The long history behind police murders

Police in this country have always served other agendas than the ones the U.S.  government claims publicly.  Ironically (like many other negative things in American society ), the banking institutions and the entrenched wealthy were directly responsible for how American policing unfolded. Proof that the origins of police and military power derive not in the interest of protecting the citizens as a whole can be found when one researches Shay’s  Rebellion and the extra-legal response America's so-called Founding Fathers had enacted to make sure it never would happen again. Before the rebellion, the U.S. had the Articles of Confederation which allowed for only a weak central government. Not a government that could unilaterally protect the exploiters from the exploited. Daniel Shay was a military hero from America's fight for independence. But failure by the US government to pay Daniel enough allowed the bank to take his home from him as soon as he was done risking his life for his country (obviously, the bankers had not been doing the same). While he was in court, he witnessed the same fate for a pregnant woman. 

The rebellion that followed remained unstoppable for some time. Its success lies in the fact that local policing agencies would not take up arms against a man, and men, they knew to be good and right. The founding fathers wanted to solve this problem, and help protect the exploiters, by making sure there were Balian troops always available, e.g. The National Guard, to intervene on the side of the wealthy, and do whatever was necessary to crush anyone opposing their agenda.

This dynamic remains. Its consequences are felt today. Of course, the system will not punish the police for killing the citizens at the bottom. One could argue that making sure that police would be ready to kill average citizens is why the Constitutional Convention came to be. It should be said that not all the Founders had only the wealthy in mind. A few courageous men known as the Anti-Federalists were able to fight for the Amendments. Due to this, we were protected from a military regularly operating as a police force within the country. Unfortunately, though, we are not protected from a police force militarizing as has now been taking place, e.g., acquiring weapons of war, becoming and/or acting like an occupying military force.

Not much has changed over the centuries. When a cop today is brought to trial for a murder, a beating, or any other crime the media stumbled upon, how many cops still get off with sub-par sentences? Many--especially when destroying not a “human being” but a “convict”. It is not blacks, but the convicted – as cause and effect intertwine – who our system can destroy regularly without society reacting or losing faith in its policing forces.

The judges and prosecution teams are still showing us that crimes and murder committed by police are acceptable. That police crime and cover-up is not a blatant abuse of the power they were granted (for perfunctorily swearing an oath "to serve, protect, and--far from break manipulate--uphold the law"). In fact, unlike their dealings with the public, the prosecution team seems to take law-breaking police as acceptable human mistakes, completely excusable and deserving of collaborative manipulation of the inconvenient law to free them from justice.

There is a saying that goes “ there is no honor amongst thieves”  At least thieves took no oath. What honor remains in our justice system? Is lying to protect a fellow cop supposed to be considered honorable? Again, unlike police, thieves didn’t take an oath that they break every day in order, allegedly, to enforce it.

The bottom line is that prosecutors have to work with and depend on the police to gain their sought-after convictions, the last thing that they want to do is start poking around, asking the wrong questions and agitating those they depend upon to make their record look good.  The system is broken, has always been, but as my last post touched on, fixable. Though seeming very much so when viewed from the outside, our system is not one that treats its prisoners like humans. Sad but true, with the nearly limitless power over the convicted within our institutions hidden from public eyes, law enforcement abuse comes naturally. It is what happens when police are used to ensure the power of the state instead of serving the public.  Safeguards could eliminate much of this abuse of power, but no public will exists to do so, even though it should. Doing so will save us an incredible sum of money in the long run.

Stanford Prison Experiment

The following is a well-known experiment (which was videotaped) from many years ago. The scientists in this experiment chose subjects based on tests showing their high levels of sound mind. Here is an excerpt from E. Aronson’s book, The Social Animal, explaining the experiment and its intended outcome:

“0In a dramatic piece of research, Philip Zimbardo and his students created a simulated prison in the basement of the Psychology Department at Stanford University. In this “prison” he brought a group of normal, mature, stable, intelligent young men. By flipping a coin, Zimbardo designated one-half of them prisoners and one-half of the guards, and they lived together for several days. What happened? Let’s allow Zimbardo to tell us in his own words: ‘At the end of only six days we had to close down our mock prison because what we saw was frightening. It was no longer appears to us or most of the subjects where they ended and their roles began. The majority had indeed become “prisoners” or “guards,” no longer able to clearly differentiate between role-playing and self. There were dramatic changes in virtually every aspect of their behavior, thinking and feeling. In less than a week, the experience of imprisonment undid (temporarily) a lifetime of learning; human values were suspended, self-concepts were challenged, and the ugliest, most base, pathological side of human nature surfaced. We were horrified because we same some boys (“guards”) treat other boys as if they were despicable animals, taking pleasure in cruelty, while other boys (“prisoners”) became servile, dehumanized robots who thought only of escape, of their own individual survival, and of their mounting hatred of the guards’”

Even for myself who has seen this dynamic unfold countless times in real life; its rapidity surprised me. And though absent in this study, I suspect surely by the seventh day the homosexual gang rape impulse buried deep in most prisoners would have surfaced in at least three of them (and made a much edgier story). Sorry, bad joke. We should exit this paragraph wondering, is life’s coin flip fair? Is it what we understand justice to be? And, can we picture these “guards”  taking the stand to speak the unbiased truth for any of those “prisoners”? If not, can we picture the D.A., judge, or uninformed public jury stopping them? Or do you think, even in spite of obvious inconsistency, overall, the “guards “would be believed and the convicts found at fault? What are we doing?  But we are all so busy.  Many of us can’t even help ourselves.  Many more do what they can. As sad as it is too, many of us will stare into the mirror day after day squaring our lovely selves away only to pass into nothing without spending but one self-reflective afternoon attempting to square away just a single injustice in our society.