“I think our best defense is to insist that the police follow their oaths of office... it is a long term strategy...”
You mean like they did in 1936, Mr. Chamberlain? Are you Jewish by chance, sounds like the strategy the German, Russian, (fill in the blank) Jews have used to prevent the pogroms and other various holocausts that are visited upon them every 70 years or so.
Yep, if you have something that works why change?
Before opening fire on the police, regardless of how much in the right you are, you should be aware that by doing so you are choosing one of two options:
A. (the more likely) death by police fire on the field of battle.
B. life in prison.
Is it right these are the only two options? Nope. But that doesn’t change the fact they are.
Is this hill worth dying on? I firmly believe there are such hills, but is this it?
Choose wisely.
It is good for the short-term strategy. The long term strategy is to find out the officers involved via FOIA and the department’s watch log then sue the sh&t out of those officers, watch commander, chief of police, mayor, and city council, for violation of your civil rights and criminal home invasion. I’m pretty sure there are some hungry lawyers out there.
If that does not work, vote the city council out of office, along with the mayor, then fire all officers including the chief for dereliction of duty and have their certifications pulled.
I am not for equal violence, but if the above do not work, I cannot say what should be done.
The best way to reform police wrongdoing is to make sure that their extrajudicial overreach - when it occurs - becomes extremely painful for them.
Those interested in the subject may also find the following from Massad Ayoob of interest:
[begin post]
READING EVIDENTIARY VIDEOS: Point #1 Posted: 05 Jun 2011 07:08 AM PDT
After a discussion that began here in late April when I mentioned that cops were not only training for terrorist attacks on the ground in the US, but citing positively armed citizens’ response in some such incidents, the matter morphed into a debate about whether the cops themselves were terrorists. Several who took that position cited YouTube videos, and I said that a tutorial on the topic of how to analyze such videos for the truth they contain might be in order. Several who commented here endorsed that idea, so here’s the first segment.
I was going to start with a non-police case, but since my last blog entry some have suggested that the recent fatal shooting of Jose Guerena in Pima County, Arizona would be a good place to begin. Fair enough. A good synopsis of this incident appears at Wikipedia, and should be read for background.
Prior to the recent release of a video of the incident from a camera mounted to the helmet of one of the SWAT cops, an aggregate of the myriad accusations against the police ran as follows.
Supposedly, the evil police (1) came silently like thieves (2) in the night, (3) wearing masks like burglars or home invaders, and (4) without identifying themselves, and opened fire on the homeowner (5) for no reason. It has also been alleged that they (6) shot him 60 to 71 times, (7) conspired to deprive him of emergency medical care until it was certain he was dead, (8) and made an illegal warrantless entry in any case, (9) should have known they weren’t in danger because the fully loaded rifle of the homeowner was recovered “on safe,” and (10) didn’t have grounds to make the raid to begin with. Oh, and they supposedly (11) “attacked” the wrong address, to boot.
Six of those eleven accusations, more than half of the allegations, are proven false on their face by the helmetcam video.
We see and hear that the SWAT team (1) announced their presence with a high-decibel siren wail that lasted for several seconds. (2) It all takes place in broad daylight, shortly after 9:30 AM. (3) Several have no gear obscuring their facial features, and all are in readily identifiable SWAT uniforms. (4) If you listen for it, you can hear the cops verbally identify themselves. (5) The body language and movement patterns of the officers are consistent with people in fear of their lives, and one officer is seen to fall, giving others the impression that he has been shot.
Other points are refuted by other documentation released from the investigation. (6) The autopsy lists 22 gunshot wounds, not 60 or 71. (7) It is common custom and practice for emergency medical personnel not to enter a shooting scene until it has been searched and secured for other armed perpetrators; if you don’t believe the cops, ask any paramedic or EMT you know. (8) Newsmen have independently investigated and confirmed that they indeed had a warrant. (9) Seen from the front (as when it is pointed at you) the AR15 rifle can’t be visually determined to be “on-safe” or “off-safe.” (10) The continuing investigation indicates that there were indeed grounds for the search warrant to be issued by the officers. Read it here (in detail, please, if you’re going to comment). And note from both film and warrant that (11) Mr. Guerena’s home was indeed the designated, judicially approved target site for the warrant service.
The lesson? Ask yourself if the evidence of your own eyes and ears confirms the allegations in question…and do the same with documented reports as soon as they are released.
Until the investigation is complete, Jose Guerena should be considered innocent until proven guilty insofar as the drug and home invasion allegations…and the police who shot him should be considered innocent until proven guilty of having done so wrongfully.
[end post]
References:
1/The Wikipedia article is here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jose_Guerena
2/ The Search Warrant request is here: http://www.kvoa.com/files/Scanned%20Document0582_000.pdf
Sure! They are bound to comply ... they just forgot about their oaths in the first place, right?