The Real War of Cops on Americans
Americans cops are at war with Americans
When Americans think of war, they think either of a conflict between two or more nation states that are shooting and bombing each other or, as in the so-called war on terror, of U.S. troops, planes and drones shooting and bombing Islamists in the Arab, Persian and African nations.
Of course, most Americans approve of the ongoing terror war — even those, like President Barack Obama, who will not call it such. Or they at least don’t disapprove of it because there are no clarion calls to end it, but there are calls to expand it to include ISIS. After all, America must right all wrongs across the globe, even if it means killing innocent women and children in the process.
And America must “spread democracy,” even if that means imposing it by force on places that do not want it. And we are ensured the fight is to keep America safe from terror attacks. Or, as in the parlance of Bush the lesser and the neocon cabal, “We’ve got to fight them over there so we don’t have to fight them here.”
The U.S. government has spent trillions of dollars and, worse, has expended thousands of American lives to make sure “we don’t have to fight them over here.” Yet Americans are as worried as ever about the possibility of a terror attack in the United States and we are constantly told the threat is greater than ever. Americans are so worried that 63 percent of them welcome the government’s snooping into their communications and banking records if it’s investigating “possible terrorist threats.”
Given the money, attention and fear invested in the war on Islamic terror, one would think U.S. streets are awash in the blood of Americans slaughtered by Islamists. But using the most expansive definition of terrorist attack possible, fewer than 30 Americans in the U.S. have been killed by Muslims since 9/11, and 13 of those occurred in one incident of “workplace violence.” If one includes both domestic and overseas attacks, the odds of an American being killed by a terrorist are about 1 in 20 million. And history has shown that most terror attacks and attempted terrorist attacks in the U.S. involved FBI-prompted patsies.
The FBI makes it a habit to seek out individuals, encourage or coerce them to break the law and provide them the plans and materials needed to carry out “terrorist” attacks — or, in some cases, let plots they know about proceed, including the first World Trade Center bombing. But another thing history has shown is that the FBI is not reliable when it comes to telling the truth. Not only does the FBI manufacture terrorists, it has a long habit of lying about and even covering up evidence in all manner of criminal cases.
So terrorism in the U.S. is an overhyped, if not manufactured, threat. Meanwhile, the very real threat to Americans posed by U.S. law enforcement is mostly ignored. And protesters calling attention to police violence are dismissed, if not denigrated, as looters and thugs, particularly by the “law and order” right.
There is no accurate count of the number of people killed by American LEOs (legally entitled to oppress). There is no national database and the FBI’s statistics are incomplete. But the website killedbypolice.net has been compiling information on shootings since 2013, and it has links to 2,235 instances of people dying at the hands of police since January of that year. Most of them were unarmed.
And police kill and maim almost without consequence. A recent Washington Post report claims that although there have been thousands of police-involved shootings since 2005, only 54 LEOs have been charged. And most of them were cleared or acquitted in the cases that have been resolved.
In other words, the simple act of obtaining state sanction and donning a badge and uniform grants LEOs the power over life and death, almost without limits. Even if the officer shoots unarmed victims in the back — which The Post found occurred in half the cases it investigated — or the police officers were found to have planted or covered-up evidence — which occurred in 10 of the 54 instances in which officers were charged — the police officer was usually cleared or given a disproportionally light punishment.
This occurred despite laws and Supreme Court rulings that an LEO could use deadly force only if he “has probable cause to believe that the suspect poses a significant threat of death or serious physical injury to the officer or others.” There are apparently a lot of timid and milquetoast people posing as LEOs for them to fear “significant threat of death or serious injury” from unarmed people fleeing them or arguing over whether they deserve arrest or lying prone and handcuffed.
LEOs aren’t held accountable because they enjoy qualified immunity; because the police, district attorneys and judges enjoy a special relationship in that they are on the same “side” in most cases; and because the American public sitting on juries has been propagandized into believing that cops are paragons of virtue who put their lives on the line in deadly situations daily to stand between the vast marauding criminal element (and Muslim terrorists) and the people.
But police have been abusing their power — and, therefore, the people they allegedly serve — for decades. The problem is that when people in the past complained of police abuse, it was rarely taken seriously — particularly when it was minorities complaining.
The “law and order” crowd usually just dismissed the complaints out of hand and took the word of the police, chalking the complaints up to the ravings of druggie, a lying thief or something worse. It took the proliferation of cellphones with video capabilities to bring their abuses to light. Hence, the efforts by police and legislators to make videography of police a crime.
Following a spate of police abuse cases reported in the mainstream media, we began highlighting them in November 2012 in a special category we called “Power of the State.” Since then, we have published dozens of accounts of innocents — often women, children, the elderly and the disabled — suffering abuse at the hands of LEOs.
Despite a drastic reduction in crime in America, particularly violent crime, LEOs are becoming increasingly militant and increasingly militarized.
They make up laws out of thin air, claiming that innocuous activities like watching or videotaping police activities — including arrests on public streets, walking in certain neighborhoods, parking on certain streets and putting trash in trash cans — are crimes. Cops have come to think of themselves as gods above the law, whose commands are to be obeyed immediately and without question. Any hesitation often leads to the “suspect” being left bleeding and broken or quivering from electricity introduced by a stun gun, or even dead from a gunshot, choking or severed spinal cord.
It doesn’t matter if the person was unable to understand the command because of a language barrier or if the person was unable to comply due to disability or defect. Officers expect immediate and complete compliance with no questions asked.
But LEOs themselves seem to have a greater problem obeying laws than most citizens, and it’s not just the public they abuse. The rate of domestic violence among LEOs is nearly twice that of average Americans. That’s because, counselors say, “One of the hallmarks of a good cop is to radiate authority and control, and in the wrong hands, those characteristics can be misused.”
In other words, conventional wisdom is that a “good cop” is one who can best intimidate the public with his “authority and control,” which sounds like express aggressive behavior.
Additionally, they have a tendency to run guns, traffic drugs, plant malware on computer evidence, sexually abuse women in their custody and drive drunk.
And being a cop is not a particularly dangerous activity, as conventional wisdom would have you believe. In fact, it’s not even in the top 10 most dangerous occupations in America. It lags behind logging, fishing, piloting, driving a truck, roofing, steel working, picking up garbage, farming, being a construction laborer and installing power lines, among others.
For police, the motto “To protect and serve,” is really all about protecting government and their own gang and serving the state as revenue collectors and enforcers. As Becky Akers told you Friday, the police is a standing army under another name, which makes it the bane of liberty.
Police power props up the state and provides cover for all its nefarious activities. That’s why government spending on police and LEO agencies continues to grow.
Police power is physical force. If you fail to file and pay your income tax, you will be introduced to the police power of the government. But it’s no longer even necessary to “break the law” to see the police power of government.
That’s the real war Americans need to be concerned about.
Originally posted on https://personalliberty.com
