To paraphrase a chant by Occupy participants in various parts of the country: 'We don't see no riot here, take off your riot gear.'
I studied Criminal Justice at the graduate level for a year back in the 70's, and though I eventually to go into business then high school teaching, I have followed with interest developments in policing in the US and elsewhere.
At some point in Austin, TX the city began hiring only police officers with some college experience to better deal with the higher than average education city population. Community policing came into being. The department assigned officers fulltime act as community liason, and others to talk to kids about drugs and gangs.
At some point my wife and I began reading Tony Hillerman's series of police fiction books set in NM, AZ, and the Hopi and Navaho lands. Have you read them? Hillerman's tales gives one a chance for empathy of the job of reservation police, and his perspective on cultural aspects of policing between Native Americans, state and local police, and the FBI.
Here in Santa Fe, NM the Police have beev exemplary in their dealings with our Occupy.
But in reading Occupy stories here at Dailykos over the last month, and seeing what clearly appears to be abusive police tactics and use of violence has really shown contrast with other cities.
Last night I posted a diary asking for our Democratic leadership to call for a Justice Department civil rights investigation of those police departments. Today my wife pointed me to an Op-Ed featured in Truthout :
Lessons of a Police Chief: Militarization Is a Mistake
Wednesday 16 November 2011
by: Norm Stamper, Yes! Magazine | Op-Ed
Stamper was the Police Chief in Seattle during the World Trade demonstrations back in 1999.
###
Chief Stamper's well written article discusses the WTO protest in a way that gives perspective to all that police must think about in order to balance first amendment protections with public safety. He also admits to making mistakes during that time and goes on to make a very strong case for major changes in our nation's police forces.
Here's a clip:
The paramilitary bureaucracy and the culture it engenders—a black-and-white world in which police unions serve above all to protect the brotherhood—is worse today than it was in the 1990s. Such agencies inevitably view protesters as the enemy. And young people, poor people and people of color will forever experience the institution as an abusive, militaristic force—not just during demonstrations but every day, in neighborhoods across the country.
Much of the problem is rooted in a rigid command-and-control hierarchy based on the military model. American police forces are beholden to archaic internal systems of authority whose rules emphasize bureaucratic regulations over conduct on the streets. An officer’s hair length, the shine on his shoes and the condition of his car are more important than whether he treats a burglary victim or a sex worker with dignity and respect. In the interest of “discipline,” too many police bosses treat their frontline officers as dependent children, which helps explain why many of them behave more like juvenile delinquents than mature, competent professionals. It also helps to explain why persistent, patterned misconduct, including racism, sexism, homophobia, brutality, perjury and corruption, do not go away, no matter how many blue-ribbon panels are commissioned or how much training is provided.
External political factors are also to blame, such as the continuing madness of the drug war. Last year police arrested 1.6 million nonviolent drug offenders. In New York City alone almost 50,000 people (overwhelmingly black, Latino or poor) were busted for possession of small amounts of marijuana—some of it, we have recently learned, planted by narcotics officers. The counterproductive response to 9/11, in which the federal government began providing military equipment and training even to some of the smallest rural departments, has fueled the militarization of police forces. Everyday policing is characterized by a SWAT mentality, every other 911 call a military mission. What emerges is a picture of a vital public-safety institution perpetually at war with its own people. The tragic results—raids gone bad, wrong houses hit, innocent people and family pets shot and killed by police—are chronicled in Radley Balko’s excellent 2006 report Overkill: The Rise of Paramilitary Police Raids in America.
Even as police officers help to safeguard the power and profits of the 1 percent, police officers are part of the 99 percent.
I challenge those whose first reaction to all the horrible images we have been seeing is to paint all police with the broad brush of brutality to take a few and read the Stamper op ed.
I really believe we have been witness to an epidemic overreach by police forces in some cities.
The Republicans are fine with all this use of force, it benefits their buddies the 1%. Surely some Democrats must as well.
However, after seeing more blood shed today in cities across the country, I an more convinced than ever that we should call our Democratic leaders and find some who will stand up and insist on civil rights investigations, and also work for the de-militarization of our police forces along the lines suggested by Stamper.
You?
7:51 PM PT: Ready for some action? Catskill Julie in the comments encourages kossacks to call the Civil Rights Commission and lists all the numbers including regional offices! Here's what suggests:
" I Absolutely agree. Civil Rights Commission (3+ / 0-)
Where is the Civil Rights Commission
? Can't individuals make complaints?
Congress has oversight powers. Call your Reps and Sens and demand they hold hearings on excessive police violence and repression of the First Amendment rights of citizens.
Make some noise.
U.S. Commission on Civil Rights"
Click here for the full comment with numbers:
http://www.dailykos.com/...