Thug cops in the news

I've been characterized by the pro-bigotry crowd at Caput Penitus Culus and Texas FLDS as anti-law enforcement.  I think that's something of a mischaracterization.  I think it would be more accurate to characterize me as being strongly opposed to unlawful law enforcement.  What do I mean by that?  Here are three examples for your perusal.

Pittsburgh police Chief Nate Harper said three plainclothes officers have been reassigned during an internal investigation into the beating of an 18-year-old student violinist from the city's Creative and Performing Arts High School.

Police charged Jordan Miles, 18, with assault and resisting arrest Jan. 11 because, they said, he fought with the officers who thought a "heavy object" in his coat was a gun. It turned out to be a bottle of Mountain Dew.

Miles said he resisted because he thought the men were trying to abduct him and didn't identify themselves as police.

Miles' family and attorney said he was hit with a stun gun and hospitalized after the violent Homewood struggle during which a chunk of his hair was yanked out and a tree branch went through his gums.

"I was accused for something I never had anything to do with," said Miles, an honor student at CAPA. "I was completely innocent. They couldn't find anything."

This, unfortunately, is more the norm than you might think. If this kid had been some random gang-banger, there would have never been any newsprint "wasted" on his story. But because it was a talented honor student, the cops in question will receive a slap on the wrist. What they DESERVE is serious jail time for aggravated assault.

A different kind of unlawful law enforcement is practiced in Brooklyn.

A Brooklyn precinct is under investigation for manipulating statistics to make its cops look like better crimefighters, the Daily News has learned.

Two probes are centered around whether Bedford-Stuyvesant's 81st Precinct recorded felonies as misdemeanors and refused to take complaints from victims - all in an effort to drive down the crime rate, sources said.

And the allegations came from one of the precinct's officers.

Officer Adrian Schoolcraft shared his suspicions with the Internal Affairs Bureau and the Quality Assurance Division, the NYPD unit responsible for maintaining the integrity of crime stats.

Schoolcraft told The News the top brass are so concerned with numbers that one precinct lieutenant is known as "The Shredder" because he's often spotted destroying documents.

Refused to take complaints from victims? Whatever happened to "protect and serve"?

One usually associates fudging the numbers with companies like Arthur Anderson and Enron, NOT with the police. How many violent perpetrators are walking the streets of Brooklyn now because these corrupt jerks were more concerned with their numbers than with public safety?

Finally, there's the all-too-prevalent "cop mentality", that "us vs. them" attitude that many police have towards everyone else not wearing police blue.

An East Palo Alto police detective is taking heat in online forums for allegedly posting comments from his Facebook account that advocate shooting Open Carry gun advocates.

Detective Rod Tuason apparently made the remarks in response to a friend's status update, which joked that gun advocates who carry unloaded weapons in plain view as a political statement should start doing so in places such as Oakland, Richmond and East Palo Alto "and not limit themselves to hoity toity cities."

"Haha, we had one guy last week try to do it!" Tuason replied, referring to a Redwood City man who strolled into the Mi Pueblo Food Center in East Palo Alto on Jan. 27 with a gun on his hip. "He got proned out and reminded where he was at and that turds will jack him for his gun in a heartbeat!"

After several more comments in the thread, Tuason apparently joked that officers should shoot the advocates, who have made recent headlines throughout the Bay Area for sipping coffee at cafes and performing other everyday acts with visible weapons.

"Sounds like you had someone practicing their 2nd amendment rights last night!" Tuason wrote. "Should've pulled the AR out and prone them all out! And if one of them makes a furtive movement ... 2 weeks off!!!"

Two weeks off. The life of a human being who is simply demonstrating for his Second Amendment right to bear arms is of no importance. Only the lives of the men in blue are worthy of concern.

The arrogance is stunning. And altogether too common.

Three examples of unlawful law enforcement. And that's without any mention of the overt militarization of community police forces thanks to the War on Drugs.

If being offended by THAT kind of law enforcement makes me anti-law enforcement, so be it.