Enforcers category archive
Secret(ive) Police 0
Earlier this week I saw a report asserting that the Trump administration was, for all intents and purposes, deploying a force of what the commentator referred to as “brown shirts” in Portland, Oregon.
I chose to view it with several grains of salt, thinking it might be a little over the top.
I’m beginning to think that perhaps I dismissed it too cavalierly.
Immunity Impunity
0
At the Des Moines Register, Reka Basu recounts tales of the enforcers. Here’s a tiny bit:
Ahlgren’s own injuries still had him in a knee brace five days later: He twisted an ankle and burst veins in his shins and right palm from falling onto concrete. . . .
“The cops were showing no mercy. They were literally chasing us on foot,” he said. “A few of us fell, and they (police) started yelling, ‘You bastards better run or you’ll get it worse!’”
Asked why he thinks he was spared arrest, Ahlgren said simply: “I’m white.”
Just read it. I guarantee it will ruin your evening.
“Bad Apples” 0
Writing at the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Elijah Todd-Walden finds that the “few bad apples” notion regarding rogue cops is of little comfort. A snippet:
Perhaps the most apt comment I’ve heard about “the few bad apples on the police force” theory of police brutality came in a recent episode of The Bob Cesca Show (I can’t remember precisely which one).
Suppose, asked one of the participants, that, after a pilot flew an airliner into the side of a mountain, the airline announced that it was just one of a few bad apples among its crews?
No Questions Asked 0
Badtux wonders why good cops are so willing to protect bad cops.
The Independent Variable 0
My local rag investigates why some protests turn violent and others do not.
Their findings may surprise you.
Self-Incrimination 0
Leonard Pitts, Jr., looks back at the events of the past two weeks and concludes
Yet, here’s the startling truth: No one has made a stronger case against the police than the police.
Follow the link for his reasoning.
Immunity Impunity
0
Yet another tiresome report of police violence, with a “justification” which is, quite frankly, as shaky as a house of straw.
