Tag: Police

I’ve About Had Enough!

It seems that the American people have lots to say about the killings in routine traffic stops….lots to say…..but that is as far as it goes….talk and as the old saying goes ‘talk is cheap’.

This last trial as it was waiting a verdict another young black man was killed not 10 miles away from the courthouse….the verdict will change nothing….do you comprehend the term ‘NOTHING’?

All the words typed by me and others and all the words uttered by so-called pundit and experts means NOTHING….again does that word mean anything to you?

For example while I was typing this draft….

Body camera footage and 911 audio released late Friday appeared to show that an unidentified Virginia deputy mistook a cordless house phone held by a Black man for a gun before the deputy shot him repeatedly, per the AP. Family members said Isaiah Brown, 32, was in intensive care with 10 bullet wounds following the shooting outside a home in Spotsylvania County early Wednesday, WRC-TV reported. The body camera video shows the deputy arriving at the scene and yelling at Brown to show his hands. The deputy then yells, “drop the gun,” multiple times and appears to say over his radio, “he’s got a gun to his head.” The deputy then yells, “stop walking towards me, stop walking towards me” and “stop, stop” before firing at least seven shots.

The deputy had earlier given Brown a ride home after his car broke down. At some point later, 911 was called. Isaiah Brown is heard on the call saying his brother won’t let him into his mother’s room in the house. Brown then says, “alright, give me the gun” to which his brother is heard in the background saying, “no.” The dispatcher asks what’s going on, and Brown replied “I’m about to kill my brother.” The dispatcher says “don’t kill your brother,” and asks Brown multiple times if he’s armed. He says no. The deputy arrived shortly after and can be heard yelling at Brown on the 911 audio. After the shots are fired, the deputy is heard rendering aid to Brown and instructing the brother to get a first aid kit out of his patrol vehicle. It’s unclear whether the deputy knew Brown told the dispatcher he wasn’t armed. The deputy has been placed on administrative leave.

Nothing will change because the culture remains.

The police culture needs to change….not reformed…..reformed does nothing to prevent these types of killings from occurring……

Lots of ink has been given to the verdict and what it means.

It means that a murderer was convicted not an indictment of the police…..the police is the problem and no one wants to tackle the necessity for a cultural change.

Right now the story in the media is the verdict and the aftermath….but that will soon wane as the story line gets pushed off the front page so to speak.

But why is this festering cancer of police killings allowed to continue?

This article was written while the Chauvin trial was in process…..

Police officers have long disputed that they treat people of color differently based on race despite available historical, statistical and anecdotal evidence showing the opposite, as my colleague Perry Bacon Jr. reported last year. While we don’t have a ton of data on the political views of police officers, a 2016 survey from the Pew Research Center of 8,000 police officers nationwide found that 67 percent believed the deaths of Black people during police encounters were isolated incidents, compared with only 31 percent who saw it as signs of a broader problem. This was the exact opposite of how the general public felt: Thirty-nine percent of U.S. adults said they thought the killings were isolated incidents versus 60 percent who felt it was indicative of a broader problem. And Black Americans were even more likely than white Americans to say police killings were a sign of a broader problem, 79 percent to 54 percent. An NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist poll found last year that nearly half of Black Americans — 48 percent — have very little to no confidence at all that local police treat Black and white people the same; just 12 percent of white Americans had the same view. 

The pressure on local lawmakers to enact lasting change is fleeting, depending on the news cycle and current events. Even at the height of calls for police reform, getting bills turned into laws takes time, said Rashawn Ray, a sociology professor at the University of Maryland, College Park, who studies police-civilian relation. Ray told me there was an uptick in calls for police-related reforms at both the local, state and federal levels after Floyd’s death since the Black Lives Matter movement became mainstream. “[Black Lives Matter] wasn’t a global movement in 2014,” he said, referring to the year Michael Brown was fatally shot by a white police officer in Ferguson, Missouri. “People have become more aware of what’s happening. … The movement for Black lives and the attention to mistreatment by police has led to this moment.”

How Views On Black Lives Matter Have Changed — And Why That Makes Police Reform So Hard

Even if a federal law is passed (not going to happen in this Congress) there still leaves all the states and their states rights BS that need to change as well.

Will it?

Not in my lifetime.

If the people are not willing to force change….then maybe the best thing to do is STFU!

More reading for this subject…..

Is It Police Reform….Or Defund….Or Abolition?

Police Reform?

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Police Reform?

Chauvin is guilty….guilty…..guilty…..

And now the call arises yet again for police reform…..

There has been a couple of years that the call has gone out for more police reform to try and curtail the rising incidents of killings by the police…..a subject I have given my thoughts….

Is It Police Reform….Or Defund….Or Abolition?

Biden And Police Reform

Both parties have jumped on the bandwagon on the recent verdict….

Lawmakers from both parties are expressing satisfaction with Tuesday’s guilty verdict of former police officer Derek Chauvin for murder and manslaughter in the killing of George Floyd, the AP reports. Democratic Rep. Maxine Waters says: “I’m not celebrating, I’m relieved.” Sen. Tim Scott, the chamber’s only Black Republican, says he is thankful for a verdict that shows “our justice system continues to become more just.” Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock says he hopes the verdict will let “people who have seen this trauma over and over again” know the nation’s laws can give them equal protection.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is expressing thanks to Floyd “for sacrificing your life for justice.” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer says Congress must keep working on legislation “to bring meaningful change” to police departments. Former President Barack Obama says the conviction was correct but only one step in the fight for justice. In a statement, Obama said true justice requires Americans to understand that “Black Americans are being treated differently every day” and that millions live in fear that their next encounter with law enforcement could be their last. “Today, a jury did the right thing,” he tweeted. “But true justice requires much more.”

This spin will do little to change the climate in this country.

The Dems have tried (I will give them their props for that) with the George Floyd bill…..in case you have not heard of read about this attempt at police reform then I have link for you…..https://www.congress.gov/116/bills/hr7120/BILLS-116hr7120pcs.pdf

For god sake read it before you form some ill-advised opinion!

But for lazy fools here is the short version…..

George Floyd Justice in Policing Act, a reform bill that would ban chokeholds and alter so-called qualified immunity for law enforcement, which would make it easier to pursue claims of police misconduct.

The 220-212 vote, mostly along party lines, came nine months after Floyd, a 46-year-old Black man, was killed by Minneapolis police officers last spring.

The wide-ranging legislation would also ban no-knock warrants in certain cases, mandate data collection on police encounters, prohibit racial and religious profiling and redirect funding to community-based policing programs.

This is an excellent bill and an excellent attempt but sadly it will go nowhere in the US Senate….the domain of of cowards and worthless leaders…..

We need to be realistic….nothing will change….and here is why…..

How Views On Black Lives Matter Have Changed — And Why That Makes Police Reform So Hard

While the country watched and waited for the verdict in the Chauvin murder trial…..the police commit murder yet again…..

Minutes before the guilty verdicts were announced in Derek Chauvin’s trial Tuesday, a Black teen girl was shot dead by a police officer in Columbus, Ohio. Bodycam video was released within hours of the death of Ma’Khia Bryant, 16, Heavy reports, but it is very difficult to watch. Police responded after someone called 911 to report they were being threatened, the AP reports. The video shows a physical altercation involving a number of people; Bryant is shown swinging a knife at one person, then after that person falls to the ground, she charges another person and pins them against a car while apparently still holding the knife, though some say she dropped it before the officer shot. Bystanders in the video can be heard reacting to the shooting, with one man telling the officer, “She’s just a kid.” A steak knife or kitchen knife fell to the ground next to her body. She was pronounced dead at a hospital.

As I said NOTHING has changed!

We desperately need police reform….sadly I just do not see that happening any time soon.

The one caveat is the trial of the 3 officers that stood by….their conviction could start the process of reform.

Turn The Page!

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Stop Showing Those Videos

I am writing this in opposition to an op-ed…..

Allissa Richardson writing for Vox stating that we need to stop showing the videos of killings of black/brown people by the police……

Allissa Richardson once thought videos showing police brutality would bring justice. Proving to everyone what people of color encounter with police would bring change. Richardson has changed her mind, she writes in an essay on Vox, after repeatedly seeing George Floyd die on television. The practice invites a victim’s last moments to be broken down by the public and a jury, then preserved online for viewing anytime, often without the family’s consent. Now she wonders why it ever seemed necessary to document the killings. “Why were Black and brown people forced to pre-litigate their own murder trials in this way?” she writes. “Why was it necessary to form a counternarrative to the old stereotype of Black and brown folks’ criminality? Why did we ever need to produce a parallel storyline to an official police report?”

The practice only reinforces white supremacy, Richardson writes, reminding everyone of the protections police officers are afforded and the fate of people of color who object to this social order. She calls for suspending the airing of the videos online and on TV unless the family agrees they can be shown. That could prompt journalists to look into the systemic issues leading to the deaths instead of the exact second when a 13-year-old about to be killed dropped a gun. If we believe people of color, we can eliminate the “need to play this game of video empathy before justice,” says Richardson, who teaches journalism at USC. “We have enough proof,” she writes. “We have enough pain. What we don’t have is reform.” You can read the full piece here.

As I stated in the beginning…..I disagree with the premise…..

I do not think that the outcome would have been the same without the video.

I will agree that the MSM does have a tendency to beat the viewer about the head with them…..and until there is more accountability for the violence and death committed by the police the videos are needed.

I would love your thoughts.

Turn The Page!

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Guilty! Guilty! Guilty!

The post is for all those that live under a rock.

The jury is in and the fate of Officer Chauvin is in!

Former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin learned his fate as a tense nation watched Tuesday. The jury found Chauvin guilty on all three counts he was charged with in the May 25 death of George Floyd—second-degree unintentional murder, third-degree murder, and second-degree manslaughter. The most serious charge, second-degree murder, carries a maximum sentence of 40 years in prison, NBC reports. The judge ordered Chauvin remanded to custody until a sentencing hearing in approximately eight weeks. The 45-year-old’s bail was immediately revoked and he was taken away in handcuffs, reports the AP.

Outside the heavily guarded court building in Minneapolis, there were cheers and chants of “All three counts” from the crowd as the verdicts were read, the New York Times reports. CNN reports that jurors deliberated for four hours after closing arguments were delivered Monday and resumed deliberations at 9am ET today. The court was notified Tuesday afternoon that they had reached a verdict.

Reactions of relief…..

Derek Chauvin showed little emotion as the three guilty verdicts against him in the death of George Floyd were read out Tuesday, but there was jubilation outside the Minneapolis court building. The AP reports that there were cheers among hundreds of people gathered in a nearby park and people flooded downtown streets, some waving banners as drivers honked their horns. Philonise Floyd, one of Floyd’s brothers, was in the courtroom and hugged prosecutor Jerry Blackwell, the Star Tribune reports. More:

  • “Painfully earned justice.” “Painfully earned justice has arrived for George Floyd’s family and the community here in Minneapolis, but today’s verdict goes far beyond this city and has significant implications for the country and even the world. Justice for Black America is justice for all of America,” Floyd family attorney Ben Crump said in a prepared statement after Chauvin was found guilty of murder and manslaughter. Crump said the verdict is “a turning point in American history for accountability of law enforcement and sends a clear message we hope is heard clearly in every city and every state.”
  • AG praises community members. CNN reports that Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison praised the “simple yet profound acts of courage” of those who recorded Chauvin putting his knee on Floyd’s neck for more than nine minutes. “What happened on that street was wrong,” Ellison said. “We owe them our gratitude for fulfilling their civic duty and for their courage in telling the truth.”
  • “One important step.” Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz were among numerous leaders who welcomed the verdict but said much work remains to be done, the Washington Post reports. The verdict “won’t change the fact that George Floyd’s family has been rendered incomplete,” Walz said, but it “marks an important step in our pursuit of racial justice in Minneapolis—one important step on a much longer journey.”
  • Floyd’s girlfriend: “Thank God for this moment.” George Floyd’s girlfriend, Courteney Ross, called the decision a “moment to celebrate” before the fight for racial justice resumes, the Guardian reports. “Floyd was one man,” she said. “George Floyd is a movement.”
  • Police federation speaks out. “There are no winners in this case, and we respect the jury’s decision,” the Police Officers Federation of Minneapolis said in a statement after the former officer was found guilty, per the Star Tribune. “We need the political pandering to stop and the race-baiting of elected officials to stop.”

Even Pres. Biden has stepped up with a speech…..

The verdict against Derek Chauvin “can be a moment of significant change,” President Biden said in a White House speech Tuesday, hours after a jury found the former Minneapolis police officer guilty of murder and manslaughter in the death of George Floyd. The Black man’s death “was a murder in the full light of day and it ripped the blinders off for the whole world to see” systemic racism and “the knee on the neck of justice for Black Americans,” Biden said, per CNN. Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris, and first lady Jill Biden called Floyd’s family moments after the verdict, reports the AP. “Nothing is going to make it all better, but at least now there is some justice,” he said in video of the call tweeted by attorney Ben Crump. “We’re all so relieved.”

Biden and Harris both urged Congress to pass the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act, Politico reports. Biden described the decision in the Chauvin case as “much too rare” and said “it took a unique and extraordinary convergence of factors”—including bystander video of the killing and police willing to testify against a former officer—”for the judicial system to deliver a just, just basic accountability.” Chauvin will be sentenced at a hearing in around eight weeks. He faces a maximum sentence of 40 years in prison on the most serious charge and federal charges are still possible, the Washington Post reports. In a statement Wednesday, Attorney General Merrick Garland said the jury had “fulfilled its civic duty” after the trial on state charges. He said the federal civil rights investigation is “ongoing.”

So said them all!

Yes it is good news….but sadly this will probably change nothing.

Turn The Page!

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

New 06 January Riot Report

Lots has been written and reported about the breach of the Capitol by the rabid mob of overweight in-bred Trump supporters…..and the reports are not finished…..a new one of the policing of the crowd has been released….

For me this report is disturbing on several levels….

A new report from the Capitol Police force’s internal investigator says that even though the force had advance warnings about the Jan. 6 riot at the US Capitol, officers were told not to use their most powerful tools for crowd-control. The New York Times calls the watchdog report “the most devastating account to date of the lapses and miscalculations” surrounding the attack. The 104-page document from inspector general Michael A. Bolton will be addressed during a House Administration Committee hearing Thursday. It reveals that the Civil Disturbance Unit was instructed not to use tools like stun grenades to disperse the mob. Per NPR, it also reports they received “cumbersome” protective gear and riot shields that shattered upon impact due to having been stored improperly or simply being too old.

This despite the fact that, as the report reveals, the warnings in the lead-up to Jan. 6 were more clear than previously thought. “Unlike previous postelection protests, the targets of the pro-Trump supporters are not necessarily the counterprotesters as they were previously, but rather Congress itself is the target on the 6th,” a threat assessment sent three days before the siege read. Yet, the report says, officers were woefully ill-prepared to handle the attack due to intelligence breakdowns and discrepancies and poor leadership decisions. In addition, some members of the CDU had not undergone the mandatory annual training in years, and some critical equipment was in short supply.

Let me get this right…..

There were a handful of DC police on hand for a mob of thousands….and for a group of black protesters there is hundreds of cops and national guard…..is that equal response?

Don’t give me the excuse about some vandalism possibilities…..what do you think those overweight in-bred morons did to the Capitol?

Once again we see the inequality in this nation.

What will it take for this country to start waking up to the cancer of bigotry that is creeping slowly through our society and destroying piece by piece the very fabric of this nation?

I wanted to give my readers the pdf of the document but since it is restricted the best I can do is a short pdf for them to read….

Click to access HHRG-117-HA00-Wstate-BoltonM-20210415-SD003.pdf

Read the 4 pages carefully and then look at other protests and then tell me what you see.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Biden And Police Reform

Yet more shootings and deaths of black people it is a never ending story for the media.

First of all he (Biden) promised to limit the amount of military grade stuff….and yet Instead, police are on track to get more military hardware under Biden than they did under Trump…

Did you read that?

MORE military hardware than under Trump…..that promise went down the toilet.

There is an attempt to reign in the runaway police incidents…..

The George Floyd Act……HR120…the George Floyd Justice In Policing Act……

This bill addresses a wide range of policies and issues regarding policing practices and law enforcement accountability. It includes measures to increase accountability for law enforcement misconduct, to enhance transparency and data collection, and to eliminate discriminatory policing practices.

The bill facilitates federal enforcement of constitutional violations (e.g., excessive use of force) by state and local law enforcement. Among other things, it does the following:

  • lowers the criminal intent standard—from willful to knowing or reckless—to convict a law enforcement officer for misconduct in a federal prosecution,
  • limits qualified immunity as a defense to liability in a private civil action against a law enforcement officer or state correctional officer, and
  • authorizes the Department of Justice to issue subpoenas in investigations of police departments for a pattern or practice of discrimination.

The bill also creates a national registry—the National Police Misconduct Registry—to compile data on complaints and records of police misconduct.

It establishes a framework to prohibit racial profiling at the federal, state, and local levels.

The bill establishes new requirements for law enforcement officers and agencies, including to report data on use-of-force incidents, to obtain training on implicit bias and racial profiling, and to wear body cameras.

If you would like to familiarize yourself with the scope of this bill….then I can help with that….

https://www.congress.gov/116/crpt/hrpt434/CRPT-116hrpt434.pdf

This bill passed the House and now it has to contend with the gutless, spineless cowards in the US Senate….and we know just how that will go now don’t we?

Biden also talked about a Police Oversight Commission……establishment of a police oversight commission in his first 100 days was one of President Biden’s campaign promises, the administration now says that such a commission would be unnecessary given the amount of existing research on police practices.

  • Instead, the White House wants to focus its energy on passing police reform legislation.

What they’re saying: “Based on close, respectful consultation with partners in the civil rights community, the administration made the considered judgment that a police commission, at this time, would not be the most effective way to deliver on our top priority in this area, which is to sign the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act into law,” Susan Rice, director of the Domestic Policy Council, told Politico.

  • “This matter is much too urgent for delay, and Congress is by far the more appropriate venue to consider changes in law regarding police accountability,” said Wade Henderson, president of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights.
  • Civil rights groups had also expressed concerns that an ongoing research project by a White House commission could be used as an excuse to defer passing legislation by lawmakers reluctant to support police reform, per Politico.

Well they have decide to throw this idea down the toilet…..and focus on reform…..

Focus all you want….the Senate will prevent any and all reform from ever seeing the light of success.

So we will continue to have the police doing what they always do…..they choose the gun over rational thought…..more people will die and the cycle of deaths, protests, and more deaths will continue.

Turn The Page!

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Why Is There No Accountability?

This goes back many many years….ever wondered why when police kill someone they seldom pay for their action? (Yes I know not all the shootings are for no reason so cool your goddamn jets and read the post)

981: the number of people in the US shot and killed by police in 2020.

That is right….about 2% of all police killings come with a penalty for their action….

Ever wonder why? (I ask again)

In the US, police almost never face serious criminal charges for an on-duty shooting or killing.

Since 2005, 126 police officers have been arrested for murder or manslaughter due to an on-duty shooting, according to data from Philip Matthew Stinson, a criminal justice expert at Bowling Green State University who has been tracking the data for years. That amounts to fewer than eight prosecutions a year.

About 1,000 fatal police shootings are reported each year in the US — so the arrest rate is around 1 percent, never higher than 2 percent. Some, perhaps most, shootings are justified. But the number of police officers prosecuted “seems extremely low to me,” Stinson told me. “In my opinion, it’s got to be that more of the fatal shootings are unjustified.”

Of those 126 officers, just 44 were convicted (with 31 cases still pending). Many of those convictions came on lesser charges: Just seven officers have been convicted of murder in police shootings since 2005, with their prison sentences ranging from 81 months to life. The remaining 37 were convicted on charges ranging from manslaughter to official misconduct, in some cases serving no prison time.

After the police shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, in August 2014, as the Black Lives Matter movement grew more prominent, there was an uptick in prosecutions: From 2005 to 2014, about five police officers were prosecuted a year. Starting with 2015, the average is up to roughly 13 a year — meaning cops are now prosecuted in less than 2 percent of fatal shootings, up from less than 1 percent. And convictions have increased from fewer than three a year before 2015 to more than three since 2015.

But that’s still a tiny fraction of fatal police shootings. “It’s very low,” Stinson said. As for the increase in prosecution numbers: “I don’t see systemic change.”

https://www.vox.com/21497089/police-prosecutions-black-lives-matter-breonna-taylor-george-floyd

Sadly this will never cease for the people we elect do not care about the justice they preach…..

There are ideas to improve things (not that they will ever be enacted)…..https://lobotero.com/2020/06/08/8-point-plan-to-end-police-brutality/

Every American should be appalled at the amount of police violence that goes unchecked….but that would not fir the pathetic narrative they want us to believe.

There is a bill in Congress that would make all allegations public…..

State, local, and federal governments have spent billions of dollars over the past decade settling police misconduct cases, which include everything from deadly shootings to neglect. For example, the Louisville Police Department paid out $12 million to the family of Breonna Taylor, who was killed by police in her home in March.

But most settlements don’t make the news and law enforcement agencies are not uniformly required to make that information publicly available.

As a result, taxpayers in many localities are left to their own devices to ascertain how much of their money goes towards police settlements, and to what degree state and local government budgets are impacted by the payments is unclear. Also often obscured are important details about the people involved — what happens to the officers who commit misconduct, particularly when cases don’t receive national attention, and who the people affected by negative police action are.

https://www.vox.com/22174400/cost-police-misconduct-act-beyer-allegations-settlements-public

Let’s get behind this bill to make accountability mean something.

Be Smart!

Learn Stuff!

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Closing Thought–09Feb21

With the protests these days there has been a turn for law enforcement and the protesters as well….

We all have heard the stories about the police handling of the protests….well there is a new twist to these events….

When people took to the streets this year to protest racial injustice and police brutality against Black people, they faced a repressive, violent response from local police and federal agents. Some of these agents arrived with militarized uniforms, riot gear, and weapons, but, notably, no visible name labels, badges, or even insignia marking their government agency. Congress just put a stop to this corrosive and undemocratic secrecy, requiring federal agents to identify themselves.

Tucked inside the National Defense Authorization Act (H.R. 6395), which just became law, is a new requirement for federal military and civilian law enforcement personnel involved in the federal government’s response to a “civil disturbance” to wear visible identification of themselves and the name of the government entity employing them. That’s good news, because requiring such identification should be a no-brainer in a democracy. When government employees are interacting with members of the public and exercising government authority, such as the power to arrest people, the public should have the right to know who the employees are and which agency employs them.

Furthermore, when government personnel engage in wrongdoing, such as attacking protesters, one of the first steps in holding them accountable is knowing who they are. It’s no surprise that rights-violating law enforcement would want to obscure their name plate and badge number before committing some unethical or even illegal act. Impeding transparency blocks oversight and accountability.

https://www.aclu.org/news/free-speech/new-law-requires-federal-agents-to-identify-themselves-to-protesters/

Will be interesting to see how they find to circumvent this new law.

Leran Stuff!

Know Stuff!

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

How Could This Happen?

That seems to be the larger question surrounding the police line breach by pro-Trump protesters in and around the Capitol building.

We can blame the president and his sycophants for egging the protests on….but what about the breach of the police line?

The US Capitol was stormed by a pro-President Trump mob Wednesday in the first mass breach of the building since British soldiers burned it in 1814—and a lot of people are asking how it was able to happen. The Capitol Police force is being accused of failing to anticipate the breach, though former Boston police commissioner Ed Davis blames “a lack of political will to control an attempted insurrection,” USA Today reports. “What happened here is a colossal failure, and I believe it’s a colossal political failure, not on the part of the police,” he says. “They were outnumbered and overrun.” The mob stormed the building, forcing lawmakers into hiding, after Trump spoke at a nearby rally and urged supporters to march to the Capitol. At least 14 police officers were injured in the violence. More:

  • Former chief is mystified. Kim Dine, chief of the Capitol Police from 2012 to 2016, says he was surprised to see that people were allowed to gather on the Capitol steps before they pushed forward and overwhelmed police—and that they weren’t arrested as soon as they entered the building. “It’s like watching a real-life horror movie. I mean, we train and plan and budget every day, basically, to have this not happen, Dine tells the Washington Post. “How it happened, I can’t figure that out.” A video that went viral appears to show officers actually opening a barricade to allow protesters to move closer to the building.
  • There was plenty of warning. While some law enforcement experts say it is difficult to tell when a protest could become a riot, there was plenty of warning that violence was likely on Wednesday, with Trump himself declaring that the day would be “wild,” the New York Times reports. For weeks ahead of the date, members of online “Stop the Steal” groups discussed tactics, weapons, and referred to “occupying” the Capitol.
  • How it began. Politico reports that while most Trump supporters had gathered for Trump’s speech at the Ellipse, small groups started gathering near the Capitol from around 9am, though fences kept them at a distance from the building. The crowd grew to tens of thousands after Trump’s speech and hundreds, then thousands, pressed forward after supporters broke down metal barricades.
  • A “stunning failure.” Ryan Cooper at the Week calls the breach a “stunning failure” and notes that there is “no doubt whatsoever that if, say, the Black Panthers tried something like this, dozens of people would now be dead, and hundreds injured.” “This crowd probably didn’t think they would get anywhere near as far as they did, but they will keep pushing until someone stops them,” he writes. “In this case, the Capitol Police have proved they are not ready to defend the legislature of the American people.”

The larger question…..why did the police stand down during the rush of protesters?

Politico reported that a current Metro D.C. officer in a public Facebook post claimed that off-duty police officers and military members were among the rioters and that they used their badges and I.D. cards to help compromise security. “If these people can storm the Capitol building with no regard to punishment, you have to wonder how much they abuse their powers when they put on their uniforms,” the cop wrote.

In an interview in New York magazine, 49-year-old Trump supporter Darinna Thompson from Pennsylvania, noted the congenial attitude police took towards fascist insurrectionists inside the Capitol, telling her interviewer, “…you should go in there, it’s beautiful. I thanked them for their hospitality; most of them are on our side, the Capitol Police.”

A reporter for the New York Times who was inside the Capitol at the time it was breached questioned a cop as to why they weren’t attempting to expel the protesters. The cop replied, “We’ve just got to let them do their thing now.”

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2021/01/08/coup-j08.html

Reality says that this response to the protesters….is unequal to the responses to BLM protests……where were the massive amount of troops/police or the combat gear or the tanks and armored vehicles?

Yes, I feel that an in-depth investigation is needed.

Let the resignations begin.

Three top security officials at the Capitol have resigned following widespread criticism of the lack of preparedness blamed for Wednesday’s breach. Capitol Police Chief Steven Sund has resigned effective Jan. 16, meaning he will be gone before President-elect Joe Biden’s inauguration, Politico reports. Michael Stenger, the Senate sergeant-at-arms, has been forced out by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. “Today I requested and received the resignation of Michael Stenger, the Senate Sergeant at Arms and Doorkeeper, effective immediately,” McConnell said in a statement Thursday night, per the Hill. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said earlier Thursday that he planned to fire Stenger if the sergeant-at-arms was still in his post when he becomes majority leader on Jan. 20.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Thursday that House Sergeant-at-Arms Paul Irving had also submitted his resignation. Lawmakers criticized the lack of planning but praised rank-and-file officers. “The Capitol Police I was around did an amazing job under difficult circumstances,” Democratic Rep. Mike Quigley told CNN. “My concern wasn’t with how valiant the Capitol Police were. It was that an hour before the debate started, I looked at the throngs of people surrounding different sections of the Capitol and said, we don’t have enough security.” GOP Sen. Lindsey Graham said the response should have involved warning shots and lethal force when the building was breached. “How could they fail so miserably? We’re 20 years from 9/11,” he said, per Politico. “Yesterday they could have blown the building up. They could have killed us all. They could have destroyed the government.”

Any people involved including police and service members need to to charged and prosecuted….and if a stand down order was issued that person needs to lose the job and prosecuted for aiding and abetting the commission of a crime and if convicted should be imprisoned for the duration of the sentence.

I have nothing but contempt for the police and their lack of response during the protests.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Those Killings By Police

I have written many times about the deaths caused by the police mostly against people of color and how that can be eliminated….for one stop equipping the police with military weapons……that could go s long way at solving this murder problem of people of color.

Why would I say that?

There is a body of proof that illustrates the PDsm that get military equipment have a higher kill ratio of the public than those that do not get the equipment from the DoD.

Americans have seen it time and again in recent months on the nightly news: Protesters in the streets confronted by local police officers carrying assault rifles, some atop armored vehicles, looking more like soldiers than public servants.

Much of that equipment has trickled down to police departments from a controversial Defense Department initiative known as the 1033 program, a 30-year-old federal initiative that provides a way for the military to dispose of surplus equipment by sending it to local police.

…

The results paint a troubling picture: The more equipment a department receives, the more people are shot and killed, even after accounting for violent crime, race, income, drug use and population.

Only 7% of Georgia’s law enforcement agencies received surplus military gear at any time over the 10 years, but those agencies accounted for 17% of the 261 people shot and killed by police.

https://www.military.com/daily-news/2020/10/09/police-killings-more-likely-agencies-get-military-gear-data-shows.html

Instead of basically giving this equipment away why cannot the DoD sell it to Third World countries that could use it for their own defense and the US could recoup a bit of the cash it spent funding the development of this equipment?

Just A Though!

For those inquiring minds……further reading will fill any gaps….

https://lobotero.com/2018/09/07/closing-thought-07sep18/

https://lobotero.com/2020/07/21/is-it-police-reform-or-defund-or-abolition/

https://lobotero.com/2020/06/24/de-fund-the-police/

There is more….but it will take some interest if you would like to search IST…..

Time for the Police to return to their motto of “protect and serve” and leave the fascistic BS of “punish and enslave” to the garbage heap of history.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”