QUIS CUSTODIET IPSOS CUSTODES
Means "Who Polices the Police?"

From the AP via the Houston Chronicle:

Lawman accused of cuffing woman who declined sex

Dooley told a Texas Ranger investigator that he, Sedgebeer and the woman spent time in a hot tub Sunday night and he handcuffed the woman after she "became emotionally upset and uncontrollable." He said he left her in handcuffs for 10 minutes so she could calm down.

Dooley also denied asking the woman to do anything with Sedgebeer but told investigators the woman performed a sex act on him.

Click here for the rest.

Well, it could be exactly as this guy describes it: kinky swingers having to deal with a freaked out novice. Or not. No one's been indicted yet, and that may never happen, but I know that cops have a huge tendency to overreact and treat their authority as sacrosanct, especially Texas cops. I'd give fifty/fifty odds that this is what happened here. Actually, this kind of cop attitude is pretty much why I make these QUIS CUSTODIET IPSOS CUSTODES posts in the first place: police culture is out of control.

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QUIS CUSTODIET IPSOS CUSTODES
Means "Who Polices the Police?"

From Talking Points Memo:

Dem Congressional Candidate's Event Raided By San Diego Sheriffs

The San Diego Union-Tribune reports that a fundraiser for Francine Busby, who previously ran for the deeply-Republican Fiftieth District and came close to winning in the 2006 special election and subsequent regular election, was raided by sheriffs after an unnamed neighbor made a noise complaint. Busby now calls it a "phony" noise complaint, and the article says that multiple neighbors said there was no great noise at all.

Here's the twist: The fundraiser was hosted by a lesbian couple, and shortly before the sheriffs came a particular neighbor had shouted anti-gay slurs at the assembled crowd. "It was a quiet home reception, disrupted by a vulgar person shouting obscenities from behind the bushes," Busby says.

As one neighbor told the paper: "We didn't hear anything until the sheriff came, with eight patrol cars and a helicopter."

More here.

Eight patrol cars and a helicopter to break up a backyard barbeque. Attended by middle aged women. And, as the article observes, the cops decided that they needed to use pepper spray on the diners. I think these women have some prima facie for a good lawsuit.

I usually use these Quis Custodiet posts to talk about how cop culture tends to make police brutality and corruption near inevitable, which is true, but this story illustrates a related, but entirely different point. Even though police ostensibly exist in order "to protect and serve" the public, their true mission is to protect and serve the political and economic establishment. I mean okay, oftentimes these two missions overlap, which is to say that public order and safety are good for politics and business, but if these two missions ever contradict each other, the latter trumps. The rich and powerful always get better police protection, even when what they need protection from isn't against the law.

Case in point, Republican dominated San Diego County. Apparently, the Sheriff there believed these lesbian political fundraisers to be a threat to the local Republican establishment, and sent in the goons just like it was Chicago in 1968. As if corruption and brutality wasn't enough, this kind of thing is fairly typical: for many years local power establishment figures throughout the nation have successfully used law enforcement to serve as their own personal squad of Brownshirts to intimidate political opposition. Indeed, the last three presidential elections have produced countless tales of local law enforcement busting up opposition demonstrators, usually arbitrarily, usually producing no convictions.

This is rampant and out of control. And, needless to say, anti-American and profoundly disturbing in terms of prospects for our aging republic. Sadly, this trend, using cops to disrupt and harass lawful political behavior, is going up, not down.

Where is all this leading?

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QUIS CUSTODIET IPSOS CUSTODES
Means "Who Polices the Police?"

From the Boston Globe courtesy of the Huffington Post news wire:

In rush-hour labor, ticket delivered

Jennifer Davis was stuck in bumper-to-bumper traffic on Nov. 18, her contractions just 3 minutes apart. Her husband, John, was trying to appear calm for his wife's sake, driving in the breakdown lane of Route 2. They pulled up behind a state trooper to ask whether they could continue using the lane to reach the next exit, near Alewife Station.

Not only did the trooper say no, he gave them a $100 citation for driving in the breakdown lane, made them wait for their citation while he finished writing someone else's ticket, and even seemed to ask for proof of pregnancy, Jennifer Davis said.

"He said, 'What's under your jacket?' I said, 'My belly,' " Davis said. "He waited and gestured with his head like, 'OK, let's see it.' He waited for me to unzip my jacket. I mean, it was so clear that I was pregnant."

The Davises say the contretemps occurred after two other troopers they encountered had waved them along in the highway breakdown lane, allowing them to evade gridlock while advising them to be cautious and keep their hazard lights on.

More here.

Earlier today I wondered for a while if this story was appropriate for my "Quis Custodiet" posts. I mean, the idea is for me to show that cop misbehavior happens virtually all the time, everywhere, which it does, as the numerous stories on which I've posted strongly suggest. But these are always stories about graft, or brutality, or rape, or forced prostitution, serious crimes.

This Boston cop who needlessly delayed a pregnant woman in labor on her way to the hospital, however, was not committing a crime. Indeed, he was doing his duty, sticking to the letter of the law, going that extra mile, crossing his t's and dotting his i's, all that OCD shit. This is not a corrupt cop. But he is a big fucking asshole.

I would very much like to know why one trooper chose to bust a woman in labor when two other troopers did not. I mean, cops have a lot of lattitude when it comes to deciding who they're going after. Was he pissed off about something? Angry with his own pregnant wife maybe? Infertile and therefore possessing a grudge against expecting mothers? I find it hard to believe that any cop could be so by-the-book that he would do such a thing. Okay, in the grand scheme I suppose it's possible, but not likely--our culture totally worships women having babies, when they're married, at least, and this includes police.

What the fuck was up with this guy?

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QUIS CUSTODIET IPSOS CUSTODES
Means "Who Polices the Police?"

From the AP via the Houston Chronicle:

Sheriff's deputy pulls over his wife on DUI charge

Charlotte Moore, 36, a jail deputy and 11-year veteran, was driving her 2004 Pontiac Grand Am when she was pulled over by her husband, Elko County Sheriff's Deputy Mike Moore, a police report said.

She allegedly left before being administered a portable breathalyzer test, the Elko Daily Free Press reported.

Mike Moore pulled her over again and called the Elko Police Department for backup. He left shortly after officer Shane Daz arrived. Elko Police Department Sgt. Mark Butterfield also was on scene.

More here.

So usually I use these Quis Custodiet posts to rail away on police misconduct and how cops protect each other from the law they're supposed to enforce, but I've got to give credit where it's due. How many times have you seen a cop turn on his rolling flashers in order to run a red light, only to turn them off once he's through the intersection, obviously not headed to bust some crime in progress? Well, here's one moving violation that the cop didn't get away with. Good work. Although something tells me it all probably has more to do with this couple's domestic situation than it does with doing the right thing.

But what the hell, I'll take it.

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QUIS CUSTODIET IPSOS CUSTODES
Means "Who Polices the Police?"

From the AP via the Houston Chronicle:

Wisconsin Officers Stand Trial in Beating Case

Black residents were incensed when four months went by before charges were filed against white police officers accused of punching, kicking and choking a biracial man outside a house party.

The 2004 incident intensified racial tensions in this city that is 37 percent black and has some of the nation's most segregated neighborhoods.

With the trial of three officers accused of the beating set to start Monday, some say the animosity has eased. And the defendants and nine other officers have been fired.

And

In October 2004, Frank Jude Jr., two white women and a black friend went to a party at the home of police officer Andrew Spengler in a mostly white, working-class neighborhood on the city's south side.

One officer at the party accused Jude of stealing a badge. The four left, but prosecutors say a group of off-duty officers followed them out to the street and some of the officers beat Jude severely while using a racial slur. Defense lawyers say Jude fought when confronted outside.

Click here for the rest.

This is a classic Quis Custodiet story: arrogant cops, believing that their authority has been somehow disrespected, beat the crap out of somebody, showing that, for many of them, their elite status is far more important than the laws they are sworn to protect. Stories like this are pretty much why I do these kinds of posts. As I've said many times, there are countless good cops who take their roles seriously, but the police culture in which they operate creates circumstances, again and again, where they end up either helping bad cops do bad things or helping to cover up their brethren's misdeeds. Cop culture is corrupt and out of control. It is ruled by a sense of us-versus-them, where pretty much anybody, especially people of color, might qualify as "them." Furthermore, cop culture posesses a sense of arrogance born of the belief that putting on a badge clearly makes one a good guy; with arrogance comes a sense of infallibility, which is why so many officers think it's okay to break the law. They're cops--they are the law. I readily admit that we need police, but not like this. Cops are supposed to protect us, not prey on us.

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QUIS CUSTODIET IPSOS CUSTODES
Means "Who Polices the Police?"

Anybody who thinks I bash the police here at Real Art because of my anti-authoritarian attitudes and bad experiences throughout my life with cops is probably right. However, my personal motivation doesn't make wrong my assertion that there's something seriously wrong with police culture in the United States. Indeed, the newspapers are filled with countless stories about police misconduct, abuse, and corruption every day. Of course, one might prefer the old "isolated incident" explanation of cop corruption to my more systemic understanding of the phenomenon. Perhaps one should take this opportunity to reappraise that point of view, because, finally, an authoritative voice of agreement has fallen into my lap.

From AlterNet, an interview with Seattle's former Chief of Police, Norm Stamper:

Seattle Confidential

[AlterNet] What is it about male cops that makes them more dangerous or inclined to violence than other American men?

[Stamper] For many police officers, they are their professional identity. That's who I was that first year. It's who we are, not just what we do. So if anyone threatens my identity as a cop, I become potentially dangerous.

When I became a cop, there were no women patrol officers. It was a very, very machismo culture. To say it was male-dominated is to understate it. It was exclusively a boys' club, and there was a lot of boys’ behavior going on -- sexism, misogyny, sexual harassment both in the workplace and on the streets, predatory behavior on the part of male police officers and a lot of drinking and carousing and the like. That's a quick snapshot of the culture, and I was a part of [it].

Police officers are granted authority. It goes with the turf; you can't be a cop without exercising authority. Jerome Skulnick talks about [this] in a book called Justice Without Trial -- he describes a police officer's "working personality."

Young men who've been given authority -- a badge, a gun -- and allowed to stop and cite and arrest and question and fight and shoot their fellow citizens, run a grave risk of having that power go directly to their heads, or other parts of their anatomy.

But because Stamper is a 34-year veteran of policing, he's able to offer something that I haven't, solutions:

I would call an end to the war on drugs -- yesterday. I would take the police out of the business of popping people for the possession of small quantities of drugs, and I would devote much of that attention and money to prevention, education and treatment.

Number two would be the selective and intelligent demilitarization of America's police forces. The thing is, we pretty much behave in accordance to the cultural values and norms of our institutions. If I belong to a paramilitary bureaucratic organization that puts the community at arm's length, then guess what? I'm going to be the soldier bureaucrat.

So I would demilitarize and, as much as is logical to do so, de-bureaucratize American's police departments. They need to be much more community-friendly. They need to be the people's police.

The third thing would be embracing an authentic definition of community policing. I'm not minimizing the role of police. I'm not saying -- as I mentioned in another chapter -- to disarm [cops] and take them out of uniform. But the community can exact major changes in their police force if there's shared thinking to that end. In other words, "Wait a minute, this police department belongs to me."

Click here for the rest.

You see? I'm not simply picking on cops, although that aspect of these Quis Custodiet posts is great fun. There really is a huge problem that appears to be built into the system, and there are alternatives to what we have now--it's not simply a question of cops or no cops, not simply a question of how much I hate guys with guns and badges.

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QUIS CUSTODIET IPSOS CUSTODES
Means "Who Polices the Police?"

From Comcast news courtesy of AlterNet:

MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — Two FBI workers are accused of using surveillance equipment to spy on teenage girls as they undressed and tried on prom gowns at a charity event at a West Virginia mall.

The FBI employees have been charged with conspiracy and committing criminal invasion of privacy. They were working in an FBI satellite control room at the mall when they positioned a camera on temporary changing rooms and zoomed in for at least 90 minutes on girls dressing for the Cinderella Project fashion show, Marion County Prosecutor Pat Wilson said Monday.

And

The Cinderella Project at the Middletown Mall in the north-central West Virginia town of Fairmont drew hundreds of girls from 10 high schools in five counties. Organizer Cynthia Woodyard said volunteers, donors and participants are angry.

"I can't even begin to put words around what I consider an unspeakable act, the misuse of surveillance by a branch of our government in a place we felt so secure," she said. "Never in a million years would we have thought something like this would happen. We're in shock."

More here.

So last week some Republican tea-baggers came into the restaurant where I work for a quick bite after their protest--the local demonstration site was only about a block away. They even brought their signs: one of which proclaimed "Love your country; distrust your government."

"Now that's a statement this liberal can agree with," I thought to myself. I mean, I agree for different reasons, of course, but I certainly agree. And we should never forget that police are the government. They are not to be trusted. They represent the government's interests, and oftentimes their own, but never the interests of the citizens they ostensibly protect. Okay, sometimes government interests and citizens' interests overlap, but not enough to make cops above suspicion. We really ought to think of them as the armed security agents of the state, rather than your friendly neighborhood policemen.

Anyway, while Ms. Woodyard's anger is well justified, her shock and surprise are not. From rape to graft to brutality to various forms of corruption, cops do this shit all the time. Just do a Google search for "police corruption" or "police brutality" and you'll get tons of recent hits. This literally happens every day of the year. And as for "the misuse of surveillance" she decries, it's almost as though Woodyard hasn't been reading the paper for the last eight years: since 9/11 we've been living in a surveillance state!

Wake up and smell the coffee, woman. This isn't the nation you've been led to believe it is.

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QUIS CUSTODIET IPSOS CUSTODES
Means "Who Polices the Police?"

From AlterNet:

Memphis Cops Caught on Tape Beating Transsexual Prisoner

The video, recorded February 12th, shows Duanna Johnson in the booking area at the Shelby County Criminal Justice Center after an arrest for prostitution. The tape clearly shows a Memphis police officer walk over to Johnson - a transsexual - and hit her in the face several times.

"Actually he was trying to get me to come over to where he was, and I responded by telling him that wasn't my name - that my mother didn't name me a 'faggot' or a 'he-she,' so he got upset and approached me. And that's when it started," Johnson said.

Johnson said the officer was attempting to call her over to be fingerprinted. She said she chose not respond to the derogatory name the officer called her.

"He said, 'I'm telling you, I'm giving you one more chance to get up.' So I'm looking at him, and he started putting his gloves on, and seen him take out a pair of handcuffs," Johnson said.

Click here to read more and to see the video.

Okay, I must admit that transsexuals weird me out a bit, and I'm not one hundred percent sure why. My speculation is that it has something to do with Freudian castration anxiety; that is, I see a transsexual person and I subconsciously imagine losing my family jewels--at least, that's what I think is happening. Damn the Butthole Surfers and the sex reassignment surgery film they projected at that concert I attended back in 1990.

At any rate, this is my problem to work out. It's caused by me. It's not caused by transsexuals, who have a perfect right to be whatever they want to be.

That's why this cop beating is so extraordinarily egregious. She was beaten for who she is. Not that it would have been okay if these cops were just being your typical violent asshole cops. But this is so hardcore because you have armed security agents of the government acting out their Freudian neuroses on a citizen who only resisted after what was going on became clear. This is no different from Rodney King. Cops taking out their weird psychological issues on relatively peaceful victims.

And it's no surprise, either. Police culture, nationwide, makes such incidents inevitable. Prevailing cop attitudes are hypermasculine, authoritarian, violent, and paranoid: put all that together with irrational fear of transsexuals and you get beatings. Or worse. The really sad thing is that it doesn't have to be this way. Change cop culture and you change cop behavior.

Unfortunately, that just doesn't seem to be on anybody's political agenda at the moment.

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QUIS CUSTODIET IPSOS CUSTODES
Means "Who Polices the Police?"

From AlterNet:

Dash Cam Apparently Catches Cop Planting Evidence on Black Man

The Utica Phoenix has obtained a video that shows two police officers making a traffic stop. During this stop, the dash camera on the squad car catches one officer suspiciously pull something out of his back pocket before placing it inside the car he had been searching. The cop emerges shortly after, holding and slickly shining a flash light on the same object, as if he had just seen it for the first time. It looks a lot like a bag of drugs.

More here, with video.

This seems to be very much par for the course. The essay goes on to observe that, in the wake of a similar scandal in New York City involving multiple cops, this may very well be a widespread phenomenon, cops planting evidence, just so they can meet their bust quota. I don't have to explain to you why this is totally awful, but I'd be totally failing as a blogger if I didn't point out that in both cases, NYPD, and these Utica Bozos, the people being framed are black. I mean, I have no doubt that these cops would do it to white people, too, if they felt inclined to do so, but it seems to me that African Americans are easy targets in that when they enter the courts as defendants their skin color almost changes the presumption of innocence to one of guilt. That is, the whole freaking criminal justice system is aimed at black people, so this kind of bullshit is easier to pull off with them as victims.

Racism, corruption, abuse of power, this is all some sick fucking shit.

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QUIS CUSTODIET IPSOS CUSTODES
Means "Who Polices the Police?"
Local Edition

From the New Orleans Times-Picayune:

NOPD officer arrested for pandering, resigns job

A veteran New Orleans police officer resigned his position with the department after Kenner police arrested him during an undercover prostitution sting on Thursday afternoon.

Raynard Lyons, a 17-year veteran of the department, was booked with pandering after officers watched him drop off a prostitute at an undisclosed Kenner apartment building, Kenner Police Chief Steve Caraway said.

Caraway said Lyons had driven the woman to the spot after undercover detectives agreed to exchange sex for money. The connection was made through Craigslist.org, a popular advertising Web site.

More here.

Also from the Picayune:

2 deputies fired after woman says she had to expose herself

Two Jefferson Parish sheriff's deputies have been fired and one faces criminal charges after authorities say one of them forced a female motorist to expose herself and the other deputy did not report it.

Clyde A. Clarke, 45, of 438 Holy Cross Place, Kenner, was booked with malfeasance in office after authorities claimed he forced an unidentified 26-year-old woman to expose herself to avoid arrest on two occasions. Demond T. Ferguson, 24, 1740 Hampton Drive, Harvey, was fired by the Sheriff's Office but was not arrested.

Click here for the rest.

Yeah yeah, corrupt New Orleans, yadda yadda.

The point is that dismissing police misdeeds because of a popular perception of overall corruption is just about as short-sighted as dismissing cop misdeeds as "isolated incidents" or "a few bad apples." That is, cop corruption isn't limited to places like the Big Easy; indeed, it's all over the place, systemic, chronic, always in the newspapers, and the stuff we hear about is only when cops actually get caught--one must assume that the problem is far worse than the constant stream of reporting would suggest.

And these two cases from the New Orleans area are utterly typical. The first story shows a cop who was either so stupid, or so possessed of typical police self-righteousness, that he used frickin' Craigslist to solicit his hooker. Either way, stupid or perceiving himself as above the law, this is some lame shit. Like I keep saying, I'm on the fence as to the morality of prostitution, but it is illegal, and cops, above all other Americans, ought to obey the laws they've sworn to enforce.

The second story is also classic cop corruption. Yet another cop sees himself as an elite, above the law, able to do whatever he wants, just because he's a cop. His partner isn't really such a bad guy, but cop loyalty, the "code of silence," motivates him to look the other way.

This bullshit happens throughout the nation, again and again, every day of the year. Why the fuck don't people see that we have a big fucking problem?



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QUIS CUSTODIET IPSOS CUSTODES
Means "Who Polices the Police?"

From the AP via the Houston Chronicle:

Wisconsin deputy killed after slaying 6 in rampage

An off-duty sheriff's deputy went on a shooting rampage early Sunday at a home where seven young people had gathered for pizza and movies, killing six and critically injuring the other before authorities fatally shot him, officials said.

The gunman, Tyler Peterson, was 20 years old and worked full-time as a Forest County deputy sheriff and part-time as a Crandon police officer, said Police Chief John Dennee.

And

Her husband, David Franz, 36, said it was hard to accept that someone in law enforcement committed such an act.

"The first statement we said to each other was, how did he get through the system?" David Franz said. "How do they know somebody's background, especially that young? It is disturbing, to say the least."

More here.

When I was a kid in the 70s I remember a moment in a Batman comic book when a criminal and a cop were having something of a standoff. The criminal was taunting the cop, telling him that they weren't so different from one another, asserting that the typical psychological profiles for cops and criminals are amazingly similar, violent, possessing a sense of superiority, as well as a disdain for rules and authority. I've never really looked that up to see if it's true, but I've heard it repeated by people here and there over the years.

Even if it's not the case it makes sense.

This shooting isn't the typical police corruption or brutality story that I usually post about. Obviously, this killer falls much more into the crazy nut-job category. But that's kind of the point. He was attracted to the culture of law enforcement. He wanted to be a part of the hyper-masculine uniformed gun-toting elite. He wanted to be a big man. He wanted to exercise power over other people. This kid, Peterson, probably would have cracked up whether he was a cop or not, but the fact that somebody like him wanted to be a police officer says reams about the cop culture that he found to be so attractive.

Like I keep saying, my gripe with the police isn't about how "cops are bad" or anything along those lines: it's about how police culture consistently creates a social context such that some cops are encouraged to do bad things, and other cops are encouraged to look the other way when that happens.

Humanizing police culture wouldn't have stopped Peterson's rampage, but it would make for a more just and humane society overall. And a more just and humane society could very well change murderous nut-jobs into just nut-jobs.

One hopes.

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QUIS CUSTODIET IPSOS CUSTODES
Means "Who Polices the Police?"

SPECIAL KINGWOOD EDITION!!!

From the Houston Chronicle:

HPD officer accused of sexual assault is taken off duty

Dargin, a 24-year veteran, has been suspended with pay since the May 17 incident. That's when a 25-year-old woman alleged the officer pulled her over about 2:30 a.m. in the 900 block of Laurel Springs Lane and sexually assaulted her, said Harris County Assistant District Attorney Joe Owmby.

Owmby said Dargin, who is assigned to the Kingwood Patrol Division, was on duty and dressed in uniform at the time.

In addition to the woman identifying the officer as her attacker, DNA evidence also links Dargin to the alleged assault, court documents show.

More here.

So, as longtime readers of Real Art know, I grew up in Kingwood. As far as I can tell the alleged crime actually took place in the neighboring subdivision called Forest Cove, a slightly older bedroom community, but pretty much like Kingwood in terms of culture and demographics. That is, both Kingwood and Forest Cove, which have been part of the City of Houston since 1996, are hardcore white well-to-do suburbs, bigtime Republican territory. There is still animosity about the annexation, and nobody but nobody gets pissed off at the police like Republicans do, as rare as such an occurrence might be.

I'd say this cop picked the wrong town to have his way; Dargin's going to get fucked hard. And I daresay he deserves it.

You know in some ways this story reminds me of all the rumors I heard growing up about how the Harris County Constables, who Kingwood had contracted with for security before Houston moved in, would constantly proposition cute teen girls they had pulled over for speeding or whatnot. I'm pretty sure these were just rumors, though. Like I said, the self-righteous Republicans of Kingwood would have never allowed their hot white daughters to be groped by the working class likes of a Harris County Constable without swift and harsh retaliation.

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QUIS CUSTODIET IPSOS CUSTODES
Means "Who Polices the Police?"

From the Houston Chronicle:

North Forest police officer indicted

A grand jury indicted a North Forest school district police officer on Friday on a charge accusing him of exposing his genitals to a woman during his lunch break.

The indictment comes amid other troubles in the school system's police department, including an investigation of a police captain and a suspension of another officer who has admitted to looking at pictures of naked women on a computer at his previous workplace.

Click here for the rest.

When I was teaching high school, we had district security guards, rather than police, but these guys are the real deal, and the school district cop phenomenon is growing. I mean, they're not as impressive as other cops, I guess, but they're certainly badge and gun holders, which makes them dangerous when they break the law themselves. Fortunately, this latest act of cop abuse doesn't seem particularly menacing, but then, I wonder how I would react if an armed state security agent started playing with himself in front of me. Maybe this is particularly menacing. At any rate, he's busted, and that's a good thing.

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QUIS CUSTODIET IPSOS CUSTODES
Means "Who Polices the Police?"

First, a little background. From Wikipedia:

Greensboro massacre

The Greensboro Nazi-Klan Shooting occurred on November 3, 1979 in Greensboro, North Carolina, United States. In the event, five Maoist Communist Workers Party marchers were killed by members of the Ku Klux Klan and the American Nazi Party while in a protest. It was the culmination of attempts by the Maoist Communist Workers Party to organize industrial workers, predominantly black, in the area.

And

One of the most dubious aspects of the incident is the role of the police. Normally, the police would have been present at such an event, yet no police were present at the shooting, thus permitting most of the perpetrators to escape. One police detective and a police photographer followed the Klan and Nazi caravan to the site, yet did not intervene. Edward Dawson, a Klan member since 1964 who had turned police informant, was in the lead car of the caravan. Two days prior to the march one of the Klan members went to the police station to obtain the map of the march and the rally. Bernard Butkovich, an undercover agent for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms later testified that he was aware that Ku Klux Klansmen and members of the American Nazi Party unit he had infiltrated would confront the demonstrators. In previous testimony, the Nazis claimed that the agent encouraged them to take guns to the anti-Klan demonstration. This has led to accusations of police collusion in the event.

More here.

And no one was ever convicted. But that was nearly thirty years ago. Why is it worth mentioning today? Because it's still going on.

From the AP via the Houston Chronicle:

Ministers: Police destroyed Klan records

Three ministers accused a Greensboro police officer Tuesday of ordering officers to destroy about 50 boxes of police files related to the fatal shooting of five people at an anti-Ku Klux Klan rally in 1979.

The Revs. Cardes Brown, Gregory Headen and Nelson Johnson said an active-duty officer told them he and at least three other officers were told to destroy the records in 2004 or 2005, shortly after a seven-member panel convened to research the shootings requested police files related to them.

Click here for the rest.

I once read in an anarchist journal a description of police as "the armed security agents of the state." This is a rather brilliant observation. Police ostensibly exist "to protect and to serve" or however you want to describe what most believe to be their pro-social function. When push comes to shove, however, this pro-social function is only ancillary: by and large, cops exist to support the power structure that employs and pays them. If you're part of that power structure, they really are working for you; if not, look out. That's why we've seen repeated instances going back to the 1960s until today of cops harassing, spying on, and arresting lawful anti-government demonstrators. That's why we've seen a highly disproportionate number of African-Americans held captive by the US criminal justice system. That's why street criminals are arrested and convicted in much higher numbers than the white collar criminals who have stolen far more money and killed many more people.

This 1979 massacre in Greensboro is a prime example. Why would local police not only allow but facilitate such murderous violence? The local white power structure there was only ten years removed from the racist violence of the civil rights era, violence which was itself only a manifestation of decades of Jim Crow, American Apartheid. That is, Greensboro's powers-that-be, at that point, were still thinking like the lynching Southern idiots of yesteryear. And so were their armed security agents, a.k.a. the cops. The Greensboro police knew what they needed to do, whether their masters ordered it or not. Get them black-loving commie bastards.

I think it's safe to say that Southern white power structures, overall, have mellowed somewhat since then, although not entirely, as the Jena, La., white power structure has recently revealed to the entire world. Same thing in Greensboro. No more massacres these days, but they're still trying to cover it up, still trying to hide their guilt, probably because they still believe they did the right thing.

And remember, to the police "the right thing" is supporting the powerful figures who sign their paychecks. Not you and me.

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QUIS CUSTODIET IPSOS CUSTODES
Means "Who Polices the Police?"

From CounterPunch:

The Big Lie About Police Brutality

Police brutality is in the news, thanks to the widespread availability of amateur video and the omnipresence of security cameras.

We’ve seen scene after scene of police beating the crap out of, and even shooting and killing unarmed or minimally dangerous students, women, old men and crazy people, many of them after they have been handcuffed and checked for weapons.

The police brass, and leading politicians who oversee the departments involved, nearly always have the same answer: This is not the norm, these are isolated incidents, police violence is not on the rise. Rarely is an abusive or murderous officer punished or even administratively disciplined for documented crimes.

And

The thing we need to all recognize is that these videos are just the incidents that have been captured on video. They clearly reflect something that is going on all the time, usually without any video to record it, or often even without any eye witnesses.

And

There are plenty of good cops who take their work seriously, and do their job properly, but as some of those cops have told me themselves, there are also way too many who are just thugs in uniforms, and there are precious few chiefs of police, few district attorneys, and few mayors who have the political courage (exhibited by Chief Simmons in the Florida case above) to take them on, to punish abusive behavior and to demand that policing be about “protecting and serving,” and not about brutalizing those who are being confronted for alleged law-breaking.

More here.

Hey!  This guy sounds just like me!

So much so, in fact, right down to the usual caveat about how "there are plenty of good cops," that I'd be wondering if he'd been reading my stuff here at Real Art over the years, if the phenomenon wasn't so damned obvious.  That is, the writer excerpted above is simply verifying independently what I've been saying for a very long time: we have a crises of police brutality, corruption, and general misbehavior all across the United States, and nobody in power really appears to give a shit about it.

For that matter, the public doesn't seem to give a shit about it either--okay, white people don't give a shit; people of color, I think, especially African-Americans, who receive the lion's share of police misbehavior, do give a shit, but it's a sort of "it is what it is" kind of thing.  So it's the status quo, and there's just no momentum toward cleaning it all up.

Here's some of the reason why.  A friend of mine on facebook, a socialist with whom I attended high school, posted something about cop misbehavior last week, and I chimed in with a comment in agreement.  But I stopped for a moment to wonder what the reaction might be from other facebook friends reading it.  Damn the torpedoes, of course, I'll say what I want if it's the truth.  The fact that we are so conditioned to think of cops as always being the "good guys," however, is a very strong social imperative: people are immediately skeptical when one calls into question one of the bedrock institutions of society.

We need more movies like Serpico.

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Continuing my ongoing attempts to illustrate that cops are not your best friends.

HPD suspends 2 after 21 guns missing

From the Houston Chronicle:

Two Houston Police Department evidence supervisors were suspended Tuesday after an audit revealed 21 guns were missing from the property room, Chief Harold Hurtt said Wednesday.

The missing guns are not "needed for an impending criminal trial or court proceedings," Hurtt said. But the chief said he's troubled by how so many of them ended up back on the streets. Two of the guns since have surfaced in the hands of two suspects stopped by police in separate incidents — one during a traffic stop and another in a narcotics case.

R.N. Cobb, who oversaw the gun property room, and A.G. Baquet both were suspended with pay at the end of their shifts Tuesday, pending the outcome of an internal affairs investigation, Hurtt said. The men, both long-term civilian employees with HPD, have not been charged with crimes.

And

"The problem with the Houston Police Department and with the Department of Public Safety is they have to hire employees out of the human race. You are going to get some good ones, and you get some bad ones," Rosenthal said. "I don't know of any way a person can be screened to be sure they are not going to be a criminal."

More here.

2 Hollywood, Fla.. cops plead guilty

From the AP via the Houston Chronicle:

Two former police officers arrested in an FBI corruption sting pleaded guilty Wednesday to drug conspiracy charges.

Kevin Companion, 41, Stephen Harrison, 46, and two other officers in the Fort Lauderdale suburb of Hollywood were charged with conspiracy to possess and distribute heroin. The other two have pleaded not guilty.

More here.

So, the top story deals with civilian employees, rather than actual cops, but to me it's the same difference: it's all about the organization, and the culture that permeates it. That is, these missing guns take place in an overall context that includes the second story, about cops dealing drugs, and countless other incidents of police corruption and abuse.

Harris County DA Chuck Rosenthal dismisses the gravity of these possible black market gun sales from inside the HPD by chalking it up to human nature, but that's what the authorities always say when the police get into trouble. I mean, they've got a point. There are millions of cops out there, and by virtue of numbers alone it's very likely that some bad guys are going to make it through whatever screening processes are in place and end up with badges.

But to leave the discussion there is downright irresponsible. There definitely exists a police culture, steeped in authoritarianism and us-versus-them attitudes, and drunk on power and self-righteousness. Sure, there are bad apples out there, but it's pretty clear that the way that police think, from coast to coast, does nothing but egg those bad cops on. As Rosenthal asserts, we can't screen out all the bad apples. We can, however, change organizational cultures. And my bet is that such change would go a long way toward reducing the kind of bad cop stories we see virtually everyday in every newspaper.

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Means "Who Polices the Police?"

From the AP via the Houston Chronicle:

Report: Drug agents lied, destroyed evidence

A federal report released today on the shooting of a suspected drug smuggler by Border Patrol agents concurs with prosecutors that the men committed obstruction of justice by failing to report the shooting, destroying evidence and lying to investigators.

Conservative members of Congress have criticized the case against the former agents, who were fired after their convictions, saying the men were doing their job when they injured Osvaldo Aldrete-Davila in 2005 near El Paso.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security report on the investigation was drafted in 2006 after Ignacio Ramos and Jose Alonso Compean were convicted and each was sentenced to more than a decade in federal prison. The 77-page report was made public today and offered few if any new details on the case.

Click here for the rest.

Well, these now incarcerated DEA agents may very well have been doing their jobs, but if they obstructed justice it sure seems that they didn't think so. At any rate, it's good that they were busted for it. You know, this whole GOP outcry about the case just reeks of the typical right-wing pro-cop point of view. That is, I agree that we need police myself, but that doesn't mean they should always get the benefit of the doubt, especially when there is evidence of foul play. In other words, this "scandal" is totally bogus, and probably spurred on by the extreme anti-immigrant attitudes that have captured so many Republican minds lately.

One last thought: one of these guys is the inmate who was attacked a few days ago when fellow prisoners discovered that he was a cop; that this was allowed to happen is wrong, too, and just another example of how our prisons are heinous, fucked up places that do nothing more than galvanize pre-existing anti-social attitudes among the incarcerated. As much as I hate cops abusing power, this guy needs better security.

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Documents Reveal: Cops Planted Pot on 92-Year
Old Woman They Killed in Botched Drug Raid

From AlterNet:

By 6 p.m., they had the legal document they needed to break into Kathryn Johnston's house, and within 40 minutes they were prying off the burglar bars and using a ram to burst through the elderly woman's front door. It took about two minutes to get inside, which gave Johnston time to retrieve her rusty .38 revolver.

Tesler was at the back door when Junnier, Smith and the other narcotics officers crashed through the front.

Johnston got off one shot, the bullet missing her target and hitting a porch roof. The three narcotics officers answered with 39 bullets.

Five or six bullets hit the terrified woman. Authorities never figured out who fired the fatal bullet, the one that hit Johnston in the chest. Some pieces of the other bullets -- friendly fire -- hit Junnier and two other cops.

The officers handcuffed the mortally wounded woman and searched the house.

There was no Sam.

There were no drugs.

There were no cameras that the officers had claimed was the reason for the no-knock warrant.

Just Johnston, handcuffed and bleeding on her living room floor.

That is when the officers took it to another level. Three baggies of marijuana were retrieved from the trunk of the car and planted in Johnston's basement. The rest of the pot from the trunk was dropped down a sewage drain and disappeared.

The three began getting their stories straight.

Click here for the rest.

Cops are always right. Cops are the good guys. Cops are real men, with big dicks, badges, and guns. We can trust cops. They have our best interests at heart. If you don't suck cop dick as often as possible, you're not a real American. You're not even human. Oh, please god, send a cop to break in my house and wave a gun in my face. Oh wait, you've already done that. Thank you god, for allowing me to suffer humiliation and indignity for my country. The only way it could have been better is if the cops had killed me for America.

Like with Kathryn Johnston.

Fucking pigs.

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Means "Who Polices the Police?"

From the AP via the Houston Chronicle:

Chicago cop accused of anti-gay fracas

Named as defendants in the lawsuit filed on behalf of Kelly Fuery, 36, Debra Sciortino, 32, and Nicole Tomaskovic, 25, were the police department, officer William Szura and two state troopers.

According to the lawsuit, a vehicle driven by Fuery came upon a car moving at 30 mph on Interstate 55 after the June 24 parade. Fuery beeped her horn, and Szura responded by slamming on his brakes, speeding up and switching lanes, making it impossible for Fuery to pass, the lawsuit said.

Fuery was forced to the shoulder, where Szura screamed words such as "dyke" and spit at her, according to the lawsuit. The women claim he stuck a gun in Fuery's abdomen, "causing her to fear for her life."

When Sciortino tried to step in, Szura shoved her, and she fell, the lawsuit said. When Tomaskovic drove up in another car and tried to help, Szura placed her in a chokehold, according to the suit.

A few minutes later, two state troopers arrived. When Szura identified himself as a police officer, the three women were arrested and charged with battery. The battery charges are pending, Kurtz said.

Click here for the rest.

I think it would be unfair to say that as a general rule cops are homophobic. Indeed, in some situations quite the reverse is true: there are definitely a few police departments that have some fairly progressive policies about gay people, in terms of both employment and dealing with the public. On the other hand, many police departments do not have such policies.

Still, this strikes me as being more about an individual cop's homophobia than about cop culture having an anti-gay bias. The problem, then, with cop culture in this case is the whole I'm-right-and-superior-because-I'm-a-cop sensibility that permeates police society from coast to coast. That is, in some ways I feel like I was taking a risk a few years back by putting a bumper sticker on my car that says "ATTACK IRAQ? NO!" These days such a message might get me pulled over in Jena or Vidor, but probably not in Houston or New Orleans. But that's the point: I have a perfect right to express any political message I want, and cops just have to fucking deal with that. Indeed, they have to protect me if anybody else wants to fuck with me about it. Nonetheless, cops have been notorious over the years for harassing people with whom they disagree on various political issues.

That really ought not to be their mission, and I'm sure they're very aware of that. But when you have a badge and gun, and think you're an elite member of society...well, I guess the latter trumps the former. Goddamned shame.

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Means "Who Polices the Police?"

From AOL's Newsbloggers:

Lesson of the Day: Do Not Help people in Distress

The Palacioses, of Chicago, claim the woman approached their car, parked outside Manolo’s restaurant, leaned in to the passenger side where Rocio was sitting and asked Erasmo if he wanted oral sex for $20 or sex for $25.

The couple laughed, realizing this wasn’t a woman in distress after all.

But within seconds, Chicago police swarmed the family car, hauling Erasmo Palacios out in handcuffs. He was charged with solicitation of a prostitute ...

Click here for the rest.

And their kids were in the back seat. The Newsbloggers post goes on to point out that, even though charges were eventually dropped, they still had to pay four grand to get their car out of impound. Obviously, this sucks big time, and my bet is that this has something to do with the ethnicity of the family in the car. That is, they were busted for driving too near a prostitute while Hispanic.

In addition to the hyper-masculine, self-righteous, us-and-them aspects of the dangerous police culture about which I've written repeatedly here at Real Art, is racism. That is, cops usually want to bust people of color well before they consider busting white people. For whatever reasons, this is so embedded in cop culture that you find both black and Hispanic cops falling into it themselves.

We've really got to rethink the entire concept of policing.

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