Abolish Violent and Corrupt Police Forces
ANGLO AMERICA, 7 Mar 2022
Michael J. Talmo - TRANSCEND Media Service
2 Mar 2022 – All over this world police forces physically abuse, rob, and kill innocent people on a daily basis. These appalling facts have been brought to light through court cases, news reports, videos, civil rights groups, special government commissions, scientific studies, and even other cops. Nevertheless, politicians continue to call for more police to fight a plethora of social ills while police departments continue to hide the brutality of their fellow officers behind the proverbial “blue wall of silence.”
How brutal the police are depends on the country. Some places are worse than others. But data reported by CNN in a June 2020 article shows that cops in my country, the US, are among the worst.
Dr. Paul Craig Roberts, former Assistant Secretary of the Treasury For Economic Policy under Ronald Reagan and former associate editor of the “Wall Street Journal” summed it up best in a 2013 article:
“At the state and local level every American faces brutal armed psychopaths known as the police. The ‘law and order’ conservatives and the ‘compassionate’ liberals stand silent while police psychopaths brutalize children and grand mothers, murder double amputees in wheelchairs, break into the wrong homes, murder the family dogs, and terrify the occupants, pointing their automatic assault weapons in the faces of small children… If a person Googles police brutality videos, he will discover that there are more videos that can be watched in a lifetime.”
Dr. Roberts isn’t exaggerating. Here are some examples:
March 14, 2005: a five-year-old girl was arrested and handcuffed by three cops for throwing a tantrum at her school in St. Petersburg, Fla. The whole disgusting incident along with the child’s screams were captured on video. If you acted up in class when I went to school you were sent to the principal’s office, given detention, or your parents were called. This and similar acts of child abuse are not unique events as reported in a 2013 article published in Mother Jones.
November 22, 2014: Tamir Rice, age 12, was killed by policeman Timothy Loehmann in Cleveland Ohio. Loehmann and training officer Frank Garmback were responding to a call about a guy pointing a gun at people. Turns out the weapon was a pellet gun and was tucked in Rice’s waistband when the cops pulled up, Loehmann got out the car and shot the kid. As the video shows, there was no reason for the cop to draw his gun. Loehmann was fired, but no charges were brought against him. It also turned out that Loehmann had previously resigned from another police department rather than get fired. The other police department was going to fire him because he lacked the emotional stability to be a police officer. In June 2020, the peer review journal Nature reported that “officers who are fired for misconduct are frequently rehired.” Obviously, a practice that needs to end.
Cops shooting family dogs have become an epidemic according to a 2019 article in Counterpunch. It doesn’t have to be a vicious dog either. Friendly dogs and even little dogs are all fair game. For example, a sheriff’s deputy shot a Chihuahua, a tiny dog that usually weighs less than five pounds, for barking too much. The dog survived, but her jaw was shattered and had to eat out of a feeding tube. This story was also reported in the Washington Post. In this case the cop was fired, but usually nothing happens because cops can claim, as they do with humans, that they felt threatened so they had to shoot. The courts have upheld this nonsensical reasoning. Why do cops think that their safety is more important than the safety of the public? Imagine if firefighters thought this way and refused to rescue people from burning buildings.
July 5, 2011: Kelly Thomas, a homeless man diagnosed with schizophrenia, was beaten to death by three cops in Fullerton, CA. It was later described as “one of the worst beatings in (US) history.” The bones in Thomas’ face were broken, he choked on his own blood, and compression of the thorax made it impossible for him to breathe normally which deprived his brain of oxygen. He died five days later. The cops were charged with second degree murder and involuntary manslaughter—they were found not guilty in spite of a video of the beating which can be watched on CNN’s website.
Just the facts
A 2016 study in the American Journal of Public Health reported that each year 100,000 people are treated in hospital emergency departments for nonfatal injuries inflicted by police and from 2005-2012, 1,552 people were killed by police in 16 states alone. But as reported by the BBC back in 2016, “Official data on the number of people killed by the police turns out to be remarkably unreliable.” And grossly underreported according to a 2021 study published in The Lancet.
Armies and other factions like constables, slave patrols in the South, the Texas Rangers etc. have always performed some police actions over the centuries. But the first modern police force as we know it today, the “Bobbies,” were created in England by Sir Robert Peel (1788-1850) in 1829. Bobbie is a nickname for Robert. In 1838 my country created the first police force in Boston MA. In 1845 New York City created the NYPD. Today, virtually every recognized country has a police force.
The US has the world’s third largest police force behind China and India. There are over 900,000 cops in about 18,000 law enforcement agencies nationwide. That’s not even counting the several hundred thousand civilian personnel who also work in these agencies.
We have municipal police, county police, state police, federal police, transit police, college campus police, elementary, middle and high school police, and housing police. We have cops patrolling in cars, vans, trucks, and helicopters. We have cops on motorcycles, on horseback, on boats, on bicycles, and on foot. But do our gargantuan in-your-face-all-over-the-place police forces reduce crime?
For a one year period, 1972-1973, a study on the effectiveness of police presence reducing crime was conducted in Kansas City, Missouri. It was called the “Kansas City preventive patrol experiment.” The study can be read in detail here. It involved three different police beats in the city. One area received the normal level of police patrols, in another police patrols were doubled—sometimes tripled. In the third area routine police patrols were eliminated entirely. Officers only went into the area when called. Result: no difference in crime rates in any of the three sections of the city. The presence of police and the lack of police didn’t matter.
A November 2021 study by Washington University School of Law concluded:
“Day-to-day policing has remarkably little to do with crime, despite public perception to the contrary. The vast majority of police time is spent on noncriminal functions such as health, transportation, and public order…A recent survey of several cities who self-reported time spent by police revealed that only four percent of police time was spent working on violent crime. The bulk of police time was spent on calls about noncriminal matters…Most individuals who commit offenses are never held accountable for the crimes they commit.”
If cops spend so little time fighting crime why do we have so many of them? Why are cops at road construction sites just standing around or sitting in their cars? Why are cops used to direct traffic—especially on quieter streets? An elderly retired person with a handheld sign could do this. Why do cops usually show up for medical emergencies? Why are SWAT teams, originally created in the 1960s to handle violent crisis situations like like hostage taking and mass shootings, breaking into homes and businesses (no-knock raids) to bust up poker games, terrorize doctors for practicing alternative medicine, crack down on unlicensed barber shops, and serve petty warrants? SWAT raids have skyrocketed from around 3,000 per year in 1980 to as many as 80,000 a year in 2015.
The way I see it, one of the reasons for cops doing things which civilians could be doing and enforcing victimless crime laws is that we have too many cops so they have to invent stuff for them to do in order to justify their phony baloney jobs. But the main reason is to hide their true nature.
What the police really are
The police are first and foremost a standing army—they are professional soldiers.
It doesn’t matter if a cop is black or white, male or female. Once they put on that badge race and gender disappear. They become automatons of the state—trained to obey and trained to kill. The problem isn’t, as some argue, that there aren’t enough minority and women officers, or that not enough policemen come from the communities they work in, or that their education and training is inadequate: the problem is the police force itself. Like all professional soldiers, cops develop an us vs. them mentality. Due to power that they wield which places them above and separate from the people, they become ticking time bombs waiting to explode.
Cops have always been brutal, corrupt, and oppressive. Anyone who doesn’t know this is either ignorant of history or delusional. To believe that a few reforms will stop police forces from behaving like every standing army that has ever existed throughout history is magical thinking.
In many ways our modern police forces are like the Praetorian Guard of the ancient Roman Empire. Praetorian Guardsmen didn’t fight in wars like the regular army nor endure its hardships. Instead, they were the Emperor’s private henchmen, carrying out whatever whims he dictated. But eventually the Emperors also feared them. During their 300 year reign of terror they assassinated 13 Roman Emperors and in some cases auctioned off the imperial throne to the highest bidder. The power of the Emperor depended on their good will.
In the same way, today’s cops enforce a litany of unjust laws and regulations that serve the interests of corrupt politicians and the special interest groups that finance them. Policemen are the hired thugs of the rich and powerful who rule this world. Wealthy people have always needed large military/police forces to protect what they have from the have-nots.
Police forces do not serve the interests of the poor and middle-class. Performing some protective functions doesn’t change the fact that their real purpose is to stifle dissent, to keep us in line, not to protect us. In cases like Warren v. District of Columbia, 1981 and Town of Castle Rock v. Gonzales, 2005, the courts ruled that the police are under no obligation to protect anyone. “… the duty to provide public services is owed to the public at large.” For individual citizens, “no specific legal duty exists.”
My country’s Founding Fathers knew what it was like to be oppressed by a standing army which is why many of them were opposed to creating one. In addition to the great principles of liberty enumerated in the Declaration of Independence, the Founding Fathers also listed their grievances against the King of England which includes condemnation of the British troops who occupied the colonies. It states:
“He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance…He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws… For quartering large bodies of troops among us: For protecting them, by mock trial, from punishment for any murders which they should commit on the inhabitants of these states:”
Sounds a like our modern police forces doesn’t it?
There are some who argue that the police aren’t soldiers and thus are not a standing army. In the 2011 case of Mitchell v. City of Henderson in Nevada, Police demanded that Mitchell allow them to use his home for a stakeout regarding domestic violence at a neighbor’s house. Mitchell refused and the police broke down his door, abused him and his dog, and arrested him and his father. The Mitchells rightly argued that the police violated the Third Amendment to the US Constitution which prohibits the quartering of soldiers without the owner’s consent. But Federal District Judge Andrew Gordon ruled that policemen are not soldiers and thus did not violate the Third Amendment.
Judge Gordon’s ruling is beyond absurd. Most cops wear uniforms, they have military ranks like sergeant and captain, and since the 1990s have been armed to the teeth with military equipment supplied free of charge by the Department of Defense and the Department of Homeland Security. This kind of militarization doesn’t only apply to American cops, but to police forces worldwide. In addition to tanks, attack drones, grenade launchers, etc., modern police in many parts of the world are clad in an array of body armor that makes them look like Mutant Ninja Turtles. So, obviously, the police are soldiers. A standing army is a standing army no matter what you call it. No amount of Orwellian “DoubleSpeak” can change the obvious.
In 1776, American Founding Father Samuel Adams (1722-1802) warned us about “DoubleSpeak” long before George Orwell (1903-1950) did in his book Nineteen Eighty-Four:
“How strangely will the Tools of a Tyrant pervert the plain Meaning of Words!”
Reforming the police won’t work
Better police training and putting limits on their power will save lives. There is no doubt about that.
One of the biggest problems with American cops is that they are trained to shoot first and ask questions later. According to a 2015 article in the Daily Kos, one of the architects of this mentality is Dr. William J. Lewinski, a psychologist and founder of Force Science Institute who trains police forces nationwide. He also charges a thousand dollars an hour to appear in court as an expert witness for cops who kill people. The Daily Kos reported that he will justify police killing people even if they were unarmed and even if they were shot in the back.
The ideology of people like Lewinski has caused the death of countless innocent people, such as 14-year-old Valentina Orellana-Peralta last December in a Los Angeles, CA clothing store. The New York Post reported that LAPD cops accidentally killed Valentina because a guy was running amok in the store assaulting customers with a bicycle lock. That’s all he had. Instead of just disarming the guy, the stupid cops open fire killing the guy which was completely unnecessary. And even more tragic, a stray bullet hit Valentina in the chest while she and her mother were hiding in a dressing room.
In contrast, here is a 2011 video of British police disarming a man with a machete without guns and without killing him.
Another problem with the police is that they are rarely punished for abusing and killing people as reported in a January 2021 article by the American Bar Association and an August 2020 report by Amnesty International. One of the reasons for this are disastrous court rulings that give them way too much leeway as well as special rights like “qualified immunity.” Under this US Supreme Court concoction cops and other government agents are shielded from liability even when they break the law.
Do away with qualified immunity. Federal and state laws need to be passed that will put cops in jail for 10-20 years without parole if they physically abuse or accidentally kill someone. If they intentionally murder someone they should get life in prison without parole.
If a cop even verbally abuses someone they should lose their job. And any cop who arrests or threatens a citizen for filming him or her should go to prison for at least 10 years. Don’t forget, cops have always abused people. But it is only since cell phone cameras that so many of their egregious acts of tyranny have been exposed for all the world to see.
And ponder this: Why do we call policemen “officer?” Does that make the rest of us privates? It would seem so. As is the case in the military, we are not permitted to disobey the officer, strike the officer, talk back to the officer, or to question the officer’s authority. If we do, we can be arrested, beaten, jailed, and executed. This must be changed. We must do away with laws like resisting arrest and eluding which allows the police to trump up charges. We also need to demilitarize them and take away their army surplus equipment and weapons of war.
In spite of all I just said, reforming the police won’t work because putting restraints on them goes out the window when they are weaponized against the people and execute their primary function: oppressing and terrorizing the civilian population. This danger will always remain as long as police forces exist.
Since COVID-19 none of us are safe
Traditionally, police forces have been used to control poor people and slaves and to target minority groups for abuse and harassment. But since COVID-19 all bets are off. It’s open season on everyone. Under the New World Order if globalists like Klaus Schwab get their way all of us will be poor and slaves. To quote Schwab’s 2015 World Economic Forum video:
“You’ll own nothing. And you’ll be happy.”
In his 2007 Oscar-nominated documentary film “Sicko” which compared America’s broken for-profit healthcare system with other countries, Michael Moore showed how Europeans went out and protested when they didn’t like something. Moore declared that unlike the US, European governments were afraid of the people. How wrong he was. European governments merely blunted the sword of tyranny. But with COVID-19 it has been sharpened and police all over Europe have bared their sadistic fangs as can be seen here, here, and here.
There is an alternative
Are there alternatives to modern police forces? The answer is yes. The first step is to realize that there are too many police and too many laws. We need to get rid of all the unnecessary laws that clutter our statutes books, clog our courts, overcrowd our prisons, and ruin our economy. Since too many cops are violent personalities to begin with, the more power they have and the more laws they enforce, the more violent confrontations with civilians will occur. This is even more blatantly obvious today due to the COVID-19 restrictions.
Take Australia where COVID restrictions have been particularly draconian. Here is a video of a cop choking a woman on the street for not wearing a mask. Here is another video of a man being pinned to the ground by a whole gang of cops for not wearing a mask. Brave, aren’t they?
And let’s not forget about what happened last month in Canada after Prime Minister Justin Trudeau invoked the Emergencies Act against the trucker protest in Ottawa. Videos of police abusing protesters can be seen here and here. Without a standing army, Trudeau probably would have had to back off and end the vaccine mandates.
So, why not replace modern police forces with a citizen police force–a militia that serves for 30 days and then rotates back into their regular jobs. It would be like jury duty. But service would be voluntary and rigorous training would be provided so police academies would remain. But the training methods would have to change to better serve the public, such as emphasizing peaceful resolution rather than arrest and punishment for every petty offense. And a big part of their training should be to refuse to obey any orders or laws that are illegal and or unconstitutional. They shouldn’t be carrying guns nor walk around in body armor, but have access to them if needed as is the case with the Bobbies in England along with other countries where the police don’t carry guns.
A small squad of full time detectives could remain as well as county sheriffs with a small staff to investigate and handle murders, robberies, and other types of crimes like arson and fraud. But they cannot be used by politicians to stifle dissent so it is important that their numbers be kept small and what they can and cannot do clearly defined.
A militia has always been considered inferior to professional full time soldiers. But since cops deal with civilians and don’t fight in wars, a militia would be far superior when it comes to law enforcement. They are also less likely to develop the us vs them mentality of professional soldiers, get drunk with power, nor blindly obey oppressive orders.
When large groups of people exercise their First Amendment rights to peacefully protest against government polices they should just be there to keep things peaceful rather than obey the orders of government officials. If rioting occurs the National Guard which is mostly made up of part time soldiers can handle it.
Other situations that involve domestic violence, people with mental health issues, homelessness, and substance abuse could be handled by “trained professional emergency response teams.” As reported in a 2020 article in Detroit Michigan’s WDIV Local 4 News. Unlike cops, who are trained to arrest and punish, these trained professionals would get people the help and protection that they need.
However, since some people can’t handle having any kind of power even for a little while, the laws and controls I mentioned previously still need to be put in place.
The Preamble of my country’s Constitution says that one of its purposes is to “establish Justice.” One of the ways to do this is to replace full time state and federal prosecutors with private lawyers who, like a citizen police force, would serve for 30 days and then rotate back into their regular practice. This would avoid the cozy relationship full time prosecutors have with cops and would put the emphasis on justice instead of winning cases to get ahead politically. And in Grand Jury proceedings defense attorneys should always be allowed to participate. Under the current closed system prosecutors can manipulate jurors to the point where, as the saying goes, it’s possible to “indict a ham sandwich.”
For those who think what I’m suggesting wouldn’t work, step back and look at the big picture. Don’t get locked into the idea that there is only one way to do things. I know how difficult this can be. Lots of people have family and friends who are cops myself included. I grew up with positive images of cops as portrayed on television like Sheriff Andy Taylor, Officer Joe Bolton, and officers Reed and Malloy of Adam-12. Then there are the movies that idealize violent rogue cops like Dirty Harry. All of these factors along with believing that the cops are there to protect them combined with constant media hype about the fear of crime makes juries unwilling to convict cops even when the crimes they commit are captured on video. Don’t give in to fear and prejudice folks. Don’t hero worship cops. See them for what they really are.
Never forget
More than anything else, COVID-19 has demonstrated that the biggest mistake this planet ever made was creating standing armies to function as police forces. They have become a cancer on democracy, a festering sore that is eating away our freedom, a putrid mass of corruption that sees the public as mere objects to be pushed around, abused, and exploited.
Obviously, there are good policemen out there who save lives and don’t abuse their authority. But I have come to the inescapable conclusion that the existence of a massive standing army that has nothing better to do than harass people for the most minor infractions and that stands ready to enforce any law no matter how unjust is inherently evil. Such a military institution must have a dehumanizing and brutalizing effect on all who participate in it. No one’s life, liberty or property is safe as long as these horrible armies exist.
But understand this: in an imperfect world such as ours there are no ideal solutions—there are only choices between lesser evils. No matter how hard we try, we can’t get rid of all the idiots and psychopaths in power. All we can do is minimizing the damage that they can inflict. But they will always be with us, lurking in the shadows, spinning their spider web of deceit, always trying to get around protecting the rights of the people, waiting for the right moment, the right opportunity to strike. We must always keep a watchful eye on them and never let down our guard if we want to maintain our freedom.
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Michael J. Talmo has been a professional writer for over 40 years and is strongly committed to the protection of civil liberties. He also did three music videos on COVID-19: The Masker Mash, COVID Vaccine Man, and The Corona Globalists. He can be reached at michaeltalmo@aol.com.
Tags: Anglo America, Direct violence, Militarized police, Police, Police State, Police brutality, Structural violence, USA
This article originally appeared on Transcend Media Service (TMS) on 7 Mar 2022.
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