-Caveat Lector-
Interesting you should post this tonight. I was tailgated closely by a 'sheriff'
tonight. As I carefully signaled to turn left, not knowing what the idiot was
doing only a few feet from my rear bunper in an apparent attempt to
intimidate me into exceeding the speed limit, one of Marin Counties best,
speeded up and passed me with only a few inches to spare on my right
side.
My father used to be a county cop, going through all of the training and
buying the usual police paraphenalia, such as a billyclub, sawed off
shotgun, and leather covered lead weight (they don't leave lacerations
when 'subduing' a suspect). After a few months he found out that most of
the volunteer deputies were mainly interested in harassing and beating
Blacks, hippies, and Latinos and quit.
Steve
On 9 Jun 99, at 18:28, Vin Suprynowicz wrote:
>
> FROM MOUNTAIN MEDIA
> FOR EMBARGOED RELEASE DATED JUNE 13, 1999
> EDITORS: Due to length, please consider this your bonus feature for
> June. ALSO PLEASE NOTE potentially OFFENSIVE LANGUAGE in paragraphs 6,
> 14 (quoted matter beginning: "Here's a word of advice ..."), and 18
> (quoted matter beginning: "Let's face it, who wants this guy ...") THE
> LIBERTARIAN, By Vin Suprynowicz 'Many cops imagine they are in a war
> zone'
>
>
> When writing anything critical of a police officer, we newsmen are
> trained from our cub reporter days to always lead with the caveat: "The
> vast majority of police officers are fine, dedicated public servants, of
> course, who bravely put their lives on the line each day ..."
>
> Unfortunately, based on the hard evidence of 118 e-mail responses I've
> received from our Boys in Blue or Beige to my May 16 column on Las Vegas
> Metro Officer Bruce Gentner, who emptied a 14-round magazine into an
> unarmed suspect but whose actions were found "justifiable" (as usual) by a
> Las Vegas coroner's jury (after the officer explained the suspect refused
> to raise his hands quickly enough and made a supposed "furtive movement
> towards his waistband,") it appears that traditional, rhetorical ratio may
> now have to be reversed.
>
> I did, thank heavens, receive a few civil and thoughtful replies from
> some of our armed centurions, acknowledging every shooting is different,
> that a few may be wrongful, and sensibly asking further details on the
> death of 32-year-old Las Vegan John Perrin, who was armed only with a
> basketball.
>
> More typical however, were comments like:
>
> "You are a piece of trash and if there is any justice then you will
> someday be placed under a magnifying glass and fried like the roach you
> are." (Officer R.D.)
>
> "Wear my shoes one damn day, you piece of sh-t ..." wrote Officer T.M.,
> delicately removing his own offending vowel. "Try a 40 cal. S&W behind
> your ear."
>
> "Just wanted to let you know that you are a no good, second guessing
> coward who hides behind subjective reporting." (Officer J.W.)
>
> "I hope soon you will be ... the victim of a mugging or some other form
> of violent attack. (No signature.)
>
> "i find the press mostly reprehensible. ... in the past the press served
> a purpose. now they just serve themselves." (Officer D.P.)
>
> "I wouldn't WASTE a bullet on your sorry butt. Someone like you with
> one-sided opinions should not be authoring columns for the largest paper
> in Las Vegas. Im sure that Soon you will get yours, probably from some
> crazed person with a gun, like the ones that Police Officers are right now
> protecting you from with their lives." (also unsigned.)
>
> The train of invective went on, growing in volume as reports of my
> criticism spread to police Internet discussion lists. In the end, 67
> percent of the respondents -- 80 out of 118 officers -- appeared to be
> doing their best to convince me that the armed "public servants" now
> charged with our safety resemble nothing so much as a troop of
> quasi-literate, homicidal trolls.
>
> (So anxious were some of the officers to hurl the worst insults in their
> limited lexicon that some even branded me a "liberal" -- an odd label for
> a writer who favors universal machinegun ownership and abolition of the
> IRS, with no "replacement tax" whatsoever.)
>
> The most chilling, though, was probably the lengthy reply of T.B., an
> officer with the Cleveland, Ohio police department (who, to his credit,
> and unlike many of the critics above, did supply his full name -- I
> withhold it here because I have no way to positively confirm his
> identity.) T.B. firmly asserts police have every right to shoot unarmed
> suspects "100 times, if necessary," and continues:
>
> "Here's a word of advice: if you're going to be a know-it-all,
> cop-hating, rhetoric-spewing moron please at least strive to be original.
> First of all the officer never chooses the time and place. The suspect
> alone makes that choice. Know why? Because police officers are bound by
> law to act on any suspicious or criminal activity they observe. That means
> that if you get stopped by a police officer you fucking cooperate. End of
> story. Sorry to disappoint you but we're not the 'Klan in blue' or the
> Gestapo or Government storm troopers. But an individual's right to behave
> like an asshole in public ends when it draws my attention."
>
> I fear it may be significant that the most hostile invective appeared to
> come from younger "street" officers. The more sober analyses, perhaps
> predictably but also sadly, came mostly from officers who have already
> hung up their shields.
>
> Robert Flesh, for instance, a former detective sergeant with the West
> Palm Beach Police Department, wrote:
>
> "The Gentner/Vegas shooting of an unarmed American citizen (not a
> 'suspect,' since the victim had not committed any crime, nor was there any
> 'reasonable' suspicion that he had) is totally indefensible on any
> grounds. And this is true regardless of whether one chooses to believe the
> alleged 'tightening of the arm muscles' and/or 'hand in the waistband' BS
> or not. This was simply a bad shooting. So bad, in fact, that I can't
> believe any HONEST cop, or prosecutor, or grand jury would condone it.
>
> "Let's face it, who wants this guy (or any cop like him) drawing down on
> them the next time they are partying in Vegas and not in the mood to be
> put face down on the pavement when they haven't done anything wrong? And
> what Chief in his right mind would allow a loose cannon like Gentner to
> work the streets when his MO is to empty his pistol into the backs of
> citizens who (perhaps rightfully) tell him to fuck off when he wants to
> shake them down for no legitimate reason whatsoever?
>
> "Beyond this one case, what I see is a generalized 'siege', or 'police
> state' mentality at work today in American law enforcement. Many police
> officers are so caught up in fighting criminals that they forget that the
> vast majority of American citizens are honest and law-abiding and have
> certain 'RIGHTS' that are not to be violated by the police. Consequently,
> many cops have started imagining they are in a war zone where search and
> destroy ops are legal. In short, they only see two kinds of people: cops
> and criminals ('us vs. the enemy'). ...
>
> "What kind of bleeding-heart-liberal would say this kind of thing about
> 'modern' law enforcement?" Det. Sgt. Flesh continues. "A whoring
> reporter? A lying defense lawyer? A corrupt politician looking for votes?
> Maybe they all would. But I happen to be a former patrolman and detective
> sergeant from a high crime south Florida city, have earned over 50 police
> commendations, made 400 to 500 felony arrests, have three
> police-officer-of-the-year awards, was involved in several on-duty
> shootings and was often accused of being 'overzealous,' myself.
>
> "So haven't things gone just a wee bit too far when even veteran street
> cops like myself start saying that many of today's officers are ignoring
> the constitutional rights of honest citizens? And if police officers in
> general really have adopted a dangerous and abusive 'police state' or
> 'siege' mindset, isn't it time for American law enforcement to step back
> from the firing line long enough to honestly evaluate itself, and
> hopefully chart a new and more constitutional course, before it's too damn
> late?"
>
> Det. Sgt. Flesh added a personal note: "Vin, sorry to hear of the
> threats. ...
> Hang in there. You are right, and anyone with a lick of sense knows it."
>
>
> # # #
>
> Equally reassuring -- though still firmly in the one-third minority --
> was the following from Joe Horn, a retiree from the Los Angeles County
> Sheriff's Department, now living in El Paso, Texas:
>
> "Vin, the Officer Gentner case is the other side of the officer safety
> mantra (which I label as administrative cowardice) that made well-armed,
> armored, trained grown men cower in safety and cover instead of attacking
> and taking the initiative away from the perps, while the two teenagers
> killed innocents at Columbine High School.
>
> "Gentner's 'furtive move' scenario has been abused so many times as to
> be
> incalculable. 'Furtive move' really means that he got scared and fired
> rather than wait for a clear and present danger to be presented. Somehow
> this is OK, yet a citizen doing the same is held to a different yet
> unconstitutional standard.
>
> "The term 'outgunned' at Columbine was nonsense," Deputy Horn continued.
> "The cops had organizational training, flak vests, hi-powered rifles and
> sub-machineguns just as any military unit would have. What were they
> waiting for while the shooting went on, the FBI HRT or a surrender or a
> miracle?
>
> "What modern law enforcement has forgotten in the atmosphere of current
> local federally influenced training in siege mentality (fear based
> training) that is funded and standardized (as are hiring standards) by
> federal dollars is that American Civil Police are supposed to REACT to a
> clear and present danger and they must wait till they SEE that threat. To
> presume that a suspect is reaching for a firearm and to kill that suspect
> before one sees and recognizes the threat one FEARS is nothing in reality
> but a criminal and negligent act rooted in fear.
>
> "The coroners' juries that sign off on these stories either are naive
> about modern LE's penchant for terminal force or corrupt in protecting the
> government entity from lawsuit. These officers have an allegedly dangerous
> job, yet it has one of the lowest statistical death rates in industry.
> (www.bnjs.gov or www.fbi.gov) Half of the annual LE deaths (approx 160)
> that we are informed about in PR spin as part of the "hazard" of the job
> are traffic deaths and heart attacks and accidents NOT INVOLVING a hostile
> suspect.
>
> "In any case, we are not drafted, are well trained, equipped and paid to
> perform the duty. Our safety should be second to those we serve and
> protect. Otherwise, WHY are we there and what good do we do if we are not
> willing to risk all for the defenseless and weaker in our society? Cops so
> possessed by fear should take safer employment elsewhere. Civil suits are
> needed.
>
> "The army is supposed to, upon orders, kill people and break things
> without waiting for evidence of intent or present ability. It seems that
> our domestic police are becoming more like soldiers -- very scared
> soldiers at that -- occupying what some of them view as hostile territory,
> more than public servants who are responsible to the citizens and
> neighbors they are charged to protect and serve. To retain public
> confidence, support and cooperation, this trend must soon be reversed.
>
> "Finally, please understand that most in LE today are not obsessed with
> their safety and on a daily basis silently do their jobs and perform daily
> tasks that are nothing less than heroic, and which usually go unnoticed.
>
> "But there is a growing clique of administrators and willing
> subordinates
> in LE from Federal down to local, who resent the restraints of the
> Constitution, fear the law-abiding armed citizen and somehow relate that
> citizen (some 70,000,000 strong) to the latest pop-up knee-jerk fear in
> Law Enforcement and rationalization for gun control and fear of citizens:
> The Militia, all of whom that I have seen are fat, over 50, out of breath
> and (finally) very, very, few in number, regardless of the fund-raising
> histrionics generated by the Southern Poverty Law Center.
>
> "Thanks for your insightful article."
>
> Thank you, Joe. (Other cops have started calling Joe names on the
> Internet, and even threatening his life, he reports -- absurdly alleging
> he accepted payment for writing the above. Needless to say, I don't pay
> former police officers to send me e-mail.)
>
>
> # # #
>
> As I've toured the country this year, speaking to freedom-loving groups
> from California to Rhode Island, from Arizona to Illinois, concerned folks
> have frequently asked me how close I think we are to a full-fledged police
> state in America. In the past, I've tried to be somewhat reassuring,
> pointing out we're not to that point yet, though the trends (suspension of
> the Bill of Rights whenever anyone suspects "drugs" may be involved;
> outright abrogation of the Second Amendment right of individual Americans
> to be better armed than the constabulary or other divisions of the
> standing army) look bad.
>
> I must now regretfully conclude we're a lot closer to an outright police
> state than I would have wanted to admit.
>
> Time after time, my uniformed correspondents in the past week set
> "officer safety" as their top priority, reciting as though it were a
> memorized catechism "My first priority is to get home to my wife and kids
> when the shift is over."
>
> When I ask whether that means we can expect to again be abandoned, as
> the
> Korean shopkeepers were when the L.A. police withdrew from their
> neighborhoods during the Rodney King riots, I receive no answer. When I
> ask whether the best way to make sure "all officers get home to their
> families when the shift is over" might not be to arbitrarily declare a 9
> p.m. curfew, and shoot on sight any black, Hispanic, hippie, or suspected
> newsman found on the streets after that hour, the reply is a projectile
> diarrhea of foul language or ... silence.
>
> These officers contend they have no choice but to break down the doors
> of
> non-violent people in the middle of the night, looking for guns or drugs,
> because "We have no choice but to enforce all the laws on the books." When
> I point out most states still have laws on the books against cohabitation
> by unmarried adults, and ask if they're going to start enforcing those
> laws, even against their brother officers, the response is ... silence.
>
> These officers contend they are only following orders, and that they
> have
> a right to shoot any citizen who does not, in turn, promptly follow (start
> ital)their(end ital) orders. ("The fact of the matter is that if Mr.
> Dopehead, Paul [sic] Perrin, would have followed the officers commands
> this incident would not have occurred," chirps that little ray of
> sunshine, Officer E.J. Pereira of Deer Park, Texas. "The death of Perrin
> was an unfortunate outcome of a CRIMINAL not taking the directions of an
> officer seriously," concurs Constable D. Hermann, of Vancouver, Canada --
> referring to a man who was not wanted, never formally arrested, and not
> found in possession of any drug or weapon -- illegal, "controlled," or
> otherwise.)
>
> The hostile two-thirds of my correspondents repeated endless variations
> on the "No right to criticize if you haven't walked in our shoes" rhetoric
> -- even though cities like Las Vegas (start ital)used(end ital) to have
> civilian police auxiliaries, which have now been almost universally
> eliminated in a campaign to "professionalize" our police forces, with the
> side-effect of isolating cops even further into a separate, mercenary
> class.
>
> (Besides which, does that mean the officers now also consider themselves
> above criticism from such other "cowardly desk-sitters" as mayors, county
> commissioners, and city councilmen? I seem to recall the Roman legions
> once grew similarly tired of answering to "soft civilians," and took
> matters into their own hands.)
>
> I asked my e-mail correspondents whether there are any orders they would
> (start ital)not(end ital) enforce. Would they, for instance, put their
> salary and their pension and their loyalty to "the force" and their
> brother officers ahead of any qualms they might have about going
> door-to-door to confiscate the firearms of otherwise law-abiding folk?
> ("Never in America"? Last week California Attorney General Bill Lockyer
> announced citizens there have six months to surrender semi-automatic 1950s
> SKS rifles previously considered legal. http://www.sksbuyback.org/)
>
> Would the officers shoot anyone who tried to run away rather than
> obeying
> new orders that newsmen and troublesome ACLU members be put aboard boxcars
> to areas where they can be more easily supervised? If current
> unconstitutional restrictions on the Second Amendment were extended to the
> First, would they break down the doors and smash the presses of any
> newspaper that published anti-government editorials without submitting
> them to government censors in advance for a "three-day cooling off
> period"?
>
> And the answer was ... silence.
>
> Even after Amnesty International released a report last fall warning
> America is indeed approaching police-state status -- pointing out it's
> easy to get a list of cops killed in the line of duty these days, but that
> no comprehensive compilation is made of citizens killed by police officers
> -- these officers throw a virtual fit at the suggestion that a sane and
> responsible commentator might report that cops in some American cities now
> possess a virtual license to kill "low-lifes" with impunity. Instead I was
> repeatedly told I must be motivated by a "deep-seated grudge against all
> police officers" based on some early life experience, or even that I must
> be psychologically disturbed.
>
> ("Let me guess, you are a meth user? Had bad contacts with Law
> Enforcement? Got picked on your entire life? Don't be afraid to admit your
> many flaws," wrote officer J.W., in a considerate follow-up to his earlier
> "coward" remarks.)
>
> This theory was first developed by Comrade Stalin, of course, who held
> that mere opposition to the policies of the state was prima facie evidence
> of mental illness.
>
> Failing that, the officers pathetically whimper that a columnist who
> points out that we have (as the headline on my May 16 column expressed it)
> "A different set of laws for our Killer Cops," must be doing so "just to
> sell newspapers."
>
> Note the underlying anti-capitalist posture. All newspaper purchases
> remain voluntary, of course, while all police salaries that I know of are
> seized from our paychecks or mortgage payments under threat of force.
> Beyond that, the main way most citizens encounter police is when the
> citizen is randomly singled out to pitch in another hundred-dollar road
> tax in the form of a "ticket" for exceeding a "speed limit" arbitrarily
> set at least 10 mph below the consensus speed at which most vehicles
> travel -- the speed at which even police know travel is safest.
>
> Fail to pay up and you'll eventually be dragged to jail in chains -- a
> collection method which the most powerful newspaper baron in history could
> only dream of using on his city's stubborn non-subscribers.
>
> Add to this the new rage among cops for seizing any large sum of cash
> they stumble across, keeping at least half to buy fancy new equipment, and
> daring the owner to "prove it's not drug money," and the spectacle of
> these systematic looters accusing anyone else of base financial motivation
> verges on the hilarious.
>
> Anyway, for the record, it's a rare modern newspaper that sells as many
> as 10 percent of its copies on newsstands. Ninety percent of today's
> papers are delivered direct to subscribers' homes -- the days when grimy
> urchins hawked papers to passersby in the streets, shouting "Extra! Read
> all about it! Killer Cops!" are 60 years past.
>
> Today, a vociferous minority of readers is far more likely to criticize
> the paper for exposing a popular basketball coach's recruiting violations,
> than anyone is likely to complain if the paper simply turns a blind eye
> and continues as the team's top cheerleader.
>
> No, criticizing the local guardians of law and order is hardly a
> crowd-pleaser or a recipe for big sales ... not that, in 25 years in this
> business, working for or running eight newspapers in six states, I have
> ever once had a publisher or circulation manager enter my office and urge
> me to write more about Topic A, or less about Topic B, in order to "sell
> more newspapers."
>
>
> # # #
>
> My conclusion, based on my recent voluminous correspondence from the
> nation's on-line police officers? More and more of these government agents
> apparently see themselves in a battle of "us against the a-holes," with
> the a-holes being, in essence, all the rest of us.
>
> I keep trying to warn the young officers that this is a disastrous
> course
> -- that once they have used up all the enormous reserve of goodwill which
> the people at large bear them (people who were brought up, as I was, on
> elementary-school primers portraying "friendly officer Brown" helping Dick
> and Jane across the street), once they finally succeed in convincing a
> sizeable portion of the populace that the police now constitute a hostile
> occupying army which believes it has arbitrary powers to shoot and kill
> any of us who fail to "follow orders" quickly enough, they will discover
> to their chagrin that they are alone and outnumbered 300-to-1 on those
> dark and lonely streets, in a nation still reassuringly well armed.
>
> Up till now, the average officer in trouble could count on the average
> American passer-by to at least help him call for back-up ... if not
> actually pull a weapon from the vehicle and pitch in on the officer's
> side.
>
> Now, that will change. Officer Michael O'Malley of Wayne, New Jersey may
> have put it best:
>
> "The shooting incident involving Las Vegas Metro Police Officer Bruce
> Gentner is the latest example of a disturbing trend in police work. There
> have been a lot of high-profile incidents in recent years involving
> shootings where questionable judgement was used. Police officers are quick
> to give their support to their fellow officer in these cases and to
> applaud the outcome when these officers are acquitted.
>
> "I suggest to you that this support is a facade. Convincing ourselves
> that these shootings are justifiable serves as a kind of 'insurance
> policy' in case we should find ourselves in the same tenuous position. But
> if you really believe in your heart of hearts that it is defensible to
> shoot a man who is holding a bottle of iodine because he refuses to do
> what you tell him to do, perhaps it is time to consider an alternate
> career.
>
> "Officer Gentner and his attorney were able to beguile a sympathetic
> jury
> with an account of the thoughts that were (ostensibly) going through
> Gentner's mind at the time: a security guard had been recently shot at in
> the same area; the decedent fit the description of a known drug dealer,
> etc. Gentner's observations of Perrin are presented in such a manner as to
> create the illusion that they are in some way sinister, instead of merely
> commonplace.
>
> "The descriptions read like a parody of every bad police report I have
> ever read: He 'gesture(ed) toward his waist' (Is that the same as
> 'reaching?'); Gentner 'saw arm muscles tighten up' (any arm movement,
> including raising one's hands over one's head, will cause arm muscles to
> tighten up.) Finally he observed a 'dark, bulging object,' which sounds
> portentious, though I'm not quite sure what it means. And what exactly is
> it about a dark, bulging object that entitles one to shoot its possessor
> without clearer knowledge of precisely what the object is?
>
> "Ultimately, the coroner's jury decided that the officer's very
> subjective fears, rather than the objective facts, justified the use of
> deadly force. That is a frightening conclusion for the jury to have
> reached. It is even more disturbing if it be the standard by which police
> officers decide between life and death.
>
> "Although I find Mr. Suprynowicz's writing to be inflammatory and
> suspect
> that he dislikes police in general, I must throw my lot with him and Mr.
> Horn on this issue. I do not think it is in our long-term interest to give
> knee-jerk support to every officer who finds himself in a jackpot over a
> bad shooting. The eventual public and political backlash against this type
> of incident will be crippling to all of us, and quite possibly will cost a
> few of us our lives."
>
>
> Vin Suprynowicz, assistant editorial page editor of the Las Vegas
> Review-Journal, is author of the book, "Send in the Waco Killers: Essays
> on the Freedom Movement, 1993-1998," available through web site
> http://www.thespiritof76.com/wacokillers.html, or at 1-800-244-2224.
>
> ***
>
>
> Vin Suprynowicz, [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
> The evils of tyranny are rarely seen but by him who resists it. -- John
> Hay, 1872
>
> The most difficult struggle of all is the one within ourselves. Let us not
> get accustomed and adjusted to these conditions. The one who adjusts
> ceases to discriminate between good and evil. He becomes a slave in body
> and soul. Whatever may happen to you, remember always: Don't adjust!
> Revolt against the reality! -- Mordechai Anielewicz, Warsaw, 1943
>
> * * *
>
>
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------
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> All I ask of electronic subscribers is that they not RE-forward my columns
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>
>
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Steve Wingate
California Director
SKYWATCH INTERNATIONAL
Anomalous Images and UFO Files
http://www.anomalous-images.com
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