“The Single Most Powerful Organized Crime Gang in the US”

In response to “I Called Police to Help Him, Not to Kill Him,” one of LRC’s astute readers sent me his “list of what every American should know and understand about cops”–

1. Cops operate under a premise of comply or die. Do as they say or they will bring ever increasing levels of violence down upon you until they have compliance. Sometimes cops will simply skip the escalation and go straight to a street execution.

2. Cops are the single most powerful organized crime gang in the US. They not only have protection above them, from their command structure, courts, prosecutors (and the Grand Juries they control) and legislators, but most importantly they have the unquestioned fealty and adoration of a majority of the population. Cops refer to the general population as civilians. That’s cop speak for serfs.

3. The separation between what cops are,(enforces for the state), and what the public perceives then to be, (protect and serve), is a chasm of monumental proportions.

4. The concept of implied immunity bestowed upon cops is in fact a get out of jail free card for any and all crimes, including murder.

5. There is no situation that can’t be made worse by the addition of a cop. Cops don’t turn away, cops don’t leave well enough alone and cops don’t ever de-escalate a situation.

6. There is no lie and no criminal act cops will not engage in to protect the system, their jobs, their pensions or those of their fellow cops. If a choice is presented to them to do the right thing, say turn in a fellow cop for criminal behavior (lying or planting evidence) which would otherwise send you to prison, you’re going to prison.

 

My correspondent didn’t come by his wisdom easily. He told me he formerly defended cops, believing the best about them. Then,

in the mid- 2000’s, the sister of a close friend of my wife’s had her early 20’s age son, who was mentally ill with mild schizophrenia, murdered by … officers in much the same vein as your story. She called them for help to transport him to a mental health facility. Big mistake. Six cops arrived at the home, broke down the door to the bedroom he was in, found him lying in bed with the covers pulled up to his chin and a knife in one hand. The cops repeatedly shouted at him to drop the knife, which he didn’t do because he was mentally ill. The cops shot him seven times at point blank range. The cops were completely exonerated.

Policing and liberty are incompatible. So, increasingly, are policing and life.

Share

2:12 pm on October 4, 2016