Another day, more abuses by the sociopaths in blue:
Two FDNY EMTs who had to intervene to stop four police officers beating a handcuffed patient on a stretcher have turned the cops in to authorities, the Daily News has learned.
The emotionally disturbed patient was punched multiple times in the face by the cops on July 20, according to FDNY documents obtained by The News. The cops only stopped when the EMTs bodily intervened, the report said.
The violence broke out when the patient spit at the Emergency Service Unit officers and swore at them. The officers responded by hitting him in the face, hauling him off the stretcher to the ground and then tossing him back on the stretcher, the EMTs said in written statements submitted to the FDNY.
Meanwhile, remember the guy who was choked to death in a stranglehold a couple weeks ago in NYC? It’s a big coincidence that the man who videotaped the murder has been arrested, as has his wife. Cops just followed them around until they had an opportunity to arrest them (and I am not excusing the behavior that got them arrested). You fuck with blue, they ruin or kill you. You won’t come out ahead, so you better bow down before the police state.
De Blasio better get this shit under control. And good for the EMT’s who reported the first story. They should get a medal, because you know they are going to be terrorized by the cops now.
Villago Delenda Est
These are not the fairly nice professional guys you see on Law and Order. They’re guys who are compensating for something with their official behavior.
Shakezula
The patient wasn’t the only one who needs restraints until he can have a nice cocktail of anti-psychotics.
Mnemosyne
I was flipping through an old book last night about doctors in NYC (so old that the emergency room was still referred to as the “emergency ward”) and they told the story of a doctor who was sued for negligence because some cops brought a drunk guy in to be checked out, the doctor released him, and the guy subsequently died of a ruptured spleen in jail.
The cops, of course, were happy to testify that the doctor was totally negligent and the doctor had sanctions that followed him for the rest of his career, though most of the medical staff agreed that what had probably happened was that the cops had kicked the guy in the stomach after they left the hospital.
I honestly don’t know how you get cops under control when they’ve been out of control for decades, but it has to be done.
shelley
What the fuck has happened to cops in this country?
Belafon
More likely what will happen with the EMTs is that a different paramedic will call the police to handle a dangerous situation, and the police will take a little longer to respond than usual, or will “forget” about it.
Belafon
@shelley: Nothing. It’s not like there was ever a time when some cops didn’t abuse their power. Otherwise we wouldn’t have stories of the sheriff that ran the town.
ETA: Even Robin Hood has a corrupt sheriff.
Luthe
@Belafon: The NY Post (gag) is reporting the PBA is encouraging slower police responses in order to “dot every i” before responding to a call. This is in reaction to de Blasio’s investigation of the chokehold incident as well as the curtailing of stop-and-frisk.
Gravenstone
@Belafon: I’m not sure the cops will be too quick to fuck with the EMTs, since they rely on them and the fire service for their own needs and safety on the street. Then again, maybe they’re not part of the right fraternity and fuck ’em after all.
Schlemizel
@Belafon:
The joke in Chicago back in the 50s about the cops:
BANG!
BANG!
“POLICE, STOP OR WE’LL SHOOT!”
Mnemosyne
@shelley:
It’s been this bad for quite a while — I blame William H. Parker, for the most part. He pioneered the militaristic, us-against-them style of policing, which also just happened to be cheaper for cities since you didn’t need as many cops on the street.
Karen in GA
I’ve known one or two decent NYC cops who just wanted to do their jobs without getting hurt or hurting anyone else, and then retire with a pension. But I’ve known plenty of people who were either were cops or wanted to be who were total authoritarian assholes.
What kind of psychological screening do applicants get, I wonder?
Tommy
@shelley: In the town I live in I want to run to the cops for help. I feel safe around them. That this shit outlined here happens scares the fuck out of me. Something I can’t wrap my mind around.
raven
@Mnemosyne: “The 1990 novel and 1997 film L.A. Confidential along with the 2013 film Gangster Squad provide fictional depictions of the LAPD under Parker during these years”
Villago Delenda Est
@shelley: Well, as I alluded to in the first post on the thread, the public perception of cops is shaped by popular media, and that image is one of caring professionals who take every step to do the right thing at all times. This of course has absolutely nothing at all to do with reality, but rather the image that is projected by storytellers who want the cooperation of police departments in putting together their product.
As a corollary to that public image, the notion that you can solve a crime in less than an hour, to include commercial breaks, via forensic work, is pure horsehockey as well, and it’s not nearly as black and white as you see on the teevee, but it’s more than welcome by actual cops and prosecutors because it adds to their air of competence which of course is not deserved, as real life fuckups demonstrate on a daily basis.
One of the things I learned in the Army is that the Hollywood version of military operations has nothing at all to do with the reality of it. This translates for other professions as well, be it law, medicine, education, whatever.
brantl
Congratulations John Cole, you’re now an official DFH, glad to have you on board!
NonyNony
@shelley:
Cops in this country have always pretty much been like this. There was never a golden age when there weren’t cops who abused their authority or circled the wagons around a corrupt cop to protect him.
The difference now is that we hear about it a LOT more because there isn’t the firewall between the public and the corrupt cops. You no longer have to worry about convincing a journalist to investigate whether a cop is throwing his weight around or not – you can just record the cop beating the shit out of someone in the street and post it to YouTube.
Villago Delenda Est
@Mnemosyne: Parker was greatly aided by Jack Webb, who fully supported him and gave the LAPD the very positive public personas of Joe Friday, Bill Gannon, and the Adam-12 guys.
Mandalay
Any evidence for that claim, or is it just irresponsible not to speculate? The links given in the OP don’t support that at all.
ranchandsyrup
♫ New York City cops
Ain’t too smaaaaart ♫
Bit o’ trivia: The Strokes label decided to omit the song NYC Cops with these lyrics from the US version of their debut album which was released right after 9/11.
Roger Moore
@shelley:
They’ve always been like this, at least to Those People. The biggest change is that they’re more likely to be exposed for it today.
Mandalay
@NonyNony:
This. Video has empowered the people.
Villago Delenda Est
@Mandalay:
And directly undermines the carefully cultivated public image of police departments.
Roger Moore
@Mnemosyne:
OTOH, Parker was responding in part to massive police corruption, so it’s not as though he came in and messed up a wonderful institution.
Cassidy
@Mandalay: The guy who took the video has said before that he was being harassed by the cops after the incident, specifically mentioning being followed around.
Cassidy
Nah. The NYPD won’t go there. Fucking with FDNY would be a bad move.
the Conster
Noticed yesterday that the local transit police here in Boston all looked like Robocop. Transit police! Why is there even such a thing as transit police? Who knew that fare jumping had such an elevated threat status.
aimai
@Villago Delenda Est: Yes. Its called “sousveillance” as opposed to surveillance. We are surveilled by the top of society and controlled by them. With the rise of phone cameras and videos and the internet for disseminating this information we have a counter in sousveillance: when those below view and monitor those who are above them. Its the video equivalent of the letters and diaries of slaves for breaking the omertà surrounding the treatment of slaves in Southern Society. The police in cities have always brutally policed poor neighborhoods and poor looking people, at the behest of hte upper class but out of the view of the upper class. Now, thanks to video and the internet, what was hidden can be revealed.
Roger Moore
@raven:
Again, that’s a little bit unfair. Those movies are set at the beginning of Parker’s term and represent the kind of police corruption he was brought in to fight, not the kind of policing he fostered. He still caused enormous problems- his move to professionalize the police force also militarized it, and he made it very much a tool of racial oppression- but they were different problems from what you see in film noir set in the late 1940s and early 1950s.
Bunter
@Cassidy: Oh, yeah, the NYPD will go there. Not all of them, but, if you here, Thee Rant you’ll see some responses from the NYPD to the situation. You know NY cops, they will cut off their nose to spite their face.
Mnemosyne
@Mandalay:
FWIW, the guy’s wife says that the person he’s accused of giving the gun to is a new acquaintance. That seems a little, shall we say, suspicious to me.
And if you don’t think that cops ever frame people, you really need to wake the fuck up.
different-church-lady
@the Conster:
Because sometimes people get mugged and beaten and assaulted in subway tunnels and stations?
I mean, just a guess here.
RSR
Recall the melee between uniformed NYPD and FDNY at ground zero when Rudy called off recovery efforts once they found the gold?
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2001/nov/03/september11.usa
The Finest and The Bravest generally can’t stand each other.
the Conster
@different-church-lady:
I remember when there was trouble you called the local police. The transit police don’t ride the trains.
different-church-lady
@the Conster: Yeah, the local cops don’t ride the trains. That’s why there’s transit police — they do.
Mayken
@Karen in GA: If it’s anything like around here, some version of the MMPI which has been widely known for many years to be extremely problematic in non-therapeutic settings. It is known to have sex, race, class and sexual orientation bias, even after it’s revisions. It also has a known bias against people of higher intelligence… which explains a lot about the cops in my area.
M
Mandalay
@Cassidy:
Maybe so and maybe not, but either way that is hardly the same as the claim in the OP that “Cops just followed them around until they had an opportunity to arrest them”.
Cops do plenty of bad stuff. There’s just no need to present speculation as facts.
C.V. Danes
George Orwell believed the police to be the natural enemy of the working class. Doesn’t seem a lot has changed over the last 80 years.
ducktape
@Karen in GA:
A really close friend of mine, who died in 2010, was a retired NYPD cop. She was a great person, one of the first female undercover cops, with a lot of really good stories. She was little (5’1″) and had had a hippy look when she was recruited, and had been involved in a lot of successful mob and drug dealer prosecutions because no one would have thought that the little waitress or mule was actually one of New York’s finest. But her father and older brother also were NYPD so it ran in the family.
She was a great person except for a couple of traits which I attribute entirely to her NYPD experience. For awhile, she was the manager of our volunteer moderator team, and was totally authoritarian when it came to dealing with them. Word like “I expect you to comply” and “you WILL follow these procedures …” This was not successful, as you can imagine, but she absolutely refused to temper her approach and kept referring to the NYPD experience of “expecting to by obeyed, with serious consequences if you don’t.”
The other thing that, frankly, made me just stop talking about anything I was reading about online, was that in her opinion, police were never wrong. Oh, she would tell me about corrupt cops being rooted out and other times that wrong decisions were made, but when the cops stormed a 90-year-old woman’s house in the middle of the night in a drug bust (and, it turned out, had the wrong house) and shot the old lady, she just said that the lady brought it on herself by not immediately complying with the police instructions to lie down on the floor. No matter what the cops did, and especially if they were NYPD cops, she would find some excuse to justify it.
I have to say that I’m glad she passed before the Occupy Movement happened, because I think we would have become not-friends if she had had a chance to tell me her opinion of the NYPD, Davis PD, and Oakland PD behavior.
RSR
Also, we’re having the same ‘broken windows’ policy problem here in Philly that led to that choke hold death on Staten Island.
Is broken windows Philly’s new stop-and-frisk?
Our father-knows-best-esque mayor, and his police chief won’t back down, even on pot, even though city council had a veto proof majority approve a no-arrest ordinance regarding pot.
And the mayor’s press sec (and former reporter) tried to disparage that great reporting linked above, and as someone noted fell flat on his face: https://twitter.com/DustinSlaughter/status/496770417185402881
Mike with a mic
Meh in the subways here kids rob people and start fights. Mostly they go for high end smart phones and tablets. There is a specific dc transit unit just for kids stealing electronics on the metro.
different-church-lady
@Mandalay:
You’re new to the internet, aren’t you?
Felinious Wench
@RSR:
There’s a good reason people tend to love firefighters.
Trollhattan
I don’t think the FDNY-NYPD wars (on and off the hockey rink) in “Rescue Me” were hyperbolized. There seems to be little love lost between the two departments, probably for a host of reasons.
Cacti
@NonyNony:
This.
If you go back to the depression era, you’ll find that working class white people didn’t see the police as their friends either. Cops were viewed as being there to harrass you or split your skull on behalf of the “decent folk”, if you happened to be an unemployed “vagrant” or a “trouble maker” who supported unionization.
Once the boom times of the 1950s and 1960s rolled around, and “negro agitators” started wanting their own piece of the pie as US citizens, working class whites became okay with the skull splitting activities of law enforcement again.
shelley
There’s always been real rivalry/tension between the NYPD and FDNY. For years, arguing who is in charge when first responding to an emergency. Even after 9/11 I don’t think they’ve resolved. it.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)
@Cassidy: Orta didn’t have any trouble getting himself arrested prior to videotaping the Garner incident. So, sure, it’s possible that he was being targeted for the video but it’s also possible he was being targeted because he was a habitual offender. And it’s possible he wasn’t targeted at all but just has a problem not doing illegal things.
Gin & Tonic
@different-church-lady: In NYC the transit police were a separate department. Some years ago I think everyone came to their senses and they were combined, and now it’s one police force, with regular cops assigned to subway stations and the like.
Trollhattan
Speaking of cops tapdancing around the edges of the law.
Shorter defense atty: “If the clip is stuck, the gun becomes magically legal–thank you Saint Wayne!”
Mnemosyne
@ducktape:
The problem, of course, is that if you’re dealing with people who are impaired — especially mentally ill people, but also people who are in a medical crisis like diabetic shock — they cannot obey like a normal person would. This is why mentally ill and diabetic people end up getting killed or injured by cops — the cops expect them to react like a normal person, they don’t, and they get killed or seriously injured because they don’t “comply.”
The woman who was beaten by a CHP officer a few weeks ago? Homeless and mentally ill.
Rosalita
Can I just say I am glad to have you posting more often? We’ve missed you.
That being said, I think the bar has sunk so low in the hiring of law enforcement all we are getting are SWAT wannabes. I am glad these guys got turned in, and yeah, the ETMS are going to have to look over their shoulders.
nastybrutishntall
NYPD seems to be a big ole blindspot in DeBlasio’s vision for the city. Apparently he believes in broken windows policing, harassing potsmokers. Wonder if he is getting some intimidation sent his way to keep the status quo in place, or if he is just trying to toughen his image and not get blamed for any possible increase in crime.
different-church-lady
@Gin & Tonic: Makes perfect sense, as long as the combined force treats the subways/transit-ways as though they were streets and patrol in the system. It’s a hell of a thing to try to get a police cruiser through a turnstile.
My guess is transit police as a separate force is a holdover from the days when subways were run by private companies — days long long gone.
Roger Moore
@the Conster:
If the transit lines cross political boundaries, it may be easier to create a new police force than to work out the jurisdictional issues between the existing police forces. I can imagine that would be especially important in cases like the transit lines operated by the NY/NJ Port Authority, which cross state lines.
LAC
@Mandalay: LOL!! Ok, Snowden- I mean- Mandalay. You funny…
different-church-lady
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN): My guess — and it really ain’t that far fetched — is they had a legitimate reason to arrest him, but they weren’t going to bother with it until the videotaping. If so, in a weird way the accusations coming from both directions have some legitimacy.
Trollhattan
@Roger Moore:
Yup. Google BART police and Oscar Grant. (Although I suspect that was more a substandard training issue and less an institutionalized brutality issue.)
different-church-lady
@Roger Moore:
@Gin & Tonic:
When paired, these two observations reinforce each other: The NYC subway system does not extend outside of NYC itself, unlike many other subway systems in the country.
Helen
One of the problems with NYC cops is that many of them do not live in the city. They are one of the few categories of city workers of whom that is not required. So many of them come from surrounding suburbs because it is still a good paying, pensionable job. 20 years and you are out with a good pension. Unfortunately those suburbanites bring with them the stereotypical view of city residents. And they treat us as such.
Mandalay
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN):
Exactly. There are some very naive folks on this thread.
Mayken
@nastybrutishntall: I’m guessing a bit of both. My brother lives in NYC and is married to a state cop. They were both on about how NYC was going to see an increase of crime due to DeBlasio’s election and the curtailing of “harass the brown and black folks” er… “stop and frisk.” There is a very loud contingent who thinks this way. Also, too, DeBlasio’s a strong guy but I doubt he has the fortitude and back up to completely dismantle his predecessor’s entrenched entourage of bully boys.
Roger Moore
@Mnemosyne:
Or people who are hearing impaired and can’t hear your orders. Or who were asleep until your no-knock raid and aren’t fully awake. Or who don’t immediately recognize a plain-clothes officer as a cop because he was too excited to mention it, or who don’t believe it and think they’re being mugged. Etc.
Joel Hanes
A lot of what’s bad about cops comes from The War On Some People Who Use Some Kinds Of Drugs.
It would be difficult to devise a policy more conducive to police corruption than “civil forfeiture”, in which major possessions of arrestees are confiscated and sold and the proceeds kept by the cops EVEN IF THE ARRESTEE IS ACQUITED OR NEVER CHARGED. It has the added disadvantage that it’s a blatant violation of the Fourth Amendment; (there are some awful court decisions that need overturning if we ever have a sane Congress or SCOTUS)
DARE is ineffective, but produces swag. The department is given brand-new cars emblazoned with DARE slogans and officers spend a comfortable few hours lecturing little kids about the Evils of Drugs. The program doesn’t reduce drug abuse, but it does increase PD revenues and give some officers some extra paid hours. Bipartisan pandering; your tax dollars at work.
The evolution of SWAT and riot teams has tended to over-equip civil forces, over-militarize their tactics, and makes the job of being a policeman more like being a soldier at war.
Hmm. In this drama, who is cast as The Enemy?
And then, in the paranoia and jingoism that followed 9/11, the gormless Bush Misadministration worked to transfer actual military equipment to police forces that have no possible use for it. Uses are invented, and in the process police service becomes even more like war and soldiery.
The town next to mine, Sunnyvale, has an interesting approach that I think makes for an exceptional force.
The Public Safety officers are crosstrained as cops, EMTs, and firefighters, and I think most of them serve in more than one role. I am privileged white man, so I have no idea what the seamy side of the Sunnyvale force is like, but I’ve been impressed with every one of the officers I’ve gotten to know. The women on that force are something amazing.
different-church-lady
@LAC: I decided, in the interest of comity, not to go there. But, yeah, pretty much the same thought went through my mind, along with some bon mot regarding the health and well-being of irony.
different-church-lady
@Mandalay:
David Hunt
@shelley:
There are more cameras around to catch them when they do something like this. That is what is happening.
Gin & Tonic
@different-church-lady: I decided, in the interest of comity,
Logged into the wrong blog, did you?
different-church-lady
@Gin & Tonic: I thought a change might do us good.
Roger Moore
@different-church-lady:
Some of its predecessors crossed city lines before the five Boroughs were consolidated.
different-church-lady
@Roger Moore: Don’t I know it — I’ve been spending my idle time this summer studying the history and routes of all the different lines. The whole “dual contracts” thing was kind of a mindblower, the way they pitted one company against another.
Mnemosyne
@Mandalay:
Funny, that’s the kind of thinking the Rampart cops engaged in — since they were framing people who already had criminal records and were constantly engaging in minor crimes, framing them was A-OK since there were probably illegal things they had done without being caught.
barbequebob
@Trollhattan: This must be life imitating art, because there was a well publicized brawl earlier this year between NYPD and NYFD at a charity hockey game
http://ftw.usatoday.com/2014/04/nypd-fdny-charity-hockey-game-bench-clearing-brawl
Waynski
@different-church-lady: Partly correct. No MTA subways leave the city, but the PATH train (which is a subway) runs under the Hudson River to NJ, and the PATH train is run by the Port Authority.
raven
“The NYPD’s current authorized uniformed strength is 34,450.” I suppose it’s crazy to think they are not all the same.
MrSnrub
A South Philly cop just bought the house across the street. I’m vaguely uncomfortable by this, but not sure I can even share my feelings with anyone else.
LAC
@different-church-lady: god bless you for trying.
raven
@MrSnrub: Whatever you do judge the person by the job they have.
Trollhattan
@barbequebob:
Hilarious.
“It’s for da kids.”
GregB
The law and order dillholes in both political parties helped to create this monster of massively out of control law enforcement.
Anyone following politics in the 70’s and 80’s can recall the attacks against the ACLU and the desire to “take the handcuffs off of police'” so they can do their jobs!
This is what you get.
Not to mention the fact that you have a populace that loves guns and has been indoctrinated into the whole mindset that in order to be tough you have to be violent.
Chickens coming home to roost.
Botsplainer
@shelley:
The cops haven’t changed. They’re the same brutal assholes they always were, but now that they’re interacting more with nice white folks they’ll call you “sir” while they beat you and will ask you to quit resisting when they tase you multiple times.
Cacti
@GregB:
From the 1970’s through the early 90’s, there was an entire genre of action film, dedicated to the renegade cop who ignored the law and constitution, and/or the civilian vigilante with his trusty gun, who kept the neighborhood safe from criminal scum, and the liberal do-gooders who always enabled them.
Think Clint Eastwood as Dirty Harry, or Charles Bronson in the Death Wish films.
Suffern ACE
@GregB:
Yeah. That’s not quite the right phrase. It would appear that the chickens aren’t coming home to roost. They are roosting at other people’s homes. (Which never made any sense anyway, since one would rather have ones chickens roosting at home).
Anyway, this isn’t going to change until the police in New York start harassing Anderson Cooper or Campbell Brown on their way home from work. Or beating on Maury Povic’s kid while sending Geraldo Rivera’s grandkids to Rikers.
C.V. Danes
@Cacti:
Or the modern incarnations, like Gang Related and 24.
gwangung
@Mnemosyne:
Or if you’re deaf. Oklahoma City police charged a deaf person for resisting arrest because they were trying to cuff his hands:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/01/15/pearl-pearson-police-brutality_n_4603445.html
Cacti
@C.V. Danes:
My personal favorite overtly authoritarian propaganda in the Death Wish franchise, was the one where Charles Bronson sleeps with a public defender half his age, and during their pillow talk, she admits how he’s right, and how much she actually admires his willingness to blow away the people she’s been sworn to defend.
Cassidy
@LAC: the art I found the most amusing in the response is how people here will shriek in outrage over the insinuation of the NSA peeking through their internets but this guy who videotaped the cops murdering someone claiming he’s being harassed is a notion that requires more proof? SMMFH.
C.V. Danes
@Botsplainer:
Yup. Neither the rich nor the poor have any delusion about whom the cops work for; that is a delusion that seems to be unique to the middle class.
PhoenixRising
@Mnemosyne: That’s the main point, right there: only folks who
live in the neighborhood where cops feel free to choke a guy to death for suspicion of misdemeanor something. If they didn’t already have a record, they’d get straight jobs & move their families somewhere safer…but you can’t get a job with a record, so of course the guy who filmed it was carrying a stolen illegal gun–he needs it for protection! Look at his block!
And around it goes.
OzarkHillbilly
@MrSnrub: Back in the day when I lived on the south side, I was always jealous of people with cops for neighbors. Something about seeing blue on a daily basis seemed to act like a nice big doobie and everyone seemed to just kind of mellow out.
? Martin
@GregB:
‘Tough on crime’ was just an effort to get police to achieve the Jim Crow goals that Civil Rights legislated away.
PhoenixRising
@Cassidy: Best face I can put on this incredulity is, I too find it hard to believe that the videotaper was followed around by cops…more than is the norm for his neighborhood and previous contact with the penal system.
Of course they’re looking for a criminal act to discredit him. And it’s no surprise they found one. Because if Eric Garner’s neighbors were dentists and lawyers, the police wouldn’t have killed him…
Botsplainer
@Mnemosyne:
Most of our friends are EMTs, paramedics and firefighters. Several years ago, there was a serious turf dust up between the EMTs and the police. A very large, mentally ill black man was clubbing himself with a plumber’s wrench in a park. EMTs arrived first and had several minutes in which they calmed him, got him to nearly drop the thing as he approached the ambulance. Police cruisers roll up, they start barking commands, reagitate him, and then shoot (and kill) him when he starts hitting himself again. The EMTs filed a stack of complaints tall enough to rival Atlas Shrugged for thickness, police threaten call disruptions.
As I understand it, there were some very quiet conversations between the EMS director and both the PD command staff and the FOP, and the threatened slowdowns never materialized.
Jackie Chiles
The police have always been this way. ALWAYS. Ask any minority males and they will tell you.
Two things have happened
1. The police have been given the greenlight to dehumanize and brutalize the “wrong kinds” of whites again for the first time since Tevee was in black and white.
2. Everyone carries around small video recording devices.
Larger America is being confronted with the kinds of policies it has voted for. |
People of color live in perpetualy fear/distrust of law enforcement. I am solidly middle class, but because I’m black, my interactions with the police are always colored by unease and tension.
gene108
@the Conster:
Yeah, like can you think of one instance when somebody has been mugged in a subway station?
I can’t.
GregB
@Cacti:
But Hollywood is liberal!
Every Dirty Harry film promoted the same messages too.
chopper
@PhoenixRising:
the hilarious thing is, ‘discrediting’ the guy is meaningless. he posted a video which stands on its own.
the Conster
@gene108:
As I mentioned upthread, I’m old enough to remember when you called the local police.
Roger Moore
@? Martin:
That’s not completely fair. There actually was a massive increase in the crime rate, especially the violent crime rate, during the era when “Tough on crime” was such a big deal. Between 1960 and 1980, the murder rate roughly doubled, the overall violent crime rate roughly tripled, and the robbery rate roughly quadrupled. Is it any wonder that people were scared about crime? Should we be surprised that they saw conventional law enforcement is pathetically ineffective? Is it a shock that they’d vote for any politician who promised to do something about it?
Roger Moore
@chopper:
It isn’t about discrediting him; it’s about retaliation. You make the police look bad, the police find an excuse to arrest you. The police want to make it clear that they can ruin the life of anyone who publicizes their misdeeds.
MrSnrub
@raven: I’m trying not to do that. I was surprised at my initial reaction, quite frankly. Most cops aren’t like that, but I guess I’ve internalized enough of these stories to affect me.
barbequebob
@chopper:
It is not so much about discrediting, it is to send a message to all that if you do something like that (tape the police mis-behaving), they will get you back. And there are lots of them and they have plenty of time and opportunity to do it.
I see Roger Moore already said this, and did so better than I.
raven
@MrSnrub: This blog post won’t help much will it?
MrSnrub
@raven: Probably not. =)
I recognize in this case that it’s me, and I’ll make sure that I keep an open mind. It’s what I try to teach my kid, so it’s a chance to show I can walk the walk.
Suffern ACE
@Roger Moore: And hopefully it shuts up any of the other witnesses. I believe when the story broke, the story was that the victim didn’t do anything that day, but had instead broken up a fight and was rewarded by being arrested. That’s what the witnesses were saying in the paper. Now they will probably shut up.
That said, I am not certain what to think about this story. If you are being harassed by the police, as his mother and wife claim, why send him out to go get advil after dark? Maybe you need advil? But doesn’t that sound like a fairly normal errand that one wouldn’t ask someone who was being harassed by the police to do?
Mandalay
@MrSnrub:
Here is what some people said about their neighbors, a husband/wife cop team:
The only snag is that these great neighbors (allegedly) shot and killed their daughter’s boyfriend on sight when they met him for the first time yesterday, and their daughter turned them in. So think whatever you want about your neighbors, but it won’t necessarily say much about who they really are.
rikyrah
@Helen:
Which is absolute bullshyt. I didn’t agree with 99.99% of what Richard Daley did, but him holding the line that Police and Fire MUST reside in the City of Chicago is one area where we completely agree.
You get a fucking six figure salary from the City of Chicago…then your ass can live in the City of Chicago.
Suffern ACE
@barbequebob: Yeah, and its also part of the idea that a “super angel” is needed whenever one wants to go after the police, or nothing can be done about it. There isn’t going to be one, because super angels are never to be found at the right moment. If someone ever does videotape another one of these instances, I guess we’re supposed to hope it is a nun with impeccable character references (and too many nuns probably wouldn’t qualify.)
Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)
@GregB: The funny thing is that Clint Eastwood has always had a much more nuanced view of Dirty Harry (and in fact doesn’t like him) than his fans did. He made a movie called Tightrope in which he played a Dirty Harry type and you get to see his dark side. Not in the sense of getting out of control in the way real world cops do, but rather it shows how psychologically damaged he is. It’s an interesting, though not great, movie.
rikyrah
@Cassidy:
Ain’t that the truth.
Tommy
I few years ago I got a DUI. I did something dumber then driving drunk. I went into court without a lawyer and told the truth. They threw the book at me. Revoked my license. At another time I got in my car and drove. I got pulled over. The guy that gave me that DUI pulled me over. Said he knew I shouldn’t be in my car. Told me he’d follow me home and give me a pass. No ticket. Nothing. That is my experience with police.
gene108
@RSR:
From the article that’s not what the understanding I got.
From the article:
You are breaking the law in public and you get fined. I do not see the problem.
West Philly goes to crap, once the cross streets get higher than 52nd. I’m sorry but the trash on the side of the street and the general run down nature of that piece of West Philly does not make me sympathetic to the guys drinking in public getting fined for contributing to the run down feel of the place.
The homeless guys getting harassed and ticketed again and again is fucking abuse of police power. They need help and do not need to be dragged through the criminal justice system, when the people with regular contact can show they have serious mental health issues that need to be addressed.
Matt McIrvin
@Cacti: The Shadow and Batman were the 1930s version of the same archetype (and Batman was a brutal, murderous figure for his first year or two of existence, though he settled down to more of a lawful-good type pretty quickly). They tend to pop up at times when people are very afraid of crime.
Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name)
@Tommy: Your experience is not universal. From your own descriptions of yourself, you are a reasonably well off, clean cut looking white guy who is from that rural area. Change one of the factors and your situation changes. Change a lot of them and your situation changes a lot.
Suffern ACE
@PhoenixRising:
Which I suppose makes sense. But the gun wasn’t loaded apparently. So maybe he should have carried brass knuckles instead.
raven
@Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name): None of this is universal. I know cops that are assholes and I know cops that are solid people. It reminds me of, you know, real life.
Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name)
@raven: Yep.
Tommy
@Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name): I hate that this is the case but bet you are right. Being white and clean cut works well for me. I know that but at times forget it. I shouldn’t.
Suffern ACE
@Mandalay: Yeah. It would appear that family had ‘issues.’
raven
@Tommy: I got my ass kicked by the cops so bad that they threw me in the lockup for 2 days before they’s take me in front of the judge so the swelling would go down some. That was before I was a longhair.
rikyrah
@Tommy:
Tommy Tommy Tommy
I don’t know one Black person in America who could write what you just wrote.
Maybe there is a Black person that can write what you just wrote as to their experience with the police…
I’ve just never met them.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)
@Cassidy: FWIW I generally take a similar line over the NSA: there are a lot of abuses out there and we really need to rein them in, but at the same time they are also doing useful things and I treat a lot (though definitely not all) of the individual allegations with a fair degree of skepticism.
And in this case I wouldn’t be shocked if the cops were targeting Orta in the wake of the videotaping but 1) I think it’s far from guaranteed, and 2) he made it pretty easy for them to finally arrest him.
Tommy
@raven: Those pics you posted of yourself the other day. Longhair and all. Great photos.
MrSnrub
@rikyrah: My son is bi-racial. I’m doing what I can to prep him for interactions with the police. He’s a really good kid, but I worry.
Tommy
@rikyrah: As said to me. I am a upper middle class white dude My comment might be telling cause of how different the world is for me.
Epicurus
Well, guess we’ll just have to disband every police force everywhere because there are a few bad apples in the barrel. Then we’ll let the Free Hand of the Market take care of crime…look, there’s been a metric shit ton of bad news about the NYPD in the last [insert favorite number of years here], and there are most certainly bad elements in any position of authority. What are we going to do to improve the quality of people we hire to protect us? Oh, I know, I’ll just post my complaints on this blog; that’ll show ’em! Let’s have a bit more balance here, shall we? I’m not an LEO, but I’d sure rather we have the boys in blue than the alternative, which is anarchy.
Villago Delenda Est
@GregB: Hollywood DOES tend to be “conservative” in the old sense of the word…defending existing institutions as they exist at the moment, not asking too many leading questions, and so forth. They’re always focused on the results at the boxoffice. However, this does not support the “movement conservative” types who are not actually conservative…more like incredibly reactionary, trying to take the country back to a past that never existed except in their fevered imaginations. Pretty much the same mentality as a certain political movement in Central Europe 80 years ago. To them, Hollywood and the media are “liberal” because they’re not actively being appalled at the notion of African Americans having the same basic rights as white people, at women being paid the same as men, at sexual mores that are not as backwards as their own, and so forth.
Roger Moore
@Suffern ACE:
I’d like to see a better picture of the boyfriend. I wasn’t sure from the crappy selfie they had as the only picture of him, but it looks as if his skin was at least a couple of shades darker than the daughter/girlfriend. For some people, that’s still a killing offense.
raven
@Tommy: rock on
the Conster
@Roger Moore:
My thoughts too, which would also explain the shots fired at their daughter and his younger brother. Also Oklahoma.
Roger Moore
@the Conster:
Mind altering substances are always a possibility in cases like this.
Cassidy
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN): The problem is that not only is it a possibility, but it’s a reasonable possibility that anyone would make. I firmly believe that most LEOs are good, decent people trying to make a living and a pension like the rest of us. I also believe we shouldn’t be able to come to that kind of negative conclusion about our LE establishment.
Mnemosyne
@Cassidy:
I think many LEOs mean well, BUT their current training leads to disaster way too often when it comes to people who are physically or mentally ill. Joel Hanes’ suggestion of having LEOs cross-trained in EMT and fire looks intriguing, and they absolutely should be getting a LOT of training in conflict resolution, which doesn’t seem to be happening now. Most cops will never pull their guns, but almost all of them are going to have to calm down agitated people and a Taser is not the magic tool some cops seem to think it is.
ETA: The whole mentality of This person must comply and obey my orders seems to be the root of the problem, because they are taught to respond with violence if that doesn’t happen. That is very bad practice and people are getting killed because of it.
different-church-lady
@Epicurus: Maybe we as a society could do something radical like… demand police forces weed out the bad cops and change the culture and the training so good cops don’t turn into bad cops.
Wait… that sounds like it would take effort. What was I thinking? Let’s just bitch on the internet about how they’re all brutes and nobody’s ever going to do anything about it.
maurinsky
I’m white and extremely law abiding, and the vast majority of my extremely limited experiences with police officers have been negative.
1. Got pulled over when I was 17 for no reason – the cop never told me why. He made me get out of the car, searched my car, and told me that he could arrest me for carrying a deadly weapon in my car – my softball bat, which was in my car because I was on my way to softball practice. He eventually let me go but I was scared and crying, which I guess what he was hoping to get out of the encounter.
2. Called the police because there was a seriously intoxicated/on drugs woman in our backyard who wouldn’t leave. Cop yelled at me because he picks this woman up all the time. Not sure that’s my fault! His partner came back the next day to apologize on his behalf, which was nice except it should not be necessary.