POLICE, COURTS AND PRISONS
contents
police
courts
"a government within a government" - the department of social sevices
prisons

  

                "stop right there, pal, you know the score. if you aren’t cop,
                you’re little people." ...and I’d rather not be a victim, which is what he meant.
                                         - from the movie “bladerunner”

  
  from a famous very mainstream comic.                                                            subpoenaed dispatcher transcript.

a basic question
the first thing you have to ask yourself is, why does the freedom loving u.s.a. have the

while the so called "welfare states" of modern europe have minuscule crime rates?  right!!  a lot fewer desperate people.  why do we incarcerate drug addicts when these people are obviously helplessly sick. americans gasped in horror when the english started methadone clinics, but it's a lot better than having these people on the street. the whole question is prevention, social causes of crime, as apposed to punishment. part of the problem is that some people relish the idea of punishment, its part of the culture, left over from the days when those new things, cities, like london had gallows everywhere and  bodies on stakes at the city gates. if the courts and prisons have no other role than punishment, why should we be surprised if the system's enforcers share the same attitude?

hey, youz!!
how many endless anecdotes have we heard of cops seeing their beat as their own little kingdom? 

"hey boy,what are you doing on my beat?
                                            in my town?
                                            on my road?
                                            in this part of town?"   this is the norm, not just some "bad apples".

have you ever been just standing around and had a cop walk up to you and start screaming in your face? 

"you never know what might happen"
here is a LINK to a POME derived from first hand experiences in jail during the seattle WTO protests. it's about prisons, but there is no real difference between police and jail warders. it's worth putting at the very begining because these people are sick.

emergencies - or just idiocy?
the major characteristic of police, at least in the u.s.a., in any emergency situation is still

unless there is personal danger involved, what is wrong with containment? the idea of intelligent, sympathetic negotiation  has only begun to take hold, when it should be the norm.

the basic scheme
other major characteristics are:

• everyone has a macho front
• secretiveness,
• pressure to conform 
• and competition between departments. 

diallo - just a drop in the bucket
in new york city untrained police, in a non-white neighborhood where you don't trust anyone much less the police, four officers ask a street vendor for his identification. being scared, he runs to his apartment. chased and held at bay in front of his door, he is again asked for i.d. when he reaches for his wallet the "officers" shoot him forty one times. then, a city court totally exonerates the policemen. 

IDIOCY IN ACTION
Hallowed by the Uniform
an extreme case of what is repeated hundreds of times daily all over the country.
they even kill each other.

in 1975 mark essex went on a shooting spree. he first attacked a police station with a carbine in new orleans, striking two people. though the area was subsequently swarmed with police, a squad car investigating a nearby building alarm            

weak logic
civics groups, lawyers and individuals often ask policemen why they insist on a perpetual intimidating attitude. 
the most common reply is,

"we have to act tough because we never know what dangerous criminals we'll run into."

ya, right. there's never been a policeman who enjoyed being pointlessly macho.
is this anything like, via attitude, guilty until proven innocent? 

click for an excerpt from an article on a

"novel" idea.                           

"to protect and serve"  ???

from the polly klass abduction case                                                             from "portraits of guilt"                                                             by jeanne boylan the case involved the abduction, rape and murder of a twelve year old girl in california. the "little bitch" was her best friend. as it says, this is not a local cop, but the FBI.

“NOW I QUESTION EVERYTHING”                                                          OR                           ALICE IN WONDERLAND MEETS KAFKA     beverly monroe / b. 1938/convicted of murder/sentence: 22 yrs/served: 7 yrs.                  click here if you believe in justice,                                         if you're that dumb.       just one detailed example in what is probably at least tens of thousands.                                blatant and crude.

missouri supreme court judge:  “are you suggesting even if we find mr. amrine is actually innocent, he should be executed?”  state assistant attorney general:  “that’s correct, your honor.” policeman to "suspect": "now we know you're guilty. only the guilty want a lawyer." "[when they questioned me] the sergeant  threw a chair at my head." though it involves all aspects of the "justice system" , its all in one  place because it's derived from the excellent work of one group. for a whole lot more in this vein, from the same book as immediately above,  click:    "i get a memory and i scream."

"THEY SHOULD KNOW BETTER THAN TO RUN."

read the above darn carefully. its the real truth.

                                 

bragging and denigration
the police think of themselves as the 
                       "biggest gang in town"

and departments in major cities have even sported t-shirt saying the same.

in the locker room police often refer to the citizenry as 
                                        “maggots, ”

the idiots who they protect from themselves, 

while the “blue wall of silence” protects both the inner workings and individuals. placing “civilians” on internal investigation boards is universally fought as “compromising ongoing investigations,” while the average time to get a judgment from an “internal investigation” in civil rights abuse cases is

three years.
in other words, 
“go away.” 

violence sanctified by the supreme court
no matter how unfair or even psychotic an officer appears, any show of resistance, questioning or insistence on rights and you

even if many still hold the illusion that exoneration erases charges. the federal supreme court has ruled that, in order to maintain respect and hence order in the country, you may not resist arrest

three times makes perfect
in the rodney king case in california 16 police are caught on videotape beating a man but it was the state, not local, court that absolves all of them. people refuse to give up their idealization of law enforcement, yet in the fiefdoms of small towns across america you can be brutally beaten by a total stranger looking for a good time, when the police arrive they join in, then when you get to your cell, charged with “assault,” you are beaten again. you end up with permanent liver and kidney damage, pissing blood,

head trauma and fuzzy vision, a messed up face, and maybe a bum knee, and you won't be able to prove a thing. if this is how strangers are met how do you think the local residents feel?

 

there was a NATIONAL MOVEMENT to deny firearms to those convicted of 

DOMESTIC VIOLENCE

that reached to the STATE LEGISLATURES 

till it foundered on the realization that

police departments would be emptied. 

public policy
feminists used to march in “take back the night” parades, but still during a crime wave police unthinking policy is to say “stay at home, girls.” it is not an uncommon story that during a wave of sexual assaults, because of rivalry between police districts, the populace is never informed because stations refuse to share statistics. In a RECENT case from new england a woman fought off a friend of the local police, and the man was never prosecuted but the woman WAS because her mace was unregistered. after being arrested for driving with a broken tail light, a black youth commits “suicide” in his cell. again a black youth is found hanged in front of his mother’s house after an affair with a white woman and the local police say “we’ll look into it, ma'am.” very recently a man was arrested in florida for murder but soon someone else confesses, is identified by a witness, and is placed at the scene by physical evidence, yet they hold the original man for half a month. of course, he was black.

who better?
police are in an ideal position to take advantage of crime for their own benefit. the pattern of corruption begins not with elaborate plots, but simply on the street, to the downfall of whole communities.

cop tricks 
civil rights and lawyers' organizations say that there is absolutely nothing that can be done about the examples below, because:

• it is difficult to prove intent or a pattern of abuse.
• “discretion” is universally written into laws regarding procedure. if a cop wants to hassle you for jay-walking and in your own defense you point out six others doing the same, he has the legal right to ignore them.
• if you even get to court, there are almost no laws that apply, and a policeman’s word will universally be taken over the defendant’s, and the judge has absolute discretion in imposing penalties.

• force out-of-state vehicles to speed by tailgating under the cover of night, then give huge fines and ruin their insurance when people can’t travel to court.
• a person is walking on the street in a new city, and they are stopped. if they have little cash on them, the cop says, “are you homeless?” if they he says, “have a lotwhere did you steal it?”
• a stranger to florida is walking in miami, a cripple with a cane. he’s tossed in jail for carrying a weapon – his cane.
• a car full of young men is driving through a san diego when one tail light malfunctions. on being pulled over, the cop puts his foot on the bumper and takes three quarters of an hour to write the ticket, in the obvious hope someone will get nervous and act stupid.
• crossing the border into georgia a resident of a nearby state is tossed in jail because his registration is “about” to expire in a week and a half. 
• on an indian reservation a woman is stopped for speeding to work in the middle of the desert. after writing the ticket the cop says, “you know, there’s a way you can get rid of this charge.”
• a short haired woman is pulled over for no reason in a small town in north carolina and the police take hours taking her car apart “looking for drugs.” 
• a black man in los angeles, very well dressed but with dreadlocks, with the nickname of “The Walker”, is arrested SIXTEEN times in white neighborhoods.
• in a town hard hit by a recession, a group starts a preventative youth center - not a halfway house. every day at the regulated time for the kids to go outside for a smoke, the same policeman drives up and says, “if you don’t get the f@#&* out of here, you’re going to jail.” what lesson do you think the kids learn from this?
• a young man with, you guessed it, long hair stops in the "liberal" north to ask a policeman for directions and ends up spending a few days in jail.
• a sixty one year old woman in a small town learns her son is dying of cancer. no drugs help the nausea caused by his treatment. wishing to comfort him in his last days, she grows three marijuana plants. the police learn of this and raid her house, taking, in addition to the plants, clothes - including underwear, cooking utensils, books of old photos, and other purely personal items. all charges are eventual dropped, yet after a legal battle is won it is six months before her personal items are returned.
• a music and arts festival is held near a small town. two cars caravan out and for no reason one is pulled over by the police. the lone female occupant of the other car walks back to to ask, "what's the problem?" the officers orders her back into her car without replying. she begins to ask again and is immeadiately maced, thrown to the ground and handcuffed. later in court the policeman tries to justify this with the common doctrine of "failure to comply," which is usually reserved for potentially violent situations. in court two hours later the same policeman brings her forward doubled over and gasping, not having let her wash her eyes, in contravention to all laws. when the judge orders her eyes washed he refuses until the judge starts screaming.
• after a report of "suspicious activity" in a drug store parking lot police find a well dressed man slumped over the wheel of his car. they break the window, then, instead of opening the door drag him out the window, then throw him in a cell, though there is no overt evidence of alcohol or drug use. following correct procedure they belatedlyexamine his wallet and find an emergency medical card saying he is a severe diabetic. meanwhile he almost dies in his cell in a diabetic coma.
• in springfield massachusetts, a man complains to police about local crime, which he characterizes as caused by "all those puerto ricans." the policeman replies, “just shoot him and throw the body in the river. we won’t bother you.”
• after one anti-nuclear rally, protesters won a court case against police for illegally not wearing their identifying badges to avoid prosecution for maltreatment. at the next rally all the state police are wearing leather jackets, and when the lieutenant in charge is asked why he has no badge, he flaunted a large mean grin and briefly flashes open his jacket to reveal the badge underneath.
• in a public park a large policeman pins down an obviously scared, very young minority kid, but without putting handcuffs on him, then turns to another with a huge malicious grin and says, “looks like we’ve got a runner here.” why no handcuffs? because of the PLEASURE of manhandling a helpless  person. 
• a man in his early thirties goes to a local sheriff to request a fire arms permit, with sworn affidavits that his girlfriend's former husband has threatened his life. in the middle of the station house the sheriff says, "f#@k you, hippie!" and refuses to issue the permit. two months later the man was

• in the northern mid-west far from any town is one of the largest truck stops in america. the flickering of acres of running lights is caused by an endless stream of women walking between the trucks and the bunk house behind the garage. one woman climbs into a cab and says:

as recounted in a recent isue of "mother jones" magazine, an activist did not protest, or bother people, or leave graffiti or in any other way confront people. being of an artistic temperament, he would project huge images of war on large walls, then move on. two policemen came up to his car and
put their guns to his head.
they really like to do that, put guns to people's heads. 
it's such a psycho power rush.

"the last motorcycle punk who tried to run from me got killed. I kept on his tail until he made a mistake,

the very definition - history
people are very naïve about the definition of what the police are: throughout history anyone with power or money, meaning petty nobles, merchants and large land holders, in other words "the haves," had their own armed forces. fixed or wandering they were to be avoided at all costs. torturing waylaid travelers was fashionable on roman estates. the word "fashionable" is not used spuriously - torture was a topic of both idle conversation and much refinement. the myth of dracula was based on the real medieval noble "vlad the impaler", who would have elaborate meals while listening to the screams of his dying peasants. if a merchant's forces became strong enough to allow him to become a trader you can be sure that away from the city his whim was law. in the early days of the u.s.a. traffic to europe was seriously menaced by pirates ranging north from africa. piracy still exists, even near developed countries. in short, there is

no gloss of "our finest" will change these facts, only exaserbate them.

                           
perhaps one of the most famous photos of the civil rights "era", by james karales. in march, 1965 martin luther king led an entirely peaceful march from selma to montgomery, alabama under a "foreboding sky", which included a respectfully carried american flag. the marchers were tear gassed and brutally beaten, and set upon by MOUNTED men, who were all
                                                   state troopers.

children
"in the spring of 1965... i was visiting the tuskegee institute with colleagues from new york when we heard of the death of jimmie lee jackson, a young man who had been shot eight days earlier when a rally at a church in marion was broken up by police. state troopers from all over central alambama converged on the town and beat protesters with clubs as they poured out into the streets. ... white onlookers smashed cameras and shot out street lights, while police officers brutally attacked black men and women, some of whom were kneeling and praying on the steps of their church. jimmie's crime was to tackle a state trooper who was mercilously beating his mother. his punishment: to be shot in the stomach and clubbed over the head until almost dead. ...he died several days later. ... although the mortician had done his best to cover the injuries, the wounds... could not be hidden: three murderous blows, each an inch wide and three inches long, ran above his ear, at the base of his skull and on the top of his head."

"the [middle school] students had organized a peaceful afternoon march when the town's notorious sheriff clark arrived. clark's deputies began to push and shove the children, and soon they were running. initially the boys and girls thought the sheriff was marching them toward the county jail, but it soon became clear that they were headed for a prison camp almost five miles out of town. the men did not relent 

this was all "long ago", right?
in 1990, again, in the "liberal north,"

a man decides to rid himself of his pregnant wife. driving his expensive car into a poor neighborhood he shoots her and wounds himself, then calls police on his cell phone, saying the perpetrator was "a black man". with only an incredibly hazy description, the city is in turmoil for weeks on end as the police stop just about any black skinned male. many are taken in for questioning and there are repeated allegations of men thrown up against a wall. only when no new evidence or leads are produced do the police question stuart, who shortly throws himself off of a bridge. political cartoons appear all over the united states mocking "liberal" boston, the most famous being a picture of a small boy standing next to a broken lamp, saying to his mother, "a black man did it." although it is hard to see, notice that the cover's subtitle ends, " ...politicians, police and the press." of course, an "internal investigation" exonerates all officers of misconduct and no one asks why no higher ups never even thought to question stuart. now if it had been a black skinned woman...

we have already mentioned,
on this page or others, singapore, mexico and the legionaries of rome. in south korea also, an area only slightly less brutal than the north, they are the strong arm enforcers. in china the police are as ignorant as those they oppress (see immediately below). in america an elderly russian woman falls down, and when the neighbors in concern call the police, she starts screaming – all she remembers is that when the police come no one ever sees you again. a news item from brazil describes a random beating by a whole squad of police of a group of kids simply out on the town. one kid says, “ you can’t do this, my folks are rich.” the next day the teenager is found

throughout recent american history the private Pinkerton company has basically  been an army for hire, famously ready to shoot and bludgeon workers striking for a living  wage. in moscow the headquarters of the former secret police was right downtown and people went about their business

historically, the line between the police and the army has always been blurred, both having the power of life and death, and both being famous for a ready and profound disrespect for anyone not "in the club."

china              

from the most successful police state ever.

population over a
billion.
note that one man is unable, or afraid, to quote mao.

to clarify the example of singapore: 
it is a clean, civilized, well run nazi state where all information is controlled to the letter and people who disagree with the state simply disappear. this is why graffiti, the last medium of the people, is so harshly dealt with. the case of a young american abroad recently put this in the news. foreigners do not understand that the innocent sounding punishment of "caneing" causes permanent spinal cord damage, in other words

private police
have been used throughout history for individual or corporate gain, and rarely have less than official powers. 

• in disneyland, the giant of american fantasy entertainment, people can and have been detained

• increasingly, private companies patrol shopping centers and financially strapped towns.
• in what is now an accepted trend, the rich live in “gated communities”, virtual fortresses with limited access, patrolled by heavily armed guards.

"bounty hunters"
bounty hunters are unofficial hunters of people given legal sanction. they are totally unregulated. in just one case, a group of bounty hunters

in a much more recent example a bounter hunter who came to have his own NATIONAL  TV  SHOW loses the show for using the word, "nigger." no one cared that he roughed people up. no one ever asked if he had killed anyone.

no difference - a blind eye
what is the difference between all these examples and your local police when they are

mr. diallo

"New Yorkers of good will can take comfort in the news that the tragedy of Amadou Diallo was not compounded by the ruination of the lives of four young city cops. There now is no reason to worry about the effect a guilty verdict would have on the willingness of the brave men and women of the NYPD to do their jobs correctly and with appropriate aggressiveness. Going up against bad guys with guns is tough enough. Having to contend with politically ambitious district attorneys who don't know the law they are sworn to uphold is something else. The matter of guilt has been resolved. There was none."      - murdoch

murdoch

presidential candidate

g
ooo -gross! get offa me!

predictably, rudi giuliani defended the not guilty verdicts yesterday, as indeed he must because he is the real criminal.

giuliani said of the not guilty verdict. this is also the person who, after 9/11, said, "you find the people who did this, and i'll shoot them." a lttle bit bloodthirsty are we? trying to set an example as a cool headed, compassionate leader? after which he became the laughingstock of the presidential race by never saying a sentence without "9/11" in it. oh, and there's the little matter of the mafia connections of his police officials. and destroying the character of the city by eliminating the livihoods of street vendors and buskers. and the surveillance cameras that are only in poor neighborhoods.

forty one bullets in five seconds,
for an innocent man, and the court says the police did no wrong.
the family of diallo thanks the n.y.p.d. and the court.

the cultured reponse of the police hierarchy
one district chief in nyc, when questioned by a reporter considering the diallo shooting, was asked if he aware many famous people were upset by the courts ruling, among them the highly popular musician bruce springstein. he responded,

 
these sure do look like raving anarchists.

while living in squalid, airless tenements in new york city, many immagrant women worked  in the clothing industry. all but five percent being of jewish or slavic extraction, most not speaking english. they worked long hours in crowded conditions, there were "facilities" only in the first floor courtyard, there were for being finesfive minutes late, they must pay for their electricity and any broken needles and rent the chairs they sit on and the lockers for their clothes. children as young as ten or fifteen were allowed to work. by tradition their wages were the property of the male members of the family.  at the begining of winter a small group of strikers swelled to include the entire industry. the police were called in and stood shoulder to shoulder with hired ruffians. the brutality was so bad the strikers sent a petition to the mayor.

though this unprecedented strike was successful in gaining better wages and eliminating rediculous fees, it failed to establish unions, one of the primary goals of which was safety. in 1911 the infamous fire at the Triangle Waist Company occured, where doors were locked and fire escapes were almost nonexistant. 

  

"each week i must learn of the untimely deaths of my sister workers. the life of men and women is so cheap and property is so SACRED. there are so many for one job that it matters little if 146 of us are burned to death."                                                

THIS IS WHAT NEW YORK'S "FINEST" WERE DEFENDING.

a few more less than sterling examples of police behavior:

• australian police at a party were caught on video in “black face” with nooses around their necks.  
• screams are heard in a neighborhood and a policeman later knocks on a door, which is answered by a man with blood on his hands. “i cut myself fixing a window” is accepted by the cop. the man is later convicted of killing a woman. even later the policeman gets an award for “outstanding service” from his brothers.
• a naked, bloody, hysterical, young boy runs to a policeman on his rounds. the man who follows him explains that its all just a “domestic problem,” and is let go with no questioning. he is later found to be Jeffrey Dahmer, who tortures and cannibalizes young children.
• an unstable person with a knife is surrounded outside the fence of the white house. when he refuses to drop the knife he is gunned down and no one is prosecuted.
• police are hired instead of private security for a rock concert and the town, in an outside venue prohibits dancing. there is absolutely no rowdiness. an underage boy starts dancing and a policeman 

tearing the flesh from his face.

such gloves have no other purpose 
and in fact are
outlawed in most places.

• a person camping and traveling interstate is pulled over for no reason and ordered to completely unload his camper. while doing so he merely touches a baseball bat that he has because he loves the spor,t and is shot in both legs by the policeman, who is standing twenty feet away. why? state law says deadly force may be used if a person merely touches something that may be used as a weapon.
• among the lesser known cases where police have abused their power and lost the court case is a recent one in new york city, where a man in a suit is walking, blocks away from a robbery, and is ordered to halt for questioning. when he doesn’t he is not just thrown to the pavement but also beaten. unfortunately for new york’s “finest” the man was totally deaf.
• in the southwest shortly after no-jaywalking laws are passed a man of east indian extraction is walking near his business. he is a family man and resident of long standing and owns a well kept motel. as he walks down the side walk, two police pull over and say, 

• in springfield, mass. one man complains to a policeman about local crime, attributing it to, "all those puerto ricans." the policeman replies, "just throw the body in the river. we wont bother you."

here are a few good post 9/11 examples: 

• again in the "liberal" north, an elderly man, frail and with a heart condition, is driving in his own neighborhood and is rammed by a person making an illegal turn. in his twenties he had come to america from iran, became a citizen, then began a career as an engineer. the police ask him for his i.d. and and the police notice that his wallet contains a photo of his mother, long deceased, in traditional dress. the female officer lets the perpetrator go, then turns to the old man and says, "get the f@#% out of here or i'll throw you in jail". the man ends up paying two thousand dollars out of his life's savings to repair his car and his insurance rates go up.
• immeadiately after the 9/11 attack a hindu man from india is on a flight to texas. after arrival he is seized without explanation or any formalities and flown all the way to new york city. on protesting he is told, "anyone can get a fake passport." he is held briefly then released with no word, paying his own way back to texas. he declines prosecution of all involved. ITS JUST TOO BAD THAT HE HAD DARK SKIN.

nobody gonna tell us what to do
a man with tested  EXCEPTIONAL INTELLIGENCE is unable to find work as a policeman, REPEATEDLY BEING TOLD THAT HE IS "OVERQUALIFIED". informally in a newspaper SEVERAL POLICE CHIEFS are quoted as saying, "SMART PEOPLE DON'T MAKE GOOD COPS. THEY ALWAYS WANT TO TELL YOU A BETTER WAY OF DOING THINGS".
                                          ENOUGH SAID.

pure genius
again and again we hear anecdotal evidence of an extreme lack of intelligence. in the case of the infamous, never caught san fancisco Zodiac killer, immediately after one murder cruising police stop one nearby pedestrian only to ask him if he’d seen anything suspicious, then rush off in the direction he gives. soon the police receive a taunting letter describing the incident.

just another story
a traveler stops at a motel in a large city in the south-west. after dinner he steps outside to the motel parking lot to enjoy the sunset and observes across the street, less than two hundred feet away, continual furtive drug dealing. a patrol car pulls up and the officer begins questioning him. the traveler asks, “they’ve been dealing drugs across the street for hours. why don’t you question them?” the officer replies,

“I’m going to retire in less than a year. besides, we bust a few here and they move across town. then the police bust a few over there and they move back here. what’s accomplished?”

next time it might be you
if you’ve never lived in a poor neighborhood, or been to a demonstration, then you can’t conceive the

              the transparent pleasure police take in beating people.

"i heard screams...  why didn't they just arrest us? it was obvious we didn't have any weapons. instead they played a game: we were the "hot potato" that they flung between themselves. as each protester ran out of the enclosure, a waiting cop would club him or her and then fling the realing body to another cop for another wack...  the boy wizard ran under the horse but the furious cop on its back chased him and hit him until he fell. the cops flung me to and fro.one slammed my back, another my leg and arm and the furious cop on the horse leaned over and cracked my skull. i heard uninterrupted screaming and the blur of other casualties holding their broken heads together with their hands.  and then i lost consciousness.   ...i wasn't arrested, the medic told me, because that would have slowed them down, and they would have had to explain."

suicide

any witnesses are "unreliable prisoners looking for a favor." to say that this is an epidemic is misleading, its business as usual in the second largest boys club.

they know you - but you don't know them
numerous court cases and memoirs detail how police regularly use their intelligence files for private, often illegal, purposes.  federal agents have described how N.C.I.C. data was stolen, leaked and sold, how it was used to ruin reputations, companies and politicians.

SYSTEMATIC THEFT 
police in an uncountable number of towns have been openly documented  to have abused overtime and sick leave until the budget for the whole department has literally DOUBLED. after learning this, no one is docked pay and no new oversight is even proposed. this is the standard.

RAPE BY COMPUTER
police across the nation have been caught checking the backgrounds of attractive women, a practice so common it has it's own idiom:

one policeman's estranged wife ended up DEAD.

the Center for Democracy and Technology, a watchdog group in d.c., described the scale of abuse as

one person, investigated on 17 counts, told a newspaper, 

good old Vlad.
truffles, anyone?

in russia 
the people are more afraid of the police than the mafia. the mafia will threaten to kill you if you don't pay up. the cops will kill you just for fun.

there was even one story in which the local police chief was attacked by his own cops. he said, "if i hadn't had my cell phone, i would have been dead."

 
what does this look like to you, kiddies?  that's right!!!  one policeman is holding a shot gun to his throat while another gets a good windup to smash him in the head with his helmet. - from a Move pamphlet.
 
but these cops are just a couple of "bad apples", right? 
remember kids: 

a very simple basic principle
since the attainment of status through accumulation of wealth is the central feature of societies, the resources, education, and oversight of law enforcement is given incredibly short shrift. law enforcement is seen as necessary but is treated as an afterthought. pay scales and lack of educational requirements inhibit any real crime fighting ability, and also help perpetuate the macho “one of us” closed society that commits its own large variety of crimes.

a slow turnover to a better world
let's make clearer how this would work. the first thing that could be made clearer is the issue of personality tests. these tests are becoming much more common, but exclusively for officers applying for higher rank. simply put, these tests are slightly deceptive in that there is no clear answer that can be studied for, being tests, in written form, of responses to complex situations. it's amazing how many people, when a carefully "alleged" perpetrator is dark skinned, will say, "i would arrest him," yet in an identical situation if the person is white skinned, they say, "i would question him." it's more complex than that, but you get the idea. it's really funny, in a terrifying sort of way, that people who have failed such tests three and four times, will first lose their cool, then initiate very short lived lawsuits. the second thing that should become widely accepted is having a "civilian" member of oversight boards. this is universally faught with the tedious mantra that this would "jeprodize ongoing investigations." as stated elsewhere above, the average time for a thorough "internal investigation" of officer misconduct is three years, itself a slap in the face, and it almost never results in anything more than a scribble in the officer's record. and third, education is not a trivial point when the constitution's guarantee of a speedy trial is made a  mokery by an officer who can't be bothered to write up reports promtly.

so let' make a minimum wish list:

1. as with all other proffessions, education requirements that would promote a cool headed and resourceful personality.
2. higher pay scales to attract people who have gone to the trouble of obtaining such an education.
3. personality tests for ALL  law enforcement officers.
4. universal civilian membership on oversight boards.
5. there should be a serious penalty for a police person who abuses their power. this, like the disclosure of doctor's malpractice records, is totally unheard of. considering how often this occurs, and that the penalties for hurting a cop are astronomical, this is not an unreasonable proposition.
   

likely? we can dream, can't we? but nothing else will make a difference.

police videos
we're not really big on the personal posting craze on the internet, but thought this would be worth it. there's a lot of repetition. here is a direct Link to YouTube with the search term "police brutality."

here are some ARTICLES.

Courts

those darn poets again.

plea bargaining
plea bargaining was originally meant to allow for leniency and to be employed to help catch bigger fish, but it has become  totally part of a “political” career game. it is used as pure intimidation to take advantage of the ignorant and poor, with prisoners as mere pawns, while the rich or those lucky enough to get a connected lawyer get off. every day people who have indisputable evidence against them walk away scott free. it totally contradicts the idea of a fair trial and it is used for a wide range of evils.

dismissed jurors according to race:

black - 57%, hispanic - 36%, white - 27%.

this is what you face
good laws or bad, good cops or bad – the distinction is meaningless to a system heavy with its own inefficiency. if you are poor or singled out or victimized. this is what you face: (1) go to jail, (2) post bond IF YOU CAN (3) return WEEKS or MONTHS later JUST to receive a court date AND have the MONEY to pay a lawyer to keep track of events (4) PAY a lawyer to argue in court (5) if convicted, RETURN again to appeal (6) if a local law seems invalid, pay LOTS OF MONEY for a lawyer who YOU HOPE is effective enough to argue in state court. (7) all of this happens (8) ONLY IF a person knows enough to know their rights (9) and if a lawyer is even PASSIBLY good to begin with (10) if you have the money (11) possibly, you need to come from OUT OF STATE, (12) can take time from WORK and can afford CHILD CARE.

more
years after a successful prosecution for child molesting, it was revealed that the prosecutor had forced the children to participate in grueling interviews, and even denyed them access to a bathroom, and had totally unsupervised private sessions with the victims during court wherein children changed their testimony. years later one of the people recounted that, 

                                                        "four years later"

there was no provision of a court appointed lawyer on the state level. many people still do not understand that this constitutional right applied only on the federal level. this was just forty years ago and 187 years after the american independence.

some background

       

6 years.

on march 25, 1931 nine young black men get into a fight with a group of whites while riding a freight train. at the next stop they are arrested, and two women dressed as men are also found, unemployed mill workers who had worked as prostitutes, who accuse them of rape. the national guard is called out to prevent a lynching. despite the women’s varying stories, all are sentenced to death, except a juvenile sentenced to life. the alabama supreme court upholds the convictions. these were overturned by the federal supreme court on the grounds of inadequate council. on retrial one of the accusers repudiates her story and stated that both had lied to avoid prosecution themselves, but they are convicted again. again the sentences are overturned. they were tried a total of four times. six years after first being charged charges are dropped for four of the men, but four others served terms until paroled or pardoned. one had escaped and one received twenty years for assaulting the sheriff. the entire case received international attention.   

timeline of significant rulingsin 1932 the supreme court ruled on "proper procedure" in courtrooms in the infamous "scottsboro boys" case. a group of blacks were condemned to death on trumped up charges at a trial characterized by "whole sale conspiracy spurred by mob hysteria." in 1936 the supreme court outlaws "the third degree," or physical brutality in interrogations by police. do you think that if a law was needed that it wasn't a common practice? in 1958 the supreme court the claim of a deniednon-indigent person to have his own lawyer present during police interrogation. equally important, before 1963 criminal lawyers were considered to be at the bottom of their profession, as shady and disreputable as their clients and too incompetent to be successful in the respectable world of corporate law - a respectability that has only recently been shown to hide literally immense crimes - and there were no schools anywhere to ensure competency in criminal law, or even a single survey of criminal court practices. supreme court justice clark called the 1963 gideon decision, "an historic case that would possibly have more impact on the administration of justice than any decided by the court." supreme court chief justice warren said it would, "amount to almost a revolution in some states." "virtually all of the law of free speech, assembly and the press has been articulated in the last forty years." - professor allen. in florida alone, where the gideon case originated, almost 1,000 inmates were released when individually examined cases revealed

in england at the time it was a normal part of a lawyer's career  to be assigned to criminal cases, with no stigma attached. see "gideon's trumpet" in the reading list.

death
the u.s.a., though sixteen year olds are not allowed even to sign contracts, is almost the only country that executes

it is also almost the only developed country left that has

 executions at all. 

with brutal poverty seen in few other places, rampant racism, fantastic illiteracy and legalized murder why is this called "the best country in the world"?

preference
of all the people sent to prison for life under various "three strikes" laws 

see the koch episode under "corporations".

what did the judge just say?
it is fully documented that during the protests of the 60s and 70s the overwhelmingly common charge for arrest, never contested by judges, was “resisting arrest.”  ???????

a good system
in large cities just the wait in line just to file a court case can take days, while on your court date you may wait all day, missing work/sleep and struggling to take care of the kids, just to have the date rescheduled. it’s a truism in the u.s.a. that court appointed lawyers are incompetent and indifferent, often racist, and vastly under funded, usually with NO support staff – so much for your constitutionally guaranteed rights. 

and god help you
 if your opponent is

RICH.
the lawyers at their service know every legal trick.

you can bet the seat of your pantaloons that 
this wouldn't have happened 
to someone in a roll-royce.
to read the rest of the "poor" bloke's story, 
click:

"slipped though the cracks."

the sex offender registry 
is one of the best of modern ideas, yet laws are so irregular that a person can be

for very innocent acts: one person for urinating behind a bar, another a divorced father playing with his children who is reported by a local busybody as being "too intimate."

no money means no laws
to an individual or a community, what do courts and laws matter when:

• courts are overwhelmed with cases 
• laws are passed meant to redress some wrong yet there is no money to enforce these laws?

insane judges
judges do whatever they want, despite ALL legal procedure. 

(1) a man is defending his wife from an intruder in his own home. with a single prior conviction as an excuse, the judge throws him in jail and lets the assailant go. while he is in jail

(2) an artist in a wheel chair is accused of getting his under age model pregnant. he comes to court saying, “sir, after vietnam i was in a car accident and was run over by a sixteen wheel semi-truck. here is my full medical report from the Veteran’s Administration, which says i will never again be able to be a father.” instead of looking at the report and saying the case seems likely to be dismissed, he pronounces there are 

(3) the founder of the educational/vegetarian anarchist group FoodnotBombs, which give away food to poor people, was arrested under california’s “three strikes” law. what was his third strike? 

not only that, but even though the conviction was overturned, under law it remains

(4) in the state where mumia abu-jamal was convicted of murder on literally no evidence, 

(5) russell means of the American Indian Movement shares this fate - though there is some evidence that, though he didn’t participate in the A.I.M.(american indian movement) overreaction to their bloody oppressors - he knew what was happening, which can be prosecuted 

(6) the government is quite capable of psychological torture. one of the women puerto rican revolutionaries who attempted to bomb congress, with absolutely no precedent, is kept in

what could she be hiding in her vagina and anus when she never saw another person and never left her cell?

insane justice
is based on influencing the poor, the scared and those ignorant of their rights as described in the 

judges, prosecutors and public defenders do everything possible to coerce a defendant into accepting a guilty plea

TO AVOID THE BRUTAL PRISON SENTENCE 
WE WILL GIVE YOU 
IF YOU DEMAND A
JURY TRIAL, 

violating the 6th amendment. the defendant becomes the victim of 
                   incompetent lawyers and corrupt police.                                        

(1) in a recent famous case a retarded person with a similar name to someone on a wanted list was arrested, given a "show cause" hearing, extradited to another state, convicted and sent to jail. only later was it revealed that every public defender had coached him to answer all questions in various courts. later he said, "they took me far away and put me in a cell. it was cold", not even realizing after the fact what had been done to him. not only was he coached but in the whole process, but no one cared that they obviously had the wrong person. he spent two years in prison, was sexually assaulted, and his only parent

-also from
 stupid white men
 michael moore

(2) in another recent case a well meaning prison guard watches his brother become profoundly schizophrenic and who eventually because of his paranoia he kills some one. the prosecutor in the case invokes an absolute minimum definition of competency as "conscious premeditation" and presents it in a

summary to the jury. instead of a mental institution the man now is imprisoned, where he will receive no treatment, and his brother is forced to live daily with his wildlylscreaming paranoid rants. the prosecutor ended up with profound misgivings.

a fantastic number of juveniles 
are railroaded into prison. 

(1) the famous writer hunter thompson, not the most popular person in his home town, though a valedictorian - another reason to be disliked by the ignorant,  was arrested on trumped up charges and given the choice of jail or the army,

if you're different, if they don't like you, if you make one foolish mistake - meaning those who don't have a record, they'll put you away. 

(2) in a very average case, in a poor neighborhood

is given a gun by an older friend, and not even knowing what it was took it home. 

(3) another white girl finds drugs on school property and turns it in to a teacher. 

both of these girls ended up in juvenile court,

and because something was obviously wrong with their environment, both ended up being "overseen by the state." children simply 

no system
(1) recently in the south west it was found that the head of forensics lab had

and that he had made up evidence that had sent 

the local attorney general said it would take years, maybe decades, just to locate all the cases involved.

(2) again recently, in the famous case of the severe beating and rape of the “central park jogger” a group of african american youths are convicted

the later supposedly being infallible. on retrial it was found that almost all evidence never even existed and that police interrogations and court procedures had been totally outside accepted practice and completely illegal. the kids were totally exonerated.

as the article says, a superior court found no valid evidence. for this to have happened:

the police
prosecutors
defense lawyers
judges
review boards
any media that became involved
all their bosses, clerks, and assistants

ALL LIED.

                                  will you be next?

going after the very little guy
extremely recently, begining with president reagan's drastic cut in mental health funding, and through the clinton administration's incredibly increased funding for law enforcement, the prison population  DOUBLED, surpassing that of ENTIRE FORMER SOVIET UNION. why? almost exclusively from the prosecution of

while almost NO major drug DEALER or CORPORATE criminals were jailed, and the PERCENTAGE OF VIOLENT OR SERIOUS CRIME REMAINS UNCHANGED. the numbers look good if you're a "law and order" politician, until you ask the right questions.

• one, people from a given community are not necessarily reliable and in many cases have no reason not to make up evidence, and are very often people only a short step away from very serious crimes themselves. 
• second, since this evidence collection is a paying job they have a every incentive to lie.

boston globe

this is something
everyone
should care about.


"cheaper."

 
 “you can get anything you want in prison, except a woman or car. no problem.”

"I do not wish to remove from my prison to a prison
a little larger. I wish to break all prisons. "
 - Ralph Waldo Emerson

regimentation are the norm.

SOLITUDE can be a form of  TORTURE.

half college education in crime - half torture chamber - paid for by taxes
it is now "accepted wisdom" that prisons not only do not reform but are "graduate schools of crime," reservoirs of knowledge that can be found no where else.

“I want to devote my time to reading and writing, with everything else secondary, but I can’t do that in prison. I have to keep my eyes open all the time or I wont make it. there is always some madness going on, and whether you like it or not, you’re involved. 

the concept of prisoners rights is uniquely new in history. if you survived in any condition you were grateful. in america in the 1930's guards

prisoners and charges were never even brought.

during the roosevelt era, a single daring person exposed to the nation the brutality of southern prisons after an adolescent dies in a "sweat box," 

buried undeground on a hot summer day

where he had been put for not saying, "sir" to his "white trash guard." sweat boxes are abolished in florida and georgia.

the prison population in the u.s.a. is greater  in numbers to former entire “evil empire” of the soviet union. a person who has not experienced it cannot comprehend the brutality of all prison systems, where the true purpose is not to reform or even punish but to provide the guards with the pleasure of

like a ghetto in a cage, prisoners hurt, rape and kill each other, overseen by people who are blatantly psychologically unfit, who enjoy causing torment.

THE BASIC SADISTIC NATURE OF PRISONS, NO MATTER THE CRIME OR COUNTRY OR ERA, ONLY PROVIDE A SAFE ENVIRONMENT FOR THESE SICK PEOPLE. 

people outside prisons have the illusion that basic constitutional rights are preserved, when actually untold numbers are subjected to practices that go back

again in texas, prisoners were forced to

any excuse will do. in russian prisons TUBERCULOSIS is rampant - go to prison, come out, DIE. regimentation to some degree is necessary in a prison, but few who have not experienced it have no idea of the degree to which it is

to destroy the humanity of prisoners. there is just too much to say. 

a respectible form of employment

- charles graner
  convicted of a major role in the abuses 
  at the u.s.a. run abu ghraib iraq prison
  the above two quotes from "surviving justice", in the reading list,  
  extensively quoted in the links abve in "police".

an intolerable request from brute animals
the perpetual reason given for not negotiating with rebellious prisoners is that it would cause a universal uprising. yet the real reason the riots started when a person whose sick leave was denied died the next day. 
yet all that was asked at attica, new york was:

1. decent food
2. realistic medical care
3. just enough oversight of guard to prevent brutalization and torture by guards and prisoners

the killed hostage guards

were all victims of “friendly fire.”

ordered directly by a super-rich governor Rockefeller, who later bought his vice presidency. 

only one point
the major point is that violent criminals make up a very small portion of prison populations. the main purpose of the justice system is, and usually has been, to punish those seeking a life outside of poverty.  in other words:

while white collar criminals who steal millions of dollars, a plague in itself that is never publicized, are never prosecuted because companies just want most of the money back.

the same everywhere

"pity the poor immigrant, yearning to be free.” 
- from an old song

here's a really neat excuse for stripping female prisoners:

wrap your head around this next one. not "cruel and unusual" is it?
he deserves it, right? he finishes his sentence and then might die anyway.  

so many people, who probably wouldn't make great neighbors, just say, 

one story
witnessed by a hitch hiker, a man is taken directly to a prison by police without ever being in court or being given a single phone call. every night he cries,

"no one even knows i'm here!"

he hands a new friend a phone number, yet as this person is leaving jail from a very minor charge the head guard says,

"give me that or you'll never leave here."

                       get the picture?

to repeat the story of the puerto rican bomber

this went on for
DECADES.


all attempts to redress her condition
were stymied at the
lowest level of the court system.
she never had a prayer.

does this sound like:

• TORTURE, 
• BRAINWASHING 
• HUMILIATION 
• OR "CRUEL AND UNUSUAL PUNISHMENT" to you?

this is what your government 
is capable of despite all laws.

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