This article was originally published by Matt Agorist at The Free Thought Project.
Since the George Floyd protests began last week, they have since morphed into a much broader movement which is now exposing a problem this country has suffered from for a long time. The system of law enforcement in this country has morphed into a militarized standing army, preying on the poor, and rife with corruption. Naturally, people are pissed.
As we have stated from the beginning of the riots, this reaction was inevitable. Minorities and the poor have been pushed into a corner and ignored as the state preyed on them through a system of extortion and violence. One can only be ignored for so long before they eventually lash out.
Remember when football players were peacefully protesting by taking a knee, and the country — including the Commander in Chief — collectively lost their minds telling them to shut up and sit down? Trump even called for them to be fired for this. Now, because these folks were ignored and told to shut up during their peaceful protests, the inevitable non-peaceful protests have begun.
For decades there has been a perfect storm brewing in this country as minorities and poor people have their doors kicked in and are terrorized by cops during botched raids for substances deemed illegal by the state and watch helplessly as their family members die in video after video at the hands of cops. Now, we have record unemployment, lockdowns, cops murdering people on video and facing no immediate charges, and those in charge sit at the top and point fingers.
Because the system will always refuse to accept responsibility for the situation it has forced onto the people, the blame game always comes next. Instead of realizing the error of their ways, government is now blaming the riots on Antifa, White Nationalists, the Alt right, “thugs,” and any other scapegoat they can find to blame besides taking responsibility. They are even blaming Russia now. You cannot make this up.
Naturally, this will never lead to any positive change. It will only prolong suffering, create more divide, and perpetuate a system of injustice for decades to come. Those who want to incite peaceful change, however, have been pushing these ideas out for a long time. Now, people may finally listen.
To lower the likelihood of future chaos, America’s system of law enforcement needs radical change. Instead of threatening to execute suspected looters with no due process — the discussion we should be having right now is how to fix this broken system. It is not difficult, it is based in logic and reason, and its effects would be significantly felt almost overnight.
Over the years, TFTP has been proposing these solutions, and below we have compiled a list of five main actions that could affect this much-needed change, right now.
The first and most significant solution to this pain and suffering would be to end the war on drugs — today. Legalize every substance out there.
Richard Nixon, in his effort to silence black people and antiwar activists, brought the War on Drugs into full force in 1973. He then signed Reorganization Plan No. 2, which established the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA). Over the course of five decades, this senseless war has waged on. At a cost of over $1 trillion — ruining and ending countless lives in the process — America’s drug war failed, miserably, and has created a drug problem that is worse now than ever before.
This is no coincidence.
For years, those of us who’ve been paying attention have seen who profits from this inhumane war — the police state and cartels.
The reason why the drug war actually creates a drug and violence problem is simple. And those who profit most from the drug war — drug war enforcers and cartels — all know it. When the government makes certain substances illegal, it does not remove the demand. Instead, the state creates crime by pushing the sale and control of these substances into the illegal black markets. All the while, demand remains constant.
We can look at the prohibition of alcohol and the subsequent mafia crime wave that ensued as a result as an example. The year 1930, at the peak of prohibition, happened to be the deadliest year for police in American history. 300 police officers were killed, and innumerable poor people slaughtered as the state cracked down on drinkers.
Outlawing substances does not work.
Criminal gangs form to protect sales territory and supply lines. They then monopolize the control of the constant demand. Their entire operation is dependent upon police arresting people for drugs because this grants them a monopoly on their sale.
It is incredibly racist too. The illegality of drug possession and use is what keeps the low-level users and dealers in and out of the court systems, and most of these people are poor black men. As Dr. Ron Paul has pointed out, black people are more likely to receive a harsher punishment for the same drug crime as a white person.
This revolving door of creating and processing criminals fosters the phenomenon known as Recidivism. Recidivism is a fundamental concept of criminal justice that shows the tendency of those who are processed into the system and the likelihood of future criminal behavior.
The War on Drugs takes good people and turns them into criminals every single minute of every single day. The system is set up in such a way that it fans the flames of violent crime by essentially building a factory that turns out violent criminals.
It also creates unnecessary police interactions — disproportionately carried out on black people — which leads to resentment, harassment, civil rights violations, and even death. When drugs are legal, there are far fewer doors to kick in, fines to collect, profit prisons to fill, and money to steal.
Secondly, we need to end qualified immunity for police.
When it comes to police accountability, one overarching question remains. ‘Do we want to live in a society whereby law enforcement officials can completely violate a person’s constitutional rights and get away with it?’ For our society to be free, the answer to that question must be a resounding, powerful, unwavering, ‘Hell No!’
Unfortunately, however, this is the case most of the time thanks to law enforcement personnel’s use and abuse of Qualified Immunity.
For those who may be unaware, qualified immunity is a legal doctrine in United States federal law that shields government officials from being sued for discretionary actions performed within their official capacity, unless their actions violated “clearly established” federal law or constitutional rights.
The Supreme Court created qualified immunity in 1982. With that novel invention, the court granted all government officials immunity for violating constitutional and civil rights unless the victims of those violations can show that the rights were “clearly established.”
As Anya Bidwell points out, although innocuous sounding, the clearly established test is a legal obstacle nearly impossible to overcome. It requires a victim to identify an earlier decision by the Supreme Court, or a federal appeals court in the same jurisdiction holding that precisely the same conduct under the same circumstances is illegal or unconstitutional. If none exists, the official is immune. Whether the official’s actions are unconstitutional, intentional or malicious is irrelevant to the test.
An example of this would be the family of George Floyd attempting to seek compensation for his death. Because there has never been a “clearly established” case of a cop kneeling on a man’s neck until he dies being declared unconstitutional, a judge in Minnesota could easily dismiss their case.
It is essentially a get out of jail free card for cops and it perpetuates the problem of police violence by giving bad cops a free pass.
After removing a cop’s ability to trample rights without consequence, it is time to hold them liable. That’s where personal liability insurance comes in.
As the Free Thought Project has reported extensively, police officers, even when found at fault for their abusive actions, are almost never held personally liable. It is the taxpayers who foot the bill. However, all that can change overnight by requiring cops to carry personal liability insurance.
Imagine, for a moment, the result of all police officers being held personally liable for their actions and forced to pay their victims. In nearly every other profession on the planet, if someone hurts someone else while on the job, they are held liable — personally. Why can’t cops carry personal liability insurance just like doctors?
As instances of police brutality and police killings continue to be exposed, there is no doubt that the US is in dire need of reform. The simple requirement for police to be insured for personal liability is an easy fix — especially to remove repeat offenders from the force.
All too often, when a tragic death such as George Floyd occurs, later — as was the case with Derek Chauvin — we find out that the officer should have never been given a badge and a gun in the first place because of their past. However, insurance companies, who can’t fleece the taxpayers to pay for problem cops, would have to come out of pocket to pay for them and would make sure that these officers are uninsurable.
If the officer becomes uninsurable, the officer becomes unhirable — simple as that.
There are likely many cops out there right now who would be denied insurance coverage by any company, due to their track records. A requirement for personal liability insurance would, quite literally, weed out problem officers — almost overnight.
The fourth solution to preventing police brutality and violence would be to bring predatory policing to a halt.
All too often we hear the ridiculous statement from the police apologist crowd saying, “If you don’t break the law, you have nothing to worry about.”
However, that statement couldn’t be further from the truth.
Former NSA official William Binney sums this myth up quite accurately, “The problem is, if they think they’re not doing anything that’s wrong, they don’t get to define that. The central government does.”
Attorney Harvey Silverglate argues that the average American commits three felonies a day without even knowing it. Most of these crimes have no victim either — like possessing marijuana, driving a car with dark windows, or a burned-out license plate light.
While most everyone in America commits these same infractions designed for revenue collection instead of safety, most of the people targeted by police for these crimes are the poor, minorities, and the mentally ill.
As the 2014 death of Mike Brown in Ferguson exposed, in 2013, African-Americans accounted for 86 percent of traffic stops while making up only 63 percent of Ferguson’s population.
For those too poor to pay their tickets, routine traffic stops in Ferguson ended up in repeated imprisonment due to mounting fines. Ferguson was running a de facto debtors’ prison.
Revenue collection, persecution of the poor, and debtor’s prisons take place in every county, in every city, across every state. This institutionalized cruelty is little more than a day’s work for the millions of bureaucrats involved in the racket.
Sadly, until this system of wealth extraction is defunded or brought to a halt through radical policy changes, cases of cops preying on the poor will continue at an ever-increasing rate until the whole country is one big prison — or, burned to the ground.
Lastly, we should end the monopoly that American police have on law enforcement.
Simply put, police officers can be corrupt, kill with impunity, and are rarely held accountable because Americans have no other choice. We are stuck with them. In any other job market on the planet, if they had a death toll of 1,000 Americans a year, they would be out of business overnight. However, because cops have a monopoly on law enforcement in America, the death toll keeps rising.
By allowing competition in law enforcement, the incentives for policing would drastically shift. Violent police departments would be fired and replaced with less violent ones. Cops would have an incentive to serve their communities by solving real crimes like rape and murder instead of kidnapping and caging people for victimless crimes.
If this sounds like a pipe dream to you, then you’ve probably never heard of Dale Brown.
Dale Brown of Detroit’s “threat management center” has shown that crime can be stopped and lives can be saved by independent people using nonlethal tactics.
In areas of Detroit where police don’t answer 911 calls, Dale Brown took matters into his own hands and started taking those calls himself, and because Dale was not “above the law” as police officers claim to be, he had to solve these crimes without hurting people, because he would actually be held accountable for his actions.
Yes, businesses pay for these services. However, as a side effect of providing businesses with security, Dale has also been able to provide service in poor neighborhoods for free, by financing his business through providing security for high-income areas.
Instead of policing from a place of fear, self-preservation, and extortion, Brown polices through love. He offers of some timeless advice that we could all use right now. “The cornerstone for protection is love, not violence, not guns, not laws, you cannot truly protect anything that you do not love.”
i expect cops to crush rebellion. they are kneeling with the protesters. this is a sign of weakness. some of us are not gonna live on our knees. its sad police had the opportunity to put an end to the rioting and that is gone. now they will riot until demands are met and there will be new demands to be met. it was sad to see cops supporting this. they can threaten to come to the burbs all they want wont be kneeling ever.
You’re already living on your knees.
And pretending you aren’t so you can feel good about it.
This a silly article Makes no sense Our problems are so deep there is almost no fixing things it has gone on for too long to be solvable We need a reset People in this country have been spoiled Where else in the world can you go into any grocery store and get whatever you want to eat We need to start over
Cmoore you’re right, this article makes absolutely no sense.
The powers that be have been planning this insurrection/takeover of the US for a very long time, and they are following the Saul Alinksy/Cloward and Piven playbook to the letter.
Occupy Wall Street, BLM, Antifa, anarchists, Communist groups in the USA, and various Islamic groups like CAIR, MSA, and others, have all joined together for the overthrow of America.
Unfortunately, the dumbed down masses, especially the Millennials who are glued to their Iphones, can’t see that they’re being used.
What these useless idiots fail to realize, is like Hitler’s Brown Shirts, once they’ve accomplished the goals set by their masters, they will be disposed of.
The Supreme Court was committing a high crime when it created Qualified immunity and Treason and those that believe that they are entitled to Qualified Immunity are committing high crimes, which is defined as an abuse of authority, and treason which is defined as causing injury to the sovereign, which happens to be We The People, and not We The Government, or We The Police, or We the Teachers, or We the Military, or We the Judicial Branch, or We the Executive Branch, or We the Legislative Branch, in America, and all of that has bedn clearly established in the constitution of the United States, which it has been clearly established they have all sworn by oath and affirmation to defend and uphold.
It has been clearly established that they are a gang of criminal psychopathic thugs and terrorists that belong in prison for high crimes and treason.
Furthermore, it was not the peaceful protesters that were committing violence, but the police in many instances, which has been fully documented.
Andrea Iravani.
The corrupt judges were wrong again!
Who the fuck do they think they are?! Their sense of entitlement is disgusting and alarming! They believe that we are their community property. They have objectified us. Only beastly, predatory monsters that would be better off dead for the good of humanity would believe that they are entitled to Qualified Immunity to violate the rights of others in a cannibalistic feast and not be held accountable! Let the world see the beasts running America and working in the government! Let the beasts children and grandchildren see what beastly monsters their parents and grandparents are, and let their decsendants see the future legacy of total predation and evil that their beastly parents
and grandparents have foisted upon them!
They know who they are. they are the ultimate arbiters of Americans lives, how they are allowed to live and not live.
Who do you think you are?
Someone they care about or that can do anything about it?
If so, you’re wrong and need to think again.
Guess again. Minneapolis city council voted to disband the police department, and if the mayor vetoes it, they pkan to over ride the veto.
When the police rearely solve crime and even flat out refuse to even try to solve crime, and continuously abuse the rights of those that it is supposed to serve, and harrass and fine innocent people for minor things, in a targeted campaign of harrassment, and they are costing tax payers a lot of money, people say, why in the hell should we be forced to pay for this?!
The Supreme Court was committing a high crime when it created Qualified immunity and Treason and those that believe that they are entitled to Qualified Immunity are committing high crimes, which is defined as an abuse of authority, and treason which is defined as causing injury to the sovereign, which happens to be We The People, and not We The Government, or We The Police, or We the Teachers, or We the Military, or We the Judicial Branch, or We the Executive Branch, or We the Legislative Branch, in America, and all of that has been clearly established in the constitution of the United States, which it has been clearly established they have all sworn by oath and affirmation to defend and uphold.
It has been clearly established that they are a gang of criminal psychopathic thugs and terrorists that belong in prison for high crimes and treason.
Furthermore, it was not the peaceful protesters that were committing violence, but the police in many instances, which has been fully documented.
The corrupt judges were wrong again! If they weren’t illiterate, incompetent, or corrupt, they would know that!
Sometimes I womder if everyone that works for the government is illiterate, and the Israelis are black mailing them and telling them, We will tell everyone that you don’t even know how to read. Maybe that is why they spy on us. So that someone explains to them what it is that they just signed.
– Andrea Iravani
Asset Forfeiture would also be a good thing to get ride of.
The Supreme Court was committing a high crime when it created Qualified immunity and Treason and those that believe that they are entitled to Qualified Immunity are committing high crimes, which is defined as an abuse of authority, and treason which is defined as causing injury to the sovereign, which happens to be We The People, and not We The Government, or We The Police, or We the Teachers, or We the Military, or We the Judicial Branch, or We the Executive Branch, or We the Legislative Branch, in America, and all of that has been clearly established in the constitution of the United States, which it has been clearly established they have all sworn by oath and affirmation to defend and uphold.
It has been clearly established that they are a gang of criminal psychopathic thugs and terrorists that belong in prison for high crimes and treason.
Furthermore, it was not the peaceful protesters that were committing violence, but the police in many instances, which has been fully documented.
The corrupt judges were wrong again! If they weren’t illiterate, incompetent, or corrupt, they would know that!
Sometimes I wonder if everyone that works for the government is illiterate, and the Israelis are black mailing them and telling them, We will tell everyone that you don’t even know how to read.
– Andrea Iravani
End the Campaign of Amercan Female Brain Mutilation !
Even the Taliban does not do this to women! Because the Taliban does not have a stock market to finance it, and even if they did, I doubt that even they would do it!
Psychopathic Frankensteins have Stepford wives fantasies! They would be so wonderful if only they were stupid enough not to hate us for the monsters that we are in America!
http://www.icaact.org/
-Andrea Iravani
Andrea I………..
You seem to be intelligent, though revealing some real personal issues. Anyhoo, PUH-LEEZ stop repeating yourself and posting the same comments several times over.
It is quite annoying and starting to make people discount your wisdom altogether.
Yes absolutely, we need to get back to constitutional basics. We have devolved into a violence oriented nanny state. For every occurrence monied interest and lobbyist see to it there is another new law for this and a new law for that. Politicians pride themselves on the new laws they help to create. Innumberable new laws are created every year. Quite nearly it would almost seem that the entire economy revolves around law enforcement and the legal system in general. If people do not want their children to use drugs then parents should raise them that way. However, we live in a country where people demand the nanny state should raise their children and take care of every facet of their lives. The biggest profiteer in making drugs illegal is big pharma. Men such as Patrick Henry could not have imagined in his wildest nightmare of tyranny that people would be imprisoned for hemp or any other drug for that matter.
What happened to George Floyd could have happened to any one of us. If I so much as pay for my purchase at the dollar store with a ten dollar bill the clerk looks at me suspiciously and holds the bill up to the light.
“Is it okay?” I ask politely.
“Yes” the clerk sneers
“Wow, do you get a lot phony ten dollar bills?” I ask
“Yes you’d be surprised” the clerk replies.
Point being that anyone could inadvertently have a phony 10 or 20 dollar bill as George Floyd is reported to have been suspected of. To know that police are licensed to committ murder over such trivialities is chilling. No they are not supposed to but too often it would seem they get away with it. Too much power is corrupting them and the citizenry needs to step up and take responsibility for their individual lives and repeal a huge percentage of laws that are leading to increased violence and stop creating new laws.
All-inclusive RINO’s, believed that blacks were entitled to human rights, yet were against armed, private policing and voluntary self-segregation aka second amendment rights and the right of free association.
Interesting article. As my community has no local police force, I will work to keep it that way.
How about we just institute “The Purge”… after a few years all the thugs will have killed themselves off and only people with an understanding of accountability, will be left.
In case you have not noticed, Chicongo and New Yawk pretty much re-enact The Purge every week-end. This article is very thought-provoking. As a retired Peace Officer, I watched it morph into an “Us versus Them” mentality when Ronnie and Nancy Rayguns launched their bogus “War on Drugs.” That, along with the Asset Forfeiture Laws created the largest gang in Amerika-LEOS. Instead of Public Servants, you have Orcs and Orcettes with badges and guns, doing the bidding of their paymasters. That is when I got out.
The whole concept of Qualified Immunity needs to be done away with. This would give these badge-wearing gangsters pause and force them to put into practice their “oaths” to defend the BOR. As long as they know they have this power, they will not make the law or break the law. They are the law, and what they say and do will take precedent over any Constitutional protections any person in this country thinks they enjoy. Plan accordingly.
The War on Drugs began in June 1971 when U.S. Pres. Richard Nixon declared drug abuse to be “public enemy number one”
https://www.britannica.com/topic/war-on-drugs
At least get your facts straight. “As a retired Peace Officer” you should know what those things, FACTS, are.
Who the fuck do they think they are?! Their sense of entitlement is disgusting and alarming! They believe that we are their community property. They have objectified us. Only beastly, predatory monsters that would be better off dead for the good of humanity would believe that they are entitled to Qualified Immunity to violate the rights of others in a cannibalistic feast and not be held accountable! Let the world see the beasts running America and working in the government! Let the savage beasts children and grandchildren see what beastly monsters their parents and grandparents are, and let their descendants see the future legacy of total predation and evil that their beastly savage parents and grandparents have foisted upon them!
The politically correct weenies are handcuffing our police. Sociopaths, terrorists, brutal thieves, and rioters want a free reign to do their dirty deeds. How many women will be happy with rapists brutalizing their victims with no repercussions? Our police keep complete chaos from being the norm. The reason for mature governance is because experience informs them that a balance is required in rules-for-police. Failure to carefully deal with law enforcement leads to hellholes like Chicago or Baltimore. It’s like being a SHOOTING GALLERY DUCK, quack, quack.
Anya Bidwell is 100% WRONG and so is the author, because qualified immunity does not entitle law enforcement to violate people’s constitutional rights at all.
“Law enforcement officers are entitled to qualified immunity when their actions do not violate a clearly established statutory or constitutional right.” – Wikipedia
Our constitutional rights have been clearly established in the constitution and its amendments.
Those that believe that they are entitled to violate constitional rights of others are guilty of Treason and those that believe that they are entitled to Qualified Immunity are committing high crimes, which is defined as an abuse of power and treason which is defined as causing injury to the sovereign, which happens to be We The People, and not We The Government, or We The Police, or We the Teachers, or We the Military, or We the Judicial Branch, or We the Executive Branch, or We the Legislative Branch, in America, and all of that has been clearly established in the constitution of the United States, which it has been clearly established they have all sworn by oath and affirmation to defend and uphold.
It has been clearly established that they are a gang of criminal psychopathic thugs and terrorists that belong in prison for high crimes and treason.
Furthermore, it was not the peaceful protesters that were committing violence, but the police in many instances, which has been fully documented.
The corrupt judges were wrong again! If they weren’t illiterate, incompetent, or corrupt, they would know that!
Sometimes I wonder if everyone that works for the government is illiterate, and the Israelis are black mailing them and telling them, We will tell everyone that you don’t even know how to read.
– Andrea Iravani
Anya Bidwell is 100% WRONG and so is the author, because qualified immunity does not entitle law enforcement to violate people’s constitutional rights at all.
“Law enforcement officers are entitled to qualified immunity when their actions do not violate a clearly established statutory or constitutional right.” – Wikipedia
Our constitutional rights have been clearly established in the constitution and its amendments.
Those that believe that they are entitled to violate constitional rights of others are guilty of Treason and those that believe that they are entitled to Qualified Immunity are committing high crimes, which is defined as an abuse of power and treason which is defined as causing injury to the sovereign, which happens to be We The People, and not We The Government, or We The Police, or We the Teachers, or We the Military, or We the Judicial Branch, or We the Executive Branch, or We the Legislative Branch, in America, and all of that has been clearly established in the constitution of the United States, which it has been clearly established they have all sworn by oath and affirmation to defend and uphold.
It has been clearly established that they are a gang of criminal psychopathic thugs and terrorists that belong in prison for high crimes and treason.
Furthermore, it was not the peaceful protesters that were committing violence, but the police in many instances, which has been fully documented.
Sometimes I wonder if everyone that works for the government is illiterate, and the Israelis are black mailing them and telling them, We will tell everyone that you don’t even know how to read, if you don’t sign this bill, and do what ever we say about the Middle East.
– Andrea Iravani
The only good lawyers, politicians, bureaucrats and cops are dead ones
This is a systemic problem that was implemented by the Democratic Party with all of the entitlement programs and free everything. As with everything else in the world there will be people that will do wrong no matter what they wear, who they work for or if they are expected to hold themselves to a higher standard. That POS that killed Floyd should have been fired long ago but was protected by the Union, which contributes to the Democratic’s and in turn receives the benefits of political power. If you want things to get better then roll up your sleeves, put in the work and set higher goals each and every day. If your sitting on your azz looking for a handout then you have no right to complain about what you get. You want to march and speak publicly, I support you, start looting and burning then you should be the first one going to jail.
It’s a hit piece on police from a globalist.
The globalist need all protections for the citizens gone – police, firearms, the constitution, etc. This has come to light as some politicians are calling for the UN army to come in and police the country.
The politicians are the true problem in the country now. Ordering officers to arrest business owners and beach goers for violating lock downs and then letting career criminals free to make room for the ones that defy their orders.
The only crime, if any, the police are guilty of is that a lot of them do not know the constitution as they should and are following the orders of these tyrants.
The media isn’t helping. They are not reporting news anymore, it’s a propaganda machine that started with Operation Mockingbird and is still in effect today. They are fanning the flames of hate, racism and police brutality, yet praising the looters, rioters and the far left.
The government is using the Hegelian Dialectic – government causes the problem, they know how the people are going to react and then they give a solution they had planned from the beginning. Don’t fall for it.
Brooklyn Sez:
This article is a wish list for both left and right wingnuts, first things first I know a thing or two about the nypd because I did 24 years and retired. 2nd im not a minority but my wife is and my kids are half so i got a stake in this too. third im not a lefty liberal and sure as hell not a righty wingnut. The problem with police departments of today is that they are MILITARIZED I can’t tell if the cops are cops or Military WTF? they wear cammo uniforms helmets Military body armor carrying M4’s. Some of these other departments including my own have their own MRAPs like why? I have been in a real world civil disturbances towards the end of my career Occupy wall street was going on I worked those demonstrations some got quite out of hand. However one thing I will say about my old job is that we never wore stupid military sh*t we rolled with what was called Hats and Bats, Riot Helmets (that looked like police helmets) and our regular issue batons. That was it. The new thing now is wearing a Sh*tload of zip ties thats because once you lock somebody up you don’t lose your handcuffs when they go through the system. The Nypd has had alot of problems with racism not too long ago the job was 75 percent caucasian, Now the numbers are about 50/50 so racism in policing is a real thing so is abuse of power thats also a real thing the above article makes 5 points about how to defang cops first is legalize drugs …Yea right sorry can’t do that but there are studies that show that instead of locking people up they should provide for more rehab, 2nd immunity or indemnification of police officers, the Police Unions are big on this and have a lot of power and say and as such flex those muscles even if a cop is wrong the union fights tooth and nail to get keep them. Local govts and police management don’t like to fight allegations in courts so they pay the lawsuits and they don’t fight the unions because they fear the cops will revolt. 3rd having cops be held accountable I agree with this one 100 percent but the system has to change in order to have a FAIR and IMPARTIAL mechanism in place to hold cops accountable otherwise they will just say F*ck it and stop policing. 4th Predatory Police practices I saw this up close and personal the whole Stop and Frisk B.S. that went on for years there were many reasons why this got out of hand but the main reason was institutionalized laziness on the part of higher ups and the need for numbers and arrests. That is what drives alot of departments arrests they feel the need to lock up everyone (mostly people of color) for any little transgression. The last point he made I’ll say this Police Departments in the U.S. have forgotten what Policing is all about, I figured out and I learned how to talk to people I worked all my carreer in minority neighborhoods and i got more by coming across as non threatning rather than with a chip on my shoulder. Lastly Sir Robert Peel the creator of the London Metropolitan Police stated the following:
in this model of policing, police officers are regarded as citizens in uniform. They exercise their powers to police their fellow citizens with the implicit consent of those fellow citizens. “Policing by consent” indicates that the legitimacy of policing in the eyes of the public is based upon a general consensus of support that follows from transparency about their powers, their integrity in exercising those powers and their accountability for doing so.
Cops of Today have forgotten the above principle.
I’ll gear this review to 2 types of people: current Zune owners who are considering an upgrade, and people trying to decide between a Zune and an iPod. (There are other players worth considering out there, like the Sony Walkman X, but I hope this gives you enough info to make an informed decision of the Zune vs players other than the iPod line as well.)