Cop Week in DC

To me, this sounds like one more reason to be glad I live as far away from DC as I can. (Thanks Bman!)
cd

*Fuzz Follies*
*by Becky Akers
*
Seems DC has survived another “National Police Week.” I’m trying to
decide whether that’s good or bad. From Tuesday, May 8, through Wednesday, May 16
, “tens of thousands” of cops from around the country partied in the nation’s capitol.
Naturally, they drank. A lot. But that didn’t stop them from climbing
behind the wheel to cruise dark streets with sirens blaring. They gunned
motorcycles and skirled bagpipes till 3 AM, yelled, fought, and
generally broke laws they force the rest of us to follow. Their excuse
for this annual rioting is that by annoying, inconveniencing, and even
terrifying DC’s civilians, they commemorate officers killed in the line
of duty. Well, why not? Those cops likely annoyed, inconvenienced and
terrified folks while they were alive.
Alas, after several sleepless nights, some citizens ran short of
sympathy for the grieving survivors. They naïvely complained to the
District’s police, who responded by joining the fun. One canny taxpayer
finally videotaped the lawlessness for
youtube.com. This embarrassed DC’s police chief into taking stern
measures: she posted fliers asking the drunks to play nice. No doubt
that had ’em trembling in their jackboots.
National Police Week has plagued us since 1962, when a “Joint Resolution
… authorize[d] the President to
proclaim May 15 of each year as Peace Officers Memorial Day and the
calendar week of each year during which such May 15 occurs as Police
Week.” We already pay these petty tyrants and bullies, but Leviathan
wants us to kiss their butts, too:
“*/Whereas/* the police officers of America have worked devotedly
and selflessly in behalf of the people of this Nation, regardless of
the peril or hazard to themselves…”
Oh, right, and all those benefits, overtime pay, early retirement with
lifelong pension, meals extorted from restaurateurs, and drugs swiped
from the evidence lab have nothing to do with it.
“… */Whereas/* these officers have safeguarded the lives and
property of their fellow Americans…”
Poppycock. By law, cops don’t have to “safeguard” anything. Attorney and
author Richard Stevens emphasizes,
“/[Cops]
don’t even have to come when you call. /In most states the government
and police owe no legal duty to protect individual citizens from
criminal attack. The District of Columbia’s highest court spelled out
plainly the ‘fundamental principle that a government and its agents are
under no general duty to provide public services, such as police
protection, to any particular individual citizen.’”
But most Americans blindly believe that cops protect us from criminals.
In reality, cops protect the State from us. That’s been their purpose
since the first police departments were organized in the early
nineteenth century. Prior to that, kings relied on their armies to fight
their enemies, foreign or domestic; witness the Redcoats patrolling
colonial Boston. Then in 1812, George III’s Chief Secretary for Ireland
created the “Peace
Preservation Police” to subdue Irish peasants upset at the British
government’s stranglehold. Nor has that purpose shifted over the
centuries. Cops still keep muttering serfs from rising against Their Rulers:
“*/…Whereas /*by the enforcement of our laws, these same officers
have given our country internal freedom from fear of the violence
and civil disorder that is presently affecting other nations…”
Yeah, especially when they’re liquored up.
“…*/Whereas /*these men and women by their patriotic service…”
I don’t know about you, but subjugating one’s fellow citizens isn’t
exactly my definition of “patriotic service.”
“…and their dedicated efforts have earned the gratitude of the
Republic…”
Or at least of its leaders.
And so cops annually invade DC. They raise many a bottle of Bud to those
who “paid the ultimate sacrifice “;
during the preceding year – all 160 of them. That small number is the
nation’s annual average of cops who die in the line of duty. Has been
for years. About half are shot; the rest might arguably be excluded from
this figure because they perish in car crashes.
We can only envy such low fatalities since cops kill many times that
number of civilians each year. And “justifiably,” too: though it’s
“murder” when a citizen kills a cop, it’s “justifiable homicide” when
they kill us. A report from the US Department of Justice
contains this stunner:
“the use of deadly force against a police officer is almost never
justified, while the use of deadly force by police often is…
[K]illings by police are referred to as ‘justifiable homicides,’ and the
persons that police kill are referred to as ‘felons.’” What handy logic!
Cops kill felons who are felons because cops killed them. “Police
justifiably kill on average nearly 400 felons each year.”
That estimate is low. It’s also unreliable. Despite a 1994 law ordering
cops to report /all /shootings
,
precincts “voluntarily” report only “justified” killings to the FBI. A
neat trick, but you have to work for Leviathan to get away with it: when
we murder, it’s reported. And “felons” are merely the beginning of the
casualties. What about the innocent bystanders these reckless drivers
and poor marksmen
slaughter? Or their murderous “mistakes,” like 92-year-old Kathryn
Johnston of Atlanta or bridegroom Sean Bell of New York City?
Dead
civilians might as well be roadkill. Their deaths literally don’t count.
While cops drown their sorrows over their fallen fellows, let decent
folk honor the fallen felons. It’s easy enough: just understand who the
real criminals are.