FBI director refuses to acknowledge America has a cop problem
America’s top cop had an opportunity to say America needs police reform. He blew it. Instead, he defended racist cops and killer cops.
“FBI Director James Comey used a speech at Georgetown University on Thursday to comment on the contentious debate over race and criminal justice in America …. Comey said the United States is at a crossroads in how it approaches policing and race relations.”
No, we’re not at a crossroads; we’re in a crisis.
“He suggested both minority communities and law enforcement officials have to confront a series of ‘hard truths’ to make progress in repairing the frayed bonds of trust between cops and the communities they serve.”
No, the innocent people being killed by cops don’t share in the fault; their deaths are 100% the fault of the racist cops who profiled them and gunned them down.
“He highlighted research showing that people in a majority-white society react differently to black people on a subconscious level.”
It doesn’t take high-falutin’ research to know that cops are profiling and picking on black people. Just ask the black people. For example, ask the 70-year-old retired Metro bus driver who was arrested, handcuffed, and thrown in jail by a white female Seattle police officer for standing on a street corner minding his own business.
“‘If we can’t help our latent biases, we can help our behavior in response to those instinctive reactions, which is why we work to design system and processes to overcome that very human part of us all,’ he explained.”
Huh? We? Our? Where did the plural pronouns come from? … And then Tonto turns to the Lone Ranger and says, “What you mean, we, white man?” (If you don’t get this joke, post a comment, and I’ll explain it.)
“He suggested that, in areas where a majority of crime is committed by non-white residents, police officers can be conditioned to more closely scrutinize members of minority communities – a tactic some would label racial profiling. Comey described the practice as a ‘mental shortcut.’ ‘Those of us in law enforcement must double down on fixing biases,’ he added. ‘We must resist shortcuts and laziness.’”
No, profiling isn’t a mental shortcut or laziness, it’s racism. Let’s call things by their right now.
“He also offered a defense of law enforcement officers, though, saying most of them are not racists, and that they entered the police force to help the community, regardless of race.”
We’re not complaining about good, decent cops — the vast majority of cops — who do their job properly. That’s not what tens of thousands of fed-up citizens are demonstrating about. They’ve had it with the bad apples. That’s who I’m talking about here, too, and in all my other posts and comments about America’s bad cops and police abuses.
“‘Racial bias isn’t epidemic in law enforcement any more than it’s epidemic in academia or the arts,’ he said.”
But it matters more when you carry a badge, a gun, and have arrest authority, and hold in your hands the state’s power to alter or destroy lives. Trying to deflect criticism away from racist cops by claiming professors, artists, and dancers are racists, too — without any evidence to back that up — is bullshit. We, the public, are tired of hearing bullshit from cops. We want the profiling, the killings, and the abuse of citizens to stop.
“‘In fact, I believe law enforcement overwhelmingly attracts people who want to do good for a living – people who risk their lives because they want to help other people. They don’t sign up to be cops in New York or Chicago or [Los Angeles] to help white people or black people or Hispanic people or Asian people,’ he said. ‘They sign up because they want to help all people, and they do some of the hardest, most dangerous policing to protect communities or color.’”
Thanks, we’ll keep those cops, and we appreciate them. Now, what are you going to do about bad cops?
“His comments marked the first time the FBI’s top leader has opined so publicly and candidly on the subject of race and law enforcement.”
What took him so long?
“Several other top law enforcement officials have also waded into that debate in recent months, but their efforts, more often than not, have engendered controversy. Both Attorney General Eric Holder and New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio commented on the deaths of Michael Brown in Ferguson and Eric Garner in New York City, but critics said their input unfairly maligned the law enforcement community.”
Those “critics” are mostly police union officials who generally speaking are unrestrained in making known their contempt for President Obama, Attorney General Holder, Mayor de Blasio, demonstrators against police racism and violence, and pretty much anyone else who criticizes cops who bully and kill citizens instead of enforcing the laws fairly and impartially. Why should anyone listen to them?
Director Comey clearly isn’t listening to the citizens. President Obama, fire his ass. Now. And then put someone in that position who understands that America is facing a policing crisis and will use his office to help create solutions to that problem.
Alabama cops paralyze man for being from India, having dark skin, and not speaking English
An Alabama police department today fired and arrested a cop who severely injured a man from India who was simply walking in the neighborhood and had committed no crime.
Sureshbhai Patel, 57, visiting his son in Alabama, was taking a walk last week when he was stopped and frisked by police investigating a “suspicious person” call from a neighbor. He explained to the cops “no English” and gave them his son’s house number. Then, the cops violently threw him to the ground, inflicting a spinal injury that has left Patel with partial paralysis in all four of his limbs. His family has hired an attorney and plans to sue.
In a speech yesterday, FBI Director James Comey praised America’s cops and refused to acknowledge there’s any problem or need for reforms.
Update: Robber cop arrested for assault with a gun
Two weeks ago, Iwrote about a rogue sheriff’s deputy in northern Nevada who pulled over highway travelers and threatened them with arrest and imprisonment if they didn’t hand over their cash and valuables. By some weird coincidence — or inevitability — he was arrested the very next day for pulling a gun on someone in a convenience store. When he goes to trial on that felony charge, he can’t claim he did it in any law enforcement capacity, because he was already suspended from his job for other (undisclosed) reasons. At this point, I offer readers the standard admonition that “all suspects are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law,” which applies to him even though he gave no such consideration to the motorists he shook down (I trust you appreciate the irony here). Meanwhile, pending disposition of the pending criminal charges against him, Deputy Lee Dove won’t be shaking down any more interstate highway travelers for a while. By the way, Dove wasn’t acting entirely alone. Lawyers filed a class-action lawsuit against his department in response to flurry of money and property seizures from citizens. Asset forfeiture laws were never intended to be used this way, and are badly in need of reform, both at federal and state levels.
Photos: Lee Dove posing for mugshot (l), and posing with seized cash in happier days, before a federal judge ordered him to return it to the innocent motorists he took it from (r).
Oregon woman sues cops over videotaping police
“A cell phone video is driving a federal lawsuit in Oregon where a Portland woman is suing the city. Carrie Medina says police took her phone after she used it to record and broadcast the arrest of a man two years ago, reports CBS News.“
You can go on YouTube and find dozens of videos posted by ordinary citizens who were harassed, and in some cases arrested, for videoing police activity. Ever since four L.A. cops got in hot water for beating the shit out of Rodney King in 1991, cops all over America have been extremely antagonistic to bystanders recording their actions.
In that case, a citizen recorded the incident with his cell phone, and based largely on that video, King collected a damage award of $5.5 million (including $1.7 million attorney fees) and two of the cops went to federal prison.
State laws vary, and in a few places these innocent citizens have been threatened with long prison sentences under state wiretapping statutes, but generally speaking it’s legal to video record in public places. In fact, it may be a constitutional right. But many cops either haven’t gotten the word, or choose to ignore citizens’ rights.
Carrie Medina was riding a bus in Portland when she saw two cops roughly arresting a young man. So she got off the bus and used her cell phone to record the incident. One of the cops approached her and said, “I don’t need a subpoena to search your phone for evidence,” then grabbed it away from her.
Yesterday Medina, who’s represented by the ACLU, sued the city of Portland, the city of Gresham, and the transit agency in federal court, claiming her First and Fourth Amendment rights were violated. CBS reports that Gresham’s police chief “sent an email to his officers a month after the incident reminding them that ‘…videotaping by the public is part of police work today … they have the absolute right to do that.’”
(Note: Cops who try to seize citizens’ cellphones often use the “evidence” excuse, but erasing the video isn’t collecting evidence, it’s destroying evidence, which is a prosecutable crime.)
Given that we live in a country in which the normal channels of police accountability have completely broken down, and cops who violate citizens’ rights are neither prosecuted nor disciplined, the only tool left for bringing cops back in line is filing civil lawsuits against their municipal employers. Maybe when cities and their insurers get tired of paying legal settlements and expenses, those responsible for supervising the police will start to actually supervise them. So here’s hoping that Ms. Medina’s lawsuit costs the defendants a lot of money.
Photo: Carrie Medina, center, and ACLU officials announce a federal lawsuit against bully cops who seized her cell phone because she legally recorded police activity.