Stop Reflexively Praising Police Officers As Heroes

Posted: 8/15/2014

Trigger

I was very surprised to read this article “It’s Time for Conservatives to Stop Defending Police There is nothing conservative about government violating the rights of citizens.” in the National Review.

Don’t get me wrong: Individual police officers have become true heroes through their actions!

The Police Department

The police officers are carefully crafted as first responders, heroes, putting their life on the line every minute of their duty; we are left to believe that many of them die every year in the line of duty in a shooting with criminals etc.

This contrasts clearly with the power that police officer labor unions wield and with the intensified militarization of police forces across the country latest since the 1980s, when the Reagan Administration upped the fight against drugs.

SWAT Teams

It seems now almost every police department in the country no matter how small has one of those teams plus the military gear. As NPR reported today, if a county has a SWAT team, the smallest town in that county wants to have one too.

Perhaps, in the beginning SWAT teams were strictly limited to counteract armed hostage taking or other, very severe offenses by armed criminals. However, now that there are so many SWAT teams, they have to be used whenever possible. Not least, once you have a SWAT team at your disposal and you don’t use it in an incident, the police department will be sued for negligence. Catch-22!

Dash & Body Cameras

From a technology standpoint it should be quite feasible today to equip every police car and police officer with such cameras that record their duty activities from beginning to end.

I would say, it should be done! If the powerful police labor unions object so be it! Police officers have such powers as no one else, they should be held accountable for what they are doing.

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Louis D. Brandeis is often quoted as saying:

“Publicity is justly commended as a remedy for social and industrial diseases. Sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants; electric light the most efficient policeman."” (Source; emphasis added)

Let’s add to that cameras that record the actions of police officers.

Such cameras would also allow to record offenses committed by criminals to be recorded more often in the act or to easily reveal the lies offered by criminals when caught.

Irrelevant Whether Michael Brown Was A Recent Robbery Suspect?

Posted: 8/15/14

Trigger

Just read “Police Now Claim Michael Brown Was a Robbery Suspect UPDATE: Admit Officer Didn't Know That When Interaction Started”. It almost seems that the story gets more confusing by the minute.

The article written by an associate editor at libertarian Reason 24/7 claims at the bottom “The FPD's police chief has admitted Wilson did not know Brown was a robbery suspect when the interaction began, making it irrelevant to the question of whether the shooting was justified.” (emphasis added). From listening to NPR today, I had the same impression.

It appears that the police department of Ferguson, Missouri mishandled public relations to an unbelievable extent let alone that this police department chose a very poor strategy to respond to legitimate protests, illegal rioting and looting. Again, I have to admit that I did not follow the details of the shooting of Michael Brown by police very closely.

I really do not like the racial overtones of this case! In particular, the white police department in a black suburban neighborhood narrative. It is absurd.

A Robbery Suspect

If we assume for a moment that Mr. Brown before his shooting was indeed robbing a convenience store, then this matters a lot no matter whether or not the police officer, who shot Mr. Brown, knew about it or not. It could actually be quite irrelevant whether the police officer knew or not.

Unfortunately, the above article does not mention whether Mr. Brown used a gun or not during his robbery. According to this LA Times article, which  included the video footage, it appears that Mr. Brown was unarmed, but he used reported to have used strong arm tactics to steal the box of cigars. If this indeed happened that would indicate that Mr. Brown had a serious attitude problem and it could indicate that this was likely not his first robbery.

The mindset and behavior of a man who commits robberies like that is different from someone who makes an honest living.

Supreme Justice Felix Frankfurter On Police Excesses

Posted: 8/14/2014

Perhaps a timely quote:

“It is not only under Nazi rule that police excesses are inimical to freedom. It is easy to make light of insistence on scrupulous regard for the safeguards of civil liberties when invoked on behalf of the unworthy. It is too easy. History bears testimony that by such disregard are the rights of liberty extinguished, heedlessly at first, then stealthily, and brazenly in the end.

Davis v. United States, 328 U.S. 582, 597 (1946).” (Source; emphasis added) (Credit)

My View On Felix Frankfurter

He could have been way too much a progressive! According to Wikipedia, he was a close advisor to one of the worst U.S. Presidents of the 20th century, Franklin Delano Roosevelt. I need to do more research on him.