Zifnab - July 31, 2009 | 5:46 pm · Link

Wow. They weren’t even subtle about it.

KG - July 31, 2009 | 5:57 pm · Link

fun game to play with the “I don’t trust the government” wingnut…

Balloon Juice Commenter: So, you don’t trust the government?
Wingnut: Fuck no.
BJC: so, you don’t trust the police?
Wingnut: of course I trust the police.
BJC: you realize, the police are part of the government, right?
Wingnut: So?
BJC: well, if the government can’t do anything right, then it follows that the police can’t do anything right
Wingnut: No, the police are always right
BJC: so, the government is always right?
Wingnut: No, just the police.
BJC: Well, clearly, you cannot choose the wine in front of you.

c u n d gulag - July 31, 2009 | 5:59 pm · Link

This can’t be news to anyone? Can this?
The amazing thing is how stupid these cops may have been.

Who’s the Employment Agency lately for all of these stupid cops?
Keystone?

JenJen - July 31, 2009 | 6:03 pm · Link

It’s moments like these where I thank the heavens above for giving us this thing called “Lawyers.”

steve s - July 31, 2009 | 6:04 pm · Link

that cop was Concern Trolling the crap outta that guy.

WyldPirate - July 31, 2009 | 6:15 pm · Link

there are no word to describe how much i despise law eforcement officers.

beltane - July 31, 2009 | 6:22 pm · Link

But, but, Obama is a Kenyan-Hawaiian Muslim and you can’t prove otherwise. If you cherished our precious freedoms you would bow before every cop you saw. If that guy was really innocent, the cops wouldn’t have messed with him.

As a teenager, my husband spent a couple of years in Venezuela where this shit was a regular fact of life. Everyone, even the rich, lived in fear of corrupt cops.

eric - July 31, 2009 | 6:25 pm · Link

I suspect it is because these men are Darwinists, socialists, relativists, and otherwise non-believers in baby jeebus’ miraculous birth.

Joking aside: as an atheist and generally kind and decent human being, i chafe at the everloudening insistence that I am the one lacking morals. Really?

eff them.

eric

Comrade Dread - July 31, 2009 | 6:30 pm · Link

@KG

Yeah, I’ve had the conversation with wingnuts so many times it makes my head hurt thinking about it.

Apparently, you give a government employee a badge and a weapon and they stop being petty incompetent power hungry boobs and become someone who must be bowed before.

John S. - July 31, 2009 | 6:34 pm · Link

The worst part about Gates-gate is that there was a teaching opportunity, but it sailed right over the heads of everyone obsessed with the race bullshit.

There is a serious rot within this country’s law enforcement. Too many police officers clearly DO NOT understand their role, because they style themselves some sort of authoritarian masters rather than enforcers of the fucking law. I reckon they have seen Judge Dredd one too many times and think to themselves, “I AM THE LAW.”

No, assholes, you are not the law. See what your fucking squad car says on the side there? SERVE AND PROTECT. The citizens do not exist to serve YOU and your authoritarian fantasies, and we’re not supposed to need protection FROM you.

Get back to doing the job you’re supposed to be doing, you motherfuckers.

HumboldtBlue - July 31, 2009 | 7:04 pm · Link

Cops are to _ as volunteer firefighters are to arsonists. Duh.

Umm, just fucking wow. I have little if no love for our brothers in blue bedecked in the badges and armed with their blunderbusses, but as a proud union member and a former firefighter, that’s just fucking wrong.

As the noted philosopher Ice Cube put it so wonderfully … Fuck the police!

ericvsthem - July 31, 2009 | 7:28 pm · Link

Conservatives love authority, includes the police, CIA, NSA, military, and the FBI (but not the ATF cuz they TOOK ARR GUNZ). They hate effete government bureaucrats because they know that those guys can fuck up your life WAY MORE than someone packing heat and carrying a badge.

Personally, I’m amazed those pigs didn’t tase him or smack him with a billy club.

Those criminals will get a slap on the wrist and keep their badges. The victim will wind up having spent more time behind bars.

Just keep walking. Also.

ericvsthem - July 31, 2009 | 7:34 pm · Link

@Fulcanelli: That guy wasn’t white.

Ella in NM - July 31, 2009 | 7:40 pm · Link

Ever since the Gates fiasco started being framed only as a “racial’ incident, I have had to keep myself from throwing a beer bottle at my TV screen every time I hear them blithering idiots on cable news. Yes, race may have played some part in that incident, but it is clear that this was more than that, and NO ONE’s TALKING ABOUT IT. It’s because the little candy-asses still think that that kind of thing could never happen to THEM. It’s about abuse of power, sense of entitlement, and the kind of people we are hiring to be cops.

Two years ago, a local white guy (who just happens to own a pretty nice small business and so had the means to consult a civil attorney) sued our city police for for violating his constitutional rights and other injuries and WON a half-million dollars. What for? He yelled “bitch!” at a woman who nearly rammed her car into him trying to beat him to a parking place at the Target. One of our city’s finest—who seemed to forget he was off duty at the time—decided he didn’t like that language, swaggered up to him as he was entering the store, and told the guy to watch his mouth or he’d have to cite him. When the man wasn’t sufficiently deferent, Supercop arrested the guy for disorderly conduct and then added resisting arrest after he argued with him that he had broken no laws. For good measure, he threw the man on the ground and tore his rotator cuff putting him in handcuffs.

This crap with more and more cops acting like they’re frigging omnipotent enforcers has been going on for a long time, but it definitely has gotten WAY worse over the past 8 years with the fear-based 911 “uber-justification” for all government overuse of authority. Now they are basically being trained to think like scared victims in every setting, rather than to develop good judgement and interpersonal communication and conflict resolution skills.

The only way this shit will change is when these people to sue the friggin’ pants off cops and cities.

AhabTRuler - July 31, 2009 | 7:44 pm · Link

The only way this shit will change is when these people to sue the friggin’ pants off cops and cities.

BINGO!

Mnemosyne - July 31, 2009 | 7:49 pm · Link

I can’t help but wonder if this has anything to do with the fact that a significant minority of cops are also National Guardsmen who have been sent to Iraq and Afghanistan. The cop in Oakland who shot the guy in the back (claiming that he mixed up his gun and his Taser) was an Iraq veteran.

How many of these guys are coming back with major PTSD and/or closed head injuries? Who got hired to take their place while they were overseas? If the Army has had to resort to recruiting convicted criminals and illiterates, I can just imagine the winners that have been applying for the police force.

Hammy - July 31, 2009 | 8:02 pm · Link

In related news, cops in Hollywood, FL are caught on tape discussing how they will falsify a police report to blame a woman for a car accident in which they are at fault.

As a result of this coming out, the woman’s charges were dropped, the cops are suspended and may be fired, and criminal defense attorneys are going through their case files to see if any of the tainted cops played a role in the arrest/investigation. If so, they will argue that those cops are known to falsify police records and can’t be trusted. Ever.

freelancer - July 31, 2009 | 8:06 pm · Link

@Mnemosyne:

You make a good point about veterans on the force, also:

There’s Soldiering: Engaging and defeating an enemy through use of military force, and then occupying his territory.
And then there’s Policing. Somebody needs to inform police in this country that there’s a difference.

There has long been a prolonged, systemic failure of law enforcement to see itself as a policing agency, and not as a militaristic institution.

http://www.theagitator.com/200.....partments/

The program was streamlined in 1997 when Congress created an agency called the Law Enforcement Support Program to facilitate the giveaways. [...] The transfers have only picked up since then. The program is also how Richland County, South Carolina Sheriff Leon Lott acquired his M113A1 armored personnel carrier, which moves on tank-like tracks, and features a belt-fed, turreted machine gun that fires .50-caliber rounds.

School police being given M-16s? Local cops acquiring Blackhawks and Hueys? No wonder there’s a mentality of:

“This is a war. We are soldiers. Death can come for us at any place, at any time. ZOMGZ! That woman has Knitting Needles!”

ericvsthem - July 31, 2009 | 8:16 pm · Link

@Fulcanelli:

Carlos is black, check this link and watch the video:

http://www.wsmv.com/news/15370841/detail.html

This story is also over a year old.

The officer who planted the drugs was cleared on charges, and it’s possible that Carlos Ferrell was indeed carrying the marijuana.

http://www.putnampit.com/ferrell_lawsuit.pdf

General Winfield Stuck - July 31, 2009 | 8:21 pm · Link

But a Tennessee Bureau of Investigation concluded that Melton was reaching into his pocket to hit a button to make sure the camera in his car was recording the arrest.

Of course he was. And the beat goes on.

inkadu - July 31, 2009 | 8:25 pm · Link

@freelancer: Do the bobbies still just carry their night sticks? Might not be a bad idea to go back to that. Cops are pretty good at getting people down on the ground, and the tazers should take care of the truly problematic cases.

I’m in Argentina now. In the 80’s the cops (technically, they’re not cops, but gendarmeria, which is military, but they often patrol the streets. ) used to carry submachine guns. Now they carry shotguns. Really? Could they carry weapons any MORE likely to damage innocent bystanders? I can only think of flamethrowers and grenades.

@General Winfield Stuck: The case in New Haven was a federal case, with federal investigators who Knew Their Shit and had incontrevertible evidence… so you might be right, they might get off. But if they do, someone needs to open up a can of vigilante justice on them.

freelancer - July 31, 2009 | 8:41 pm · Link

@inkadu:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EZnEpaSOFwk

England never quite had that second amendment.

Like, I was over in England. You ever been to England, anyone, been to England? No one has handguns in England, not even the cops. True or false? True. Now-in England last year, they had fourteen deaths from handguns. FFFFFourteen. Now-the United States, and I think you know how we feel about handguns-woooo, I’m getting a warm tingly feeling just saying the fucking word, to be honest with you. I swear to you, I am hard. Twenty-three thousand deaths from handguns. Now let’s go through those numbers again, because they’re a little baffling at first glance. England, where no one has guns, fffffffourteen deaths. United States, and I think you know how we feel about guns-woooo, I’m getting a stiffy-twenty-three thousand deaths from handguns. But there’s no connection, and you’d be a fool and a Communist to make one. There’s no connection between having a gun and shooting someone with it, and not having a gun and not shooting someone. There have been studies made and there is no connection at all there. Yes. That’s absolute proof. You know, fourteen deaths from handguns. Probably American tourists, too.
(Angry tourist voice) You call this a sandwich? BANG! BANG! You don’t boil pizza! BANG! BANG!
(Scared English voice) That’s the way we eat here, that’s the way we eat here! BANG!
(Tourist voice) This food sucks! BANG!
And boy, does it suck. Okay, great. If I had a gun, I woulda been number fifteen on that fucking list. Okay, though, admittedly, last year in England, they had fourteen thousand deaths per every soccer game, okay. I’m not saying every system is flawless, I’m just saying, if you’re in England, don’t go to a goddamn soccer game, and you’re coming home. It’s weird-they don’t have guns in England, but they have a very high crime rate, which tells you how polite the fucking English are.
(English voices) Give me your wallet!
All right.
At least no one was hurt. How do you have a crime rate and no weapons, man? Does a guy walk into a bank:
(English voices) Give me all your money! I’ve got a soccer ball!

inkadu - July 31, 2009 | 8:54 pm · Link

@General Winfield Stuck: There is something very weird about that story. Why was his ex-wife involved on a 90-mile-an-hour chase? It’s weird. I wonder what happened to the excessive force charges, though. The story doesn’t mention those.

Anne Laurie - July 31, 2009 | 9:46 pm · Link

Frankly, I’m rather amazed that they didn’t turn the camera off or otherwise ‘accidentally’ find a way to make that footage unviewable.

See, that’s the thing: For all the morons, bigots, authoritarians and thugs-with-badges, there are also plenty of decent, hard-working professionals trying to do a difficult job well. Dashboard cameras give the professionals another slight edge over their more-enthusiastic-than-ethical comrades, as well as against the sort of upstanding citizen who’s all in favor of cops kickin’ arse ‘n takin’ names fvck yeah! until it’s them some donut-sucking pig stops for blowing thru a red light… at 93 mph… after running over a three-year-old leukemia victim’s puppy… while scoring a .35 on the blood-alcohol test.

But I gotta agree that decriminalization would reduce the burden on honest law enforcement professionals greatly. Again, the Good Cops know that the War on Selected Drugs Selectively Applied is a giant waste of time, money & lives—as well as giving the Bad Cops waaay too many routes to cut corners and fvck up everybodys’ lives.

Jody - August 1, 2009 | 12:00 am · Link

Inkadu:

applause
standing ovation

Brachiator - August 1, 2009 | 12:57 am · Link

@Bad Horse’s Filly:

There’s video (which at the moment I can’t find the link, but it was on the major networks) of cops falsifying a report on a woman when a cop hit her car. They started by accusing her of being drunk (she wasn’t) and went on from there. It’s all on tape.

The issue isn’t simply race or racial profiling or a supposedly arrogant black man making a poor white cop feel bad by insisting on his rights in his own home. The issue is civil liberties. The issue is authoritarian cops. The issue is a craven segment of the public who insist on giving cops “the benefit of the doubt” to excuse police misconduct.

Here are the cops framing a woman for a DUI.

Alexandra Torrensvilas was the target of cops who pinned a DUI on her for an accident they caused. Now she has been cleared of charges after the Broward State Attorney’s Office officially dropped the four DUI citations on Wednesday.

But the saga is far from over as now prosecutors turn their attention to the four Hollywood police officers who made up an intricate story to cover for a February traffic accident involving a cop car. The scheme was caught on one of the officers dashboard cameras. The disturbing video shows Alexandra Torrensvilas, 23, handcuffed in the back of the squad car as the officers get their stories straight on what they are going to say happened.

Officer Joel Francisco, 36, an 11-year veteran, crashed into the back of Torrensvilas’ vehicle at a light on February 17 at midnight. The cop radioed to other officers who converged on the scene and hatched a way to bail Francisco out.

http://www.nbcmiami.com/news/l.....Crash.html

There’s no way that the woman in this incident can be described as arrogant. There is no way that she can be accused of disobeying the cops’ instructions. The cops, including a community affairs officer, conspire to frame her because protecting the brotherhood of cops is more important than serving the public.

Here are some other key parts of the story:

Civilian Community Service Officer Karim Thomas joins the three senior officers and the four cops go so far as to change the angle of pictures of the accident to make it look like Torrensvilas swerved in front of the cop car and caused the accident, not Francisco.

Throughout the tape, the cops acknowledged what they are doing is illegal, but when you are the law, there is nothing wrong with bending it for a fellow cop, one says.

“I don’t lie and make things up ever because it’s wrong, but if I need to bend it a little bit to protect a cop, I’ll do it,” Pressley tells Francisco after reassuring him no one will ever find out. “She’s freaking hammered anyway.”

The cops even do a final rehearsal before Villa is taken to the city lock up.

“We’ll take care of it,” one officer says. The others reply: “We’re good.

dieter - August 1, 2009 | 1:14 am · Link

Wow. Just….wow. It’s really effing obvious from the video that the cop withdrew an object from his shirt pocket, put the same object in the pants pocket of the suspect, and immediately pulled the very same object out of the suspect’s pants pocket and declared it to be marijuana.

Even a kindergartener could follow the action and understand what’s going on.

Which means that the chances rise to about 2% that a jury in Cookesville, Tennessee may convict this police officer of any form of misconduct.

bob h - August 1, 2009 | 6:59 am · Link

With the ratcheting down of terrorism fear-mongering by Obama, Giuliani Associates presumably is looking for work as 9/11 doesn’t sell anymore.

There ought to be a special place in hell for Giuliani.

The Grand Panjandrum - August 1, 2009 | 8:42 am · Link

Glad someone debunked that BS about the UK’s crime rate. I also would like to point out, once again, that I am a strong supporter of the 2nd amendment. Each one of us has the right to protect ourselves and our families. From anyone wishing to do us harm. Period.

Cops are people. Just like the rest of us, some of them are criminals.