Police Officers are usually poor lawyers. Now, this isn't a question of smarts, but of the lack of attention to details and general belief in their own superior understanding of laws even if they haven't read them. Back in the Marines I used to call this thinking "Barracks Lawyering", it's an ardent belief in something you once heard or some guy once heard in reference to a rule or procedure.
To wit: The Illinois SAFE-T Act has changed trespassing to a ticket! Poor people are going to set up campsites on your front lawn! Even, a cursory reading of the law indicates there are several provisions in the body of the reworked language which gives the officer a significant amount of latitude to arrest the person and remove them from the "Real Property" instead of ticketing them and leaving. Not to mention other laws like Obstruction of Peace Officer, in which a Peace Officer can lawfully order a person to leave a property.
But! But... that gets to the crux of the issue. A significant number of police officers chafe and become petulant when faced with direction, supervision, and accountability. The exact things the SAFE-T act was designed to address. And underlying this is a lack of self-awareness, reflection, and an absolute inability to place themselves in the shoes of another.
Reading various additions to the ILCS, Officers scoff and proclaim well I would never do this or that, and refuse to believe this or that is happening elsewhere.
For instance, this addition was made to the Use of Force,
(c) The authority to use physical force conferred on peace officer by this Article is a serious responsibility that shall be exercised judiciously and with respect for human rights and dignity and for the sanity of every human life.
Of course, grumble the almost all white Officers policing almost all black communities. But, I read that addition not as superfluous but as the I was just following Orders addendum. You see no Officer wants to believe they could possibly be the bad guys, that they would act as storm troopers, that they would simply follow inhumane orders. That events would overwhelm their natural instincts and moral code as the engage in indiscriminate unlawful use of force. That they, would be the Nazis.
Besides butchering the spirit of the original quote by Terry Pratchet it draws a distinct blue line between Justice and the Police and clearly indicates Police don't provide Justice. Because in the United States, we don't have a Justice System we have a Legal System, and that system is geared to over protect rich and their property and indemnify the Guards of the System.
In 2020, protests over the extrajudicial killing of George Floyd erupted across the country. These were peaceful, but they were also an expression of left-wing agitation and the United States does not allow left-wing agitation so Police were called out in force and all manner of egregious violence was meted out on protestors.
So, when 75 year old Martin Gugino was shoved to the ground by two Buffalo New York Police Officers (dressed in their best Judge Dredd gear and flanked by 50 other similarly festooned Officers) and began bleeding from the ears after suffering a fractured skull, it became another chance for right-wingers across the Nation to invent and concoct outlandish conspiracies of radio jamming to justify the egregious misue of force, which is exactly what fascist Twitter and Traitor-in-Chief Trump did.
The arbitrator Jeffrey Selchick's written opinion is ludicrous of course,
"Upon review, there is no evidence to sustain any claim that Respondents (police officers) had any other viable options other than to move Gugino out of the way of their forward movement."
Gotta push that solitary old man over instead walking around him because he was trying to zap the digital radios of the Riot Police with his special 5G vaccines! The attorney for Gugino is continuing with the lawsuit against the City of Buffalo but, the Police Commissioner planned to reinstate the two Officers today.
Back in late March 2022, Officer Travis Lewis and another Indianapolis Metro Police Officer were called to the scene for a possible burglary in progress. There was no suspect, no apparent attempted burglary, and no other crime in progress. Police then ran a name check on the caller who appeared to have an active Order of Protection prohibiting from being at the residence in question. In such an offense, being present in violation of a court order is a mandatory arrest no discretion for the Officer.
This is were you step in and deal with the issue straight up. Tell the guy he seems to have an OOP. If, he starts telling you he isn't going anywhere you move on to handcuffing him... maybe. Using words and persuasion is always preferable to force even, the lightest of force. But, that's not what seemingly happened as the Officers on scene handcuffed the suspect* and tried to get him into the back of the squad car.
At this point the Officers should already be verifying the Court Order is valid. And I don't know what was going on before the ball twisting use of force; maybe Ofc Lewis was tired, hungry, sleepy or ready to go home. Maybe dispatch verified the court order incorrectly. Maybe the innocent suspect was engaged in an act of "Aggravated Mopery" whatever, the result was Lewis grabbed the guys nuts a couple of times in order to get him into the back of the squad car.
It seems the other Officer on scene came forward to the Department about the Use of Force policy violation, that's commendable and very brave, and the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department has only released partial video of the incident and while they conduct an investigation but, several charges of battery and official misconduct have already been filed against the Officer.
There's a whole host of other factors which could be at play here, Ofc Lewis direct supervisors may have expected him to (or ordered him to) clear up the call quickly and move on to others. Maybe the department has a policy of handcuffing suspects immediately. I hope he gets a proper defense but, all Officers should know by now Times have Changed.
A decade ago such an interaction wouldn't have resulted in criminal charges nor a department investigation and probably would have gotten the Officer involved a round of pats on the back and joking Attaboy's. Because Policing in the United States has always been comfortable with the causal use of violence or threat of violence directed at "mopes".
"Mopes" is a term of long lineage used by Police and Courtroom Officials for suspects but, as Nicole Gonzalez Van Cleve highlighted in her phenomenal book Crook County: Racism and Injustice in America's Largest Criminal Court, the term broadly applies to anyone who interferes or slows down the rapid dispensing of "justice" in the criminal justice system.
But, post-Ferguson in 2014 and definitely post George Floyd these types of incidents are more and more frequently caught en flagrante delicto by body camera and citizens cell phones and can no longer be brushed aside or tolerated by a civilized society let alone applauded. Of course, the adoption of casual violence against suspects is in direct violation of Sir Robert Peel's instructions to the newly created Metropolitan Police of London in 1829 and the still pertinent rules for Police conduct as crafted post World War 2, Principle #6;
The police should use physical force to the extent necessary to secure observance of the law or to restore order only when the exercise of persuasion, advice and warning is found to be insufficient to achieve police objectives.
But, those rules governed Policing in the British Commonwealth. The history of Policing in the United States diverged as it was in direct response to the pressures of Industrialization, the influx of immigrants of differing cultures and language, and the recent emancipation of black Americans from Slavery with the addition of Frontier Justice aimed at controlling and eradicating Native Americans and Mestizoes.
*- I should point out this is the pernicious quality of Police parlance as the caller was innocent of any crime but, at this point in the narrative and interaction with the Officers he was a "suspect" for a Violation of Order of Protection. So, using force on him has been, for many years, okay.
You never know what, the match, which ignites the conflagration will be...
I guess the 1970's are back because, one thing conservatives learned from the Sixties was they could no longer trust the Federal Government to help them in subjugating minorities. That was the one lesson learned. So conservatives created Dirty Harry and Death Wish to act out their Vigilante fantasies.
Since the 1960's various reforms, legal precedents, oversight, constraints and landmark SCOTUS rulings have been placed upon agents of the government to stop them from wantonly and brazenly violating peoples' rights; especially and specifically minority groups. Barriers to the Use of Force by Police Officers (i.e. the agents of the state whom minorities are most likely to interact with) have been established piecemeal to stop Police abuse. As with all radical challenges to the established order a counter reaction spearheaded by rightwing Reactionaries has occurred to res-establish white power.
Conservatives (Reactionaries) unquestionably support each and every extrajudicial killing of black and brown people. Conservatives believe the police exist to kill or incarcerate every black person in the United States primarily because conservatives believe every black person is a priori guilty of some crime and hence should be meet with violent force at every opportunity or interaction. Conservative full-throatedly support Stop&Frisk, Broken Windows and every insulting violation and targeted micro-aggressions directed at black people. Every time a black man doesn't stop resisting is a reason conservatives see for that black man to be killed by the Police.
Unfortunately, Police Officers continue to this day, even in the age of body cameras, digital recordings and clearly ellucidated restrictions on excessive force, to kill and brutalize. T. Greg Doucette has a long running twitter feed documenting various unlawful acts.
But, the Federal Government (as flawed as it is) has curtailed this unjust behavior. So right-wingers and Republicans across the great United States are crafting legislation to get around this problem.
Right after the Rittenhouse killings, the rightwing Wurlitzer went into work crafting fake 20/20 hindsight justifications for the killings. The two killed were child rapists! They threw Molotov cocktails at Kyle! One was trying to kill poor Kyle with a skateboard! The smears and slanders on the dead victims weren't true but, the goal in these types of killings is always the same. Claim the victim was a criminal thug and repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat.
Rittenhouse is clearly guilty. Rittenhouse went to Kenosha to kill people and he did. As a matter of justice and laws, you can't put yourself into a violent confrontation, you can't start a fight, and then claim self-defense. It's akin in law enforcement to, "Officer Induced Jeopardy".
But, whether or not Rittenhouse gets acquitted (unfortunately, in a massive miscarriage of justice I think he will) what conservatives are trying to get ensconced into law is Vigilantism and a process where they kill someone and are indemnified with the "legal justification" of Dead Men Tell No Tales. Conservatives know they can not rely on Police for unfettered extrajudicial killing, so using state legislatures they've decided they have the right to take law into their own hands.
Conservatives "See Kyle" and are aching to go were he has gone before. Conservatives are asking openly and in large forums, "When do we get to use the guns?" Ricky Schroeder wants to lead a militia on Veterans Day to overthrow the US Government. Conservatives are yearning, begging, pleading for a general civil war to break out so they can round-up and liquidate every Democratic official, liberal, feminist, minority, LGBTQ person they can.
Update:
Murderers like Kyle Rittenhouse always lie about their crimes; Rittenhouse started the confrontation. And Rittenhouse did everything with the expectation that not only would it be okay, he would be praised, and when he killed 2 people he'd be able to surrender easily. Rittenhouse was only wrong about the surrender part because the assembled Police simply let him walk away that day after killing people.
One of the laments from conservatives centers around how those dastardly hippies destroyed the American society by bringing down classic authority figures; like Police Officers. So now rightwing #agitprop centers on showing how The Left continues to demonize Police Officers in service to the DemocRAT Agenda of bringing down 'Murica. One of the favorite targets of Rightwing fury is San Francisco; harbor and haven of all that is not Real America.
Just before Thanksgiving Deputy Charlie Blount thought he was chasing a stolen car. After a 5 minute chase involving the infamous pit maneuver, Blount's blood was up he and the other LEOs exhibited a complete lack of control and the ability to calmly and cooly analyze what they were dealing with. After drawing down on the driver, repeatedly screaming at him to "Show me your fucking hands", and violently assaulting the driver, Blount eventually choked the man to death.
Another Deputy apparently realized the driver, who was laying dead face down in the street, was the vehicles' owner.
"Oh well," Blount replies...
Oh, well.
Oh, well.
Blount's attorney Harry Stern of course blamed David Ward for Blount being out of control, "Frankly, Mr. Ward caused his own death.."
Stern then went on to list Blount's 40 years of service in the military and police finishing with the pièce de résistance, "His actions during this arrest were entirely reasonable."
Officer's can't access higher brain functions, can't calmly access the situation, get caught in a repetitive verbal loop, lose control over their emotions in high pressure situations and choke a a feeble scared man, with no weapons, no "active resistance", no aggression, to death and it's "entirely reasonable". Oh well...
Not to be outdone on at 830 in the morning of December 7th, SFPD Officer Sterling Hayes and his trainee Christopher Flores responded to an in-process burglary and upon identifying an apparent burglar, the vicious criminal violently assaulted them and they were forced to shoot him.
Or so the Police claimed. In reality, it appears the Officers rolled up on a "usual suspect" and escalated the encounter until it ended in the Officers chasing and shooting the man, Jamaica Hampton. Predictably the body cam worn by the Officers did not capture the initial alleged assault but, independent cameras captured the Officers shooting Hampton in a manner entirely inconsistent with the official police report.
Hampton will apparently survive and beginning 2020 the San Francisco Police use of force doctrine is going to change from "reasonable" to "necessary", thus putting a higher threshold upon the Police to prove the force used was appropriate as opposed to the Officers just deciding to kill the perp.
San Francisco Officers had several questionable shootings in 2018, but of course, this is not some problem confined to San Francisco but, is endemic to Modern Policing. American Police Departments have slowly morphed into Paramilitary Armies of Occupation. Officers don't live in the communities they police and often don't associate their role in a community in accordance with Sir Robert Peel's original 9 principle's of Policing but, view themselves as The Thin Blue Line protecting Real America, and as such... Oh well has replaced to Protect & Serve.
Park Forest Police Officer Craig Taylor is on trial for killing 95 year WWII Veteran John Wrana during a July 2013 incident at the elderly man's retirement home.
During the incident, Taylor used Less than Lethal shotgun beanbag rounds when Wrana brandished a knife. Taylor fired 5 rounds and the autospy reported two rounds struck Wrana in the abdomen and one in the chest. Wrana died five hours later of internal bleeding from the blunt force trauma.
Now, Taylor wasn't the only Officer present, four other Park Forest officers responded as well. During testimony, two of the others stated they were in fear of their lives during the incident, with the on scene Surpervisor testifying, "I thought deadly force was authorized and we were using reasonable force under the circumstances."
However, a use of force expert and former Secret Service surpervisor Francis Murphy, referred to the 5 officers' tactics as "officer-created jeopardy", criticized their decision making, and offered up several alternatives they should have used,
"They didn't start by giving it a cooling-off time. They kept going into his room and agitating him."
Murphy did testify trying to shield rush Wrana or using pepper-spray could have jeopadized the officers or caused serious injuries to Wrana as well.
Do the facts that Wrana was a white 95 year old WWII veteran and Taylor is an African-American have anything to do with the decision to prosecute? I don't know.
I do know something about this type of incident, having responded to several near exact situations. In a recent one, I responded to a call out to an Hospice/Elder Care building.
At 2 in the morning an elderly, confused, angry and frightened man had somehow gotten an old claw hammer (not an Estwing) which he had hit a nurse in the shoulder and was outisde his room pounding on doors and furniture.
My on duty sergeant and another officer showed up. While my Sergeant chatted up the old man I moved to his side and out of his perherial vision. Several pieces of furniture had been moved around the man by members of the staff. He absent-mindedly brandished the hammer and at one point raised it up over his right shoulder. At which point I grabbed the hammer and yanked it from his grasp.
The man turned at me and demanded I return his hammer calling me a "little sneak thief". While the gentleman refused to go to his room, he sat down in a nearby chair and quickly fell asleep.
So, what should be lesson and take away from this and other Use of Force incidents?
I'm not sure. What I do know is I and other Police Officers are being counted upon more and more often to respond to incidents which really require trained medical personnel or Social Workers. But, because right-wingers have thrown in with the Guard Dogs of the Plutocracy, funding for those people and programs has been slashed mercilessly.
And now Republicans are coming to steal Social Security and working on rolling back even the modest gains from Obamacare.
"But I had somebody last week in Washington from either Georgia or Alabama that was saying, ‘Look, this goes back to we have got to have at least 50 rounds in our magazines because on average that’s about how many it takes to bring down a drone.’ I hope he was kidding, I don’t know for sure." - Representative Louie Gohmert, Confederate States of America on Drones.
Glenn Greenwald has declared that President Obama is worse than Dick Cheney. Because Obama, unlike Cheney, never infringed on an American's Constitutional Rights the way Obama did by authroizing a Drone Strike on Anwar al-Awaki (and his son).
What is this? Did the backlash against executive power take this long to foment in Greenwald? Does Glenn Greenwald feel frightened that Obama, who is worse than Cheney, is going to send a Drone Strike against him for speaking out?
What's actually happening is Glenn Greenwald is like John Wayne. Wayne chicken hawked his way out of World War II and in response became a jingoistic warmonger and arch-conservative. Greenwald supported the Phony GWoT and Iraq War Crime and now to make up for it he's become a lunatic anarcho-libertarian declaring all Government Action to be the illegal Use of Force.
Here is the text of what Greenwald, himself, relies upon to excuse his tacit support of the Phony GWoT and the Iraq War.
I did support the war in Afghanistan and, living in New York, believed the rhetoric about the threat of Islamic extremism.
At worst, I was guilty of apathy and passivity. I did nothing for or against it because I assumed that those in positions to exercise adversarial scrutiny – in journalism and politics – were doing that.
I had not abandoned my trust in the Bush administration. Between the president’s performance in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, the swift removal of the Taliban in Afghanistan, and the fact that I wanted the president to succeed, because my loyalty is to my country and he was the leader of my country, I still gave the administration the benefit of the doubt.
I believed then that the president was entitled to have his national security judgment deferred to, and to the extent that I was able to develop a definitive view, I accepted his judgment that American security really would be enhanced by the invasion of this sovereign country.
The swift removal of the Taliban? He assumed others were scrutinizing the Rush to War. Loyalty to My Country! I deferred to Bush's Judgement.
As the 10 year mark of that bloody debacle hits home, it's amazing to watch those who participated in bilking the American People whitewash themselves of their guilt. I think that in order to prove himself, Greenwald will equate Obama's policies with Hitler at every opportunity. It's a powerful display. Hundreds of Thousands of Sunnis, Shias, Afghans, Pastuns, and others killed during the a Multi-Trillion Dollar Theft of Generations and Glenn will spare no effort over Drones?
Drones are tools and weapons. All the hand-wringing over their use in the Phony GWoT* is a mistake. Drones are a valuable tool which allows infiltration deep into hostile territory for targeted killings. Why send in a SEAL Team or conventional forces when a Drone can accomplish the task?
Drones for Domestic Use are also not a concern. Drones simply fall under the Use of Force and the 4th Amendment.
It makes no difference if a person is killed by bullets, blood chokes, burning or drone strike. Dead is Dead.
And under US Law (reviewed by multiple SCOTUS rulings and written into State Laws) Killing someone is considered the Ultimate Seizure under the 4th Amendment.
For Reference the applicable reviews of the 4th Amendment are:
Graham v. Conner (1989)
Tennessee v. Garner (1985)
Drones and their use gained massive blog-o-sphere attention after the Filibuster of the Director of the CIA by Senator Rand Paul. Couch-Borne Commandos and Self-Styled Champions of Liberty,as long as Liberty isn't Black people getting equal rights, like Senator Paul may have a problem with Drones but that's only because they've never been shot at or had to go hands on with a criminal.
Now, there may be arguments to be made against the Use of Drones. But, if you're mad that President Obama is using Drones in and of themselves you are wrong.
If there had been a Drone available to use against Christopher Dorner (Or against the Newest Second Amendment Hero Kurt Myers) then it should have been authorized and used.
Remember Dorner had already killed 4 people. He published a manifesto in which he stated he was going to kill as many people as possible. Some only tangentially connected. On the day of his death he shot two more Deputies, killing one, carjacked a couple and holed up in house firing numerous rounds at the surrounding officers.
Against a person, such as Dorner, does Glenn Greenwald or Senator Paul demand we send in single officers one at a time to face them man-o y man-o?
But, while Greenwald believed it to be a good thought experiment about "Due Process" and his belief that Drones represent a massive violation of civil liberties, it highlighted the misunderstanding of seizures under the 4th Amendment (again killing someone being the ultimate seizure) and the Use of Force.
Apparently, Greenwald believes "Due Process" entitles a person to this level of warning:
If you believe that a Government should not be killing it's citizens, ever, that's a legitimate debatable position. But, Drones aren't used for the killing of incarcerated persons.
If you're concerned about Drones being used for surveillance, well unless you are complaining about Cameras in high-crime areas, wire-taps, and police officers with binoculars then it seems an arbitrary concern.
If you believe the President does not have the authority to use Drones for targeted killings overseas then your complaint is with Congress. Force Congress to exert their constitutionally-mandated War Powers Role and have them vote to seize back that power by removing authorization.
There might be legitimate concerns about the Use of Drones and there should be oversight and legal guidelines but they are nothing more than a tool. Every tool can be misused.
*- The War on Terror has a War Crime of Epic Proportions and has lead to thousands of unnecessary deaths and criminal theft of Trillions. As such it should be ended. But, the Drone Strikes aren't the worst thing about it.
