Posted on 01/06/2010 6:24:00 AM PST by Travis McGee
"We need to make it clear," fulminated Patrick Lynch of the New York City Policeman's Benevolent Association, "that if someone lifts even a finger against a police officer, their life could be on the line."
Taken literally, this would make a capital offense out of a familiar disrespectful gesture, a salute that is entirely appropriate when directed at officious tax-grazers of Lynch's ilk. It is scarcely an exaggeration to say that Lynch perceives criticism of the police as a species of crime.
A little more than a decade ago, Lynch (whose surname appears to be one of God's little in-jokes) attempted to manufacture public outrage over Bruce Springsteen's song "American Skin (41 Shots)."
That ballad described the death of unarmed African immigrant Amadou Diallo, who was perforated by 19 bullets fired by NYPD officers in a perfectly avoidable eruption of gunfire. The officers were pursuing a rapist, and Diallo – who, like countless other slightly built young black men, vaguely resembled the suspect – supposedly provoked an outburst of "contagious gunfire" by reaching into his pants to retrieve his ID.
Springsteen's song was uniformly denounced as the successor to N.W.A.'s "F**k Da Police" by a legion of opportunistic pundits who apparently hadn't actually heard it. However, Springsteen's lyrics displayed a degree of sympathy for the four Street Crimes Unit who killed Diallo after one of them mistook the victim's wallet for a gun.
"You're kneeling over his body in the vestibule, praying for his life," sang Springsteen, apparently in reference to the actions of Officer Sean Carroll, who wept openly as he administered CPR in a desperate attempt to save Diallo's life.
The song certainly reflected the opinion that the needless slaughter of Amadou Diallo was, to an extent, a product of racial profiling. It also captured the grim reality that urban residents often have at least as much to fear from the police as from common street criminals:
Lena gets her son ready for school She says "On these streets, Charles You've got to understand the rules If an officer stops you, promise me you'll always be polite And that you'll never ever run away Promise Mama you'll keep your hands in sight."
Whatever the merits of Springsteen's treatment of the Diallo killing, his song didn't depict the officers themselves as deranged predators. However, from the perspective of Lynch and other police union officials, Springsteen had committed a form of lèse majesté by focusing on victims of needless police violence.
Proving himself to be as tone-deaf as police dogs are color-blind, Lynch denounced Springsteen for "trying to fatten his wallet by reopening the wounds of this tragic case at a time when police officers and community members are in a healing period." (Lynch's choice of words was singularly inapt, given the role a wallet played in Diallo's violent death.)
Springsteen – like many others – didn't see the need to treat the police as victims in this episode, given that the SCU officers avoided both criminal and civil penalties and suffered no professional consequences. Diallo's parents, on the other hand, had to bury their innocent son.
The officers who gunned down Diallo were following legitimate leads in pursuit of an individual who had committed crimes of violence against innocent people. Their actions most likely were the product of panic, rather than depravity. Still, given that an innocent man died at their hands, the SCU officers should have faced some kind of accountability.
It's also worth contemplating the treatment a civilian would receive were he to shoot and kill a police officer under similar circumstances.
In that respect it's instructive to recall the travails of Cory Maye, currently imprisoned (and, at one time sentenced to death) for shooting and killing a police officer who broke into his home during a no-knock drug raid at the wrong address.
If Maye had been gunned down as Diallo was, the incident almost certainly would have been treated as a tragedy, rather than a crime, and the public would have been admonished by the police and their media stenographers not to second-guess brave officers tasked to do "dangerous work" entailing "split-second decisions." No similar official sympathy was ever extended to Maye, who had to make a split-second decision when dealing with a party of armed strangers who had invaded his home and threatened his family.
According to the State, Maye's actions, though purely defensive, amounted to first-degree murder. After all, he – a Mundane – had dared to lift his hand against one of the State's Anointed, who are invested with an unqualified license to kill.
Recent actions by federal courts suggest that while it's perfectly all right for mere Mundanes to keep firearms, actually bearing them is a privilege reserved exclusively for those mockingly referred to by Second Amendment sentinel David Codrea as the "Only Ones" – that is, members of the State's enforcement caste.
On December 23, the First Circuit Court of Appeals dismissed a civil rights complaint filed by attorney Greg Schubert of Springfield, Massachusetts, who was disarmed and detained at gunpoint by police officer J.B. Stern while on his way to court.
After noticing that Schubert was carrying a concealed pistol, Stern erupted from his vehicle in what was described as a "dynamic and explosive manner," racing over and shoving his gun in the attorney's face. After his gun was confiscated, the attorney provided both his "Class A" gun license and driver's license. Stern kept the gun and told Schubert that he would have to retrieve it from the Springfield Police Department.
By way of a contemptuous parting gesture, Stern insisted that he was "the only person allowed to carry a weapon on his beat." This would help explain the fact – cited by both Stern and the Circuit Court – that the neighborhood in which this assault took place is a "high-crime area." Disarming the law-abiding tends to engender, rather than extinguish, violent crime, of course – but we shouldn't forget that civilian disarmament is carried out for the benefit of rulers, not subjects.
A little more than a week earlier, the U.S. District Court for Georgia's Northern District dismissed another civil rights complaint filed by Christopher Raissi. In October 2008, Raissi was surrounded by police, forcibly disarmed, and detained for a half-hour when he attempted to board the MARTA train while carrying a concealed firearm. After Raissi was able to produce his license to carry a concealed weapon, his gun was returned to him – but not before a lengthy and potentially lethal encounter with the police.
In dismissing Raissi's complaint, Judge Thomas W. Thrash Jr. described possession of a state-issued firearms license as "an affirmative defense to, not an element of, the crimes of boarding [public transportation] with a concealed weapon and carrying a concealed weapon." Somehow, according to the judge, this justifies the actions of the police in detaining and disarming Raissi.
John Monroe, Raissi's attorney, points out that the decision means that "everyone seen carrying a firearm in any place that is prohibited without a license is subject to being stopped, arrested, and prosecuted even if they have a license." In principle, this should apply to police officers as well as private citizens. In practice, of course, this standard means that only law enforcement personnel would have a license to bear arms in public.
A license of any sort, of course, is a government-issued document that transmutes an innate individual right into a State-conferred, and state-revocable, privilege. Raissi's case demonstrates that the only advantage conferred by a firearms license is an "affirmative defense" against a spurious criminal charge.
Advocates of a State monopoly on the use of force would not be appeased if the civilian population were entirely deprived of access to firearms. Efforts are underway to criminalize civilian use of purely defensive weapons.
In early December, California's Second District Court of Appeal overturned an 11-year-old state law forbidding felons to possess body armor. The law was challenged by Ethan Saleem, a parolee convicted of voluntary manslaughter who was arrested in 2007 when police noticed that he was wearing a 10-pound bulletproof vest.
"Certainly, Saleem wasn't wearing body armor because he was going to a job interview or going on a date," snarked a press release from the Los Angeles Police Protective League (LAPPL).
In fact, since neither Saleem nor any of the other passengers at the time of the traffic stop was armed, and given that he wasn't accused of any other offense, it's only a self-serving insinuation to suggest that he was detained en route to a crime.
California Attorney General Jerry Brown, insisting that police are acutely threatened by possession of "military-grade body armor" by felons, has promised to appeal the decision to the state Supreme Court.
If newly enthroned LAPD Chief Charlie Beck has his way, the law will someday be expanded to encompass the entire civilian population:
"The increasing number of assaults with deadly weapons against our frontline public safety defenders is a clear indication that we cannot give violent felons the upper hand. There is an absolute need for a ban on these types of body armor for anyone other than law enforcement personnel or law enforcement-related personnel. The men and women defending public safety across the state and the people of California deserve no less." (Emphasis added.)
Beck's statement is a tower of non-sequiturs piled unsteadily atop a foundation of begged questions.
Beck begins with the unwarranted assertion that police confront unprecedented danger from firearms; in fact, 2009 (as I've previously pointed out) was a remarkably safe year for police, even in the context of a decades-long decline in the number of duty-related firearms deaths.
Beck somehow assumes that the proposal to ban ownership of body armor by law-abiding civilians follows logically from his desire to restrain violent felons. He compounds that fallacy by asserting that the "people of California deserve no less" than the privilege of being deprived of legal access to a purely defensive weapon.
Not surprisingly, the LAPPL, which the same police union that describes civilian ownership of body armor as an unacceptable threat, went into paroxysms of outrage over a Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals decision that imposed modest (and inadequate) limits on the use of Tasers. Specifically, the court ruled that the use of a Taser by a police officer to subdue a mentally troubled but non-violent 21-year-old man constituted excessive force.
In this case, the victim – 21-year-old Carl Bryan – lost several teeth when he fell face-first to the pavement after being tasered by Officer Bryan McPherson. At the time of the Taser strike, Bryan and McPherson were separated by a distance of fifteen to twenty feet. Bryan, who had been stopped for a seat belt violation, was throwing what McPherson called a "bizarre fit" but did nothing to threaten the officer or anybody else.
"As every street cop knows, any suspect within 15 feet who is actively resisting verbal commands is a threat to officer safety," sniveled the union. "When a suspect fails to comply with verbal commands, it means the situation is rapidly escalating and some form of force will be required to gain compliance. Non-lethal force is the safest and best way to obtain the needed compliance. Non-lethal force instruments are designed to avoid injury to both officers and suspects by swiftly incapacitating the suspect."
Two problems thrust themselves upon us. The first is posed by the fact that the Taser is not a "non-lethal" weapon; it is a frequently lethal one.
The second problem is best stated as a question: What about those increasingly common incidents in which innocent individuals are faced with unwarranted and improper police demands for "compliance"? Why should we assume that in such circumstances it is proper to protect the policeman by incapacitating the recalcitrant civilian, instead of the civilian taking prudent action to protect himself from a criminal assault?
It is possible to protect one’s self from the potentially lethal effects of a Taser strike. Florida-based body armor company called Point Blank Solutions sells a Taser-resistant fabric called "Thor Shield" that has successfully been tested against stun weapons of up to 900,000 volts.
"In today's marketplace there are more and more non-lethal energy weapons for police, military and civilian use, with no defense from these devices," observes the company, which proudly announces that it has "stepped up to fill the void in energy weapon protection."
Thor Shield is composed of a polyester fabric layered over a conductive material; it is designed to create a circuit loop that will return the electric charge to the weapon without inflicting a shock to the subject.
"If you are hit, the Taser gun won't work," explains George Shultz, who invented the fabric. "We return the voltage back to the gun." Light and breathable, the fabric is thin enough to be sewn into clothing.
Assuming you've been paying attention thus far, you know what's coming next.
G2 consulting, the Arizona-based contractor that serves as the exclusive distributor of the Thor Shield anti-Taser fabric, "is committed to Officer safety." For this reason, Thor Shield "is only sold to Military and Law Enforcement Agencies" under a non-disclosure agreement. The fabric is used in clothing intended to protect a law enforcement officer should his Taser fall into the "wrong" hands.
Somebody will eventually reverse-engineer Thor Shield or devise another suitable counter-measure to the portable electro-shock torture device and make it available to the productive segment of the population. At that point the air will be rent with anguished cries about the new threat to "officer safety" and demands for legislative action to criminalize private ownership of Taser-resistant fabric.
Well, if police are permitted to assault and detain peaceful citizens legally bearing arms in public, and civilians are forbidden to wear enhanced clothing intended to protect themselves against bullets and high-voltage energy weapons, we can still cower in our heavily fortified domiciles, can't we? A man's home is his castle, and all that?
Maybe not.
Last November, a measure went into effect in Oklahoma that makes it a felony, punishable by a five-year prison term and a $10,000 fine, to "fortify" a home "for the purpose of preventing or delaying entry or access by a law enforcement officer."
Under the measure, written by Republican (natch) State Representative Sue Tibbs, it is impermissible to "construct, install, position, use or hold any material or device designed ... to strengthen, defend, restrict or obstruct any door, window, or other opening into a dwelling, structure, building or other place to any extent beyond the security provided by a commercial alarm system, lock or deadbolt, or a combination of alarm, lock, or deadbolt."
Predictably, this measure is one of the many disfigured offspring of the War on Drugs, a singularly fecund progenitor of legislative absurdities. The measure specifies that its provisions apply to buildings in which drug offenses are "being committed, or attempted."
However, given the depraved ingenuity of prosecutors, it's safe to assume that some way will be found to apply it in cases without a clear "drug nexus." And it wouldn't surprise me at all to see similar measures – most likely cultivated by police lobbyists – cropping up elsewhere.
Given ongoing efforts to criminalize civilian efforts to protect themselves in non-violent fashion against official violence, Patrick Lynch's "lift one finger" standard could be considered a moderate view.
Sorry you feel that way. Especially since the coming unrest will weigh heavily on NYC. Of course since the NYPD being one of the most corrupt and broken police organizations on the face of the Earth it will be attacked hard and from many points.
Your position will insure lots of blood shed on both sides. Oh and you and the ones like you are the reason I and ones like me will never visit your $hithole city you fascist bastard.
Sincerely,
Mad
We'll be friends with the police in this rural area.
Back in the 70’s, there was a police strike in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Crime went down. Residents patrolled their own neighborhoods with shotguns, it was understood by the criminal class that taking prisoners was not an option, and the criminals stayed away.
Bruce Obamastein? Couldn’t the fella who wrote this used some other court jesters lyrics to make his point? Bruce ‘tingles’ Springsteen? Kinda ruins the whole article.
I wonder if our military personnel are going to go along with orders from on high? I’m getting older, but I seem to remember some soldier, Michael New. I think he was the only one who refused to put on some form of UN uniform. Everybody else went along.
I also seem to remember an article which said some military personnel would treat ‘orders as orders’ if they were used in a police fashion against Americans.
Looks like we may have more to worry about than just the police.
At the national level, it started with the excesses of the Federal LEOs long ago, but was only recently brought into the public light of day in cases like Ruby Ridge and even Waco and continued to be brought into light at the state and local levels.
I believe this dramatic change for the worse in our law enforcers is a direct result of public education. Nationwide, public education marches in lockstep to the liberal and even radicalized mantras of communist devotees that seem to lurk at all levels of education, particularly those areas that have to do with the development of curriculum. The INFESTATION began in the late 1950s and has continued unabated ever since. There are no signs anywhere in the nation (with the exception of a surge in home schooling) that this is going to take any sharp reversals in the future as long as education continues to attract liberals in far greater numbers than conservatives.
This INFESTATION was so brilliant in the conception and long range planning (almost literally a 100 year plot, just like the Federal Reserve and the NWO) that in my mind it almost has to be Satanic in nature. Only the Father of Lies could conceive of such an "under-the-radar" scheme that would be so far flung in scope and long lasting in the execution. To me, it's another sad sign of the End of Days.
When I tried to get more information from her about the reason she sat on the bill, she claimed that she was gathering information from other states to make sure we had the best possible bill. That sounds all well and good, but when I asked for details as to what states she had contacted, and what she was looking for, Ms. Tibbs was evasive and never did answer me.
Needless to say, I'm not impressed with Sue Tibbs. I don't live in Tulsa, so I can't vote directly, but I will do what I can to educate other folks. She needs to go.
We just won the Heller SCOTUS case and have been winning Castle Law enactments in state after state after sweeping the nation with CCW victories.
I’d say that the trend is in our favor now, no longer encroaching against us.
Democrats *fear* to bring up gun control now. They certainly aren’t trying to ram it through like they are doing with Healthcare.
QED.
““In six months two or three generations of scum will be dead, and there will be little crime until for another ten-fifteen years.”
That is exactly what will happen in normal America. I don’t know about the cesspools.”
The cesspools will respond as any other predator/prey relationship in nature does. The predators will consume their prey and once having consumed all avaialable prey will have to consume each other. All that needs to be done is to make certain the system remains closed and it will take care of itself.
““In six months two or three generations of scum will be dead, and there will be little crime until for another ten-fifteen years.”
That is exactly what will happen in normal America. I don’t know about the cesspools.”
The cesspools will respond as any other predator/prey relationship in nature does. The predators will consume their prey and once having consumed all avaialable prey will have to consume each other. All that needs to be done is to make certain the system remains closed and it will take care of itself.
I’ll plead guilty to that one. And to the response.
I'm willing to give the benefit of the doubt here that he could be referring to people who choose to physically assault / fight police offers> I think the stats show most officers being killed with their own guns, for instance.
However, taken to the extreme, especially perhaps by younger police officers who are drilled in a certain mindset by their training, ANY resistance or delay in compliance by someone could be taken by the officer as a direct threat on the officer's life.
In that respect it's instructive to recall the travails of Cory Maye, currently imprisoned (and, at one time sentenced to death) for shooting and killing a police officer who broke into his home during a no-knock drug raid at the wrong address.
If Maye had been gunned down... the incident almost certainly would have been treated as a tragedy, rather than a crime, and the public would have been admonished by the police and their media stenographers not to second-guess brave officers tasked to do "dangerous work" entailing "split-second decisions." No similar official sympathy was ever extended to Maye, who had to make a split-second decision when dealing with a party of armed strangers who had invaded his home and threatened his family."
This no-knock SWAT-assault style raids in the name of the war on drugs (and in some cases for other reasons) is way out of hand.
They have been exalted to a lofty position, usually by themselves, that places them in a mindset reminiscent of a Gestapo.
I have had personal encounters that shock and horrify me.
I was stopped at a DUI checkpoint the other day...middle of the day, by the way...and the attitude and demeanor of the deputy was instantly arrogant, aggressive and in my opinion, harassing and demeaning.
When I refused to discuss my destination and origin with him, he escalated it to wanting to search my vehicle, which, of course, escalated it to me being even more determined to foil his Gestapo crap.
All of my "papers" were in order, and of course, I spoke the "lingo", i.e., knowing what "PC" is and being able to rationally discuss the situation without getting red in the face and backing up 6 feet and placing my hand on my gun, as did he.
Stupid ass bubba is what he was.
The police are out of control.
Seems to me that to get that type of reaction from the police officer they must be trained that anyone who does not comply immediately 100% is a threat to them.
That is why backed up to put distance between you and him, and why he put his hand on his weapon to secure it and be ready to draw it in case you charged him or drew a weapon yourself.
Apparently in his mind anything less than total compliance in the face of the officer's authority must mean that you want to kill him.
That seems to me to be a horrible attitude to have.
The word does seem to getting around about this change in police attitudes and behaviors with perhaps many (but hopefully not all) police officers.
As a result, more people are not seeing the police so much as the watchful protective sheepdogs of the flock - in fact, they could turn on YOU and treat YOU as a criminal / their enemy.
As a result more and more people are getting the word to "Don't Talk To The Police" and "Don't Trust The Police".
That trying to be friendly and honest and telling them everything you know and/or trying to talk rationally to them could get you in a lot of trouble.
Best to say the minimum necessary and if you do get in trouble get an attorney and let him or her deal with the system. But give the police the minimum amount of information necessary that can be used against you.
This was a hard lesson for me, as I have had several past encounters where they were helpful and (somewhat) friendly to me - I do think, even though you probably need an "enforcer" mentality to be a police officer, that some of them really do like helping people and being the modern day Blue Knights.
I’d say that the trend is in our favor now, no longer encroaching against us.
Democrats *fear* to bring up gun control now. They certainly aren’t trying to ram it through like they are doing with Healthcare.
I would say that you're right about recent trends. Thank God for at least some good news.
But there's still a long way to go, and there is the constant problem of various municipalities enacting stupid laws all the time.
Agree. Yet if COP’s are trying to bust into my home 10k is the least of my worries. My home is invasion resistant against criminals. Today an tomorrow. Yet I don’t live in Oklahoma so mute point for me.
Stay Safe.
The question is put to Socrates, "Who will guard the guardians?" or, "Who will protect us against the protectors?" Plato's answer to this is that they will guard themselves against themselves. We must tell the guardians a "noble lie". The noble lie will assure them that they are better than those they serve and it is therefore their responsibility to guard and protect those lesser than themselves. We will instill in them a distaste for power or privilege; they will rule because they believe it right, not because they desire it.
Then come the Vigilant men who put things in order again. We must become both the Judges and the Executioners or perish.
Excellent point.
Check this out.
bttt
Great post and great thread.
I had the exact same thing happen to me, right after FL got the "SHALL ISSUE" ccw permit system in 1987. I was in Law School at the time and I was carrying lawfully off campus when I got stopped at such a DUI checkpoint. I had just informed this Black Gloved, motorcycle boot wearing BSO (Broward Sheriff's Office) Deputy that I was lawfully armed than I look to my immediate left to be nose to muzzle with his weapon (IIRC it was a Glock, but not certain). I do recall he was white knuckled and had his finger on the trigger while screaming at me to exit the car, carefully and slowly. I did so. He then made me back up to him until my spine was pressed against that muzzle. I was most scared of his white knuckle grip coupled with the finger on the trigger of a glock and knew my spine would be instantly severed. He cuffs me, slams down over the hood of his car and proceeds to run the serial #s on my 1911.
At that time I became aware of another voice in the background. Alternately SCREAMING and pleading. Screaming was a senior partner to a junior partner and the pleading was to ME, begging me not to SUE THEM. I was remarkably cool once the muzzle was away from me.
He thought he had me once when a flag popped up in the NCIS, but as I calmly told the senior partner that would be my TSSBI Top Secret Special Background Investigation security clearance from being a recent active duty US Army Officer. Sure enough. Then a flag pops up from the FCIC (state level info) but that was my recent employment as a state Parole Officer which seemed to mollify him just a little bit.
The rookie nazi kept berating me for carrying a gun. WHY? He fairly screams. "Because I can't carry a cop" I reply. Then he spotted the law books and he turns just a shade paler. He finally realized he could get into deeeeeep trouble with this car stop. So he grumbles some more and cuts me loose. All the while the senior partner is grousing that this punk is the reason he's "pulling the pin" for retirement the following week....
Cops wearing black leather gloves and motorcycle boots (highly polished, of course) on a hot day in July in South Florida is the reason LEOs are getting a bad name nationwide. What do you wanna bet his weapon was still filthy from the last time he'd qualified?
Cops these days are all products of the public schools and the guns are evil rhetoric so they're rotten shots and handle the gun like it's a rattlesnake, gonna bite 'em. But they're badge heavy. The real attraction isn't the gun it's the authority. The power. The gun is something they think they'll never need if only they come off tough enough, nobody will ever dare challenge them. That's a typical rookie mistake. Reality is that there are some really bad dudes on those mean streets who'll ram that badge where the sun don't shine ... just to brag they did it. That five pointed Deputy's star would really hurt coming out too.
Well documented that cops have a terribly lower "hit rate" in their shooting reviews. Why do you think the police academies went to pass/fail weapons qualifications? If they were really scored targets for points; the numbers just barely passing would be rich lawsuit fodder for a ton of wrongful death lawsuits where innocent bystanders are clipped by police gunfire.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.