Ask not for whom the bell tolls.

Lord Acton is famous for saying that power corrupts. Conservatives love the saying and with good reason. But they ignore it when it comes to the police. These are men who are given guns and immense powers to do nasty things to people. Of course such power is corrupting. Worse such power attracts people who are bullies, who are nasty and sometimes downright inhuman. Conservatives refuse to see it.

And the situation gets even worse when the police code of silence is put into effect. Cops will cover up for one another. That has been proven in case after case. The one group that can committ crimes against others, and get away with it, are the police. Their fellow "brothers" will not stop them. They will not testify against them. They will not investigate them unless forced to do so. If forced to investigate they will do a lousy job of it or neglect evidence. There are some good cops of course. But it seems that most are happy to cover up for the bad ones and that makes all of them bad cops. They don't understand a simple moral principle. As Gandhi put it: "Non-cooperation with evil is as much a duty as is cooperation with good."

Let me give some examples of the corrupting influence of power over the police. Take two well known men: the Unser brothers. Bobby Unser and Al Unser, Sr are well known race car drivers. And together they own quite a bit of property in Albuequerque, New Mexico. One morning recently the brothers left their separate homes to drive to their property. Neither was aware the other was going at about the same time.

They found two unmarked cars askew across the road. First Al and then Bobby arrived and each thought there had been an accident involving these cars. So they attempted to drive around the cars by cutting through a piece of property they owned. In each case the local police began screaming at them and arrested them. Neither was told the unmarked cars were a roadblock because police said a man was shooting off a gun down the road. The brothers contend they would not willingly drive to where someone might shoot them and that when they asked the police what was the problem the police refused to answer. Sounds typical to me.

Bobby Unser says that when handcuffed they pulled the cuffs very tight pulling on a shoulder that had just been operated on. When he told the officer the reply was: "handcuffs are supposed to hurt." No, they aren't. They are supposed to restrain not inflict pain. Inflicting pain is what bullies like to do. To add a touch of the ironic the brothers were arrested at different times but both were on Unser Boulevard, a street named after them. To see the interview go here.

Here is more film showing a demonstration in Miami in 2003. This site totally disagrees with the anti-free trade protestors. But they have the right to demonstrate their opposition to a program that benefits the poor of the world even if they are wrong about their view. In this film you can see the demonstrators walking, peacefully, in front of the police in full riot gear. The protestors are carrying signs and not much else. Elizabeth Ritter, an attorney, is holding a sign in front of her as she walks with the police several meters behind her. As she is walking one of the officers for no apparent reasons shoots her with a rubber bullet.

The stunned woman turns and yells, "Did you shoot me? Why did you shoot me?" She turns to the media there and asks if they saw what just happened. Within a few seconds the entire line of officers begin firing rubber bullets into the peaceful crowd. Ritter crouches on the sidewalk trying holding her sign in front of her hoping to be protected. She is shot five times even though she has not acted violently in any manner. One bullet hits her in the face. A rubber bullet would blind someone if they are hit in the eye. This is all filmed.

To make matters worse the police had video of themselves having a good laugh about how they shot Ritter even though she was not a threat and was walking peacefully. The head of the terrorism unit (whether they protect from it or inflict it is unclear) was taped telling the officiers the next morning: "How about yesterday, huh? I would go to war with everyone here. I went home, I couldn't sleep. I was just so pumped up about how good you guys were...." "The good news about be able to watch you guys live (sic) on TV is that the lady with the red dress. (Ritter) I don't know who got her, but it went right through the sign nd hit smack dab in the middle of the head." Apparently he is proud of this. The officers applauded and laughed about shooting this woman and were dumb enough to film themselves doing it.

A police investigation said the comments might be inappropriate but that shooting peaceful protestors was not a violation of department policy. The police said they would apologize to Ritter for the comments but not for shooting her. She replied that they "committed battery on an unarmed citizen peaceably expressing an idea." She's right. No officer will be disciplined. As usual.

Or take a case involving a petty, authoritarian, sheriff named Joe Arpaio, a man who never met a constitution right he respected. One of Arpaio's SWAT tems raided a home outside Phoenix. The team attacked the home of a very dangerous criminal. They fired tear gas into the home. They managed to set the house alight. A small puppy tried to escape the fire and ran out and the sheriff's men chased the dog back into the house where it burned to death. A massive armoured vehicle was used in the raid. They left it parked without the brakes on. It rolled down the hill and hit a car that seconds before been occupied by a woman and small child, both escaped when they saw the vehicle coming toward them And the dangerous criminal? Oh, yes it was someone wanted for traffic tickets. The picture above shows the tank used to raided someone for taffic citations.

In another incident police were found illegally in the home of Wilfred Rousseau when he was at work. His 15-year-old daughter came home to find two officers going through her bedroom. The officers claimed to be looking for a runaway kid and said they entered because the door was open. In fact the Rousseau's cat was in heat that day and the door was quite clearly shut to keep the cat from running out. The officers then changed their story to say the door was closed but not locked so them entered. That is illegal. They had no warrnt, no permission to enter and were not in pursuit of a criminal at the time. Police refused to identify the officers involved to the media.

One man who discovered the problem of rampant police authority is Kenneth Jammar. Jammar was bed ridden with gout. The "war on drugs" terrorists, I mean the police, raided his home by mistake. They were looking for his nephew not for Jamar and the warrant was supposedly for a different address entirely. In fact the man they were looking for never stayed with his uncle according to family members. The raid was a joint project of about every power-hungry agency in the area: the SWAT team, the DEA, Immigration thugs, and the Alabam Bureau of Investigation. The local Shefiff however was not told about the raid.

Police of course have their own jargon to cover up the fact that they illegally raided a man's home. They also shot the bed-ridden man. He was referred to as an "armed suspect" though he was not a suspect. He was armed but the Constitution allows that just in case the government starts killing people. Of course they wouldn't do that. Because Jamar was armed the police say they "neutrlized the threat". In other words they shot Jamar four times in his own home, a man had not violated the law at all. Of course a police investigation said the officers acted within departmental policy.

The fact is that more and more police departments are being turned into militry style outfits armed for war not for policing. Exactly on whom will they be waging this new war? The Department of Homeland Security brownshirts are the ones financing this militarization of local police departments. Warning bells ought to be going off in your heads. But Bush has so played up the war on terror that Americans are handing away liberties they will never get back. Give these people the power and they will snatch away all your freedonm. Ignore it if you wish but the warning bells will keep ringing until the day that warnings are silenced. Until then do not ask for whom the bell tolls: it tolls for thee.

As it happens, I've been a LEO and I wouldn't mind doing it again. But my experience leads me to think that straightening it all out is not going to be as easy as that.

Hold accountable? The trick is sorting out the bogus charges from the real ones, when it comes to abuse of power or brutality. Cops may not always be the brightest dime in the junk drawer, but when they misbehave, they don't do it in front of a crowd. And bad guys are not above making false charges. So part of "accountability" will be courts, judges, and lawyers.

Now work on this a minute, please: Imagine I'm paid what cops are paid around here -- a salary level behind that of the state in a more expensive part of the state, a level which positively encourages moonlighting. A friend returned fire when shot at by a citizen who was in somebody else's house with the property of the somebody else in his possession. The citizen in question actually killed my friend's K-9.

So then my friend is taken off the streets for more than a year. He's investigated, the incident is investigated. He's sued. The department is sued. At the end of this time the accused is now out of the hospital and in a wheelchair and the trial is held and the citizen is found guilty of something or other (the DA had lots of choices).

For doing his job, my friend has lost a year on the career ladder and been subjected to considerable suspicion and stress, in addition to the stress of knowing that he inflicted a permanently disabling spinal chord injury on someone.

Now I'm out on a roadblock, fully aware that while every car but one which passes by me is probably a good guy, one car may have a fleeing felon who may be armed and willing to shoot an LEO.

But the Libertarians have won the elections so it is no longer against the law to evade a roadblock or disobey a legal order from a LEO. What the heck am I supposed to do when somebody pulls off the road and tries to get around me? What is my department supposed to do?

What am I going to do if I go where my sergeant told me to go and I find a guy holding a gun who doesn't conspicuously and clearly make himself harmless when I show him my badge and credentials and ask him to show that he can't hurt me?

Faced with questions like this, the real question is going to be,"How much will the citizens be willing to pay for effective screening and training (and continuing education and re-certification and all that), and to compensate men and women to enforce their laws?"

I think most municipalities get slightly better law enforcement than they are willing to pay for. Yes, we troops may have control issues and problems with aggression and all that. But at least at some level we go into the business wanting to help. Then reality sets in and every time a new situation presents itself we are thinking NOT just, "How am I going to get out of this with the least amount of bloodshed - especially my blood?", but also, as the guy approaches us brandishing a tire thumper and taunting and threatening us,"Will I get sued if I defend myself? Will I be investigated? What is the SOP for this situation?" And we're thinking that while looking behind the threat to see if there are any innocent bystanders, where they are, what will happen to bullets which do not stop in the perp, where is the right tactical position for this situation, are there any other threats I may have to deal with ... -- and so on.

If you want that done well, it's going to cost. If you want it done with almost no mistakes, it's going to cost more than most citizens want to pay, after they've used up most of their tax dollars on paying the unemployed to use drugs and have children.

--But the Libertarians have won the elections so it is no longer against the law to evade a roadblock or disobey a legal order from a LEO.

Come on, don't feed me a line of bull and we can have a conversation.

Look, if you were in it long enough, you know the training has changed. Your reply was all about cops protecting themselves. Guys who can't step up to a higher level of courage and responsibility for the lives around them shouldn't be in that line of work.

I used to be on friendly terms with the local cops. In the '90s their training obviously changed such that they became unapproachable. They no longer see the community as allies. When I busted a burglar about 5 years ago, the cops that came to get him either didn't speak to me, or the one who did thank me acted as if it was the strangest thing in the world for an able bodied member of the community to be observant about crime in the neighborhood.

The training today is all about control and projecting power. Even the appelation, LEO, is different from Police Officer or the older and more appropriate Peace Officer. They don't recruit for intelligence and judgment -- the system doesn't want cops on the street using their judgment. 'Knock 'em down, haul 'em in, and we'll sort it out' kind of an attitude is what's being taught today. So don't blame it on the inability to recruit good people. It's the training and the Police State attitude from the politicians and bureaucrats. Power and control positions attract thugs. The communists don't go by the name anymore, but the tyranny is unmistakably Soviet.

I'm not trying to be tendentious. Maybe I misunderstood, but it seems to me the original story was about police (over-?)reaction to some Unsers evading a roadblock And yes, I agree that the way the handcuffs were used sounds just plain wrong. Mind you, for some people it's painful to be cuffed behind the back whether or not the cuffs are tight, and women can often slip out of all but the tightest cuffs.

The "courage" crack sounds good but I'm not sure it carries the argument forward. Is it reasonable to expect everything you seem to expect of cops for what they are paid and how they are backed up and supported? Are you going to get the cops you want for that kind of compensation? Around here the really slick guys are doing private security tours in Iraq and Afghanistan and getting paid serious bucks for it.

Further, in the two incidents I described the cops in question were NOT just thinking of themselves. They were thinking of their department, of the taxpayers (when they worried about the department being sued) and of bystanders.

Then I think you are invalidly transitioning from the specific to the general. Among the cops YOU know, the training changed and "they became inapproachable". I would not say that is the case in my area.

As for the reaction to your busting a burglar, it IS unusual for non-LEOs to take decisive and useful action. I will eagerly agree that some cops have MAJOR control issues (my former captain for one) and would be very, ah, conflicted about somebody whom they cannot control doing something strong. I really don't know how common that is. But one consideration is if I don't know you from Adam, and you have detained a someone and are making a complaint against him, I simply cannot reasonably assume that you are the good guy and he is the bad guy.

Somebody once leveled a totally untruthful complain against me, before I was a cop. Fortunately the two cops who showed up formed a good judgment of her during their interview and then came up on my porch. When they asked me about the alleged violence I said,"Yeah, my wife (who was right next to me) is always beating me up." One of the cops looked at the other, then turned to me and smiled and said, with faux compassion,"It's just SO good that more men are able to admit this ...," and that was prety much the end of that.

But when the air is full of tension and pheremones, it's harder to make a good judgment call.

Your last paragraph sounds to me more like a profession of belief than a statement of facts. It does not comport with my training or that attitude of my colleagues. Yes, we try to project power, from the shine on our boots to the crease in our shirts to time we spend in the gym and the hoped for effect on the way those horrible polyester shirts drape over our dough-nut bellies. It is a tool of the trade to convey the idea that I could really lay a hurtin' on you if it came to that. But MY personal tactic is to try to appear like I don't know which end of a gun the bullet comes out of, to make self-effacing jokes, and so forth. I want anybody who gets rough to be surprised when they find what a crappy choice that was. It gives me a fraction of a second to exploit. But that has, arguably, led to some guys thinking they could "take" me, which they MIGHT not have done had I looked more like I knew how to handle myself. It's a judgment call, and a matter of personal style.

Of course, I come from a weird area. Around here we LIKE it when people who aren't in Law Enforcement have concealed carry permits -- and we tell them so. When I fingerprinted people for their permits I always congratulated them, and so did other guys in my office.

I will also EAGERLY grant you that some police chiefs seem to be Liberal wimps in the pocket of paternalistic politicians. Fortunately that just doesn't go in our area.

I won't grant the significance of the term LEO. Some police officers get huffy when called deputies, some deputies vice versa. LEO is just a more general term. To me "Peace Officer" sounds Orwellian.

I wonder how safe it is for either of us to generalize ab out training. I know that here in Virginia the normal certified cop academy is 16 weeks. A friend who had left our department to become a state trooper will be taking another 20 weeks on top of that.

I was teaching a guy yesterday how to handle a handgun. He showed a lot of assumptions about police training. So I tried to wargame what it would be like to be able to get everybody to the range for half a day every two weeks. It's interesting to do the math and figure out how much that bumps up the salary budget if you're going to keep the same number of troops on active duty. And then when you figure firearms isn't half of what cops need to practice, study, or learn, you start getting an idea of the kind of money you're talking about.

Finally (I'm assuming we both have lives outside of Free Republic) consider this. We are trained to shoot at the Center of Mass. But the current thinking is that a COM shot isn't appropriate for a suicide bomber. So the white shirts are tossing around making head-shots the new standard. I think we have a problem here. A suicide bomber looks a lot like a jogger in the winter with a thick vest.

Have you read Grossman's "On Combat" or "On Killing"? He's pretty good and about the only Person (certainly the only former Army Ranger) studying what it's like to be a cop. They're worth a quick read.

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