is: "Stop it."

Basically what they want is to return to their Wild West days when they were killing at will with no consequences, something that some other police departments in New Mexico (and elsewhere) still do and feel is their right. They designate themselves to be judge, jury and executioner -- some are specifically executioners (ie: snipers) -- without hindrance of any kind.

They see the challenges they face from the public and politicians as interference and they want it to stop.

It's become a widespread ploy used by police departments and their media champions more and more frequently, and I see less and less potential for a genuine end to violent policing because of it.

The police do not want it to end, and they are terribly fearful that they might be in some kind of danger if it does end and pretty much the worst thing they can imagine is danger to themselves.

Statistics show that it has hardly ever been safer to be a police officer, however. What danger there is is less than that of many other professions, and they know it. But they want you and me to think that there is an ongoing "war" against police which they are valiantly fighting in order to make "us" safe. No such thing is the case. It's false.

And that basic falsehood must be pointed out as often as necessary by as many as can do so.

Otherwise the return to and reinforcement of the status quo of violent policing will be solidified, and there may be no way to undo it for generations to come.

DeRay's mantra of "We Will Win" will become a hope never realized. Or -- just as likely -- the definition of "win" will be massaged and refined to such a point that it's meaningless.

The nationwide effort to overcome police violence has been going on for well over a year (of course it's been ongoing for decades on a local level) and there is really very, very little concrete to show for it. The demonstrations highlight the problem, but solutions are absent. There's a considerable amount of talk but a paucity of action. Nothing changes. The number of those killed by police continues to rise. The rates of incarceration are stable. The System continues grinding on with no let up.

In some few cities like Albuquerque -- and until recently Oakland -- there has been a significant reduction in police violence. But that is being greeted with dismay by the PTB on the presumption that only violent policing against the lower orders keeps them in line enough to maintain the safety and security of the Overclass. They sincerely believe that only violence will do it.

It's a false belief.

But convincing the Overclass of that seems as far out of reach as ever.


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So there.

Random Notes

A lot of the commentary over the remarkable statements by Israeli PM Netanyahu that suggested that Hitler got the idea for the Final Solution from "a Palestinian" -- ie: the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem -- focused on the idea that "he's delusional," and/or "he's insane."

To the contrary, I think he knows exactly what he is doing, and it's not delusional or insane at all. He's making a spectacle of himself in order to draw attention away from the disaster of his rule on the one hand -- the rash of stabbings by Palestinians in Israel has apparently deeply unnerved the population, and the response by Israeli civilians and security forces is way over the to as demonstrated by numerous viral videos of Israelis committing acts of summary execution in the streets, sometimes of "their own people."

It's yet another domestic catastrophe  brought on by a man who apparently lacks any conscience whatever. This is not insanity. This is not delusion. It is pathological in my view, but it isn't an "illness." It is character. Or lack thereof.

It's pathological because a lack of conscience is destructive in the character of anyone who is in a position to wield power over others or to utilize the power of a nation state to accomplish political objectives.

We see this in the political class all the time, this utter lack of conscience, empathy, or even interest in the well-being of anyone outside their own circle, or even beyond themselves. It's not limited to politics, either. We see it in business and finance (especially finance), in the administrative realm generally, in policing theory and practice, and on and on, and I wonder...

Do people in these and so many other fields learn these traits or are they born that way? Is there some kind of eugenic experiment under way that is breeding out the genes for compassion, conscience, and empathy? Truly, I wouldn't be surprised.

In Netanyahu's case, it's been clear for decades that the man sees himself as a Warrior-King on a mission. That mission will not be thwarted by lowly Palestinians (I doubt he considers them to be human) or by anyone else -- who he also seems to doubt are truly human. His mission appears to be the reconstitution of Eretz Israel or its modern equivalent for his own Power and Glory.

If anyone gets crushed in his pursuit of this project, it's their own fault.

And Israelis love him for it.

It's not insanity or delusion. It's purpose and will -- ultimately antithetical to humanity.

It is commonplace in the his realm. While it seems to make no sense to those on the outside,  most of those on the inside share his perspective more or less fully. It's dangerous and destructive and deeply immoral,

One of the aspects of its immorality in the Israeli case is that their argument regarding the Nazis seems to accept everything they did -- up to the Final Solution itself. Israelis can therefore justify what they have long been doing to the Palestinians -- which is very closely patterned on Nazi practice toward Jews and other minorities in Germany. That means that the camps were OK, the roundups, deportations, the ghettoization, the prohibitions on actions, employment, travel, etc., the restrictions and/or elimination of civil rights, the confiscations and demolitions, the summary executions, the lynchings, the lootings, the general destruction levied against Jews and other minorities were all perhaps unpleasant, but they were not the Final Solution and therefore were "OK."

Well, no. They weren't "OK." Or justified. Nor has Israel any right to impose similar conditions on Palestinians. But they do it just the same.

They criticize the Nazis for the mass executions, the gas chambers, and the ovens. Not really for anything else. All the rest of it up to that point was... OK.

Jeeze.

Netanyahu is flailing for attention, and he's getting it.

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The Clinton Drama continues, and if Hillary is elected, we'll have no end of drama in the nation's capital. What did I see the other day? The radicals will be offering articles of impeachment the day she's sworn in to the presidency? Well, yes. Of course they will. It's what they do. And she'll happily do battle against them. And the attempts to impeach her will be a spectacle to feed the ravenous maw of the media -- which will love it -- for (probably) her entire term in office.

Meanwhile, of course, the nefarious and conscience-free policies of Our Betters will have free rein.

Isn't that the point, after all? Positioning Paul Ryan in the #3 slot -- ie: Speaker of the House -- is a kind of preparatory master-stroke, on the thought that however the drama plays out (she could be assassinated, after all...) there will be a dynamic conscience-free back up at the ready.

Jeebus, no matter how cynical you become, it's really impossible to keep up these days.

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Sanders has yet to impress me. He seems to be a sacrificial shepherd leading his devoted flock into a cul-de-sac. No, he will not be allowed to become the president, not on a bet, and if somehow he manages to become the Democratic Party nominee (he won't) he will be left to flounder and fade away. With him go the remnants of a "progressive" Democratic Party. That seems to be the point in any case.

The Democratic Party isn't the same as the Tories of Anglo politics, but it is in many respects the rightful conservative party of the United States. It has always been conservative whereas the Republicans are rightist radicals.

There is no political left in this country with any pretense to power -- perhaps there never has been one.  (FDR was not an exception). Without a functioning "left" in this country, it's impossible to move the governing apparatus away from or beyond its nearly exclusive devotion to the interests and demands of the Oligarchy.

The answer is withdrawal of presence and attention and consent. It happens organically, but it takes a long-long time to come to fruition. It doesn't happen in the political realm, it happens in the social realm, and eventually, the established political elements become irrelevant. "All of that" happens almost in another universe, affecting "real life" less and less, until nobody cares.

It's been happening in this country, this withdrawal, for several decades, but it's been fairly marginal in most respects. "Hippies" and such have been doing it since the 1960s, but there are many-many more elements than merely the unreconstructed hippies in the current withdrawals. "Alternatives" are everywhere, and those who pursue them find it's quite possible -- and sometimes a great deal more rewarding -- to simply let go of the necessity to serve the system as it is.

Thus I can't get too excited about the current political hoo-hah.

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Police whining has reached a crescendo. The recent incident of road rage in Albuquerque leading to the death of a 4 year old girl seems to have triggered a reaction in the media. That reaction is apparently focused on a restoration of the status quo ante -- prior to the consent decree and all the police reforms that went with it, including a steep reduction in police killings of civilians. The local media seems to want to restore previous police practices -- and the death rates that went with them -- as a means of curbing the "current crime wave."

Well, I call bullshit. There is no "current crime wave." Crime in general, and violent crime in particular, is at or below previous levels, prior to the consent decree and police "reforms." Restoration merely means adding more violence to the mix, not curbing it at all. But Warrior Cops can't help themselves, can they? They want to mix it up, they have to, it's an identity thing. If they aren't out there killing and brutalizing with impunity, what it the point of having police, right?

So they whine and whine and whine, like dogs chained up in the back yard, wanting to kill, kill, and kill some more, to be who they are.

And the media in Albuquerque is clamoring to unchain them. To root out all those criminals running wild.

Bleah.

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Enough.

What's the Matter With Vallejo, and How Do You Fix It?

When I saw this story from March the other day while checking out Twit feeds from DeRay or Shaun King, I was gobsmacked. A single police officer has shot and killed three people under less than stellar circumstances and said officer is promoted to detective.

There have been demonstrations, quite a few of them, but the city on San Pablo Bay is not exactly up in arms about the rash of killings by this one officer, and the city administration is content to simply pull the veil over its actions and the actions of police in the hopes that soon enough passions will die down and business as usual will continue.

It's a mess, one of those typical messes that were once completely routine, and the reason why in so many cases, absolutely nothing was done to correct a system of policing that relied on brutality, violence and random lethal acts to maintain "order."

Since the protests began in Albuquerque last year and spread nationwide after the execution of Michael Brown in Ferguson, MO in August, "business as usual" has been more and more difficult to maintain, but at the same time, police brutality, violence, and random killing seems to have increased rather than decreaed, and more and more, the media is focusing with utter horror on the very rare incidents of police encountering lethal force.

In other words, from a media perspective, it's still OK for civilians to be mowed down in their multitudes -- so long as it can be shown that they "deserve it" -- but it's horrific whenever a police officer meets a mortal fate in an encounter with a civilian.

Sigh. Plus ça change....

After all, a police officer's primary responsibility -- his job as it were -- is to go home to his family  each night,  right? 

If a few no-account scum have to die in order for that to happen, so. be. it.

End of story.

People believe this. They repeat it all the time. They seem to have no idea at all that people do not have to die at the hands of the police, that the officer's job is not to "go home to his family each night," or the killing has to stop -- and it can stop.

I've said before that sometimes the daily stories of police killings become ends in themselves, a kind of cop-porn/death-porn, with no suggestion at all that there might be alternatives to the constant killing. It's like there is a heavy investment in keeping the police killing spree going -- because it sells. 

Almost glee at each and every new atrocity; nary a hint that it doesn't have to be that way.

Vallejo is a strange, smallish Bay Area town on the edge of California's San Pablo Bay -- which connects with San Francisco Bay. It once hosted the workers at Mare Island Naval Shipyard. My grandfather (actually, my mother's step-father) worked there during WWII as a machinist helping to build ships sent to the Pacific Theatre. He and my grandmother lived in Vallejo. Both of them died before I was born, so I never had family in Vallejo.

My connection with the town is as a pass-thru place on the way to San Francisco, Oakland, Berkeley or wherever the destination may have been in the Bay Area. I did some work there but not much, and I came away from it with an odd sense of disconnection.

The only claim to fame Vallejo has had since the shipyard closed in 1999 (or whenever it was) is an amusement park on the north side of town, one I've never been to, never had an urge to stop at -- though the roller coaster is visible from the freeway, and the highway to Napa and such passes right by the entrance.

I have been to the Solano County Fair at least once, maybe twice. I remember a knot of young cowboys spitting and cussing at the Fair while we enjoyed the livestock exhibits and the musical entertainment. Solano County is one of the areas of California which still can boast some real cowboys...

What I remember from working there briefly in the late-90s/early 2000s is that it was pretty rough edged, and the people tended to be as rough as the town. This was partly because it was one of the few places in the Bay Area where ordinary people could still afford to live, but that was changing fast. Living costs were going up fast, but with the closure of Mare Island, the opportunities to make a living were shrinking for many residents.

This transition was happening in many places in California at the time, and dislocated people were being left to fend for themselves. This led to a contemptuous police attitude toward people who might be on the edge of survival.

And so it seems to have been in Vallejo, where one police officer, Sean Kenny, has shot and killed time after time, in murky circumstances at best, and earned a promotion. Some have speculated that his promotion to detective was a clever way to get him off the street, but who knows?

As the death toll from police killings rises inexorably, it's been noticed that a relative handful of police are responsible for the the bulk of the killing, and in many cases the officers involved are repeat offenders. A pattern is beginning to emerge.

In Albuquerque, we noticed for example that a few officers appeared to be the delegated killers, snipers whose job  it was to kill suspects/subjects like James Boyd who refused to comply, or who otherwise complicated policing. Surprisingly -- or maybe not -- their names are often... "Sean."

Apparently this Sean Kenny in Vallejo was the delegated killer sent on calls where lethal force might be called for.

And so he killed, time after time.

And the police department did everything in their power to make sure the public had as little information as possible after the fact -- apparently to tamp down any likelihood of protest.

There were protests nonetheless, but they were (apparently) ineffective. Despite changes in staffing, the police, DA and the city manager's office are still in stonewall mode, simply refusing to provide the public with more than the sketchiest information, much of which is directly contradicted by eyewitnesses -- some of whom were never interviewed by investigators.

When police, DAs, and city managers collude to ensure the public has as little information as possible, it's not accidental. It happens because that's the policy decision made at the top. That decision is often made cynically -- because the "people" are viewed with condescension and contempt -- or it may be because of old-line traditions, "it's always been this way and we see no reason to change things...".

It may be due to a combination of factors. What seemed to have happened in Vallejo is that there was a culture clash between a largely white-rightist police force and city administration on the one hand and a shifting racial and economic demographic on the other made for tensions that authorities believed could only be relieved through use of force.

And so force was used, often and sometimes lethally.

So far as I can tell, it's still being used, frequently and inappropriately. The point being to keep those no-accounts in line.

When the economy of Vallejo collapsed after the closure of Mare Island, the city declared bankruptcy. It was traumatic for the city administration, and that trauma seemed to filter throughout the city's employees, including the police. But I somehow doubt the Vallejo police were ever measurably less violent prior to the trauma of bankruptcy.

Violent policing is a matter of policy. It is what is expected and demanded of officers in the field -- so as to maintain "order," don't you know.

You fix it by changing the policy.

In order to change the policy, you have to convince the Powers That Be that police policies MUST change.

To do that, you have to be a voice the police and the city administration (ie: city manager, not so much elected officials) believe they MUST listen to.

And who would that be? In most cities, it is the city's wealthiest and most financially potent individuals and interests.

They are the ones who tell the city manager what kind of policing they want.

The city manager tells the police chief who tells the rank and file.

And for the most part, they make it so.

The complication is that the wealthy and powerful talk to one another, city managers talk to one another, and police chiefs talk to one another. Sometimes a consensus is formed within each of these circles, and every now and then a consensus forms between them. Suddenly, "change happens." The public doesn't have to force anything into being, it just... is. Nor usually is the public consulted.

Policing policies are changing slowly, city by city, a process that is likely to take a generation or more, but there are also signs that consensus is being sought within the circles and then between them to -- potentially -- radically change policing from its current violent and deadly model to something more socially responsible and culturally sensitive.

Whether that will be any quicker than the city-by-city approach now under way is an open question.

Fixing policing policy in Vallejo is one of hundreds of "fixes" that need to be made. Resistance is certain. Yet overcoming that resistance is necessary.

Once the people at the top are convinced that further resistance is futile, the policies that enable violent policing and over-use of lethal force will change. Often the change comes overnight.

So, He Resigned Did He?

The news yesterday was that the violent little pissant McKinney cop whose actions caused a national uproar thanks to video shot by Brandon Brooks has resigned. Eric Casebolt, former McKinney Cop of the Year (2008) sent word through his attorneys that he was resigning effective whenever.

This action defused the situation in McKinney for the moment, but word has it that Casebolt was a police trainer, and my sense of his departure is that his trainings will continue and perhaps flourish. Who knows, he might even join up with (Lt Col) Dave Grossman's "Killology" Road Show.

Word has it that the one young man who was arrested at the Incident in McKinney -- he's the one the pissant cop draws his gun on and is seen at the end of the Brooks video being escorted back by the other two uniformed cops while apparently spitting blood from his mouth -- has been released with no charges. He had initially been arrested for "interference".

The pissant cop's unprofessional behavior in McKinney unfortunately is not unusual. In this case, observers wondered if his chaotic and violent behavior was enhanced by, if not directly caused by, substance abuse, particularly steroids or perhaps cocaine or meth. Who can say? Cops are typically not drug tested, though steroid abuse is said to be rampant among them, while other drug abuse is by no means unusual. Drug abuse is widely encountered in any high-stress occupation. The fact that the other cops on scene behaved themselves indicates that whatever was going on with Casebolt was his own private fantasy world alone.

This is an important point in my view. It only takes one cop going wild to cause a whole scene to degenerate into mayhem -- or in too many cases, to cause the death of innocents.

The other cops on a scene may or may not participate in the mayhem, but they are for the most part powerless -- and perhaps too fearful -- to intervene to stop it.

Entire departments can be infected this way, and I would say from observation over many years that far too many departments are infected. Removing the "bad apples" may have a salutary effect, at least temporarily, but the infection goes to the heart of the department and can easily break out again, despite the removal of "bad apples." But most infected departments don't remove their "bad apples." Many departments promote them instead.

So it's a good thing in the short term that Officer Pissant Casebolt is leaving the McKinney police department. But I'll bet you anything he'll show up somewhere else, either as a consultant/trainer or a supervising officer.

It's just the way these things seem to go.

Not that I'm cynical or anything.

What the Actual F*ck??!!

This video has been making the rounds today. White cops in suburban Dallas going ape-shit on black pool-partiers, a particular example being that of the sergeant on duty, hurling a bikini-clad partier onto the ground, hauling her around by her arm, and kneeing her on the back until another cop comes along with handcuffs to truss her up.



Apparently the big-bellied fat fucks are plainclothes officers, though it's hard to say.

The story I've read is that a white female resident of the housing development objected to black pool partiers in her community pool. She got into a fight with a black girl -- who is apparently also a resident of the development -- when the white woman said the others should go back to the "projects". The white woman, according to what I've read, initiated the physical struggle. Another white woman intervened to break it up. Others called 911 claiming that there were all kinds of black people using the community's pool uninvited. Still others called saying there was a fight. A dozen police responded, the little pissant sergeant (now referred to as piss ant Police Supervisor Cpl Eric Casebolt).

Supposedly the pool party was advertised as "open to the public" on social media, and from what I've been able to glean, those who objected to the presence of black people in the pool were adult white people. From the video, it's not apparent that white kids have a problem with the presence of black people at the pool party.

The little pissant corporal, the one who savages the girl in the bikini, is out of control and he has to be restrained by his buddies when he pulls out his gun to threaten youngsters who come to help the girl he's thrown to the ground.

"Failure to obey" quickly and completely enough is the trigger for his actions -- at least so far as I can tell.

It's been pointed out that the police are only interested in the black kids. But the other issue -- which I think is a key -- is that they are responding to repeated 911 calls.

In too many situations, callers to 911 are a menace, as are dispatchers and responding officers. Something is dreadfully wrong with the flow charts that are used and the protocols of dispatch. Too many people are killed and injured and wrongly arrested/harassed by police sent in response to ambiguous or hostile calls to 911. Something has to be done. Further, police in this instance chose to escalate where there was no need. They did it because... they knew nothing else? I don't know. But what they did was wrong.

And too typical...

Flipping the National Conversation

Well, with the overkill (so to speak) local coverage of the death of Rio Rancho police officer Gregg Benner on May 25, it's pretty clear to my rheumy eyes that the phase of the "national conversation" about violent policing has changed once again. It went from the appalling facts of the shooting of James Boyd, a homeless mentally ill camper, in the hills above Albuquerque, to the multiplicity of police killings of black men (and women, who were initially forgotten about in the "conversation") both armed and unarmed, to a consideration of "best practices" by the panel of experts appointed by the President (though its recommendations, both interim and final, were largely ignored -- such is the way of the world -- to now coming almost full circle to consider the pure evil of the criminals out there who shoot and kill police officers with such a disregard for human life, yadda yadda.

But a couple of other things have happened, too.

After it became clear that the only near real-time tracking of police killings in the whole country was being done by a crowd-sourced website called "Killed by Police" and repeated calls on the government to track these killings were being ignored -- or rather, they weren't being followed through on, despite the fact that there has been tracking and reporting legislation in place for decades -- a couple of other intrepid media outfits, the Washington Post and the Guardian, took it upon themselves to do (some of) the tracking that "Killed by Police" has long been doing (since May 1, 2013) and to publish findings relatively quickly (ie: not wait for annual or quarterly reports, but actually publish results in a timely fashion.)

The Guardian's coverage is very similar to the tracking of media reports done by "Killed by Police," and I think they do acknowledge KbP as one of their inspirations for doing their own coverage. The data they have assembled about police killings since January 1 of this year is impressive and they analysis of that data by the Guardian is equally impressive.

Washington Post's coverage is not nearly as extensive, as one of their objectives is to only cover police shootings. While that accounts for the majority of police involved killings in this country, it is not the totality of the carnage, not by a long shot (so to speak) and the way the WaPo's coverage is caveated and slanted is clearly intended to minimize the appearance of carnage at the hands of police and to make it seem as if those who die deserve it.

That's pretty much been the police and local media position on violent policing for as long as I've been following the stories, for decades now, so the WaPo's perspective fits in with the status quo that has long been a feature of local reports of police killings. The typical reports include the police perspective first and foremost, starting with the stenography of police press releases on the incident. They might or might not include contrary witness and/or family reports of what happened (frequently they do not). They almost always take the police reports as truthful and accurate, even though they are often filled with lies and fabrications. Local reports will cover demonstrations, should there be any, but often the coverage of demonstrations "Otherizes" the demonstrators or outright criminalizes them. The victim of the police killing is always, always smeared. The fact that he or she has had "numerous run-ins with the law" is featured and played up -- even if they were only traffic stops or minor issues -- as a means of making the victim out to be the bad guy. Almost always, the officer(s) who kill are protected from any criminal liability for their actions because of a little thing called "fear." So long as the officer(s) says "Fearing for my life and the safety of others ..." at the right time and to the right people (the police officer's union will provide gratis legal advice so as to make this statement useful and meaningful) the officer is almost certain to be exonerated from criminal culpability. By and large, civilians cannot use that legal sleight of hand, however.

Until the killing of James Boyd in Albuquerque in 2014, the pattern of coverage and the "conversation" was almost always the same: local only, but sometimes extensive in the locality wherein the killing took place; nearly complete victim-blaming by the media, with little or no questioning of whatever the police department chose to say about the incident and the victim; implicit hero-ization of the killing officer; contempt for the victim, dismissal or "Otherization" of survivors, family, and protesters.

The Boyd killing changed and began to nationalize the coverage and conversation. When the APD chief released the video of the shooting, he said that the actions of the officers were "justified." He said that what they did was justified because Boyd had two knives and thus was an armed and dangerous threat to be neutralized.

Except that isn't what the video really showed. It showed Boyd surrendering to the police, the pocket knives nowhere to be seen (they were in his pockets). The video showed Boyd gathering up some of his things and beginning to walk down the hill toward police. The video showed one of the officers (whose helmet cam was recording the scene) say "Do it!" and immediately a flash-bang grenade was launched and a dog was released. The video showed Boyd dropping his things and pulling out his knives while officers (still thirty to forty feet away) shout at him to get on the ground. The video showed Boyd turning to face uphill and away from the police as six shots are fired at him, three from each of two officers. All six shots strike him, and the video showed Boyd collapsing on the ground mortally wounded. The video then showed subsequent actions by the police that I won't describe.

The video was quite clear about what really happened, and the narrative the police were spinning out to the media and the public about "justification" --- because of some mortal threat Boyd represented to the lives of the officers and the safety of others -- was simply false.

It was the last straw. There had been so many killings by APD so frequently, and often so outrageously, that even the local media had started questioning what was going on. The mayor and police chief always, always defended the actions of police, and the DA never, ever found that any of their killings were unjustified. This had been going on for years, and finally, enough of the survivors and victims had gotten together to press the Justice Department to do an investigation of the pattern and practice of the APD. That investigation was underway, though slowed, when Boyd was shot and killed.

Small-scale protests against police killing had been going on for years, and civil awards to victim families had reached tens of millions of dollars, but the killing of James Boyd unleashed a torrent of condemnation from the public. Demonstrations grew to include thousands of protesters, and in one unfortunate night of protest, the APD used horses and ordnance against the protesters. Thanks to the wind, the police actually wound up gassing themselves and the residents of the dorms at UNM. Oh well. There was some vandalism by protesters as well and as usual, thought the vandalism was quite minor (mainly spraypainting several police substations) it was blown completely out of proportion by the media and used as justification for the police crackdown on protest.

Only the protest didn't stop. It continued through the spring and into the summer. Early protests apparently got the DoJ to release it's long-stalled pattern and practice report, leading to the media referring to its "scathing indictment" of APD's pattern and practice of unconstitutional policing. In fact, the report was an indictment, quite remarkable in its way for the blunt honesty of its findings that the APD used force and lethal force too frequently, too often unconstitutionally, and that reforms were necessary.

Until then, the APD had been lauded by city officials for their excellence. Suddenly, that was no longer the case.

Numerous police departments around the country had previously been found to have a pattern and practice of unconstitutional policing. It was so common as to be expected, and there had already been extensive media coverage of the slaughter APD was engaging in long before the Boyd killing. When the son of the Deputy County Manager was killed by police, for example, it was clear to anyone paying attention that police killing was not at all confined to the Otherized poor and dispossessed. Anyone could be a victim, no matter their prominence and position, or worse, anyone's son or daughter could be killed by police.

However, findings of pattern and practice violations and recommendations and even orders for reform were frequently fought tooth and claw by police departments, and in many cases they were openly defied. Police simply would not adhere to reforms nor would they listen to the public. Defiance was too frequently the rule and the killing and violent policing went on without let up.

I laid the blame for this on people like David Grossman whose "killology" trainings and seminars made killing out to be the highest accomplishment a police officer could achieve. It was the officer's raison d'etre. To kill -- righteously -- was the whole purpose of Warrior-Police. It was sickening to read or watch his presentations and justifications for police violence, for it was clear (to me at least) that the man was quite mad and was going around the country infecting police departments with his madness and leaving police officers convinced that their killing spree was not only justified, it was required by their oaths and their natures.

Others, like Bill Bratton, had used their positions as police chiefs to institute a version of policing that formalized falsity and didn't curb the killing. It merely made justification for overpolicing and killing by police much easier. Through false narratives about broken windows and other minor offenses and defenses of intrusive policing methods, and through acknowledgement of "tragedy whenever someone loses their life" -- while fiercely defending officers who take those lives -- Bratton and others like him managed to make over-policing of poor and minority communities and routine death at the hands of police seem normal, and furthermore -- most dangerously -- Bratton and others managed to make this kind of policing and falsity into American "best practice" policing.

As the deaths piled up and the brutality of police was revealed more and more frequently by cell phone and body-cam videos, however, more and more people saw for themselves what was going on, and more and more of them were revolted  by what they saw.

It was noted that FBI statistics of police killings were grossly understated to the point of ludicrousness. The police kill-rate was two to three times greater than the FBI's "official" statistics suggested, and those who used FBI statistics were subjected to ridicule, as was the agency itself, as it made no attempt to gather and present accurate information or statistics on police killings.

When James Boyd was killed in March of 2014, people recognized that mentally ill and homeless people, whether armed or unarmed, are frequent victims of police aggression and death, and they have little or no recourse as there is so little mental health and/or homeless service available -- and accessible -- to the public. Treatment and services are very hard to come by and sustain thanks to the way mental health and homeless service have been cut back especially since the Reaganite dismantlement of the state mental hospitals and mental health service system as it once was.

When Mike Brown was shot and killed by Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson in August of 2014, the conversation about violent policing changed to focus on the fact that black men, often unarmed black men like Mike Brown, are subjected to violent policing and killing by police at a rate far out of proportion to their numbers in society. There were hours of "negotiations" with James Boyd before he was executed in the Sandia foothills. Many black men were simply shot on sight on a belief that they were armed and dangerous. The mere sight of a black man was too often considered an a priori threat to be neutralized. Mike Brown was unarmed. He was shot at as he ran away from the officer. He was killed as he turned to surrender.

And as is almost always the case, the officer was considered "justified" -- because he was frightened of a Big Black Man who had "demon eyes."

Ever since, the national conversation has focused on the prevalence of police abuse and killing of black men, almost to the exclusion of any other victims of police violence. This focus has caused more than a little tension due to the fact that blacks are by no means the only victims of police violence and killing. There are many others; the problem is the violence the police bring to situations not calling for it.

Blacks too often are victims, and blacks too often are considered existential threats to police simply by their existence. This is derived in part from military beliefs and training that propose that the mere presence of an armed -- or thought to be armed -- Iraqi or Afghani or other native of some foreign land under American attack or occupation is sufficient justification for killing said native, regardless of any other fact at all.

But it also comes from America's long history of black and brown oppression and murder. It simply doesn't occur to police that an "Otherized" racial/cultural minority is actually "human." They have become objectified to such an extent in the minds of many police officers that their killing is seen essentially as nothing more than pulling out a weed.

This is demonstrated by the many killings themselves and by the fact that so often, police officers who use force or lethal force provide no first aid to their victims and all too frequently prevent EMS from attending to them.

This happened in the South Valley of Albuquerque not too long ago when a sheriff's deputy shot and wounded Billy Grimm, claiming that he saw Grimm with a gun, and then the officers refused any medical aid to Grimm for hours after he was shot, though EMS was available within minutes. They claimed that Grimm refused their orders to exit the truck he was in, and it was only after he did so and a dog was unleashed on him that officers felt the scene was "secure" enough to allow EMS to enter and tend to their victim. By then, of course, it was too late, and Grimm died in the hospital shortly thereafter.

Shaun King at dKos has documented numerous similar incidents in which a victim has been shot and mortally wounded by police -- who then refuse to provide any aid whatsoever to their victim and often prevent others from rendering aid.

This callous indifference to human life displayed over and over again by police officers, every one of whom is trained in first aid, is one of the hallmarks of American policing, obviously a matter of department policy that is nearly universal.

It's criminal negligence, though some court decisions have stated that officers have no affirmative obligation to render aid to those they have injured. Some of the consent decrees that have been entered into with police departments require police officers to render or summon aid to their victims immediately ("Provided it is safe to do so" -- always the caveat). But this is policy, not law. Court decisions can protect officers if they don't render or summon aid, but the policy of the department can easily change the dynamic, just as policies can stop the killing.

In Albuquerque and Oakland, among a few other places, the killings by police have all but stopped.

It can be done.

The national conversation is now shifting to the risks police officers encounter on the job, including the fact that they might get shot or injured. Well, yes.

It's one of the hazards they supposedly signed up for. The problem is that too often, facing any risk at all is considered to be an unacceptable hazard for a police officer. Killing a subject that might pose a risk is the far better alternative, no? Large numbers of the public have been saying "NO!" quite clearly and loudly, but with the wounding or death of several officers recently, the conversation about that risk is now under way.

What sort of risks should officers expect to face and handle? Police unions and many departments say "None at all." A risk is by definition a threat, and threats are not to be faced, they are to be neutralized with whatever force the officer deems necessary, including lethal force, in every case.

That has long been the position of police and their departments. But the questions that have been raised about violent policing have shone a light on police behavior that was often ignored or thought acceptable in the past. No longer is unquestioning acceptance of grotesque behavior by police considered necessary. The questions that have been raised -- about the constant killing, the "Otherization" of Americans subjected to violent policing, the racial elements in violent policing and police killings, the distance of police culture from that of the communities police are supposed to serve and protect, and the risks and hazards police are expected to take -- have reached a kind of crescendo.

My view has long been that police are way too violent, they kill and maim far too often and unnecessarily, and they are enabled by a corrupt system of injustice that protects them from accountability let alone criminal liability. That has to change.

There are signs it is changing.

Until recently, police departments as a rule had no idea they were doing anything wrong or that the louder and louder objections from the public were something they needed to listen to rather than simply suppress. The hundreds of millions of dollars -- indeed, billions -- paid out to victims of violent policing meant nothing to them. The money didn't come out of their budgets, and because police as a rule are not held criminally liable for any use of force they deem necessary -- regardless of other facts -- they saw no reason to change their behavior under pressure from the public. The public was often seen as enemies, and those who actively protested police violence were often seen as "enemy combatants."

This was wrong from every direction, but police were -- and to a great extent are -- incapable of seeing the truth of the matter, presuming that they can enforce their will through greater levels of violence.

That conversation may be next. Should police become even more violent than they are? Is 3 a day too few to kill? Should every police encounter include a bit of ultraviolence -- just because?

Or should policing become more or less a substitute for absent social services? Should violent policing be consigned to the ash heap with so many other theories of policing that have come and gone?

Should the police be abolished?

That's where this conversation needs to be directed sooner rather than later.

We need to find a better way of ensuring something close to dignity, peace and justice in our society, because what's been happening is going entirely the wrong direction.

[I'll try to add links later, as I am pressed for time today... ]

Neither a Warrior nor a Guardian Be -- Advice the Cops Need

Sometimes when I explore the issue of violent policing and police abuse of the public, it seems perfectly obvious where their beliefs and attitudes come from, why so many die at their hands or through their neglect of basic human decency. It's a matter of character -- individual and institutional -- and it's a matter of training and inculcated beliefs (brainwashing) about their jobs and the people and institutions they serve.

A key to understanding is that the police don't serve the public. They serve the powers that be operating through governments. In many jurisdictions, "the public" are enemy forces to be corralled and suppressed by any and all means necessary, including use of lethal force, so as to maintain "order" -- which is to say established systems of authority, control and exploitation designed and implemented to protect wealth and the property of the wealthy, not in any way to serve and protect the Rabble.

To the extent they are not violently and abusively policed, the public should consider themselves lucky. To the extent they are violently and abusively policed, the public should realize they deserve it. Thus runs the mindset in many, too many, police departments.

Recently a column appeared at PoliceOne.com, the often controversial website maintained by a cadre of retired police officers, equipment and training suppliers and consultants and by others as a means to foster and enhance police "professionalism" -- a term much used and misunderstood in the field -- in service to... well, that's typically left unstated, but it's not the public.

The column lambasted President Obama for his call on police to adopt a guardian as opposed to a warrior mentality as a means to overcome some of the objections to their behavior that have been raised during the lengthy "national conversation" about police and their appropriate role in the 21st Century.

This call grew directly out of the presidential task force, "Policing in the 21st Century" (116 page final report, pdf), empaneled last year after the so-called riots in Ferguson, MO following the summary execution of Michael Brown by Officer Darren Wilson of the Ferguson PD, apparently for the crime of having demon eyes and disrespecting the officer's authority in broad daylight.

This killing followed on the heels of many others, and there would be many more to come. Summary execution has become one of the favored tools of US police forces and is employed some 1,000 or more times a year, frequently on unarmed individuals and those in mental health or other crises, with nearly total impunity. All the officer has to say to avoid criminal responsibility and liability for these killings is that s/he "feared for my life and the safety of others." Bingo, home free to their families and who knows, maybe a medal and parade on top of it.

On the other hand, the city is often left liable in civil court for hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars in awards to the victims, survivors and families of those subjected to summary execution and abusive policing. Oh my yes. The awards seemingly have become more frequent, and the amounts awarded are growing. This despite the fact that it is all but impossible to charge and convict a police officer for crimes committed while on duty -- apart from sexual indiscretion or impropriety.

The columnist at PoliceOne, Lt. Dan Marcu (ret) disputes the call on police to adopt a guardian as opposed to a warrior mindset, a call that came from a task force that had a heavy police presence and represented mostly an establishmentarian point of view.

No, says Marcu, the police must maintain warrior competence and vigilance, because the Persians are at the gates, and the police are the Spartans at Thermopylae, holding off the invading horde and protecting Democracy. I kid you not.

Guardians will fail in the task according to Marcu. Only warriors can keep us safe from the Persians at the gates.

This is nonsense on stilts, but it represents the kind of thinking that infects police departments throughout the land. The idea that the police must behave as self-described Warriors to prevent the Persians -- or any other foreign entity -- from invading and having their way is insane and ridiculous. Marcu even cites the threat of ISIS in his defense of Warrior Policing.

No. No. No. No. No.

I'm not a fan of Guardian Policing, either, because it assumes that the public, the Rabble, are nothing more than incompetents and infantile, unable to look after themselves and their own communities without the sometimes heavy hand of the police to guide and protect them from... themselves, primarily.

I tend to be more of an abolitionist, truth to tell. But I realize that police cannot be abolished without thinking through the means and methods and the many consequences thereof. We're nowhere near that point yet. The thought process for abolishing police has barely begun.

But the cult of Warrior Police is out of control, and people like Dan Marcu and David Grossman -- who retails the cult of the Sheepdog-Warrior Police -- are a big part of the reason why.

Marcu's argument is that the President is wrong because he calls on police to "abandon" the Warrior mindset, whereas, according to Marcu, every police officer is already a guardian, and inside each and every one,

there must reside the beating heart of an honorable warrior ready to be summoned at a moment’s notice...

What he and so many others of his ilk seem incapable of comprehending is that that's the problem you fools!

That so-called "honorable warrior" is shooting down people they've been called on to help each and every day; that "honorable warrior" considers any questioning or challenge to his or her authority to be an existential threat to be neutralized with whatever force the officer can muster; that "honorable warrior" sees a black man with a weapon or thought to have a weapon as an existential threat to be neutralized with lethal force; that "honorable warrior" sees all residents of certain sections of their jurisdictions as insurgents or potential insurgents who must be made to obey with whatever force and intimidation tactics the officer chooses to utilize. They must be made to obey -- or they must die.

This is absolutely the wrong way to deal with the American public, but it is the way the police have come to believe they must believe and behave or... the Persians will overwhelm the Spartans at Thermopylae. The heroic Spartans who are only defending Democracy, after all.

Which is complete and utter bullshit. It's ahistorical bullshit besides.

But it's the belief. It's one of the underlying beliefs that drives the killing spree the police have been on. It's a big reason why they feel it is necessary to shoot down various categories of threats:

•  The mentally ill -- just because.
• Anyone addled by drugs whose actions are not under complete control and whose compliance is not 100% at all times -- and even then, execution may be carried out... just because.
•  Negroes, Mexicans, and/or American Indians, whether armed or unarmed particularly if standing still, driving or running away.
• Anyone challenging the authority of the officer, particularly if armed -- but not white people if open carrying
•  Non-compliant individuals who may be demons or Hulks in disguise and therefore may pose an existential threat to one and all.
• Anyone -- and/or any pet -- in a structure at which a warrant is being served who does not immediately comply with any and all commands issued, no matter how contradictory, incomprehensible, whether or not accompanied by grenades and bullets.

These are the people -- and animals -- who die at the hands of police at mind numbing rates.

These are warrior actions that are completely inappropriate in a civilian/domestic context, and were (or still are) inappropriate and counterproductive in the context of the military occupations they have been derived from.

Thousands upon thousands of completely innocent civilians in our overseas satrapies have executed by troops in much the same way domestic police forces have been summarily executing civilians in the United States.

As observers and critics have long been pointing out, most of this killing is completely unnecessary, and it leads inevitably to distrust of police/military and rebellion against their authority. Inevitably.

They are not protecting anybody, not even the masters they are in place to serve. They are not even protecting themselves. They are acting crazy. Causing more problems than they solve. Precipitating chaos not order.

The police and the troops they emulate are the problem, not the solution.

But it's clear that powerful forces and voices within the police and military want it this way and will not brook opposition or counter arguments.

They want more killing, not less; they demand more chaos, not order; their rules of engagement are madness. They are actively destroying what they pretend to preserve.

A stop must be put to it.

Cops must become neither guardians nor warriors but become the servants of the People they were long mythologized to be. They must cease their contempt and violence toward the public, stop the killing and abuse, and de-police communities rather than becoming ever more intrusive and violent. The commando mindset must be eliminated. Military equipment and trappings must be removed. Laws which protect police violence must be revised or overruled, and the system of injustice which the police serve must be overhauled top to bottom.

Given the kind of resistance and full-on paranoia and insanity that pervade police departments nationwide (not all of them, but far too many of them)  the kind of necessary reforms that are being mentioned more and more simply can't happen -- or at least they can't happen soon enough to preserve life and liberty of the public. The police are infected with a cult of death. They cannot comprehend that what they are doing is crazy and destructive. They can't imagine that they are doing anything wrong.

It doesn't occur to them to change their ways to suit the interests of the public. The only thing that occurs to them is that they have the power and authority to use whatever force they deem necessary at any given time to enforce obedience to their command. And they can do so with impunity. No matter the consequences.

That's what they know.

That's all they know.

And that's why I think abolition is the necessary solution once the means, methods, and consequences are sufficiently thought through.

On Violence -- a Mother's Day Perspective (on the Baltimore Uprising and Other Matters)

By now, everyone's seen this video of a mother beating up her teenage son during the initial phases of the Baltimore Uprising (#BaltimoreUprising):



She's been hailed a heroine by many for her violent attack on her son. She's said she didn't want him to wind up like Freddie Gray  -- dead -- and he's expressed contrition for his actions that day in the midst of the Uprising.

I was watching a livestream during this phase of the confrontations between police and the crowd of teenagers by Mondawmin Mall, but I didn't see this incident. There was so much going on in any case, that I probably would have missed it even if the livestreamer had captured it. He was a little way down the road, behind the iron fence, and was concentrating on the people running from or confronting the police at the time. He was also holding his phone in portrait mode, so the view was very narrow.

What I also didn't see was this was ground level video of some of the confrontation between the high school students who were essentially trapped once the police yanked them off the buses that would take them home and confined them tho the Mondawmin area:

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While flipping through news sources after the Freddie Gray funeral -- which I saw parts of on livestream as well -- I briefly saw an overhead view of police in confrontation with a crowd, but I didn't know what was going on until later, and when I saw a more complete video of the incident, it appeared that 1) police were throwing rocks at demonstrators (they were); 2) demonstrators were pelting the police line with rocks and forcing them back (they were).

Context, however, was totally lacking, and the rest of the coverage I saw of the "riots" focused on the vandalism, arson and looting that took place, not on the confrontations between police and rioters that took place in the afternoon following the end of the school day at Frederick Douglass High School adjacent to Mondawmin Mall.

Ever since, almost all the coverage -- including the BET gab-fests in the post below (sorry for the auto-start; I've tried to make it go away, and it won't, so I'll replace the embed video with a link to the page...) -- focus on "violence" as 1) property damage; 2) the acts of the police which lead to the deaths of so many, day in and day out; 3) sometimes -- but rarely -- the "violence inherent in the system" (h/t Monty Python) of capitalist exploitation.

The incident we witness from ground level in the raw video above is almost never mentioned in reports and analysis of the "riots" these days and if video of it is shown, it is the overhead shots, generally without comment, or if there is comment, it will focus on the injuries police sustained in the confrontation, not on what the incident actually showed about the Uprising.

I think it is too shocking to the sensibilities of the Powers That Be, for what happened was this:

The police either made up or freaked out over a social media post that suggested the students at Frederick Douglass were going to live out "The Purge" idea of "a day without law" following the funeral of Freddie Gray. The students got out of school at their regular time (3:00p -- sounds late to me, but that's what the most reliable reports say) and went to the Mall transportation hub to take the subway or catch a bus to go home. They were met with hundreds of riot police who forced them to get off the buses and closed the metro station. Some went to the Mall, but many dispersed through the neighborhood only to be further confronted by aggressive riot police.

And the students fought back. They were being harassed, taunted and violently confronted by ranks of riot police for no other reason but that the police could do so. The students responded with rocks and bottles thrown at the police line, and for the next hour or two, the students and police contended for territory in the Mondawmin neighborhoods. For the most part, the police retreated, and except for a few tear gas and smoke grenades, they did not fire on the students.

Looking back on some of the videos from the scene now, especially the raw video from ground level embedded above, I get the distinct impression that what happened was almost like a "live fire" training exercise for police to see how a crowd would react to an arbitrary police action in an urban area and to find out whether or not it could be controlled by the presence of riot police alone. That's what it looked like to me. It didn't go well.

The students and the residents participating in the resistance lost their fear of police that day in Baltimore, and that's critical for understanding what happened later. The looting and vandalism and arson happened later, and though the focus has been on those relatively random and relatively  isolated actions, there were targeted actions that were much more important (IMHO).

Dozens of police vehicles were trashed or burned, for example. As police vehicles sped through the Penn North area, they were pelted with rocks, bottles, paint and other objects. Some were parked along the streets and were attacked and burned by the crowds. This was targeted rage against police, not the kind of "mob violence" and looting that was being focused on by the media. The people were no longer afraid, and they vented their anger on the appropriate targets. The police. The police, for their part, largely withdrew until they obtained the protection of the National Guard the following day.

This needs to be clear: the people of Baltimore (at least in that area) rose up and said "No more." They literally forced the police out until such time as they returned with the protection of troops.

That was the most important aspect of the first day of the Baltimore Uprising, and it is barely recognized by most observers. It's been sent down the Memory Hole, but much of the evidence is still retrievable through videos like the one above.

There were other incidents, such as confrontations between drunken white baseball fans and largely but not exclusively black protesters outside Camden Yards -- which ultimately resulted in the cancellation of games and the absurd sight of a game played in an empty stadium.

These confrontations involved a lot of physical interaction and fighting between the drunken white folks and the angry black (and brown and white) protesters that led to a lot of mayhem outside Orioles Park. Some of it is seen in this video -- it's quite long, and I'm not embedding it. The Camden Yards footage is around 15 minutes in.

Again, it's clear the demonstrators had lost their fear, not only of police but of drunken white folks, too. This is important.

What I've seen while reviewing some of the video captures of the Baltimore "riots" reminds me a lot of incidents in the West Bank during which unarmed Palestinians confront heavily armed Israeli police and troops, and many of the urban disturbances in Ukraine during the prelude to and aftermath of the overthrow of Yanukovych. There are many other examples one could cite -- uprisings in Greece and other parts of the European "periphery", for example -- that follow a distinctive pattern, essentially a vocabulary, of incitement and repression, over and over and over again, sometimes leading to overthrows or revolution, but often leading nowhere at all -- except to more of the same. In other words, the struggle between arbitrary authority and resisting populations becomes routinized, almost institutionalized, but with little or no discernible effect or outcome.

Despite numerous protests against police violence around the country in the past year or so in city after city, the Baltimore Uprising is the first time I'm aware of that civilians responded to police provocation and violence with targeted violence of their own, albeit there have been some incidents of targeted vandalism of police facilities in other cities (Albuquerque among others) during the protests against violent policing and murder.

The results in Baltimore were predictable: the curfew and National Guard presence specifically designed to protect the police and civic institutions, not so much to protect  the citizens or their property. Given some of the confrontations during the curfew, it would almost be funny, except for the fact that people are still being treated violently and outrageously by police all over the country, and far, far too many are being killed day in and day out.

However, I think we are seeing a distinctive change in the way civilians respond to police provocation and violence.

The Baltimore Uprising represents something new in the ongoing struggle against violent policing.

It can lead to positive change or it can lead to disaster, or it can lead nowhere at all.

It all depends, methinks, on calculations made behind the scenes by the PTB. How much mayhem are they willing to endure and engage in in order to perpetuate systematized injustice? What is the benefit to them for doing so?

And how much more injustice are the people willing to endure?

I've suggested that we are past the "tipping point" with regard to police violence. The previous situation is not sustainable, but simply because we've gone past the tipping point, it doesn't mean the resolution will necessarily be positive.

The economy went over a cliff after all. The dire and destructive results are all around us. Simply because a crisis reaches a climax is no guarantee of positive outcomes.

In fact, what happens is that populations tend to adjust to the new reality, no matter how bad it is. The tipping point of violent policing may have been passed, and already dire situation may get worse.  We don't know, and we can't necessarily direct the outcome.

Hailing the mom who beat up her son in Baltimore that day, though, may be the harbinger of what is to come.

Just saying...

On Violence -- An Albuquerque Perspective

While events were swirling in Baltimore the other day, a Bernalillo County deputy sheriff shot and mortally wounded a man in the South Valley neighborhood of Albuquerque. His name was Billy Grimm and he died in the hospital several hours after he was shot. He was not provided any medical attention for 2-3 hours after he was shot (sheriff's department says 1 hour and 45 minutes, witnesses say 2 hours or longer) because, they say, he didn't follow commands after he was shot to get out of a vehicle and get on the ground.

The sheriff's department has provided an audio recording of the moments leading up to the shooting and the immediate aftermath. It is truly an appalling record.

http://www.abqjournal.com/581200/news/girlfriend-begged-for-ambulance.html

Deputies surrounded the vehicle but didn’t try to enter it because they feared Grimm was still armed. In the recordings, the deputies can be heard giving Grimm verbal commands to exit the car.

The Sheriff’s Office called for K-9s and deputies with rifles to form a perimeter around the car. Deputies can be heard saying they saw Grimm moving inside the vehicle.
“Tidwell was going for the extract,” Grundhoffer explained to another deputy who arrived on scene. “I looked through the windshield on my side and he started pulling it up. That’s when I yelled ‘gun’ and engaged him.”

During the lengthy standoff, Grimm exited the passenger side of the truck and was moving on the ground. The Sheriff’s Office said in a news release that the deputies couldn’t see his hands until a K-9 was unleashed and moved Grimm into the open. Deputies started first aid until paramedics arrived.

Deputies surrounded the vehicle but didn’t try to enter it because they feared Grimm was still armed. In the recordings, the deputies can be heard giving Grimm verbal commands to exit the car.

The Sheriff’s Office called for K-9s and deputies with rifles to form a perimeter around the car. Deputies can be heard saying they saw Grimm moving inside the vehicle.
“Tidwell was going for the extract,” Grundhoffer explained to another deputy who arrived on scene. “I looked through the windshield on my side and he started pulling it up. That’s when I yelled ‘gun’ and engaged him.”

During the lengthy standoff, Grimm exited the passenger side of the truck and was moving on the ground. The Sheriff’s Office said in a news release that the deputies couldn’t see his hands until a K-9 was unleashed and moved Grimm into the open. Deputies started first aid until paramedics arrived.

There you have it. A textbook example of terrified LEOs shooting and mortally wounding a man they fear has a gun refusing any sort of medical assistance after shooting him until they feel "safe."

It happens all the time, and it used to happen in Albuquerque routinely until the APD was told to cease fire and stand down. Stop killing.

Initially, this incident in the South Valley was reported as the first BCSO involved shooting/killing of the year, but that was not so. It was the third. By comparison, APD has shot and killed one person so far this year.

Ultimately, the killing of Billy Grimm will be added to the statistics of police killings and will largely be forgotten, as most of the deaths by police gunfire are forgotten. This one will probably not generate the kinds of protests and demonstrations that some of them do in part because there was a gun found in the truck in which Grimm was a passenger. We will probably never know whether he in fact had any contact with this gun or whether the cries of "Gun!" from Deputy Grundhoffer  as he shot at Grimm 9 times, hitting him once, were accurate. The audio recording of the incident is terrible, but it is not particularly informative about the facts regarding Billy Grimm and any threat he may have offered to officers. I detected no threat at all from him or from his girlfriend Destiny Cardenas in the audio. Disobedience, yes. But disobedience is not, a priori, a threat. Something that APD has apparently learned, but BCSO has not.

Another BCSO story appeared in the Albuquerque Journal today. A lawsuit has been filed against the BCSO over the treatment of a detainee at the Metropolitan Detention Center (the county jail). The inmate claims to have been tasered by jail personnel 30 times in one day as he was being restrained for transport. The suggestion is that this sort of brutality -- and worse -- is commonplace at the jail, and it needs to stop.

http://www.abqjournal.com/581955/news/taser-allegedly-used-on-inmate-30-times-in-day.html

Stories have been coming out of this and many other jails, prisons and detention centers for years about the pervasive violence, torture, brutality and neglect that have long characterized the treatment of people who are held in these lock-ups. This story is particularly egregious because the officers involved in torturing the inmate -- whose name is Mark Martinez -- continued to tase and abuse him at the hospital where he was eventually taken for treatment of injuries he sustained that day, and when hospital personnel attempted to intervene, they were threatened by officers as well. It's insane.

As we see over and over and over again, obedience and instant compliance are demanded by law and corrections officers, and when they don't get it, they become violent to the point of using lethal force,

Even when they do get compliance, as in the case of Lateef Dickerson in Dover, DE a couple of years ago, violence by police is still routine.



Until recently, all the officer had to say was "I feared for my life and the safety of others" to win exoneration for almost any form of violence, including lethal violence, they choose to engage in. It doesn't matter a bit whether the officer's "fear" was justified by the facts. All that mattered was that the officer use those magical words, and s/he was home free.

Now, after seemingly endless protests and several uprisings against violent policing, that's starting, slowly, to change.

It's not enough change, and it's by no means fast enough -- numbers of people killed by police actually seem to be increasing rather than declining as I had hoped -- but the constant violence by police is no longer being treated as "normal." It will have to end, but not before many more people are dead and injured.

Albuquerque has done a great deal to reduce the level of police violence since last summer, but it's not enough. As we see, the message hasn't yet penetrated to the BCSO or the State Police, both of which continue their killing as if nothing (much) has changed.

I hope the activists who brought so much pressure to bear on the Albuquerque Police Department last year can gear up similar protest actions against BCSO and the New Mexico State Police this year.

On Violence -- a Baltimore Perspective

http://www.bet.com/video/news/national/2015/baltimore-speaks-a-bet-special-live.html

It's Very Simple: Stop Violent Policing, Stop the Killing, and the Disturbances Will Stop

I'm trying to get caught up with all the disturbances yesterday and last night, mirroring and supporting the uprising in Baltimore that has taken place as a consequence of the killing of Freddie Gray by police.

These uprisings and disturbances were widespread before the killing of Freddie Gray, but they have become a near permanent feature of American urban landscapes because, simply, the power structure that directs the police will not yield to the demands of the people.

"Stop killing us!" It's very simple. Stop violent policing. And still the killing goes on and on and on, violent policing and brutality continues unabated, and all the fancy military gear that has been supplied to police departments all over the country is trotted out again and again to suppress nonviolent crowds of protesters demanding that the police stop killing us.

And when vandalism and looting occur in conjunction with these protests, the authorities and their media handmaidens become all incensed because the Negroes are running wild instead of being docile little lambs like MLK would want them to be. Except he wouldn't.

Ta-Nehisi Coates wrote an important piece for The Atlantic the other day titled "Non-violence As Compliance." As those who have followed some of my writing since the days of Occupy and before probably know, I don't take kindly to those who try to assert "non-violence" as a means of shutting down effective resistance -- which is what is done over and over and over again by most of those citing "Ghandi [sic] and King" as models of the way Those Negroes (or whomever is resisting) ought to be.

I have my issues with Ta-Nehisi, but in this piece, he brought the truth right out in the open: those who insist Those Negroes must follow the non-violent paths blazed by Gandhi and King are basically telling Those Negroes they must comply with authority. It's a way to shut down effective resistance. Which is as thorogoing a mischaracterization of Gandhi's and King's activism and resistance as there could be.

Of course it is deliberate.

The structure of power has so far refused to yield to the demands of the people that violent policing and killing stop. So there is resistance and there are disturbances. It will continue until the killing and violent policing stops.

It's that simple.

Sometimes, however, it appears that Our Betters are simply too stupid to grasp simple concepts like that.

Stop the killing. Stop violent policing.

Just stop.

Have We Finally Passed the Tipping Point on Police Violence?

Ms Ché and I have been involved in a number of literary and other adventures during April, "National Poetry Month," as it's called. We've attended quite a few poetry readings and we've enjoyed expeditions to museums of art and science, with more to come. Soon enough, planting will start and outdoor activities and adventures will take the place of mostly indoor ones. The world-cycle will continue.

I've written here mostly about the national issue-problem of police violence and murder which takes on average three lives a day, week and month in and week and month out, with uncounted numbers brutalized and injured, physically and psychologically damaged each and every day, all through this land, in a cataclysm of violence that leaves ruined lives, ruined families and ruined communities in its bloody wake.

I've compared the casualty numbers to those of a low-key but continual civil war, with more than a thousand dead and tens of thousands injured each and every year. Overall homicide rates are much higher than the rate of killings by police, however. Police involved homicides are generally about 10% of the total; in some jurisdictions they are 20% or more, but those tend to be exceptions. What makes these statistics striking is that there are no more than one million sworn officers and fewer than that are patrolling the streets -- and killing people in the process. In other words, the seeming epidemic of police violence is being committed by a relative handful of Americans, a tiny percentage of police are responsible for a relatively large percentage of homicides.

Media coverage of the issue has grown substantially over the past years -- especially since the killing of James Boyd in Albuquerque in March of 2014, and the subsequent demonstrations against police violence. The media's narrative on events surrounding police violence and the protests against it has a presumptive start date in August of 2014, with the killing of Mike Brown in Ferguson, MO. The earlier Albuquerque incident(s) and protests have been -- for the most part -- vanished from the narrative, in part, I suspect, because James Boyd was white and mentally ill, and the narrative of the "national conversation" that's been going on asserts that it is about police violence against "unarmed young black men" and essentially nothing else.

That's an important aspect of police violence, but it is not the only one. Police are violent against any perceived "Other," including young black men in general, other racial minorities, the poor and the homeless in general, anyone who doesn't fit a very narrow model of appearance and behavior, or who is mentally ill, or is engaged in a domestic dispute, or who fails to obey sufficiently or fast enough to satisfy the violent officer.

Summary executions are being committed day in and day out, typically without any lasting consequence to the police officer. 

As the outrage has grown, there is a perception that the rate of killing has risen. In some jurisdictions, that's happened, but I'm not sure it's true overall. In fact, given the police killings documented so far this year, I'm seeing a slight but perceptible decrease in the overall rate of police killings, and in some jurisdictions, such as Albuquerque, the rate of police killing is dramatically lower this year than last or years prior to the advent of persistent and large-scale protest against it.

In other words, the killing can be stopped. In some places it has been stopped, or nearly so.

Stopping police violence is possible, and the world won't end.

Making sure that happens is the necessary objective of the movements against police violence that have arisen all over the country.

As we've gone about our literary and other adventures this month, I've been struck with how this issue simply doesn't enter into the minds and works of most of those whose slim volumes of poetry are being hawked at every reading we've attended. Nope. There are some exceptions, true. The slam poets make more of it than more traditional literary artists do. But even the slam poets seem less inclined to deal with the issue of police violence than is warranted.

Yet yesterday we were at a poetry reading in rural New Mexico, featuring what I would characterize as semi-Cowboy Poetry more than any other style. None of it touched on the issue of police violence, not directly, but some of it was of the "rebel" variety. Most of the readers (all of them?) were older, near or past 70, some from the rural South, one from DC, one from Upstate New York, a couple from California, one born and raised in New Mexican. All but one was white, and the one that wasn't -- Ms Ché herself, in fact -- was Native American.

Topics ranged from horses and pigs and cats and dogs to loves gained and lost,  stars sparkling in the sky, memoirs of temps perdu, and the ways of the Divine among others.

After the reading there was an open discussion which turned almost immediately to the drug war and the lives taken and ruined by its continuance. There was a nearly universal understanding that this drug war had to stop, and with its end the ruin would stop. Here we were in rural New Mexico, amid a bunch of old coots who didn't necessarily write about the killing spree that has been the topic of so many of my posts of late, but who understood fully that the killing is a consequence of a "War" declared decades ago that has literally destroyed lives and families and communities in pursuit of a "victory" that can never be won. It's insane and it must stop. Even these old folks understand that.

I was moved.

Have we finally passed the tipping point?

I'm still not sure, but the signs yesterday were suggestive that the answer is "yes."

Rallies and protests will and must continue, but more and more, the people have had enough, and the message is getting through to the barricaded high and mighty and their servants that police violence is unacceptable and must be brought under control and ended. The consequences of not doing so include "shutting shit down," which has been a widely utilized and effective strategy. More and more "People's Courts" have been holding public mock trials of killer police and their protectors, and more and more police precincts have been put under scrutiny and siege. Police are seen more and more as the problem not the solution.

And it is being shown that police violence and militarization, much of which is a direct result of the continuing (so called) drug-and-terror war must come to an end.

It's encouraging...