The NYPD, Broken Windows, Collars for Dollars and Control of the Poor

Continuing the topic of Police Departments the discussion now focuses on what is the role of Police Departments have in society.

Contrary to popular belief and the motto's stenciled on squad cars, Police Departments were not created to 'Serve & Protect' and keep the peace but, to exert control over the poor and working class. The creation of the Modern Police Force in the United States coincided with increases in immigration, the Industrial Revolution, and the end of Slavery. As such Police Departments were tasked by the Ruling elite to keep the American Working Class, immigrants and minorities in check.

The 1% actually sees only two legitimate "Constitutional" Roles for the US Government, a military for expanding and opening up Foreign Shores for exploitation and the quelling of Domestic Dissent and control of the Poor by the Police

As the work slow down by the New York Brats in Blue has shown not much changed on the home front.

Apparently, the NYPD thinks their slow down is helping them win in their Political Struggle against Mayor Bill de Blasio. As a Police Officer I'm disappointed by their acknowledgement their arrests, notices to appear and citations were not to 'Serve & Protect' but, for the purpose of revenue collection and social control.

It's more than a tacit admission, it's a bold statement the Broken Windows Policing doesn't reduce serious crime but, transforms Police Officers into revenue streams.

The Broken Windows theory, a hypothesis first appearing in 1982 that clamping down small crimes will help keep down more serious crime, while compelling is not supported by the evidence of the last 30 years.

Broken Windows, though it still has its' adherents (namely Rudy Giuliani), has been undercut by an actual analysis of the data. Jens Ludwig and Bernard Harcourt in their 2006 thesis Broken Windows: New Evidence for New York City and a Five City Social Experiment posited the "Broken Yankees Hypothesis" wherein the number of NYC homicides decreases with the increase in Yankees Championships.

Additionally, the elimination if Lead in gasoline has been credibly linked to an overall decrease in crime.

But, that's the point, whether or not the rank and file of New York's Whiniest know it, they weren't created to 'Serve & Protect' and modern police practices are designed as a powerful social control to keep the established Plutocratic Hierarchy in place.

And the Working Classes in their place.

Review the iconic image from Occupy UC Davis, where non-violent "criminals" were treated savagely but, Wall Street criminals guilty of far worse offenses not only avoided this treatment but arrest and prosecution almost entirely,

Now, recall the overall crackdown on Occupy Wall Street and other sister demonstrators by Police Departments Nationwide was cheered and supported by 100% of conservatives. While later, 100% of conservatives supported recalcitrant lawbreaker Cliven Bundy and his army of insurrectionists with their plans to murder Law Enforcement Officers and use women and children as human shields, while Bundy and his other Cattle Barons annex US land for their profit.

In Joseph Wambaugh's first novel, The New Centurions, we follow 3 titular centurions conducting police work in the Civil Rights era in Los Angeles. As demonstrated by several chapters in Wambaugh's novel, the cops spend most of their time gleefully busting homosexuals and prostitutes as part of Vice Squads.

Wambaugh's later works especially The Blue Knight better captured the ennui of Police Officers but, Centurions while honestly reflecting the day-to-day grind of police work, is rife with Reactionary themes, including the "liberal" Officer getting shot mid-way through the book and being killed in the Watts Riots because he's too soft and Wambaugh's most racist 'I don't see black or white just assholes' speech presented by a "black" Officer.

But, another theme running throughout Centurions, is the belief in an early form of "Broken Windows",

"But today the 'dont's' are dying or being murdered in the name of freedom and we policemen can't save them. Once the people become accustomed to the death of a 'don't', well then, the other 'dont's' die much easier. Usually all the vice laws die first because people are generally vice-ridden anyway. Then the ordinary misdemeanors and some felonies become unenforceable until freedom prevails." - The New Centurions, pg. 86

The problem is once theories like, Broken Windows, Stop & Frisk, and the War on Drugs become conventional wisdom, accepted and entrenched in organizations as Reactionary as Police Departments they are difficult to dislodge.

The post Mike Brown death response by the Ferguson Police was the at least as egregious as Brown's killing. Faced with discontent over the situation the response was the force. It was a typical Police response, when faced with push back and perceived challenges to authority.

But, once you have gone with the full forceful response there are no other options than to further ratchet up force until the situation spirals out of your control.

But, well before the August 2014 killing of Mike Brown, the people of Ferguson have complained that like many poor neighborhoods they are faced with constant harassment and mistreatment by the Police as small infractions and petty violations are punished by fines, fees and costs.

And, once again, therein lies the real reason Police Departments were created for in the first place; Control.

Under the guise of Law & Order, poor and working class people are exposed to constant harassment, "Collars for Dollars", and criminalization for infractions which really aren't crimes. Because it controls them.

Conservatives plan to use the NYPD assassinations as a pretext to murder Liberals and overthrow the Government

Right-Wing Violence is coddled and encouraged in America. There is a real danger of the American Right using the murders of NYPD Officers Liu and Ramos to kill minorities and leftists and then Overthrow the US Government. At least, that's the dream of Right-Wing Domestic Terrorists.

Right-Wingers all have the same delusion. They think they are The Thin White Line o' Heroes.

"The next time there’s a die-in, make sure they’re dead. The next time they block the road, run their asses over," Stan Solomon talking to Larry Pratt, Head of the Gunowners of America, on reacting to protests. Note the demonstrators Solomon is itching to murder are not looters but, non-violent demonstrators.

These White-Wing Hateriots do have several things in common; they loathe Democracy and the Democratic Republic for which We Stand. Conservatism is Terrorism.

Fortunately, in reality, while some of the craftier conservatives will use this to fund raise and fleece more right-wingers, additional Right-Wing Murder Sprees will not happen. The Oathbreakers will have a fundraising drive, FU de Blasio T-Shirts (made in China) will be sold, more parcels of land in the Galtian Paradise will be purchased, Alex Jones Infowars will increase his viewership, more Liberal Hunting Permits will be issued, and this incident will go down as another of the 968 impeachable offenses committed by Barack HUSSEIN Obama.

However, this doesn't diminish the aching desire Conservatives have to start murdering Liberals. They are waiting for a signal, for their imagined Casus Belli.

Over at Hullabaloo the blog of Digby, I read the latest Call to Arms from Confederate Yankee Bob Owens. His sthick has been the same for 6 years. The stay-at-home schocastic terrorist throwing his toxic emissions into the seething cauldron of right-wing rage in the hopes some "Lone Wolf" will go out and murder a Liberal,

It’s Time To Play Cowboys and Communists

Posted by Bob Owens on December 29, 2014 at 1:03 pm

If, my friends, you would like to preserve and restore liberty you must decide, today, what you will tolerate.

You must determine how much more you are going to tolerate as they attempt to destroy this nation from the inside.

You must determine what you are willing to sacrifice in order for your children and grandchildren to remain free.

I ask you to stand your ground, my proud fellow American citizens. Keep your weapons oiled, your bores bright, and your magazines loaded. Pledge to protect those who protect us.

We do not want war, but we will not surrender our liberty to rabble who crave the chains of tyranny, or who dream of lording over free men.

Will you choose to be Sons of Liberty, or sons of Obama?

Laughably earlier in his column Bob Owens wrote;

This string of attempted, escalating, (and sometimes regrettably successful) cop killings is a part of a low-intensity civil war on the very fabric of our society.

Richard Poplawski, Jerad and Amanda Miller, Andrew Joseph Stack, James W. Von Brunn*, Joseph T. Kane, Dennis Marx*, Nathanial Kangas have all attacked or killed Law Enforcement Officials yet evoked no response and weren't a Cause Célèbre for Conservatives.

Right-wingers only support Police Officers and the Rule of Law when those LEOs and that Rule is being used to oppress Minorities, Leftist Protests, and Unions.

Related:
Right-Wingers really are itching for any reason they can grasp to begin the slaughter of Liberals. Criticism of Chris Kyle and American Sniper has brought out the typical Conservative Death Threats towards anyone who dares point out that Kyle didn't win the war, murdered a bunch of people we shouldn't have been killing and died because he was a gun humping moron. When Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton win the Presidency in 2016 I'm certain a Right-Wing Insurrection and mass murder spree of Liberals, Democrats, Progressives will begin.

New York's Finest, The Thin (Skinned) Blue Line

Now choke yourself. Goddamn it, with MY hand, numb-nuts! Don't pull my fucking hand over there! I said choke yourself; now lean forward and choke yourself! - Marine Corps legend R. Lee Emery and Vincent D'Onofiro famous Boot Camp introduction scene in Full Metal Jacket (1987)

As New York's Whiniest continue their spectacle of entitlement and petulance, the New York Post is reporting Police Union Leaders have convinced the Thin Skinned Blue Line to engage in a work slow down. According to the Post,

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.

From invoking the Stab-in-the-Back rhetoric to Disrespectful protesting at Funeral of a fellow Officer, the New York Police Department has put a permanent blemish on their Shields, which will take years of hard work to erase.

It's hard to see whom exactly the NYPD think they hurting with this work stoppage? The reaction to the drop in citations and the declaration Officers are making arrests "only when they have to" has been 'Super! keep up the great work'.

Now, perhaps the Officers are trying to bring Mayor de Blasio to heel by cutting off funding for the City Budget, but such a tacit admission that Police Departments, including the Nation's Largest, have been filling City Budget Holes on the backs of the Working Class probably isn't the message the NYPD wants to be sending.

Of course, the NYPD, as a monolithic organization, probably doesn't care what anyone thinks. But, the interesting phenomenon has been the sudden tack by the American Right back towards unwavering support for "Law & Order". Meanwhile, Right-Wing violence, up to and including murder of Police Officers, is coddled and encouraged in America.

Conservatives, of course, don't give a shit about individual Cops but, what they do love is exerting Power and Authority, especially the type traditionally enforced by Police Departments over their enemies.

Police Departments have always been the guardians of the 1%, the enforcers of the plutocracy, with specific goals of keeping the Working Class in line and incarcerating or killing minorities.

Law books are replete with "crimes" designed to nickel and dime the Poor and Working Class to make them pay for their own incarceration, with "fines, fees and costs".

Besides the constant threat of arrest and imprisonment for minor offenses, the Working Class faces the full power of the American Justice System while the 1% are free to swindle Billions and even escape unscathed because of their Affluenza.

NYPD makes me Blue. Occupy America!

"¡El pueblo unido, jamás será vencido!"

Capitalism has always been a failure for the lower classes. It is now beginning to fail for the middle classes. ~ Howard Zinn, A People's Hisotry of the United States

Well, as a Police Officer I am dismayed and sickened by the behavior of the New York Police Department, but not surprised. The Occupy Wall Street demonstration is in the middle of the Rapacious Thieves mere blocks away from the heavily fortified NYPD headquarters. Bloomberg and his Corporate Masters will not suffer a poor person to been seen for once you become a Big Enough Thief the Police work for you.

In any Police Force one can find a power hungry less than scrupulous cop ready to do what he's told. NYPD Lieutenant Anthony Bologna appears to be one of the police officers who make the job harder for the rest of us. Bologna can be seen in a video walking up to a female protester who's been herded off, like so much cattle, behind orange plastic flexible fencing and maliciously spraying her in the face. Bologna has a history of ill-treatment towards protestors with whom he disagrees, having been named in a Civil Rights Violation suit stemming from allegedly making an illegal arrest of a man for protesting the Republican National Convention in 2004.

Take a look at the treatment of this protest. The People have had Enough!

Like, the Wisconsin protestors, the Anti-War Protests, the Protests at the Republican Conventions, the Right Wing Media is ready and willing to tarnish these protests because they don't serve the Faux News/Dick Armey/Koch Brothers crafted Hate-riots efforts to pin the collapse of the Middle Class and Generational Theft of Trillions onto one black guy.

Don't just look but, actively SEE the difference. During the 2009-/2010 Conservative Hate-riots the police were ordered far away and the most racist, vile, filthy, threatening ignorant trash walked in the open, displaying their weapons and threatening violent warfare against the government.

But, a Rally against the Criminals who've stolen Billions on Wall Street? The Police are mobilized and instructed to beat, pepper spray, cordon off and detain without provocation.

Power does not surrender itself. Power will never surrender itself. Those with the power will not heed your requests for clean drinking water or safe working conditions or healthcare. There is too much money at stake. Citizens United is just another Orwellian twist of Language the Rich have engaged in, just another system of control. For, when Money and Power beckon and call enough miscreants will take up truncheon and mace and hold the people down.

Howard Zinn noted and hoped the Guardians of the Wealthy would realize their situation and rise up and throw off the shackles of control and side with the 99% against their Corporate Masters.

[T]he Establishment cannot survive without the obedience and loyalty of millions of people who are given small rewards to keep the system going: the soldiers and police, teachers and ministers, administrators and social workers, technicians and production workers, doctors, lawyers, nurses, transport and communications workers, garbagemen and firemen. These people-the employed, the somewhat privileged-are drawn into alliance with the elite. They become the guards of the system, buffers between the upper and lower classes. If they stop obeying, the system falls.

Don't lead a life of quiet desperation! Occupy Chicago! Occupy Every Downtown! Stop Obeying your Corporate Masters! Rise Up!

Related:
The elites and the media loathe and will never provide coverage of the Occupy Wall St movement. (From Firedoglake)