The issue is not black or white–that is a propaganda meme being used by the usual suspects for the usual purposes–but rather a nearly complete lack of accountability on the part of police for incompetence. As he notes, with regard to his own State: “In 129 years since police and fire commissions were created in the state of Wisconsin, we could not find a single ruling by a police department, an inquest or a police commission that a shooting was unjustified.”
Here are the stats on the FBI: “from 1993 to early 2011, F.B.I. agents fatally shot about 70 “subjects” and wounded about 80 others — and every one of those episodes was deemed justified, according to interviews and internal F.B.I. records obtained by The New York Times through a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit.”
Nationally, officers are cleared of any wrong-doing about 400 times a year in the shooting deaths of suspects, but NOBODY seems to track how many are charged. I would guess based on the fore-going stats, the number is very close, or AT, zero.
Here is the thing: we have professional standards for doctors, lawyers, engineers, architects, electricians, and many others. If an electrician fucks something up and causes a house fire which kills someone, they can be charged, at minimum, with criminal negligence. If a doctor does something stupid they can have their license revoked and sued for malpractice. Egregious cases can still warrant criminal charges.
There are best practices in police work. The choke hold used on Eric Garner–and don’t give me any bullshit that an arm targeting the caratoid, and it looked like the windpipe, as they moved, isn’t a choke–is WORST practice. It is banned. Cops know this. They are trained in it.
THEREFORE, using a choke hold is at a minimum prima facie evidence of professional incompetence/malpractice, and in this case what I would call clear negligent manslaughter. This applies particularly since he was not attacking them, and they had AT LEAST 4 offers present, and based on how many people were moving around afterwards, more like 5-6. If you have me a week to design and test strategies for dealing with large men without choking them–including the most basic use of interpersonal skills to calm him down–I have no doubt I could do it.
There needs at a minimum to be a police equivalent of being disbarred, of being deemed unfit to do police work of any sort. More generally, though, it seems ABSURD that police are trusted to investigate their own. I would suppose it obvious that people who hate cops could be relied on, if trusted with full authority, to commit any number of atrocities against justice. The cops in the Rodney King case never should have gone to jail (that’s another matter I won’t deal with here).
At the same time, though, a lack of accountability means that INNOCENT PEOPLE die. Cops have rights: so too do the people they shoot and kill. If you are a SWAT Team and hit the wrong house because you are having a bad day, and kill someone–which has happened several times at least in the past few years–guess what? You go on the fuck up list, and you get to work somewhere else, like McDonalds, and your pension is revoked.
You say “but cops make mistakes, too.” When you are serving a warrant for something like unpaid student loans–this is an actual case I read about–then FUCK YOU. You stupid sons of bitches need to do your goddamned homework, and if you can’t be bothered, then I repeat: FUCK YOU. Go pollute some other job, using money from someone willing to tolerate your stink. No retirement, no severance. This, in lieu of jail, which I think overgenerous.
This argument is like architects saying ” but my job is just so HARD”, or engineers saying “But my job is so COMPLEX”, or an ER doctor saying “But I have so much STRESS.”
Can we not stipulate as basic elements of the policing process that you not default to banned worst practices? Can we not stipulate that at a minimum?
I want to be clear: this is not a rant against cops in general. I recognize the value and inherent risk in what they do. This is rant against BAD, INCOMPETENT, UNPROFESSIONAL cops who give everyone else a bad name.
I will share one story. I know a woman who got drunk one night with her boyfriend, and the next day went down to Barney’s neck of the woods, and got lost. They asked a cop for directions, and he smelled alcohol on the boyfriends breath, and promptly arrested him. While this was going on, she was carrying their baby, and she was getting freaked out and scared, so she asked if she could go into the gas station (where they were stopped), and he ignored her. So she went in. He followed her, took the baby out of her hands, and handed it to the clerk, and then punched her so hard she woke up in the hospital.
She sued. I don’t know what happened, but these people ARE ON THE STREET. What he did was not policy. It was not legal. It was an assault, pure and simple, but five gets you twenty he is or soon will be back on the street, with no charges, and that the case will settle out of court for not much money.
Some cases are OBVIOUS. This was all caught on camera. Such cases need to be subjected to criminal prosecution. Cops need to go to jail.