In the wake of all the recently documented police abuses, President Obama wants to make some reforms:
WASHINGTON—In an effort to restore the public’s faith in law enforcement, President Obama made an impassioned appeal this week, calling for the installation of turret-mounted video cameras on all police tanks. “This initiative will ensure that police officers across the country will be held accountable for their actions as they pour out of an 18-ton combat vehicle in response to a routine call,” said Obama, who announced a detailed plan to allocate funding to equip every single armored personnel carrier, landmine-resistant SWAT van, and battle-ready half-track with an onboard camcorder to monitor police conduct. “If the police are forced to discharge a high-caliber, vehicle-mounted weapon in the line of duty, we’ll know why. Furthermore, this policy will discourage the misuse of shell-proof tanks in our communities.” The president added that he is hopeful that turret-mounted video cameras would help to reestablish trust between officers equipped with military-grade technology and the populations they are sworn to protect.
Oh, whoops, heh-heh, that was just a little humor from
The Onion. Here's
the real reality:
Abusive Cop Picked to Head Police Reform Commission
Philadelphia Police Chief Charles Ramsey, one of two co-chairs apppointed by President Obama to head a commission on ways to demilitarize local police, is known for leading repeated bloody and abusive crackdowns on protesters when he was Washington, D.C.’s chief a decade ago, according to a civil rights attorney who won millions in damages for 100s of citizens attacked by D.C. police....
On Monday, Obama appointed Ramsey and Laurie Robinson, a George Mason University professor of criminology, law and society, to head a commission that the president said will suggest steps that the executive branch can take to unwind the most visible aspects of America’s militarized police—its domestic use of military gear....
More than a decade ago, when Ramsey was the D.C. police chief, he led numerous crackdowns and mass arrests of protesters—starting in 2000. His most high-profile assault was in September 2002 at Pershing Park, where demonstrators protested World Bank and International Monetary Fund meetings. The police locked down the park and arrested everyone there—400 people—including journalists, legal observers and bystanders.
The Partnership for Civil Justice Fund sued and won millions for protesters. The April 2000 protest settlements totalled $13.7 million and Pershing Park/2002 settlement was $8.25 million.
Ramsay deployed the National Guard against the peaceful protesters against the IMF/World Bank in April 2000 - officers with their badges obscured beat kettled protestors with batons and flashlights, breaking noses and teeth. Police lied about it and withheld evidence. No investigation or discipline ensued.
Ramsey was present while a videographer was attacked and beaten by an undercover plainclothed officer for taping the police. No investigation or discipline ensued.
Ramsay ordered mass indiscriminate pepper-spraying of demonstrators.
Ramsay oversaw the mass false arrest of 700+ persons who were protesting peacefully and lawfully, including journalists, tourists, passersby. They were hog tied wrist to opposing ankle in stress positions and left on the floors of cells for 24 hours or more.
Those are just some of the highlights of his record. Go read the article for the rest.
Multimillion dollar settlements were awarded to protestors who sued.
Mara Verheyden-Hilliard is the Executive Director of the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund, the group that led the successful suits on behalf of the abused and mistreated protestors.
“If the president’s idea of reforming policing practices includes mass false arrests, brutality, and the eviscerating of civil rights, then Ramsey’s his man"....said Mara Verheyden-Hilliard....
"The police throughout the United States have implemented a form of paramilitary policing viewing the civilian population as a military enemy,” she said. “Once that shift happens, once they are trained to perceive the people of the United States, the residents of their cities and towns, as “enemy” targets in their sites, abuse, false arrest, brutality, and suppression of rights necessarily follows. You can see the origin of this in the modern era with the “war on drugs” in which police were sent into communities as an occupying force. The fact is that police routinely kill with impunity, sending a clear message that police command and prosecutors will do nothing to stand in the way of the most egregious act there can be.”
Verheyden-Hilliard said that only ongoing protest actions, where police tactics can be seen by the public as abusive and disproportionate, has led to reforms.
“The only successes in affecting and restraining illegal and repressive police conduct have come as a result of popular uprising and opposition and uncompromising litigation which push back and restrict police conduct,” she said. “No police force has ever ‘reformed’ itself. And Chief Ramsey is among the least capable people of changing the reality of, or even meaningfully altering, militarized policing in America. He was among those who implemented it.”
That President Obama would think it's appropriate and a good idea to appoint a person with the track record of Chief Ramsay to review and reform policing for the better is the stuff of black humor.
Amazingly, it's not just a bit of satire from The Onion but the way things are.