Politicians, judges, and the rest of us caught in the middle

This past holiday weekend, one of my cousins was pulled over in a drunk driving checkpoint in Florida. Not being an idiot, he was of course sober; and there was no probable cause for pulling him over, questioning him, or performing a field sobriety test.

The courts, in their infinite wisdom, have decided that this is not a violation of ones fundamental rights.

They are wrong; but they have been so wrong, so often, that this is frankly unremarkable.

A discussion about his being stopped started on his wifes facebook page, as she vented her frustration at the unjust stupidity that is represented by checkpoints.

A friend of theirs who is a cop chimed in, and the discussion got interesting (the names have been modified to protect the guilty, spelling and netspeek have been corrected, and irrelevant comments to the core conversation have been snipped):

Cousins Wife: my poor baby got stuck in a dui check point on the way home from a long day at work! =( stupid cops!

Officer Tom: I hate those pigs...always ruining everyone's fun...

Cousins Wife: Well of course not you Officer Tom

Officer Tom: The cops don't set up roadblocks unless politicians tell them to by the way. Its all good, our roadblock didn't go through.

Minarchist Chris: Yep, it's more like "stupid, constitution abusing, nonrights respecting public servants with delusions of being public masters", not "stupid cops".

Officer Tom: You've had a bad experience with a cop or two so all of them must be assholes...brilliant!

Minarchist Chris: Actually no, I generally love cops. I'm Boston Irish, and I've got literally dozens of cops in my family. I'm also a former law enforcement trainer.

I wasn't talking about cops. better than 90% of all cops are genuinely driven by their desire to serve the public, or at worst are just doing their jobs.

I was speaking of the politicians, in uniform and out, who believe that they are a separate, privileged class, and that peoples rights don't count when it comes to their desires, their need for control, or their convenience.

Those, and the small percentage of cops who have a militant "the public is the enemy" mindset (unfortunately, in my experience that mindset is growing, and current training regimes and institutional culture are reinforcing it) who enable them to become oppressive so easily.

Officer Tom: My bad... I meant "right on!

(my aside: Cops are so unused to having non-cops on their side in this sort of argument that they often get reflexively defensive)

Minarchist Chris: It doesn't matter why you become a cop. If two years on nights (or a month of court duty) doesn't cure you of whatever idealism you had, there's something wrong with you.

What matters, is why you stay a cop...

There are three reasons to stay a cop; one good, one bad, and one indifferent:

1. The pay and benefits don't suck if you know how to work the system, and your department is good about overtime.
   
   That's the indifferent. Some days it's all that puts feet on the street though, and that's important.
   
   
2. You get great satisfaction in helping people who need help, and in doing bad things to bad guys.
   
   That's the good. The one that keeps you REALLY showing up, not just retiring in place.
   
   
3. You get off on exercising power over others, and the "perks" of the blue wall.
   
   That's the bad. That's how cops become criminals.

Every cop who stays a cop, has some measure of all three motivations in them. You need it to keep going, doing that hard a job, taking those risks. Otherwise, like I said, you quit, burn out, or you just retire in place and serve out your time until you get your pensions.

The problem is when they get out of balance, and when politicians take advantage of that imbalance to further pit the police and the non-sworn public against each other for their own benefit.

Meanwhile the judges stand by, effectively making and changing law as they see fit... how are cops, or everyone else for that matter supposed to keep up?

The answer of course is, they're not. That's the way "the system" works, or rather doesn't work. That way everyone is guilty, and everyone can be controlled (Ayn Rand had a point there).

The more cops are isolated, separated, and alienated from the non-sworn public; the easier it is for politicians to get them to enforce bad laws, which give the politicians (again, in uniform and out) greater power and control over EVERYONE.

Officer Tom: Damn... I hate cops too, I swear.

Murder by Incompetence

Yesterday was the 15th anniversary of the murder of Vicki Weaver by the FBI; and the day before, was the anniversary of her sons murder by US Marshals acting in concert with the ATF.

Yes, I said murdered by the government. Not just killed, but murdered. A crime was committed; and it has never been properly redressed.

Much of the attention and blame for this crime has fallen on Lon Horiuchi, the sniper who took the shot that Killed Vicki Weaver. I won't excuse what he did (he should have known better), but he was operating on very bad information, very bad orders, and under what I would consider clearly unlawful rules of engagement.

The greater culpability for this incident lies in the US marshals who were initially on scene; and from the FBI, HRT commander Richard Rogers, SAC Eugene Glenn, and deputy directory Larry Potts; who took over the scene after Kevin Harris killed deputy marshal William Degan in self defense.

On the morning of August 21st, during a botched surveliance operation; deputy US marshal Art Roderick fired at Sammy Weaver and Kevin Harris, or at their dog striker (this is unclear); killing the dog, and drawing return defensive fire from Weaver and Harris.

Deputy marshals Roderick, Degan, Frank Norris and Larry Cooper then opened fire on Weaver and Harris. Degan shot and wounded both Weaver and Harris, at which point Harris shot back directly at Degan, killing him. In retaliation, deputy marshal Cooper then shot Sammy Weaver; killing him.

When the marshals called in the FBI, the situation they described to the FBI, was an outright lie. They informed the SAC and the HRT commander that the Weavers were radical religious fanatics, part of a white supremacist holy war cult; that all members of the family were armed and ready to fight at all times, and that they were going to kill their children and themselves rather than surrender. They also told the SAC that they had been pinned down for 12 hours by heavy small arms fire, and possibly automatic weapons; and that William Degan had been deliberately murdered.

Based on this outright lie, the FBI instituted rules of engagement to allow any adult with a weapon to be shot on sight. These ROE were clearly unlawful, and should have been rejected by the onsite agents (and a judge decided that as well later); instead HRT acted on them for a full day.

Within a few hours, the FBI chain of command knew that the marshals had lied; but they did not change the illegal rules of engagement until after Horiuchi had already fired several shots at Randy Weaver and Kevin Harris (wounding both). Horiuchis final shot at Harris missed him, and struck Vicki Weaver who was standing behind the door that Harris was entering, holding her infant child.

I believe that Lon Horiuchi was negligent in his actions that day in firing through the doorway; and he was derelict in his duty to the constitution when he accepted the unlawful rules of engagement; but he did not commit deliberate murder.

It seems clear to me however that the marshals wanted revenge for the killing of William Degan, and to cover up their own unlawful acts and incompetence. In furtherance of this, they deliberately mislead the FBI in the hopes that the Weavers would be killed, and there would be no witnesses left alive to their crimes.

There is no doubt that Larry Cooper murdered Sammy Weaver, by shooting him (under whatever circumstances), while attempting to cover up the crimes and incompeteance of he and his colleagues. Further, there is no doubt that the US marshalls lied to the FBI in order to cover up their incompetence, and possibly their crimes.

At the very least, they should be tried for manslaughter, if not second degree murder; in the deaths of Sammy and Vicki Weaver.

Additionally, SAC Glenn, SAC Rogers and dpeuty director Potts knew that the rules of engagement instituted that day were illegal, unconstitutional, and unjustified. They should never have instituted those rules; but even in so doing, once they found they had been misled by the marshals they had an absolute duty to rescind them.

They did not do so, and their incompetence and misfeasance of duty directly caused the murder of Vicki Weaver.

Given these circumstances, Lon Horiuchi has been sadled, somewhat unfairly, with the majority of the burden of these crimes. I simpyl believe this is incorrect.

Horiuchi commited negligent homicide; but I believe his chain of command showed a depraved indifference to the lives of the Weavers, based on their political beliefs; and therefore commited second degree murder, or first degree manslaughter (depending on the laws of Idaho, which I am unfamiliar with).

If I had my choice, I'd have all of those responsible before the firing squad; and I'd have no problems with my conscience pulling the hot trigger myself.

Amazing, frightening, and of course... shocking

This is both amazing in it's technical achievement, and frightening in its potential for abuse and inappropriate use.

It's the new Taser XREP (Extended Range Electronic Projectile), and its coming to your local PDs 12 ga shotguns next year.

I had two flash vids embedded here but I couldn't stop the damn things from auto playing, so heres the links instead:

Video 1: Promo Video

Video 2: Informational Video

Warning, loud auto-play and a near critical case of mallninja marketing bullshit to follow.

A Perverse Incentive

A Question was asked by a reader:

1500 SWAT raids a day.... Has the Drug War completely corrupted our legal system?

It depends on what you mean by corrupted. It is certainly corrosive to the souls of the police, and their relationship with the public they are, and must be, inextricably a part of.

I was watching the history channel, or discovery channel or some such, and they were talking about SWAT training. They mentioned 5 towns in rural Illinois I just happen to know about, as all having full time SWAT teams, equipped with fully automatic weapons, and full ninja gear etc...

As I said, I know these towns. None of them are bigger than 30,000 people. None of them have a real crime problem. The only crime issue they have is meth labs; but no more than anywhere else in the American midwest these days.

But all five towns have full time SWAT teams; and those teams existence has to be justified somehow.

Last I checked, more than 60% of all departments now had at least part time swat teams or something similar (ESU, high risk warrant squad etc...); now really, is there a need for even HALF of these teams, for a quarter of them?

I understand the need for officer safety; and how the movement of meth into rural America has changed the risks and difficulties of law enforcement for a large portion of the country; but is there any reason on this earth why a town of 24,000 people, where the only real violent crime is domestic; should have a five man full time SWAT team?

Of course not. Most of those SWAT teams didn't exist before 1994; which coincidentally is when federal funding, and equipment purchase programs were ramped up for SWAT type teams, so that local law enforcement organizations could better fight "the war on drugs".

Of course most place dont NEED a SWAT team, but almost any law enforcement organization could use more money, more training, more equipment etc... The incentive was there for federal funding to be spent, and federal equipment to be acquired; and where there's financial incentive, there will be a means created to fulfill that incentive.

Now that they are there, they need to justify their continued existence; so what used to be a normal warrant service all of a sudden ends up with 5 guys with machine guns and balaclavas busting a 90 year old womans door down in the middle of the night.

And this sort of thing is 1500 times a day all over this country. Now of course, most of those SWAT raids are on genuine bad guys (drug dealers mostly, who aren't exactly boy scouts); but some of them most definitely are not necessary, or worth the higher risk of injury or death to the general public... in fact Id wager a guess a hell of a lot of them are not.

Of course the police will say it's all about officer safety; but in reality more officers are shot on raids than in standard warrant service (and we're going to get into a correlation vs. causation issue here)... oh and the number of officers shot in any other circumstances are dwarfed by officers being shot in domestic disturbances, and traffic stops (especially felony traffic stops, which are in fact how most criminals end up getting arrested).

So, in the name of oficer safety; and of course in preventing the evidence from being flushed down the toilet; purse snatchers, and 90 year old women with joints, end up getting killed.

This is properly decried wherever it happens; but police being what they are, the blue wall goes up, defending policy and officer actions; and gets higher, and tighter; separating the police from the public they serve, ever more, with every raid.

Corruption? Not the way most people mean it. Just the perverse incentive toward the militarization of the police, and their estrangement from the public

When Police Behave Criminally

I want you to watch something:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m3GstYOIc0I

This is one of the clearest examples of criminal misuse of "less lethal" force that I have ever seen.

I watched the video; the kid shouldn’t have been tasered. No way that was a justifiable use of force. The security officer didnt use any escalation protocol, and it seems to me (and this is me talking, I’m FOR sensible profiling) to be a clear case of profiling; combined with an overreacting undertrained campus cop.

I may be wrong on this, but I believe that the UC system campus cops are in fact sworn law offficers in California; and also that in order to lawfully carry a taser in California you have to be certified in it's use, including escalation of force training.

Actually, I believe the Cal state standard uses "continuum of force" training, which is intended to emphasize the de-escalation of conflict;in addition to minimizing the use and degree of force.

The proper response to a beligerent subject is to follow a force progression/escalation protocol. They vary from organization to organization, but would typically look something like this, in escalating order of threat/response:

1. Verbal
a. Polite command
b. Strong command
c. Close Physical presence and strong command (optional)
d. Moderate physical reinforcement of command (including a hand on a shoulder or something similar, optional)

2. Physical restraint, compliance, or control technique (arm bars, wrist locks etc...)
a. Restraint of a subject by hand
b. Use of a compliance device in a restraint, compliance, or control technique (come alongs, batons used for compliance)

3. Use of direct physical force to provoke complaince through pain, with or without a device (striking with a baton, striking sensitive areas of the anatomy etc...)

4. Use of a less lethal pain complaince device such as pepper spray, stun baton, or taser (
May be used in some protocols before the use of direct physical force such as batons)

5. Use of lethal force

Now, if officer safety is ever in question, it is acceptable to progress to a higher level of response; but it did not appear that either the officer was in any way threatened; nor, other than beligerence was the victim (and yes, that's what he was), non-compliant. He was exiting the building, and reacted beligerntly to the officer putting a hand on his arm; however this is not even close to grounds for the officer to feel threatened, or to escalate their response.

They tased the guy four more times while he was on the ground, and clearly presented no threat. Even if he was beligerent, repeated tasing was inappropriate. They could have very easily subdued him (by that time there were four officers completely surrounding him) and restrained him if they believed there was really a threat.

They repeatedly tased him for refusing to stand up; when in fact many people are unable to stand after being tased, and certainly after being tased repeadetdly.

Not only that; but if you believe someone is a threat, you do not order them to stand up when you have them surrounded and subdued (that would simply give them greater opportunity to injure an officer), you have them lie flat on their stomach with their hands clear, and you restrain them.

The officers then repeatedly told the victim to stand up, and stop fighting them. At no time was the victim physically fighting back, or threatening the officers; he was merely beligerent and non-compliant.

Even if it isn’t profiling; this guy has a serious Barney Pfife problem. He shouldnt be allowed anywhere near any kind of weapon.

Some security officers are taught that Tasering isn’t all that serious; if they’re taught anything at all. They are dead wrong.

http://anarchangel.blogspot.com/2005/12/less-lethal.html

Less lethal force is never really a good option (it's there so you can avoid having to shoot someone, not simply for officer convenience); and because it’s “less lethal” or worse “non lethal”, lots of people think it’s acceptable to use it in situations that have not reached a significant level of force/compliance escalation.

Since the rise of electrical and chemical "less lethal" force response technologies and methodologies has become popularized (mainly in the last 15 years); the escalation of force beyond the verbal/simple restraint phase has skyrocketed. If this were simply because the "less lethal" technologies had given officers another option less serious than the use of a baton or a gun; then one would expect a corrseponding decrease in the use of those levels of force; however not only is there no decrease, there is a huge increase.

We grant the police a conditional monopoly in the use of legitimate force to enforce civil order; in exchange for the guarantee that they will behave lawfully, and enforce the law legitimately.

When the lawful representatives of the state excercise legitmate authority, they are protected under the law and by the full force of the state. When those agents act with no authority, or illegitmate authority, they are no longer granted the protection of the cloak of state.

These officers should be stripped of the protections offered them by the state; and should be prosecuted for assault with a deadly weapon. Quite simply, what they did was criminal; and it should be treated as such.

Yes, I know cops have a hard job. I train cops all the time, and I have quite a few cops in my family. Yes I know that they put their safety, and their wellbeing on the line every day. Yes I know they get huge amounts of stress and aggravation from the worst people in the world, who they deal with every day.

None of that excuses criminal behavior; or treating every person they meet like a criminal, or like the enemy.

The police have a monopoly on legitimate force against civil crimes; but when that force, or the authority they use that force with is illegitmate, they have commited a crime themselves; and they must be punished for it.

Quis custodiet ipso custodes?