The Blue Shield of Silence

To establish that there are, in fact, many corrupt police officers in the United States I'd like to cite some examples;

http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/91097/92_year_old_grandmother_killed_by_the.html

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Last Tuesday a 92 year old woman was shot and killed by Atlanta Police officers.Kathryn Johnson was alone in her home waiting with her gun on Tuesday night when a group of plainclothes officers with a warrant knocked down her door searching for drugs, police said.

She opened fire, wounding three officers before she was shot to death.

Assistant Police Chief Alan Dreher called the killing "tragic and unfortunate" but said the officers were justified in returning fire.

http://www.kidk.com/news/local/11676076.html

A Teton County, Idaho family is outraged after they say a sheriff's deputy tried to murder their dog in their own front yard.

The Barboza family has owned their dog Bobby for five years. A few days ago they say a Teton County Idaho Sheriff's Deputy knocked on their door demanding to see the dog.

Leonel Barboza, Dog Owner: "He says, 'I'm here to put him down. I'm here to kill him.'"

The officer told Leo Barboza there had been a complaint Bobby had bitten someone.

Barboza: "I said, 'Do you have any proof or anything?' He says, 'I don't need any proof.'"

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2004032283_alleybarnes24m.html

The city of Seattle has agreed to pay $185,000 to a man who filed a federal civil-rights lawsuit against the police department after he was beaten, kicked and arrested by officers outside a Capitol Hill nightclub in 2005, according to court documents and an informed source.
...
A photograph of Alley-Barnes taken in the jail shows him with blood running down his swollen face. An internal investigation later showed that an officer also rammed the handcuffed Alley-Barnes' face into a wall at the police precinct.

Alley-Barnes was charged with assaulting an officer and interfering, but the case was dismissed because the city failed to turn over the video from the arrest.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-071205cops-htmlstory,0,2906787.htmlstory

• Nearly every shooting in last decade 'justified'
• Investigations ignore witnesses, forensics
• Shot-in-back findings raise questions

On a summer night in 2003, two patrol cars pulled over a driver in front of his South Side home for running a stop sign. Thinking police had chased the car earlier that night, four officers drew their guns and ordered the driver out.

The man's mother screamed from the sidewalk: "He can't walk! He's paralyzed! He can't get out of the car!"

When one officer thought the driver raised a gun, he opened fire, shooting the driver five times before reloading and shooting him once more.

Eight hours later, as Cornelius Ware, a 20-year-old paraplegic who drove by pushing the pedals with a wooden cane, lay gravely wounded in the hospital, police supervisors cleared the officer of any wrongdoing.
...
She [the investigator] also took no notes, she said, committing each witness statement to memory and sometime later recording those words in what would become the main report on the shooting.

Three of Ware's brothers who witnessed the shooting -- a 15-year-old and 13-year-old twins -- all told detectives at the scene that their brother had his hands up.

VanWitzenburg could not be reached for comment.

A cop shoots a Veteran complying with orders.

http://www.theagitator.com/2008/03/14/the-new-professionalism-9/

An Albany woman was stopped for no apparent reason, then, with no apparent probable cause, was subjected to a humiliating public search for drugs in which an officer inserted two fingers into her vagina. They also seized her cell phone, and made a random call to one of her contacts, again without a warrant or probable cause. They found no drugs.

The woman filed a complaint, but it was never forwarded to the city’s civilian review board, whose entire purpose is to investigate complaints against the police. The police chief explained that the police aren’t required to forward every complaint to the board, particularly if the complainant requests that it not be, as the chief says happened in this case. This apparently came as a surprise to the city councilman who actually wrote the review board legislation.

As for the woman not wanting her complaint forwarded to the review board, that’s apparently because an internal affairs officer “persuaded” her to let the complaint be handled internally.

Okay, so there are some bad apples. That's not really the point of contention here, as it's a sentiment almost universally accepted. My friend Chris, when we spoke about this the other night, made a good point. Why penalize or even criticize the majority of police officers for the actions of a fringe minority? After all, if we want police officers to be trained from a pool of civilians (and, as a free society, we definitely do), then there's going to be roughly the same level of corruption and crime as the average civilian community. The problem doesn't really stem from the criminal behavior itself, but rather what happens after the crime.

In other words, the complaint against the police officers is that they cover up and lie about criminal actions of other police officers. Take a look at this case:

http://www.theagitator.com/2008/01/03/cop-of-the-year-2007/
A man named Al Unser is arrested and charged, but according to both him and an officer named Sam Costales, the police "were rude to him, refused to tell him why he couldn’t drive home, then pulled him out of his car and tossed him into a thorn bush before arresting him for resisting arrest". Officer Costales testified as such in court, and as a result Al Unser was released, cleared of all charges.

That's how the system is supposed to work with bad apples. Unfortunately, the officers in question were never investigated or even under suspicion of wrong doing. Constales, however, was. The charge was "improperly wearing his uniform while testifying in court". This is particularly cruel when you read that Constales retired three years prior to this event, because he has witnessed too much corruption for him to handle, and was asked back when the police department needed personel very badly. The head of the Police Union in Albuquerque sent a letter to the Bernalillo County Sheriff, which read;

As Secretary of the APOA i feel it is my duty and responsibility to apologize to you and your officers. Ofc. Sam Costales does not represent APD/APOA. The majority of our officers look at the BCSO as our brother and sisters in blue. We are embarrassed and ashamed of Ofc. Costales’s testimony in the Unser trial. If there is anything we can do to rebuild the damage caused by Sam please let me know.

If we continue to let this happen, this "Blue Shield of Silence" threatens to remove any civil protections we have left against police who continue to conduct no knock warrants in which civilians die, execute household pets with no oversight and falsly charge innocent civlians with crimes they did not commit.

Protesters at the RNC get beat like they stole something

I'll start off with what I think is the best summation of events with a CNN link and a short quote from the article;

The protesters were noisy but peaceful as they approached the convention. Once they arrived, a police officer read an order to disperse, CNN reporters on the scene said.

But almost immediately, officers along the exit route opened fire with gas and projectiles. In one instance, a CNN producer said, an officer stepped out of line to hit a young woman with pepper spray as she ran for the exit.

Amy Goodman is a well known reporter who was covering the RNC when she got a call about the police arresting her producers. They're beaten by the police, and when she tries to stop and explain that they're journalists. She's thrown to the ground, her press jacket and press credentials are taken from her and she and the producers are charged with "inciting a riot". Video interview

In the interview, she mentions the Police Raid of Protester's Headquarters, so I think it would be appropriate to talk about that along with the actual brutality. The Police use a warrant, the cause of which "is not public at this time," to disrupt plans for protests, then accuse them of making plans for violent and illegal action against RNC delegates (accusations that weren't verified by the raid and were later withdrawn on the basis of not having a shred of evidence), then charge the organization with a violation of city fire code.

Here's a journalist who was shot with tear gas point blank in the face.

It's not just the journalists and protest leaders getting thier shit kicked, either. Read this;

My 17-yr-old son, Keith, was attacked by a group of police officers last night, September first, while peacefully attending a protest at the Republican National Convention. He was reaching into his backpack to hand a man a lighter when 5 police officers leveled him to the ground, beat the crap out of him, and arrested him. They told him that he is facing three criminal charges, one of which is a felony. They did not read him his rights. They did not give him a phone call. They searched his person and his belongings without his consent. They destroyed his shirt and put holes in his pants when they took him down. They took his belongings and did not return everything when they released him. He was so bloody at the time of the event that the officers covered his torso with someone else's shirt. I hope all the blood on that shirt is only his! The emergency room personnel were very understanding and kind and I'll be going to the records division of the hospital tomorrow to get copies of the records and the ER photos. You can go to my pictures to see the damage.

Be careful out there.

~LittleMom

The pictures on his Mom's Myspace give you a better idea about how badly he was beaten. This is a 17 year old pacifist, who was hospitalized by the police. Disgusting.

Israel and Human Rights- Bulldozing Houses

Some links:
Human Rights Watch in Israel/Palestine
B'Tselem (Israeli Human Rights Organization)
Wikipedia Summary
Israel Factbook
Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions

Israel is a country couched in controversy, and not without reason. Since 1947 when the UN displaced Palestinians in order to create what we now know as Israel, the violence between the Arab states and the Jewish settlers has escalated. It didn't start there, though, so let's back up to the earliest I can look up on Wikipedia; the Jebusites were settled in Jerusalem (capital of modern day Israel) until 1000 BCE when, according to Hebrew religious records (with some architectural evidence supporting the account) King David invaded and took the City (this is the beginning of Jewish tradition in the region).

300 or so years later, the Assyrians took it over, followed by the Babylonians. 50 years after the Babylonians gained control of Israel Cyrus the Great, a Persian king, allowed the Jews to return and rebuild their lost temple in Jerusalem. Alexander the Great then came along, and the area now referred to as Israel (then called Judah) fell under Greek, Roman then Byzantine dominion until in 638 when the Islamic Caliphate claimed it for their own (this was the start of Islamic control of the area, which did not change until 1947). Richard conquered Jerusalem (and Saladin then took it back), then the Ottomans took control until 1917 when the British took control and partitioned the area into two parts, Israel and Palestine. Well, the Arabs in the area didn't like that at all, so they picked a bit of a fight with Israel and, by most accounts, lost. The newly formed boundaries lasted until 1967 Egypt called for Arabs to "unite against Israel". Well, Israel didn't wait for them do to so, and struck first. After just six days the opposing forces were defeated and Israel ended up with, among other territories, the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and the Sinai Peninsula.

So, that established what are called "the '67 Borders", which pretty much speaks for itself. In 1972, a group of Palestinian terrorists massacred a group of Israeli Olympic athletes in Munich, which was followed by a 1973 war (Syria and Egypt launched an attack against Israel on Yom Kippur, the Holiest Jewish Holiday), which lasted only 20 days before Israel emerged victorious. Up until this point, Israel has been, for the most part, blameless.

Now we come to the part where Israel loses the moral high ground. In the early 1980's, Israel begins to take certain measures to stop attacks by Palestinians that go beyond conventional counter-terrorism. The most notable example, as well as the most easily proven, is Israel's house demolition policy. There were mass detentions and deportations (and the legal system in Palestine still isn't the model of Just action) as well, but there are enough examples and enough damage is done by the demolition that I'll try to concentrate on that.

So here's the ideal scenario for Israel; a terrorist attacks either the IDF or (worse) an Israeli civilian. They find the person's house and destroy it, leaving any family members, friends or other relatives homeless. That might not get across the devastation caused so let me explain; the Palestinian people are generally poor. They can't really all afford a home to themselves, so they often share with 4-5 (at least) other occupants. In the summer, Jerusalem can get above 100 (record high is 111.2 degrees) and in the winter it can get below freezing (record low is 19 degrees). So, you're a poor woman with no rights in the middle of the desert in the summer with three children and no husband (assuming he was a terrorist and the IDF doesn't have the wrong house, as it sometimes does, but even if it does Israel doesn't help get the family a new home), and you have no shelter. Assuming you live by finding someone kind enough to take you in, what do you think the rest of your life is going to be? And how about your children, how will they be fed?

You can imagine the hatred it can generate. Those children grew up, and in 1987 started what is known as "the First Intifada" (Arabic for "upheaval" or "shaking off"), a mass Palestinian uprising against Israel. This brought to light on the international level the injustices committed against the Palestinian people and caused many to criticize Israel's policies. Unfortunately, the uneducated Palestinians' violence against the IDF and ignorant racism against Israelis served to divert attention from the reprehensible actions of their enemies.

Well, the First Intifada ended with relatively little Israeli blood shed (160 deaths versus the 2,100 dead on the Palestinian side), but the message was received and Israel stopped bulldozing Palestinian houses. For a while. In 1994 Israel began once again sealing (and later destroying) homes belonging in part to criminals and terrorists. It's not surprising, then, that in 2000 the Palestinians began their Second Intifada.

Once again, as with the First Intifada, the Palestinian people resort to violence. They suicide bomb the IDF, they fire Qassam rockets at Jewish settlers (though this is a bit misleading; they aren't just shooting at civilians, they're shooting at settlers who have taken Palestinian home that were sealed and land that was bulldozed), and general strikes and protests. This lasted until 2006, when a treaty was signed that Hamas (the elected government of the Palestinian people) generally abides by.

Now, take a look at these two studies and what they say; The cycle of violence and Palestinian public opinion in the Second Intifada. Basically, when the Palestinian people attack Israel, Israel responds by killing more Palestinians in the weeks following. When Israel kills Palestinians...no real response. The violence against Israel remains a steady anarchic, erratic mess. The Palestinian people don't get intimidated any more; they can't. They can't be deterred by violence any longer, every act of violence simply reinforces in their children the idea that all Israelis are evil, that Israel is the enemy. Not only are Israel's actions inhumane, they're keeping themselves in the senseless cycle of violence.