Used to be that the saying was celebrate with impunity, but we've moved past that now. Now, it's just "celebrate impunity". The nod (surprise) is to William Norman Grigg, who regales us with the tale of folk hero Officer Christopher Humphreys.
Folk hero? Uh, well, he sure seems to be a folk hero among his law-enforcement brethren,at least.
Taylor is an officer with the Portland Police Bureau, and his column was intended to explain why he -- along with several hundred others -- took part in a protest march and rally outside Portland's City Hall in defense of Officer Chris Humphreys.
...Sgt. Scott Westermann, capo of the Portland police union, insists that Humphreys has always "exemplified everything one could imagine a police officer should be." That is to say, all cops should be Christopher Humphreys. Which would mean, of course, that there would be nothing wrong with all detainees ending up like James Chasse.
That is to say, dead. Humphreys and two other officers chased down the 145-pound, unarmed Chasse (who suffers suffered from schizophrenia) and viciously beat and Tased him:
The official report on Chasse's arrest described the cause of death as "broad-based .... blunt-force chest trauma" consistent with an impact in which the victim was slammed against a hard surface with a body on top of him -- in short, with being "pancaked."
...After being beaten to within an inch of his life, Chasse was taken to jail. He slipped that final inch en route to the hospital -- not in an ambulance, mind you, but bound hand and foot in the back of a police car.
Nearly two hours had elapsed between the beating and Chasse's death, much of it wasted at the local jail. Detention officers, after taking a good look at the victim, refused to book him into the jail, demanding that he be taken to a hospital instead. Had he received immediate medical help, Chasse might still be alive. An ambulance was available on-site after the arrest.
Gee, what do you suppose Chasse did to warrant being chased down by an officially sanctioned pack of attackers, tackled, electrocuted and bludgeoned to death? What clear and present danger to public safety compelled this drastic an action?
Chasse's "offense" was public urination.
Oh come on now, you say, surely there's some part of the story--some extenuating circumstance--that would cast Humphreys in a better light, or at least exonerate him of any sort of wrongdoing. Right?
Well, sure. There always is, no matter how inhumanly atrocious things may seem. Always. (Haven't you noticed that yet?) We should just put aside that this is hardly the first time Humphreys has--ahem--gone a little overboard with the application of "enhanced compliance" techniques. We should put aside this chilling statement he made about the man he was in the process of killing at the time:
"I've never seen anybody look at me like that with the sheer terror in their eyes," Humphreys recalled.
Put it all aside, and hear the sanctimonious reproach you've heard a thousand times before: those guys have a dangerous job, and it's not your place to question it, you ungrateful peasant. They're there to protect and serve.
Protect and serve who? A man who was not hurting anyone is now dead because a pack of enforcers descended upon him for pissing in an unapproved area, and BEAT HIM TO DEATH rather than let him escape "compliance". Considering Humphreys' "recollection", it's not that farfetched to suggest that Chasse may have known just exactly what was going on--that he was going to die--and simply figured he had nothing left to lose.
Given how f**king common this kind of thing has become--the aggressing, the tackling, the beating, the Tasing, the murdering, the exonerating (remember now, "everything one could imagine a police officer should be") --how is that not a perfectly rational decision?
Comments
Good article Kevin. have you noticed that the words "To Protect and Serve" are absent from police cruisers? An ominous sign of the attitude prevelant in the police agencies. I was a cop (eastcoast) for 1-1/2 years, and I know that it's a "Us against Them" thing. Cops go to cop cafes, cop bars, hang with other cops, and consider US perps that haven't been caught yet. From the moment a cadet enters the academy, he/she is ingrained with the mentality of superiority. There are some great websites out there that keep an eye on cops. I wrote an article titled "knock, Knock, yer dead" about Swat teams..give it aread..
Sissy boys when ganged up together spend an inordinate amount of time and energy proving they aren't sissy boys. However they always do it when they have an unbeatable advantage over a helpless person. The rest of the time they run away just like sissy boys.
One need look no further than the South Central riots for the most complete look, but it is by no means the only time we have seen it. And we will see it again. Look at all the paranoia they exhibit in the name of "officer safety". Sissy boys.
You can tell a lot about a person by who their heroes are. The cops who are supporting the thuggish murderer are thuggish murderers themselves.
I have related on my blog a very disturbing conversation I had with someone who was in training for "law enforcement". Yes, he was absolutely being taught that "rights" didn't exist unless cops decided they did, and that eveyone was guilty; it was up to him to figure out what they were guilty of. At that moment I KNEW there would never be any more "good cops" among the new ones.
Thanks, Franke. That appears to be a useful article. I noticed that you make references to the redoubtable Radley Balko; if you're not already familiar with David Codrea's work as well, you may want to become familiar with his "Only Ones" files which cover some of the same ground. Depressing, but important work--since certainly nobody in any sort of official position has any reason, whatever, to call attention to the broken system they represent.
I've got David's "War on Guns" blog linked in my "Liberty Writers" section; you can go there and search the blog for the words "Only Ones", if you want--but you wouldn't have to work that hard. It is rare that a single full screen of the WoG blog, at any given instant, does not have an "Only Ones" link in it already. That's telling. (At this writing a Google search of the WoG blog returns just over four thousand hits for "Only Ones".)
cops are just trained zogling tools of zog. the police force stopped being there to protect and serve and has became militarized since the late 80's it has went down hill ever since.
5 words when dealing with cops. I HAVE NOTHING TO SAY.
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