Posted by Scott on October 12th, 2009 — Posted in Police Misconduct
Almost everyone wants to reduce the presence of murder, rape, assault and other violent aggression in our society. Indeed, protecting people from offensive violence is the point of this blog. Unfortunately, I just saw a disturbing video that reminds us that many times the ones from whom we need protection are the same police officers we are told are protecting us. In the video, a cop named Christopher Lloyd brutally assaults a 15-year-old special needs student because the student didn’t have his shirt tucked in:
It would be very nice if the students of a school like that had someone there to protect them from offensive violence such as murder, rape and assault. But the police officer they had was the violent attacker from whom they needed protection.
Luckily, it was caught on video. I shudder to think of how many other times a cop has brutally attacked a teenager and gotten away with it because it was not caught on video. If a young black male says a cop unjustifiably beat him, but the honored, respected officer makes up some story about the teen doing some sort of dangerous activity that gave the cop reasonable cause, do you think the young man would be believed? Do you you think the cop would get in trouble? I don’t.
But since it was caught on film this time, the cop was fired. Also, news sources later revealed that this wasn’t a one-time slip-up by an otherwise helpful person. This criminal has a history of violence. This fired cop is currently in jail on rape charges, which if convicted could give him a 20-year sentence. He has also been accused by his ex-wife of murdering a man he shot 24 times, but the Chicago police accepted his explanation that the killing was in self-defense–even though he shot the man 24 times! Too bad there wasn’t a video of that.
What do you think?
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Posted by Scott on June 13th, 2009 — Posted in Police Misconduct
I recently watched Changeling
, a movie directed by Clint Eastwood starring Angelina Jolie. Based on actual events, it tells the story of a mother reunited with her missing son only to find out the boy is an impostor. Instead of helping the mother, the corrupt city authorities refuse to admit their mistake, choosing to call the mother a crazy liar. I liked this movie very much, and I recommend it.
I think the movie does a great job at showing the way power corrupts. It shows the terrible way the political and social institutions that are supposedly meant to help protect the people end up actually causing more harm. I think it also shows the way these powerful people and institutions would rather commit even more corrupt, abusive, harmful acts to cover up their previous wrongdoings and escape accountability than admit to wrongdoing, corruption or abuse.
The movie demonstrates that type of corruption not only in law enforcement but also in medical wards.
What do you think? Have you seen the movie?
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Posted by Scott on October 30th, 2007 — Posted in Police Misconduct
In the following video Michael Moore uses comedy and antics to bring attention to NYPD racism and police brutality:
I do not agree with all of Michael Moore’s politics, but he makes informative documentaries. Regardless, I think we can all agree that police brutality and racism need to come to a stop.
The video must have come out a while ago, since he mentions Amadou Diallo, an unarmed, innocent man who four plain-cloths cops killed by shooting at him 41 times.
As I read more and more about police brutality, I become more and more convinced that protecting ourselves from police needs to make up a major part of our overall self-defense and victimization-prevention plan.
I think vice cops do most of the damage, as opposed to detectives of violent crime. A homicide detective tends to be of a higher caliber and have more important things to do, while the same cannot be said of the street cops in charge of chasing down 16-year-olds kids with a nickelbag of marijuana. Legalizing drugs and replacing low-class vice cops with professional detectives would help eliminate the war on the streets between corrupt cops and non-violent civilians.
Additionally, paying police more would result in a bigger and better pool of applicants, which would allow the police force to hire more qualified police officers and dismiss those with questionable records.
Of course, power corrupts. We need to constantly work to actively weed out corruption if we ever want to eliminate it.
What do you think?
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