"If you only have a hammer, you tend to see every problem as a nail."
Abraham Maslow
First up you will need to familiarize yourself with the details of the latest in the long list of almost weekly US Trigger Happy Police Totally Over-React And Kill Someone incidents - except this time those brave boys in blue murdered (and I do use that word correctly IMHO) a 95 year old WW2 veteran.
http://articles.chicagotribune.com/...
Now follow me neath the orange razor wire as I try hard not to let the rage monkey get the better of me and pepper my post with lots of words starting with T, F and C.
I was brought up with a strict set of "Leon" type rules: - never ever attack women, kids or old people. Unless your life is in imminent danger they are sacrosanct. You protect them. Always.
Now my American chums across the great sanity divide I call The Atlantic, may I suggest its time to draw a line in the sand and say Enough!
The horror of this case is just layered like a wedding cake.
That an apparently small incident in a care home precipitated an armed police squad bursting into room of an old and infirm war veteran mob handed.
That they then tazed said infirm war veteran, despite the fact he was 95
That not satisfied with tazing him, they then shot him in the stomach at close range with a bean bag round from a 12 bore shotgun.
That said war veteran was armed with a walking stick and a shoe horn, which in the hands of a 95 year old bloke hardly constitutes an imminent or potential threat of serious harm.
That they, no doubt dressed in body armor/vests, had a sodding riot shield they were hiding behind while doing this. That sort of suggests that they were not your normal run of the mill beat cops, and were in fact some sort of heavy urban disturbance response unit.
or the real steaming curly poodle poo on the top layer
THAT THEY THEN MAKE UP SOME TOTAL BULLSH*T STORY ABOUT HIM BEING ARMED WITH A BUTCHER KNIFE TO EXCUSE KILLING HIM.
Now I don't frickin care what side of the good cop, bad cop / 2nd Amendment / left or right divide you stand on. There is no way in any sane world this should have happened, let alone in a country that portrays itself as the leader of the free world and the most developed nation in the west. No way.
I would have happily had a go at talking him down, then if that hadn't worked put on my helmet and a vest, taken a baton, and with as little force as necessary disarmed him, EVEN if he had a knife, which lets face it he didn't. And I'm damn sure that a few bruises on me, and possibly a fractured wrist on him, is a lot better than him dead and me lying my ass off to cover up the fact I murdered him.
He was an infirm 95 year old who needed a walking cane and a walker to get about. He was highly unlikely to pull of some nifty ninja stylee moves, salmon flip over my shield, kung fu my crackers with his stick and slash open my neck with a shoe horn.
This sort of police over-reaction does happen this side of the Pond as well. There was a case of this being finally determined yesterday - http://www.theguardian.com/.... See? We have the same sort of issues as well.
Thing is.... things work differently over here. Here in the UK the police forces usually get held accountable for their actions. Officers usually get disciplined or sacked. Occasionally senior heads roll. It may take time, like that case, but here our police are a hell of a lot more accountable.
Then again cops here are not trigger happy loons, are trained to use their talk before their fists, and are not armed with anything other than batons and should all else fail mace or tazers. Note that whenever mace or tazers are used they have a full investigation to face as to why they needed to use what we class as extreme force. Its not perfect or infallible by any chalk, but it is in now way comparable to the shoot em up fest for lookin at em the wrong way you have over your side of the Pond.
And if this had happened in the UK, every single officer from the ones who kicked the door in to the head of the division/force would now be looking at finding new jobs or a spell behind bars. Their faces would be plastered across the press, and they would be in hiding in fear of the public.
NOW
Like many other recent examples of police on public violence in the last year, this was not a six inch nail being driven in with a ball peen hammer.
This was a tiny tin tack being smashed to oblivion with a 12 pound sledge hammer.
I'm asking the good hearted Kossaks over there to stand up and say enough is enough.
Id like you guys in the state this murder happened in to get organised and active. Id like you to start petitions, send angry letters to your state officials, the state attorney and the governor and demand a full investigation, and that heads must roll and these swine face the music for what they did. Demand greater police accountability, greater oversight, greater transparency.
Demand justice for a 95 year old war veteran murdered by para-military bully boys.
If you live out of state, just write anyway.
That, or next memorial day when you are supposed to be honoring the memories and service of men and women who fought for your country, you damn well hang your heads in shame, and ask yourself why you stood by with your hands in your pockets whistlin' Dixie and let the murder of a brave 95 year old WW2 vet who fought in one of the worst theaters of war slide by.
John Wrana deserved better.
John fought for you, now you fight for him.
Your move guys.
Good luck.