by Len Hart, The Existentialist CowboyUS cops, never paragons of virtue, intelligence or common sense, have lately gone rogue, perhaps encouraged by lawlessness and contempt for the rule of law by those who occupy the very highest offices in our land.Thuggery trickles down!
Innocent civilians pay a heavy price with their lives, liberty and limbs.
My advice to my fellow Americans:
- Do not call a cop if you can avoid it. Cops can no longer be trusted and you might be the one who is beaten, tased, or thrown in jail!
- Don't drive if you can avoid it; cops love to pull people over and harass them!
- Never presume to 'assist' a police officer!
- Complain to your congressman, your councilman that you do not appreciate the fact that your tax monies are being used to support the criminal activities of cops who disdain due process of law and the presumption of innocence while evincing a sadistic pleasure in the use of tasers, clubs, and physical force against persons for whom there is no probable cause to suspect that they have committed a crime or have even thought about committing a crime!
Now --if you are not willing to do this within the spirit and the letter of the law, then I strongly suggest you get your sorry ass out of 'law enforcement' and into another line of work! You have become a symptom --not a cure. If you're not a part of the solution, you are a part of the problem. Guess what! You ARE the problem!
Secondly, re-examine your motives for wanting to become a cop. Did you suspect that a mere uniform affords you the respect you might not have gotten elsewhere and otherwise? Do you suffer from lack of self-esteem? If so, get your sorry ass into another line of work! You are NOT making America better. You are subverting it!
If you don't like what I've written then why don't you come beat me up and by doing so prove my point! If you don't like what I've written, then why don't you consult Bush about how all the citizens of the US are, in fact, 'terrorists' and should be beaten up, arrested, rousted, incarcerated, harangued ---all without probable cause or the presumption of innocence. Bush would like that.
When Americans are routinely beaten up or intimidated by 'cops' even as they are denied the protections of habeas corpus, then the crooked establishment (cops included) will have become the very justification for revolution. This has been the case throughout history; the theme resounds in common law, the works of esteemed philosophers to include John Locke and, our own, Thomas Jefferson.
whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government,Abolish this government is something --by God --we shall do! A new broom sweeps clean! Injustices, including police brutality, stupidity, cruelty and other abrogations of the rule of law, denial of various rights to assemble, dissent, or merely go about our daily lives unmolested by brutes without warrants is every justification for revolutions of any sort.
If you are a cop reading this and disagree with me, fine! That's what free speech is all about, dipshit! But don't think for a minute that I will simply shut up, roll over or play dead because you happen to wear a blue suit! For all you know, I might be color blind.
Some additional resources:
- Police gone mad get medals for shooting up the wrong house
- Parsing Officer Patrick Pogan's Anger
- What Really Happened: Tasers a form of torture, says UN
- Cops Tase Barely Conscious Boy With Broken Back 19 Times For Non-Compliance
- Parents question why Ozark police used stun gun on injured son - 16-year-old is tased UP TO 19 TIMES!
- Tased Until Dead: The Epidemic of Taser Crazy Cops
- US Cops Go Out of Control; US Citizens No Longer Safe
- Tasers, Torture and Terror Tactics: America Becomes a Police State
*Update* Just wanted to take the time to thank everyone who came by and dropped off their opinion, the ones who gave it the thumbs up, the ones who dugg it and the guys over at reddit. With help from everyone we were able to get 20,000 people to see these images. This site like always makes NO money from anything on here, its simply a site about powerful imagery. Thank you again, i would love if 100,000 people could see it, so lets make that happen. It is true, images can tell a million words.
*Updated 02/08/2008* Thanks to Andrew we have an update from a Providence Newspaper
Providence RI, Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) march on Jackies Galaxy, a local restaurant chain supplied by HWH/Dragonland in NYC, a supplier notorious for slave labor conditions and a lack of basic labor rights. A few blocks before finishing the march North Providence police brutally tackled two of the marches after they moved to the sidewalk too slowly, both were arrested and one suffered a badly broken leg in the attack.
7 comments:
My God. What a sickening picture, series of pictures. What in God's name could that person whose leg was torn up possibly have done to justify that? Why did the people taking photos deserve to have whatever that is the officer is holding aimed at them? Sickening.
workshop said...
My God. What a sickening picture, series of pictures. What in God's name could that person whose leg was torn up possibly have done to justify that?
As a long time 'journalist', I've known more cops than I ever wanted to know. I didn't like ANY of them. I can't think of one that had an ounce of humanity. I often could not tell the crooks from the cops! The mentality, in any case, is precisely the same.
Like many kinds of organized crime, being a cop is to be a part of a 'gang' or, possibly, a cult!
I don't know what the solution is. I do know that the problem is worse in America than perhaps anywhere else in the world. Someone, PLEASE do a study. I will cite it, link to it, and quote from it profusely.
Secondly, police violence upon an innocent civilian population is, like terrorism, certain to be worse statistically during GOP regimes. Gangersterism --even if sanctioned by law --is still gangersterism and it ALWAYS trickles down! Wealth, however, NEVER trickles down.
Down with Nazis! Down with the GOP! Excuse me if that is redundant!
In my life, I have personally known more than just casually three men who worked in law enforcement: two as cops and one as an office employee in the psychological department. All three were nice persons. All three lasted a very short time. All three were disgusted with what they saw. The good ones leave; the bad ones stay. I am sixty years old.
Anonymous said...
All three were nice persons. All three lasted a very short time. All three were disgusted with what they saw. The good ones leave; the bad ones stay. I am sixty years old.
I covered the Houston 'cop shop'! I recall very well interviewing an Asst Chief in his office with regard to a scandal that might very well have involved Bush Senior had I been able to pin it on him. During the interview, the asst chief was paranoid, nervous and downright kooky. He kept looking under his desk, and around his office door to see if anyone was coming down the hall who might overhear the interview. We spoke in hushed tones, barely above a wisper. It was spooky and crazy.
The 'cop shop' might well have been paranoid. It had not been long since a sleazy private-eye named Dudley Bell had wiretapped the entire department. Bell had also been suspected of having 'filmed' a mayoral candidate getting his jollies with a comely campaign worker. Several years later, Bell was charged with hiring the 'hit men' who were charged with shooting (but not killing) Barbara Piatrowski (Miss Olympia), the mistress of health club tycoon Richard Minns.
Several officers had not long before thrown Joe Compos Torres into Buffalo Bayou to drown. Torres --by the way --HAD NEVER BEEN CHARGED WITH A CRIME!
OMG! How horrible!
Thanks for posting the pictures. Incredible!
Len,
Thank you for posting these images (as troubling as they are). It is inconceivable that these peaceful protesters did anything to deserve this sort of brutality. I was smacked up side of the head by an officer for explaining that I was trying to follow his order to disperse. And this merely was at a back yard party in the 80's (the cops had black tape over their badge numbers and removed their name tags - it's as if they needed the practice cracking skulls in full SWAT gear).
The behavior toward that young woman was inexcusable and the photos are the stuff of nightmares (acknowledging just how much more horrific are so many other actions our governemnt has committed).
A government afraid of its citizens is a Democracy. Citizens afraid of government is tyranny! - Thomas Jefferson
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