The Police Are Your Enemy

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

peterbound,

I seriously doubt any of you have had any interaction with police other than speeding tickets. The lawyers in the room being the exception. Agian i stress that you should do a ride along and see the typical day of a one of these guys working.

I'm a lawyer. About three years ago a friend from church who has epilepse had a seziure while driving locally. He was on his meds at the time and had no reason to believe this would occur. He was arrested by local police. I was called to come down and help. I got to the hospital and asked to speak to him. The officer guarding him refused. He called for his Sgt. I waited. The Sgt. refused to let me see him. I waited for 5 hours in the ER and then followed the officers to the County Jail. No one would let me see my client. The first time I saw him was at his bond hearing the next morning. The solicitor (DA) after getting letters from my client's Doctor's chose not to pursue a case against him. Now, what possible reason did these officers have for refusing to let me meet with my client when he'd been accused of a crime?

[Ser Greguh]

When speaking of Drugs everyone seem so to gloss over the hard stuff. No one i know, not even the cops are against the legalization of Weed. They spend more time trying to get a conviction over weed than doing real Police work that they'd be happy to be done with it.

Most hard drugs however just do not fit into a highly functioning society. I read these posts and i have to question your actual interaction with drug users.

I think the best way for you guys to get an experience that is more than what you see on TV or read on your local forum is to ask to do a ride along with either PD/FD. Find a really bad part of your town (providing you have a bad part in your town) and run a shift with them. The first time you roll into a DV involving drugs where the kids are playing in their own shit tell me your opinion about drugs (non weed) doesn't change.

I don't mean to come off as hard hearted, but i don't see you guys as living in reality. People do not function well when addicted to Meth, Coke, Heroin, Crack, Ect.. I'd be willing to buy off on the LSD or 'Shrooms as they don't tend to be terribly violent or destructive when tripped. The roids i have little issue with. Let the athletes do it, it's why people watch the games. If you want to look bloated and fuck up your joints be my guest.

The pervasive idea that these guys are some sort of stormtroopers kicking down doors just to fuck with the public is silly. They are doing their jobs. And believe or not they usually do it pretty well. And most of time the people getting the doors kicked in did something to deserve it.

I seriously doubt any of you have had any interaction with police other than speeding tickets. The lawyers in the room being the exception. Agian i stress that you should do a ride along and see the typical day of a one of these guys working.

You are very mistaken, I think, about the motivations that incite people like myself to be pro-legalization. There is no soft-pedaling when it comes to the dangers of the "hard stuff". Yes, this is nasty, vile stuff that destroys families and takes lives. We are aware that the argument in favor of legalizing marijuana is effectively the lay-up of drug legalization arguments (although if you truly believe that nobody is against it, you are terribly uninformed; try bringing it up at a local council meeting and see if you're not laughed out of the room), and are aware that the legalization of other, harder drugs, such as cocaine, heroin, and meth, is a much harder sell.

The connection that we do not make, and that makes us cringe whenever someone takes it as a given, as you are, is that "something being bad" necessarily equates to "something should be illegal". If somebody is neglecting their children because of drugs, fine, arrest them for neglecting their children. If somebody is stealing because of their drug addiction, fine, arrest them for stealing, but let's not pretend that by making the drugs themselves illegal we're making ANY kind of progress (or even attempting to) in mitigating the damage to society they cause. To the contrary, we are COMPOUNDING the damage they do to society by relegating their distribution to that of a black market (often heavily contested, violent black markets) and providing a massive income source around which to organize criminal activity, and by treating addiction as in and of itself a criminal issue, as opposed to a health issue. There are, believe it or not, countries that don't handle drug addiction within the framework of the legal system, and that treat it as a health issue, to much greater success at much, much less cost.

(Nor has the war on drugs been by any sense of the word successful. Drugs of any kind are easier to acquire, and cheaper, than they ever have been in American history. For every drug shipment that gets seized, hundreds find their way in. We're attempting to stop a waterfall with a ladle.)

We are aware that most police officers are well-intentioned human beings who joined their profession out of a genuine desire to help (though I do know a few that confess to having joined for the rush of getting to kick down doors). However, this does not do anything to offset the disturbing trend of paramilitary police forces unnecessarily escalating the execution of an otherwise routine search or arrest warrant. By and large we are attacking policy that is fundamentally floawed, only very rarely individual officers and only then when there is blatant misconduct. We are not insensitive to the fact that it is not an easy job.

For the record, though, your comment of "And most of time the people getting the doors kicked in did something to deserve it" lacks merit. One statistic, for example: in Denver, in 1999, police executed 146 paramilitary-style no-knock raids. Of those 146 raids, only 49 produced charges of any kind, and only 2 resulted in actual prison time. Your argument is one that reflects popular perception ("why would the police bring out the big guns unless there were going after real badasses"), but popular perception does not represent reality. Do you really feel that this is a wise use of public resources?

[GSP]

"And by your criteria someone who decided that all African Americans were violent criminals because a friend had been mugged by one could come back with "Tell that to my friend" when he had his bigoted viewpoint challenged.

Just as someone who had the phrase "All Jews are violent war criminals" refuted could say "tell that to the Palestinian's killed in the Gaza actions".

And exactly the same way in which someone who claims that all Muslims are terrorists could say "Hey, tell that to the people who died on 9-11"

Its a non-argument."

Here's a little distinguishing feature. Jews and African Americans are ethnic groups, not members of a government agency austensibly mandated to protect the people. Oh yeah, and Jews and African Americans aren't given any legislative mandate to oversee the laws of the land and come bursting into one's house at night with a big group of buddies to shoot two family dogs. An ethnic group and a police agency are in no way comparable. Go ahead, paint me as an 'anti police bigot' if you will, but it aint the same and you know it.

[Ixodes]

I don't mean to come off as hard hearted, but i don't see you guys as living in reality. People do not function well when addicted to Meth, Coke, Heroin, Crack, Ect..

And the current "war on drugs" is eliminating addiction to these drugs, right?

And throwing drug offenders in prison has really worked great to keep addicts away from drug abuse, right?

ETA: Sorry to sound snarky but I think the current strategy US law enforcement uses against illegal drugs is deeply flawed. One of the flaws is that it encourages overly aggressive police tactics. I would sincerely hope that any of the officers involved in the raid linked in the OP would not be happy with the outcome. And when you're not happy with an outcome the burden is on you to admit fault and make appropriate changes. Traditionally police departments have been very reluctant to admit fault and change protocols in situations like this.

[Swordfish]

There can't really be any doubt that the rapid increase in paramilitary police units, training, and tactics is a direct result of the war on drugs.

Actually, you could probably make the argument that it actually started during the war on booze during prohibition, and that the war on drugs just continued what was already happening, but your point is dead on.

The war on drugs is your enemy.

When speaking of Drugs everyone seem so to gloss over the hard stuff. No one i know, not even the cops are against the legalization of Weed. They spend more time trying to get a conviction over weed than doing real Police work that they'd be happy to be done with it.

Most hard drugs however just do not fit into a highly functioning society.

Hard drugs are ALREADY part of every highly functioning society on earth, therefor this point is demonstrably false.

[Ser Greguh]

Actually, you could probably make the argument that it actually started during the war on booze during prohibition, and that the war on drugs just continued what was already happening, but your point is dead on.

The war on drugs is your enemy.

Really, in a lot of ways, militarization of the police in one form or another is an inevitable result from the existence of a lucrative black market that the law makes overt attempts to shut down. It gives criminal organizations the funds to arm themselves to the teeth, and gives them extraordinarily valuable assets to protect, using violence if necessary (though the degree to which criminals are willing to knowingly use violence against police officers to protect their interests is often wildly overstated). It certainly existed in the prohibition era, when the police were tired of being outgunned by Al Capone and his many contemporaries, and died out when prohibition was repealed. As in so many other ways the prohibition of alcohol acted as an uncanny historical predictor for events brought on by the current war on drugs.

[Ser Greguh]

By the way, for anyone arguing that anti-war-on-drugs arguments and anti-police arguments are one and the same, consider the existence of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP), a considerable nonprofit organization consisting of current and former police officers and other members of the criminal justice department who agree that our current policies of drug prohibition are a lost cause and do considerably more harm than good.

[Tormund Ukrainesbane]

Most hard drugs however just do not fit into a highly functioning society. I read these posts and i have to question your actual interaction with drug users.

I read this post and realize that you don't know what you are talking about. Every high functioning society has hard drugs and hard drug users. Laws against hard drugs have been shown to be a catastrophic failure in curbing use every time they have been tried.

[Swordfish]

Really, in a lot of ways, militarization of the police in one form or another is an inevitable result from the existence of a lucrative black market that the law makes overt attempts to shut down. It gives criminal organizations the funds to arm themselves to the teeth, and gives them extraordinarily valuable assets to protect, using violence if necessary (though the degree to which criminals are willing to knowingly use violence against police officers to protect their interests is often wildly overstated). It certainly existed in the prohibition era, when the police were tired of being outgunned by Al Capone and his many contemporaries, and died out when prohibition was repealed. As in so many other ways the prohibition of alcohol acted as an uncanny historical predictor for events brought on by the current war on drugs.

Definitely....

Those who fail to learn from history... doom... repeat... etc......

it's madness.

[Ser Greguh]

I read this post and realize that you don't know what you are talking about. Every high functioning society has hard drugs and hard drug users. Laws against hard drugs have been shown to be a catastrophic failure in curbing use every time they have been tried.

To be fair, I read his point as a very poorly-worded way of trying to say that a hard drug user cannot be a functioning member of society. That's not true, either, but it's at least closer to the truth, and it's hard to argue that a house full of crackheads wouldn't be more productive had crack never been invented.

The key point is that prohibition doesn't actually result in significant decreased usage of hard drugs, that there is no reason to expect that legalization would result in a significant increase in their use (polls indicate that over 99% of respondents would not try hard drugs if they were legalized), and that the degree of expenditure, diversion of resources, and collateral damage resultant from the drug war is unacceptable. These sorts of SWAT raids are just one of many, many examples.

[Galactus]

The key point is that prohibition doesn't actually result in significant decreased usage of hard drugs,

When enforced it certainly does. Mind, like with anything else prohibition can't do it alone, but it is one arrow in the quiver, so to speak. The chinese were actually fairly successful at combating opium-addiction, for instance.

That said, from what I've read the US anti-drug policy is ridicilously wasteful in all sorts of ways.

[Centrist Simon Steele]

There is nothing that police do that is positive. Nothing.

Agreed. No matter the situation so far in my life, I've never called them for help since the time I called for help when I was 20 (someone threw a rock through my car window) and I got a ticket for disorderly conduct. You piss them off just a little bit and they'll do whatever they can to fuck you. And who the hell knows what each cops trigger is? It's like trying to deal with a tantrum prone 4 year old who has taken over the house.

[Centrist Simon Steele]

Raids might not be an isolated incident, but the kind of thing shown in the video is. If it were not rare then it would not be newsworthy.

It amazes me how willing people are to accept people labelling the police as entirely bad though incidents which ARE rare. Even the 100-150 raids claimed is as nothing compaired to the body of legitimate work done by the police.

I refer again to my examples from earlier and give another. Israel has killed more than a small number of innocent Palestinians during their actions in Gaza or the West Bank. If someone used those to come here and state that "Jews were your enemy" they would be rightly ridiculed. As Mel Gibson was in fact.

Police are your enemy is a statement as nonsensical as Gibson's.

Most of the times police just abuse their power enough to get away with it. A kick to the ribs. An extra punch to the kidney. Slapping some false charges on you that you can't defend yourself against.

Then once in awhile they get take that too far and waste some dogs and people are like "that's not how they are! A fluke!" There were like 12 cops in there. None of them raised a hand to stop that crap. Another day at the office.

[Nathanael]

There is nothing that police do that is positive. Nothing.

Our county sheriff is a bit of a blowhard that loves the sound of his own voice. On the other hand, a couple weeks ago they busted 50 people in my county for child porn, several of whom were also abusing children that they were using to create said porn. Last year, they nabbed 45.

I don't disagree that the police could use some decent reform. But throwing them out completely goes a few steps too far.

[Ser Greguh]

Yeah, the whole "the police never do anything good" rhetoric is stupid and counterproductive, and to me at least, speaks to a mindset more concerned with venting frustration than bringing about actual reform.

That said, at times it's an understandable sentiment. We afford the police an enormous amount of authority and, when a particular police officer proves to be a douchebag, it is trivial for them to abuse that authority with practically zero repercussions. Worse, the current trend of police militarization is sure to attract said douchebags in greater numbers than ever before. These days it's being advertised as a job as much for adrenaline junkies as for anyone actually concerned with criminal justice.

[BloodRider]

What about when the people fear each other?

What about when the SWAT team fears a Corgi?

[gryphon strike]

Saw this, and shook my head in utter disgust. Utterly ridiculous behavior. I simply cannot comprehend why a SWAT team was necessary to execute this warrant.

That said, bad behavior from police is not, and need not be, the only behavior that they exhibit.

This may seem weird to the rest of you but the rude aggresiveness of the cops is what gets to me

yes they are calling out police but they hardly give enough time to get to the door before theybreak it down. The rest of the carry on with threats etc, sorry but as far as I am concerned that is assualt. I mean you break into someones home and then threaten them with being shot?

fuck that. You want to serve a search warrant you do it right

Knock wait for and answer and then show your search warrant. These scum treated the citisens like they were dirt. That shows the mentality they have.

So in this instance yes those cops are the enemy of every member of society, that is the attitude they have adopted so treat them that way.

[snake]

I was just reading an article on the horrible state of affairs in Port-au-Prince. Seems the police have little to no control there. I couldn't help but laugh when I read the following section.

Police officers, whose limited success against slum gang lords has been based on the support of armoured UN troops, have now effectively given up by appealing to local vigilantes to take the law into their own hands.

"If you don't kill the criminals, they will all come back," Haitian police officers announce over loudspeakers from heavily armed checkpoints in the slum area.

They could certainly use a few SWAT teams there.

[Max the Mostly Mediocre]

If by SWAT teams you mean Petraeus and the 101st Airborne, sure.

[Lord Mord]

Tormund,

#1 - End the prosecution of vices. Drugs, prostitution, gambling, etc. These are not "crimes", they are things which annoy the politically powerful.

#2 - End the use of "Paid Confidential Informants". This policy is simply begging for abuse, defies oversight, and is completely contrary to the right to confront your accuser.

#3 - Disarm the police. Cops in other countries go about unarmed, they can here too. If that creates an "intolerable risk" to "officer safety", then I counter that armed police are an intolerable risk to my safety.

#4 - Rigorous prosecution of Police crimes. A wrongful arrest is kidnapping. Lying on a warrant application to acheive a wrongful arrest is perjury and kidnapping. Beating a suspect is felony assault. Sexually assaulting someone in custody or under arrest is aggravated rape. "Internal review" is not acceptable, no one else in society gets this benefit. Start filing charges. People in a position of trust get the maximum penalty. Department disciplinary procedures are not acceptable. "Following department procedure" is not acceptable when it breaks the law.

I thought you were against police altogether. These sound like common sense suggestions for any qualified police force.