Police Issue is a Nationwide Problem
In an incident caught on videotape and showed on youtube, Los Angeles Police Officers repeatedly beat a suspect in the face as he cries out that he could not breathe. The FBI is now investigating the incident that occurred in August.
In November at UCLA a student in the computer lab was shot with a Taser and of course this incident was caught on film. "As the student was screaming, UCPD officers repeatedly told him to stand up and said "stop fighting us." The student did not stand up as the officers requested and they shot him with the Taser at least once more." The incident horrified bystanders and is also under investigation.
Meanwhile last week in New York, a man was leaving his bachelor party at a strip club in Queens that was under police surveillance and he was shot and killed by at least 50 bullets. That matter is now under investigation.
While these incidents are under investigation and we should use caution in drawing too broad conclusions before they have gone through due process. It is important to be aware of a trend that seems to be developing, especially as we have given the federal government broader discretion in dealing with terrorists. It seems we have tacitly given approval for state and local law enforcement to infringe on the rights of citizens.
All of these incidents should concern us because here in Davis, there have been multiple complaints against the police department. The most serious is one that has not been publicized yet, it involved a June beating of an 20-year-old college student of Iraqi decent. He was beaten outside of his apartment after a neighbors wife called the police following an altercation. The punch line if you will is that it was the student's friend who was involved in the altercation, which was a mild verbal disagreement.
While the level of police misconduct has not risen to the level of those incidents in Los Angeles or New York, it should be a cause for concern. The hiring of an ombudsman is really only the first step.
Every week, I hear of a new racial profiling incident. Racial profiling is a particularly insidious problem because it is difficult to detect, nearly impossible to prove, but it ends up undermining the trust of entire segments of the community.
Busted--The Citizen's Guide to Surviving Police Encounters
A somewhat unlikely source sent me this youtube video. It is a 46-minute piece done by Ira Glasser, former head of the national ACLU and it gives citizens a guide for how to handle encounters with the police both in terms of asserting your rights during such encounters, but also how you should respond to various types of situations. I highly recommend that you click on this site when you have a chance to watch it and bookmark it for future reference.
I'm going to give the link here but eventually put it on the side-bar as a permanent link.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3NmC5wHfCdM
In an incident caught on videotape and showed on youtube, Los Angeles Police Officers repeatedly beat a suspect in the face as he cries out that he could not breathe. The FBI is now investigating the incident that occurred in August.
In November at UCLA a student in the computer lab was shot with a Taser and of course this incident was caught on film. "As the student was screaming, UCPD officers repeatedly told him to stand up and said "stop fighting us." The student did not stand up as the officers requested and they shot him with the Taser at least once more." The incident horrified bystanders and is also under investigation.
Meanwhile last week in New York, a man was leaving his bachelor party at a strip club in Queens that was under police surveillance and he was shot and killed by at least 50 bullets. That matter is now under investigation.
While these incidents are under investigation and we should use caution in drawing too broad conclusions before they have gone through due process. It is important to be aware of a trend that seems to be developing, especially as we have given the federal government broader discretion in dealing with terrorists. It seems we have tacitly given approval for state and local law enforcement to infringe on the rights of citizens.
All of these incidents should concern us because here in Davis, there have been multiple complaints against the police department. The most serious is one that has not been publicized yet, it involved a June beating of an 20-year-old college student of Iraqi decent. He was beaten outside of his apartment after a neighbors wife called the police following an altercation. The punch line if you will is that it was the student's friend who was involved in the altercation, which was a mild verbal disagreement.
While the level of police misconduct has not risen to the level of those incidents in Los Angeles or New York, it should be a cause for concern. The hiring of an ombudsman is really only the first step.
Every week, I hear of a new racial profiling incident. Racial profiling is a particularly insidious problem because it is difficult to detect, nearly impossible to prove, but it ends up undermining the trust of entire segments of the community.
Busted--The Citizen's Guide to Surviving Police Encounters
A somewhat unlikely source sent me this youtube video. It is a 46-minute piece done by Ira Glasser, former head of the national ACLU and it gives citizens a guide for how to handle encounters with the police both in terms of asserting your rights during such encounters, but also how you should respond to various types of situations. I highly recommend that you click on this site when you have a chance to watch it and bookmark it for future reference.
I'm going to give the link here but eventually put it on the side-bar as a permanent link.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3NmC5wHfCdM
