Wednesday, December 31, 2014

WHAT ARE THEY GOOD FOR?

It seems that New York's finest can't do their jobs without violence and won't do their jobs if the sheep fight back and use violence against them. Radley Balko puts it into perspective for us. The police have been ratcheting up the violence and the shootings in an orgy of panic fire, poor aim, poor judgement, and total and complete indifference to the safety and well-being of ordinary citizens.
NYPD traffic tickets and summonses for minor offenses have dropped off by a staggering 94 percent following the execution of two cops — as officers feel betrayed by the mayor and fear for their safety, The Post has learned.
 It has helped contribute to a nose dive in low-level policing, with overall arrests down 66 percent for the week starting Dec. 22 compared with the same period in 2013, stats show.
Citations for traffic violations fell by 94 percent, from 10,069 to 587, during that time frame.
Summonses for low-level offenses like public drinking and urination also plunged 94 percent — from 4,831 to 300.
Even parking violations are way down, dropping by 92 percent, from 14,699 to 1,241. 
Drug arrests by cops assigned to the NYPD’s Organized Crime Control Bureau — which are part of the overall number — dropped by 84 percent, from 382 to 63.
I don't condone shooting police, unless they really deserve it and there is no way on earth to bring them to justice. I think the police in America have lost their way and have declared war on the public. Why else do they need tanks, armored personnel carriers, machine guns, grenades and heavily armed SWAT teams?

Read the link to Balko and consider, he isn't making predictions there. He is merely inviting your attention to the things police do every single day in this country.

2 comments:

Ex Bootneck said...

There was a time over here when the thin blue line could do no wrong in the eyes of the general public, fortunately technology changed all of that when mobile phones also became hand held cameras with audio. The rotten core within the thin blue line are no longer able to hide their sins, more so today with the introduction of police body cam's.

A few of my American 'born and bred' business associates tend to keep me up to date over events relating to policing - in particular around New York and Boston, as I do have a genuine interest over your current affairs in general. They each hold the same opinion as yourself and often refer to the police as 'paramilitary' organisation's. A passage from 'Rise of the Warrior Cop' by Radley Balko just about sums it up; "It shows how politicians' ill-considered policies and relentless declarations of war against vague enemies like crime, drugs, and terror have blurred the distinction between cop and soldier. Balko's fascinating, frightening narrative shows how over a generation, a creeping battlefield mentality has isolated and alienated American police officers and put them on a collision course with the values of a free society."

Having operated in Northern Ireland throughout the troubles, I witnessed the Royal Ulster Constabulary turn from being normal bobbies conducting foot patrols - to become a full paramilitary force answerable only to themselves. Pay back was swift and brutal by terrorist organisations as tit for tat murders and killings became the norm throughout the province, which more often than not included innocent bystanders. The truth relating to such 'incidents' was heavily fabricated to justify the level of violence used by the RUC's specialist teams. Each 'incident' being endorsed by a surreptitious rubber stamp, and blurred signature from upon high. The bad guys in N.I. eventually won the troubled war, as British politicians could no longer justify the cost of life and loss of property (3,600 deaths, and as many as 50,000 people were physically maimed or injured, with countless others psychologically damaged for life.) The RUC were forced to change their ways, even to the extent of changing their name to the 'Police Service of Northern Ireland.' Such a change has taken over 18 years, and to this day the PSNI are still despised and untrusted.

I feel it will take a braver man than Gunga Din to come up with a solution to de-militarize the police forces around the US. Big boys and their big toys are not easily parted.

Yours Aye.

HMS Defiant said...

If you know, there is a way. Broken windows policing has its place in the urban core because that is about the only level that one can interact with the criminals there. Why it spread to the suburbs and beyond is a mystery. There was an old article from last year or maybe the year before that that talked about the old civil government officials of the Raj. Single young/old men went among the populace of utter rural Raj India and brought the rule of law. None stood against them. Those Englishmen embodied the rule of law.

Cops these days? Not so much. They have carte blanche to lie, to steal, to kill. The only people they do not police are themselves. The Courts will not do it and so it falls to the people. The cops hate it, but here, we have damned near as much fire power as they do.

I honestly don't condone killing police but I reserve the caveat. It's no throwaway for me. Many of my father's great uncles were police/constables. None of them would condone civil forfeiture and stealing from innocent civilians without charging them with a crime. In fact, all of them would shoot such a cop.

One demilitarizes police by seeking public office and then terminating thieves, thugs and killers with badges.