Police Rape

The motivation for this essay was a YouTube post by the Real News in which the host and her guest were discussing how the war on drugs interferes with real police reform. All was going well until the host described the following event which I have quoted verbatim from the DOJ report on the Baltimore Police Department.

In one of these incidents— memorialised in a complaint that the Department sustained—officers in BPD’s Eastern District publicly strip-searched a woman following a routine traffic stop for a missing headlight.  Officers ordered the woman to exit her vehicle, remove her clothes, and stand on the sidewalk to be searched.  The woman asked the male officer in charge “I really gotta take all my clothes off?”  The male officer replied “yeah” and ordered a female officer to strip search the woman.  The female officer then put on purple latex gloves, pulled up the woman’s shirt and searched around her bra.  Finding no weapons or contraband around the woman’s chest, the officer then pulled down the woman’s underwear and searched her anal cavity.  This search again found no evidence of wrongdoing and the officers released the woman without charges.  Indeed, the woman received only a repair order for her headlight.  The search occurred in full view of the street, although the supervising male officer claimed he “turned away” and did not watch the woman disrobe.  After the woman filed a complaint, BPD investigators corroborated the woman’s story with testimony from several witnesses and by recovering the female officer’s latex gloves from the search location.  Officers conducted this highly invasive search despite lacking any indication that the woman had committed a criminal offense or possessed concealed contraband.

As part of the discussion, the host described what happened to the woman as "mistreatment" and "disrespectful." At which point I started to write. I have included the entire section on Unconstitutional Strip Searches from the DOJ report at the bottom of this post.

In the title I used the word "rape" which is problematic since the word doesn't not a have a uniform definition that all would agree upon. I have taken a brief section from Wikipedia so that we might establish some common ground.

Rape is a type of sexual assault usually involving sexual intercourse or other forms of sexual penetration perpetrated against a person without that person's consent. The act may be carried out by physical force, coercion, abuse of authority or against a person who is incapable of giving valid consent, such as one who is unconscious, incapacitated, has an intellectual disability or is below the legal age of consent.^[1][2][3] The term rape is sometimes used interchangeably with the term sexual assault.^[4]

The key concept for my purposes is "consent." In the case of the woman mentioned in the DOJ report, consent was not given, because she was under coercion by a person who had substantial authority over her. In addition to the authority, the officers involved also had the implicit threat of violence, up to and including lethal violence.

Under these circumstances this woman was raped. It was not a case of mistreatment or disrespect. It was RAPE. She was raped by officers of the Baltimore Police Department and nothing was done.

This shows the extend to which the police, at the local, state and federal levels have become a corrupt force capable of brutal acts of physical and psychological violence against citizens. The police do not act without protection. Governments at all levels have a long history of protecting and even profiting from the criminal conduct of police forces (See DOJ report on the Ferguson Police Department).

The speed at which this DOJ report was brushed aside, plus the shear magnitude of the problem tells us that government (at all levels) have no plans to address this issue seriously. It would seem that American citizens are going to have to learn to live with fascist, authoritarian police forces that are rapidly becoming more like the Stasi and the SAVAK than a police force one would associate with a great democracy.

What the above says about the state of democracy in America, I will leave to you to determine.

If you would like to watch a video discussion of widespread police corruption and potential solutions, I would like to recommend two videos by Tim Black -- Democracy is Dead and Why there is violence in Milwaukee

2. BPD Conducts Unconstitutional Strip Searches   

In addition to impermissible Terry frisks, our investigation found many instances in which BPD officers strip-searched individuals without justification—often in public areas— subjecting them to humiliation and violating the Constitution.  Strip searches are “fairly understood” as “degrading” and, under the Fourth Amendment, are reasonable only in narrow circumstances.  Safford Unified Sch. Dist. #1 v. Redding, 557 U.S. 364, 375 (2009).  Strip searches are never permissible as part of a pre-arrest weapons frisk.  See Holmes, 376 F.3d at 275 (weapons frisks must be limited to the outer layers of a suspect’s clothing).  Following a lawful arrest, the reasonableness of a strip search turns on “the scope of the particular intrusion, the manner in which it is conducted, the justification for initiating it, and the place in which it is conducted.”  Bell v. Wolfish, 441 U.S. 520, 559 (1979).  Absent specific facts indicating that an arrestee is concealing a weapon or contraband, officers may not strip search a person incident to arrest for an offense that is not “commonly associated by its very nature with the possession of weapons or contraband.”  Logan v. Shealy, 660 F.2d 1007, 1013 (4th Cir. 1981).  Moreover, courts have “repeatedly emphasized the necessity of conducting a strip search in private.”  Amaechi v. West, 237 F.3d 356, 364 (4th Cir. 2001) (finding strip search unreasonable where it was conducted in public view).  BPD policy likewise recognizes that strip searches should be conducted only “under very limited and controlled circumstances” and that “strip searching . . . [] suspects in public view or on a public thoroughfare is forbidden.”    

 Nevertheless, our investigation found that BPD officers frequently ignore these requirements and strip-search individuals prior to arrest, in public view, or both.  Numerous Baltimore residents interviewed by the Justice Department recounted stories of BPD officers “jumping out” of police vehicles and strip-searching individuals on public streets.  BPD has long been on notice of such allegations:  in the last five years BPD has faced multiple lawsuits and more than 60 complaints alleging unlawful strip searches.  In one of these incidents— memorialized in a complaint that the Department sustained—officers in BPD’s Eastern District publicly strip-searched a woman following a routine traffic stop for a missing headlight.  Officers ordered the woman to exit her vehicle, remove her clothes, and stand on the sidewalk to be searched.  The woman asked the male officer in charge “I really gotta take all my clothes off?”  The male officer replied “yeah” and ordered a female officer to strip search the woman.  The female officer then put on purple latex gloves, pulled up the woman’s shirt and searched around her bra.  Finding no weapons or contraband around the woman’s chest, the officer then pulled down the woman’s underwear and searched her anal cavity.  This search again found no evidence of wrongdoing and the officers released the woman without charges.  Indeed, the woman received only a repair order for her headlight.  The search occurred in full view of the street, although the supervising male officer claimed he “turned away” and did not watch the woman disrobe.  After the woman filed a complaint, BPD investigators corroborated the woman’s story with testimony from several witnesses and by recovering the female officer’s latex gloves from the search location.  Officers conducted this highly invasive search despite lacking any indication that the woman had committed a criminal offense or possessed concealed contraband.  The male officer who ordered the search received only a “simple reprimand” and an instruction that he could not serve as an officer in charge until he was “properly trained.” An African-American teenager recounted a similar story to Justice Department investigators that involved two public strip searches in the winter of 2016 by the same officer.  According to the teenager, he was stopped in January 2016 while walking on a street near his home by two officers who were looking for the teenager’s older brother, whom the officers suspected of dealing narcotics.  One of the officers pushed the teenager up against a wall and frisked him.  This search did not yield contraband.  The officer then stripped off the teenager’s jacket and sweatshirt and frisked him again in front of his teenage girlfriend.  When this search likewise found no contraband, the officer ordered the teenager to “give your girl your phone, I'm checking you right now.”  The officer then pulled down the teenager’s pants and boxer shorts and strip-searched him in full view of the street and his girlfriend.  The officers’ report of the incident disputes this account, claiming that they did not conduct a strip search and instead recovered narcotics from the teenager during a consensual pat down.  No narcotics were ever produced to the teenager’s public defender, however, and the State’s Attorney’s Office dismissed the drug charges for lack of evidence.  The teenager filed a lengthy complaint with BPD describing the incident and identifying multiple witnesses.  The teenager recounted to us that, shortly after filing the complaint, the same officer approached him near a McDonald’s restaurant in his neighborhood, pushed the teenager against a wall, pulled down his pants, and grabbed his genitals.  The officer filed no charges against the teenager in the second incident, which the teenager believes was done in retaliation for filing a complaint about the first strip search. 

 Other complaints describe similar incidents in which BPD officers conduct public strip searches of individuals who have not been arrested.  For example, in September 2014, a man filed a complaint stating that an officer in the Central District searched him several days in a row, including “undoing his pants” and searching his “hindquarters” on a public street.  When the strip search did not find contraband, the officer told the man to leave the area and warned that the officer would search him again every time he returned.  The man then filed a complaint with Internal Affairs and identified the officer who conducted the strip search by name.  When Internal Affairs investigators pressed the man to provide a detailed description of the officer, the man recalled that the officer “had red patches with sergeant stripes” on his uniform.  The investigator recognized this description as patches worn by the officer in charge of a shift and confirmed that the officer named by the man was working as an officer in charge in the Central District on the dates the man alleged he was strip-searched.  Internal Affairs nonetheless deemed the complaint “not sustained” without further explanation.  

 Deficient oversight and accountability has helped perpetuate BPD’s use of unlawful strip searches.  Although the Department’s policy limits strip searches to specific, narrow circumstances following an arrest, BPD supervisors have failed to ensure that officers comply with this policy and internal affairs officials have not adequately investigated frequent complaints that officers violate it. BPD does not separately categorize or track complaints alleging unlawful strip searches.  But our manual review of BPD’s Internal Affairs database revealed more than 60 such complaints in the last six years—only one of which was sustained.  In response to dozens of other strip search complaints, IA has deemed them “administratively closed,” classified them solely for “administrative tracking,” or found them not sustained – after minimal, if any, investigation.  For example, in 2015 an African American man filed a complaint stating that he was strip-searched by an officer whom BPD eventually fired in 2016 after numerous allegations of misconduct.  The man stated that the officer ordered him out of his vehicle during a traffic stop and searched the vehicle without the man’s consent.  When the stop of the vehicle did not uncover contraband, the officer pulled down the man’s pants and underwear, exposing his genitals on the side of a public street, and then strip-searched him.  The officer seized marijuana and cash during the strip search and allegedly told the man that the officer would return his money and drugs if the man provided information about more serious crimes.  The complaint stated that when the man did not provide this information, the officer arrested him and turned over only part of the confiscated money, keeping more than $500.  Despite the serious charges in this complaint and the officer’s lengthy record of alleged misconduct, IA deemed it “administratively closed” without interviewing the complainant.  This type of inadequate oversight has allowed BPD’s unlawful strip search practice to continue. 

DOJ Report on the Baltimore Police -- What is missed.

UPDATED: 12-Aug-2016: Updated information has been added to the bottom.

Recently the Department of Justice (DOJ) released an extensive report examining the police practices in Baltimore, Maryland. In particular, it examined police practices relative to black citizens in Baltimore. In my opinion, it was an accurate and damning report that revealed systematic and systemic over-policing to the point of tyranny. While refusing to use harsh language, remember it was at its core a product of our political system, he did paint a picture of the police acting as an army of occupation in black neighbourhoods.

The PDF of the "Investigation of the Baltimore Police Department" can be found here. Most media outlets devoted time best measured in seconds to covering the most important points of the report and in most of the cases I observed, white-washed it (I use the term intentionally) to avoid being seen as being overly critical of the police. The Young Turks did a more thorough job in analysing the report and were willing to be more critical. If you are so inclined their report can be found here.

Most reporting touched on 3 issues that I would like to briefly address before getting to my main point.

1. Civilian oversight: Many outlets praised the idea of civilian oversight as a potential solution for holding police more accountable for their failures and transgressions in the line of duty. I would remind you that, in theory, civilian oversight already exists and has existed to little effect for decades. Civilian oversight takes the form of mayors and city counsels. As an example, Baltimore has been under the leadership of a black, female mayor for the past 9 years (Rawlings-Blake [2010 - present], Dixon [2007 - 2010]). Furthermore it has been under a democratic mayor since 1967. It very clear that civilian oversight is problematic at best. I will also remind you that one of the key instruments of police abuse and abuse, in general, within the American justice system is the Grand Jury. The Grand Jury is a panel of civilians who consistently protect police officers and departments from accountability. These civilian oversight groups have appeared again and again in the news by virtue of their refusal to indict police offices for wrongful death, manslaughter, and even murder. Civilian oversight will always be political and those selected will never be autonomous and they will certainly never have more power than currently resides with city mayors and city counsels.
2. Police training: The
   
   DOJ report mentions the quality of police training, or lack there of. Many are drawn to this as a simplistic solution for a complex problem. The problems that currently infest American policing are the result of decades of selection. Promotions go to those who play the game, bend the rules, and protect their own. Those who join the police and are unwilling to become part of the brutal, authoritarian police culture often leave in search of more honourable work, leaving behind a higher and higher density of behaviourally challenged police officers. The behavioural disabilities that now plague American police departments cannot be trained away. Not to mention the formidable resistance that will come in the form of police unions. Plus, it would only take one or two outbreaks of the Blue-flu to scare Americans back into their dysfunctional relationship, the same way that a battered spouse returns to the 'safety' of their abuser.
3. Data analysis: This is perhaps the most superficial of the solutions. It suggests that if only we understood the situation better, everything would be fine. More data is all that is needed. The silliness of this position is beyond remark. There is no shortage of information concerning what the police are doing, both correctly and incorrectly. There is no shortage of studies that have objectively evaluated the effectiveness of every police program. Cities spend millions of dollars commissioning reports that are then tossed in the trash because they conflict with a political objective or objectives. More data is not a solution, not until we have already put into practice what we already know.

The Core of Police Intolerance of Citizens

Every analysis of the DOJ report I observed failed to ultimately identify the core problem. In part this failure is because it is perhaps a painful admission and in part they just don't understand what lies beneath it all. Police have many functions in society and most people are aware and give thought to only the most obvious, which turn out to mainly be the secondary functions. Of course, this is the part that the police use in their propaganda. "To Serve and Protect" -- these are the words that Americans most often associate with the role of police in American society. The catch criminals and bring them to justice. These are the actions that are depicted on American TV. Dragnet, Columbo, Ironsides, NYPD Blue, Dirty Harry, Cagney and Lacey, and Starsky and Hutch. With the possible exception of Dirty Harry, these Hollywood police represented the best of American sacrifice for society. However, the image of the clean-cut friendly, smiling officers on CHIPs has now been replaced by skinheads clad in helmets, face masks, and body armour.

If serving and protecting is not the primary role of police in society, what is? Let's be very clear, the primary objective of every police department around the world is to protect the rights, property, and influence of the establishment. Protect them from what, is of course, the next logical question. From the labour class. The police are the coercive arm of establishment or state power (if you prefer). They are used to force compliance with state dictates, edicts, laws, and policies. Don't for one second think that a "state" is an autonomous entity. Those dictates, edicts, laws, and polices are written by people for the benefit of the establishment. It is those same laws, etc., that have laid the foundation for the various inequalities that exist throughout society today. The police are the enforcers of these laws and polices, and therefore are the enforcers of the unequal distribution of wealth, liberty, and prosperity that confronts America.

The Enforcers of Poverty

While the DOJ report did not put a fine point on it, they did recognize that the Baltimore Police aggressively targeted protesters engage in fully protected speech under the 1st Amendment to the US constitution. The following excerpts are taken from CNN.

Retaliation for activities protected by the First Amendment

DOJ investigators found that officers "routinely infringe" upon First Amendment rights in the following ways:

• Unlawfully stopping and arresting people for cursing at officers, even though it's not illegal to use vulgar or offensive language as long as they are not "fighting words"• Retaliating with excessive force against people in cases of protected speech• Interfering with people who record police activity, including a time in which officers seized the phone of a man who recorded his friend being arrested and deleted all the videos on his phone, even personal videos of his son

Let's not forget that the word "force" in Police Force, is not an accidental usage.

Use of constitutionally excessive force

After reviewing all deadly force cases from January 2010 to May 1, and a random sample of more than 800 than nondeadly force cases, the DOJ concluded that BPD engages in a pattern or practice of excessive force. Insufficient training and lack of oversight of those incidents perpetuate the pattern, leading to several recurring issues:

• Use of overly aggressive tactics that escalate encounters and increase tensions and failure to de-escalate encounters when appropriate to do so
• Frequently resorting to physical force when a person does not immediately respond to verbal commands, even if the subject poses no imminent threat to the officer or others
• Due to a lack of training and improper tactics, BPD officers end up in needlessly violent confrontations with people with mental health disabilities
• Failure to use widely accepted tactics for dealing with juveniles, treating them the same way as adults, leading to unnecessary conflict
• Use of excessive force against people already restrained and under officers' control

What this shows is that the police, and not just the Baltimore Police, view citizens as a threat. They are a threat to the power of the establishment. In particular they are most threatened by those who have the most to gain by equalizing the power and wealth distribution in America. This gives them the license to be overtly racist in their dealings with minorities.

Discrimination against African-Americans

BPD stops African-American drivers and pedestrians at disproportionate rates, subjecting them to greater rates of searches than whites, the report said, creating racial disparities at every stage of law enforcement actions, from stop to arrest.

"These racial disparities, along with evidence suggesting intentional discrimination, erode the community trust that is critical to effective policing," the report said.

Among the investigation's findings:

• African-Americans accounted for 95% of 410 individuals stopped at least 10 times from 2010 to 2016
• One African-American man in his 50s was stopped 30 times in less than four years; none of the stops resulted in a citation or criminal charge
• African-Americans accounted for 82% of all BPD vehicle stops though they make up 60% of the driving age population in the city and 27% percent of the driving age population in the greater metropolitan area
• BPD officers found contraband twice as often when searching white individuals compared to African-Americans during vehicle stops and 50% more often during pedestrian stops

The three passages above should be considered some of the most damning things you could say about a democratic society. Yet, no such harsh interpretation is applied. If these descriptions were about the governments of Saudi Arabia, North Korea, China, Turkey, Yemen, Iraq or Iran, we would simply shrug our shoulders and say "what do you expect." However, these descriptions are from the Department of Justice of the United States of America and they are directed at a major metropolitan police department. The outrage that America has fallen to this level under a democratic president, or any president, should be palpable. Instead, there is silence.

Poverty will put more and more citizens in conflict with the police.

Politicians brag about the falling poverty rate and cite the current value of 15.7%. However, a quick look at the chart reveals the lies that can be hidden by using averages. More and more Americans struggle to stay out of poverty and a liveable wage has, for many, become only a dream. Ultimately the number of citizens demanding their fare share of the wealth will put more and more Americans in conflict with the enforcers of inequality. Only then will Americans begin to regret their silence.

As long as the police are the internal military of the establishment, they will continue to be in conflict with democratic principles and continue to be a threat to citizens seeking justice and equality under the law. Regrettably, the DOJ report does absolutely nothing to address the Blue cancer that is eating away at the fabric of American society.

America's existing criminal justice system, police, and prison industrial complex are incompatible with the ideals of freedom, liberty, and justice for all.

UPDATE (12/8/2016)

Obama, certainly one of the most Law-and-Order presidents in American history, was a leader in militarising local police. His policies flew under the radar until the Ferguson police couldn't resist the temptation roll their armoured vehicles into black neighbourhoods. As might be expected, US citizens were revolted by the grotesque show of power. In response, Obama reduced the supply of military weapons slightly. That appears to be coming to an end and Obama considers reopening the supply gates to local police forces. A militarized police force has a single purpose, and it has nothing to do with shoplifters, car-jackers, or buglers; and everything to do with putting down protests, stifling free speech, and protecting the establishment.

The Real News Network did a nice piece on this topic.

DOJ Report on the Baltimore Police -- What is missed.

Recently the Department of Justice (DOJ) released an extensive report examining the police practices in Baltimore, Maryland. In particular, it examined police practices relative to black citizens in Baltimore. In my opinion, it was an accurate and damning report that revealed systematic and systemic over-policing to the point of tyranny. While refusing to use harsh language, remember it was at its core a product of our political system, he did paint a picture of the police acting as an army of occupation in black neighbourhoods.

The PDF of the "Investigation of the Baltimore Police Department" can be found here. Most media outlets devoted time best measured in seconds to covering the most important points of the report and in most of the cases I observed, white-washed it (I use the term intentionally) to avoid being seen as being overly critical of the police. The Young Turks did a more thorough job in analysing the report and were willing to be more critical. If you are so inclined their report can be found here.

Most reporting touched on 3 issues that I would like to briefly address before getting to my main point.

1. Civilian oversight: Many outlets praised the idea of civilian oversight as a potential solution for holding police more accountable for their failures and transgressions in the line of duty. I would remind you that, in theory, civilian oversight already exists and has existed to little effect for decades. Civilian oversight takes the form of mayors and city counsels. As an example, Baltimore has been under the leadership of a black, female mayor for the past 9 years (Rawlings-Blake [2010 - present], Dixon [2007 - 2010]). Furthermore it has been under a democratic mayor since 1967. It very clear that civilian oversight is problematic at best. I will also remind you that one of the key instruments of police abuse and abuse, in general, within the American justice system is the Grand Jury. The Grand Jury is a panel of civilians who consistently protect police officers and departments from accountability. These civilian oversight groups have appeared again and again in the news by virtue of their refusal to indict police offices for wrongful death, manslaughter, and even murder. Civilian oversight will always be political and those selected will never be autonomous and they will certainly never have more power than currently resides with city mayors and city counsels.
2. Police training: The
   
   DOJ report mentions the quality of police training, or lack there of. Many are drawn to this as a simplistic solution for a complex problem. The problems that currently infest American policing are the result of decades of selection. Promotions go to those who play the game, bend the rules, and protect their own. Those who join the police and are unwilling to become part of the brutal, authoritarian police culture often leave in search of more honourable work, leaving behind a higher and higher density of behaviourally challenged police officers. The behavioural disabilities that now plague American police departments cannot be trained away. Not to mention the formidable resistance that will come in the form of police unions. Plus, it would only take one or two outbreaks of the Blue-flu to scare Americans back into their dysfunctional relationship, the same way that a battered spouse returns to the 'safety' of their abuser.
3. Data analysis: This is perhaps the most superficial of the solutions. It suggests that if only we understood the situation better, everything would be fine. More data is all that is needed. The silliness of this position is beyond remark. There is no shortage of information concerning what the police are doing, both correctly and incorrectly. There is no shortage of studies that have objectively evaluated the effectiveness of every police program. Cities spend millions of dollars commissioning reports that are then tossed in the trash because they conflict with a political objective or objectives. More data is not a solution, not until we have already put into practice what we already know.

The Core of Police Intolerance of Citizens

Every analysis of the DOJ report I observed failed to ultimately identify the core problem. In part this failure is because it is perhaps a painful admission and in part they just don't understand what lies beneath it all. Police have many functions in society and most people are aware and give thought to only the most obvious, which turn out to mainly be the secondary functions. Of course, this is the part that the police use in their propaganda. "To Serve and Protect" -- these are the words that Americans most often associate with the role of police in American society. The catch criminals and bring them to justice. These are the actions that are depicted on American TV. Dragnet, Columbo, Ironsides, NYPD Blue, Dirty Harry, Cagney and Lacey, and Starsky and Hutch. With the possible exception of Dirty Harry, these Hollywood police represented the best of American sacrifice for society. However, the image of the clean-cut friendly, smiling officers on CHIPs has now been replaced by skinheads clad in helmets, face masks, and body armour.

If serving and protecting is not the primary role of police in society, what is? Let's be very clear, the primary objective of every police department around the world is to protect the rights, property, and influence of the establishment. Protect them from what, is of course, the next logical question. From the labour class. The police are the coercive arm of establishment or state power (if you prefer). They are used to force compliance with state dictates, edicts, laws, and policies. Don't for one second think that a "state" is an autonomous entity. Those dictates, edicts, laws, and polices are written by people for the benefit of the establishment. It is those same laws, etc., that have laid the foundation for the various inequalities that exist throughout society today. The police are the enforcers of these laws and polices, and therefore are the enforcers of the unequal distribution of wealth, liberty, and prosperity that confronts America.

The Enforcers of Poverty

While the DOJ report did not put a fine point on it, they did recognize that the Baltimore Police aggressively targeted protesters engage in fully protected speech under the 1st Amendment to the US constitution. The following excerpts are taken from CNN.

Retaliation for activities protected by the First Amendment

DOJ investigators found that officers "routinely infringe" upon First Amendment rights in the following ways:

• Unlawfully stopping and arresting people for cursing at officers, even though it's not illegal to use vulgar or offensive language as long as they are not "fighting words"• Retaliating with excessive force against people in cases of protected speech• Interfering with people who record police activity, including a time in which officers seized the phone of a man who recorded his friend being arrested and deleted all the videos on his phone, even personal videos of his son

Let's not forget that the word "force" in Police Force, is not an accidental usage.

Use of constitutionally excessive force

After reviewing all deadly force cases from January 2010 to May 1, and a random sample of more than 800 than nondeadly force cases, the DOJ concluded that BPD engages in a pattern or practice of excessive force. Insufficient training and lack of oversight of those incidents perpetuate the pattern, leading to several recurring issues:

• Use of overly aggressive tactics that escalate encounters and increase tensions and failure to de-escalate encounters when appropriate to do so
• Frequently resorting to physical force when a person does not immediately respond to verbal commands, even if the subject poses no imminent threat to the officer or others
• Due to a lack of training and improper tactics, BPD officers end up in needlessly violent confrontations with people with mental health disabilities
• Failure to use widely accepted tactics for dealing with juveniles, treating them the same way as adults, leading to unnecessary conflict
• Use of excessive force against people already restrained and under officers' control

What this shows is that the police, and not just the Baltimore Police, view citizens as a threat. They are a threat to the power of the establishment. In particular they are most threatened by those who have the most to gain by equalizing the power and wealth distribution in America. This gives them the license to be overtly racist in their dealings with minorities.

Discrimination against African-Americans

BPD stops African-American drivers and pedestrians at disproportionate rates, subjecting them to greater rates of searches than whites, the report said, creating racial disparities at every stage of law enforcement actions, from stop to arrest.

"These racial disparities, along with evidence suggesting intentional discrimination, erode the community trust that is critical to effective policing," the report said.

Among the investigation's findings:

• African-Americans accounted for 95% of 410 individuals stopped at least 10 times from 2010 to 2016
• One African-American man in his 50s was stopped 30 times in less than four years; none of the stops resulted in a citation or criminal charge
• African-Americans accounted for 82% of all BPD vehicle stops though they make up 60% of the driving age population in the city and 27% percent of the driving age population in the greater metropolitan area
• BPD officers found contraband twice as often when searching white individuals compared to African-Americans during vehicle stops and 50% more often during pedestrian stops

The three passages above should be considered some of the most damning things you could say about a democratic society. Yet, no such harsh interpretation is applied. If these descriptions were about the governments of Saudi Arabia, North Korea, China, Turkey, Yemen, Iraq or Iran, we would simply shrug our shoulders and say "what do you expect." However, these descriptions are from the Department of Justice of the United States of America and they are directed at a major metropolitan police department. The outrage that America has fallen to this level under a democratic president, or any president, should be palpable. Instead, there is silence.

Poverty will put more and more citizens in conflict with the police.

Politicians brag about the falling poverty rate and cite the current value of 15.7%. However, a quick look at the chart reveals the lies that can be hidden by using averages. More and more Americans struggle to stay out of poverty and a liveable wage has, for many, become only a dream. Ultimately the number of citizens demanding their fare share of the wealth will put more and more Americans in conflict with the enforcers of inequality. Only then will Americans begin to regret their silence.

As long as the police are the internal military of the establishment, they will continue to be in conflict with democratic principles and continue to be a threat to citizens seeking justice and equality under the law. Regrettably, the DOJ report does absolutely nothing to address the Blue cancer that is eating away at the fabric of American society.

America's existing criminal justice system, police, and prison industrial complex are incompatible with the ideals of freedom, liberty, and justice for all.

DOJ Report on the Baltimore Police -- What is missed.

Recently the Department of Justice (DOJ) released an extensive report examining the police practices in Baltimore, Maryland. In particular, it examined police practices relative to black citizens in Baltimore. In my opinion, it was an accurate and damning report that revealed systematic and systemic over-policing to the point of tyranny. While refusing to use harsh language, remember it was at its core a product of our political system, he did paint a picture of the police acting as an army of occupation in black neighbourhoods.

The PDF of the "Investigation of the Baltimore Police Department" can be found here. Most media outlets devoted time best measured in seconds to covering the most important points of the report and in most of the cases I observed, white-washed it (I use the term intentionally) to avoid being seen as being overly critical of the police. The Young Turks did a more thorough job in analysing the report and were willing to be more critical. If you are so inclined their report can be found here.

Most reporting touched on 3 issues that I would like to briefly address before getting to my main point.

1. Civilian oversight: Many outlets praised the idea of civilian oversight as a potential solution for holding police more accountable for their failures and transgressions in the line of duty. I would remind you that, in theory, civilian oversight already exists and has existed to little effect for decades. Civilian oversight takes the form of mayors and city counsels. As an example, Baltimore has been under the leadership of a black, female mayor for the past 9 years (Rawlings-Blake [2010 - present], Dixon [2007 - 2010]). Furthermore it has been under a democratic mayor since 1967. It very clear that civilian oversight is problematic at best. I will also remind you that one of the key instruments of police abuse and abuse, in general, within the American justice system is the Grand Jury. The Grand Jury is a panel of civilians who consistently protect police officers and departments from accountability. These civilian oversight groups have appeared again and again in the news by virtue of their refusal to indict police offices for wrongful death, manslaughter, and even murder. Civilian oversight will always be political and those selected will never be autonomous and they will certainly never have more power than currently resides with city mayors and city counsels.
2. Police training: The
   
   DOJ report mentions the quality of police training, or lack there of. Many are drawn to this as a simplistic solution for a complex problem. The problems that currently infest American policing are the result of decades of selection. Promotions go to those who play the game, bend the rules, and protect their own. Those who join the police and are unwilling to become part of the brutal, authoritarian police culture often leave in search of more honourable work, leaving behind a higher and higher density of behaviourally challenged police officers. The behavioural disabilities that now plague American police departments cannot be trained away. Not to mention the formidable resistance that will come in the form of police unions. Plus, it would only take one or two outbreaks of the Blue-flu to scare Americans back into their dysfunctional relationship, the same way that a battered spouse returns to the 'safety' of their abuser.
3. Data analysis: This is perhaps the most superficial of the solutions. It suggests that if only we understood the situation better, everything would be fine. More data is all that is needed. The silliness of this position is beyond remark. There is no shortage of information concerning what the police are doing, both correctly and incorrectly. There is no shortage of studies that have objectively evaluated the effectiveness of every police program. Cities spend millions of dollars commissioning reports that are then tossed in the trash because they conflict with a political objective or objectives. More data is not a solution, not until we have already put into practice what we already know.

The Core of Police Intolerance of Citizens

Every analysis of the DOJ report I observed failed to ultimately identify the core problem. In part this failure is because it is perhaps a painful admission and in part they just don't understand what lies beneath it all. Police have many functions in society and most people are aware and give thought to only the most obvious, which turn out to mainly be the secondary functions. Of course, this is the part that the police use in their propaganda. "To Serve and Protect" -- these are the words that Americans most often associate with the role of police in American society. The catch criminals and bring them to justice. These are the actions that are depicted on American TV. Dragnet, Columbo, Ironsides, NYPD Blue, Dirty Harry, Cagney and Lacey, and Starsky and Hutch. With the possible exception of Dirty Harry, these Hollywood police represented the best of American sacrifice for society. However, the image of the clean-cut friendly, smiling officers on CHIPs has now been replaced by skinheads clad in helmets, face masks, and body armour.

If serving and protecting is not the primary role of police in society, what is? Let's be very clear, the primary objective of every police department around the world is to protect the rights, property, and influence of the establishment. Protect them from what, is of course, the next logical question. From the labour class. The police are the coercive arm of establishment or state power (if you prefer). They are used to force compliance with state dictates, edicts, laws, and policies. Don't for one second think that a "state" is an autonomous entity. Those dictates, edicts, laws, and polices are written by people for the benefit of the establishment. It is those same laws, etc., that have laid the foundation for the various inequalities that exist throughout society today. The police are the enforcers of these laws and polices, and therefore are the enforcers of the unequal distribution of wealth, liberty, and prosperity that confronts America.

The Enforcers of Poverty

While the DOJ report did not put a fine point on it, they did recognize that the Baltimore Police aggressively targeted protesters engage in fully protected speech under the 1st Amendment to the US constitution. The following excerpts are taken from CNN.

Retaliation for activities protected by the First Amendment

DOJ investigators found that officers "routinely infringe" upon First Amendment rights in the following ways:

• Unlawfully stopping and arresting people for cursing at officers, even though it's not illegal to use vulgar or offensive language as long as they are not "fighting words"• Retaliating with excessive force against people in cases of protected speech• Interfering with people who record police activity, including a time in which officers seized the phone of a man who recorded his friend being arrested and deleted all the videos on his phone, even personal videos of his son

Let's not forget that the word "force" in Police Force, is not an accidental usage.

Use of constitutionally excessive force

After reviewing all deadly force cases from January 2010 to May 1, and a random sample of more than 800 than nondeadly force cases, the DOJ concluded that BPD engages in a pattern or practice of excessive force. Insufficient training and lack of oversight of those incidents perpetuate the pattern, leading to several recurring issues:

• Use of overly aggressive tactics that escalate encounters and increase tensions and failure to de-escalate encounters when appropriate to do so
• Frequently resorting to physical force when a person does not immediately respond to verbal commands, even if the subject poses no imminent threat to the officer or others
• Due to a lack of training and improper tactics, BPD officers end up in needlessly violent confrontations with people with mental health disabilities
• Failure to use widely accepted tactics for dealing with juveniles, treating them the same way as adults, leading to unnecessary conflict
• Use of excessive force against people already restrained and under officers' control

What this shows is that the police, and not just the Baltimore Police, view citizens as a threat. They are a threat to the power of the establishment. In particular they are most threatened by those who have the most to gain by equalizing the power and wealth distribution in America. This gives them the license to be overtly racist in their dealings with minorities.

Discrimination against African-Americans

BPD stops African-American drivers and pedestrians at disproportionate rates, subjecting them to greater rates of searches than whites, the report said, creating racial disparities at every stage of law enforcement actions, from stop to arrest.

"These racial disparities, along with evidence suggesting intentional discrimination, erode the community trust that is critical to effective policing," the report said.

Among the investigation's findings:

• African-Americans accounted for 95% of 410 individuals stopped at least 10 times from 2010 to 2016
• One African-American man in his 50s was stopped 30 times in less than four years; none of the stops resulted in a citation or criminal charge
• African-Americans accounted for 82% of all BPD vehicle stops though they make up 60% of the driving age population in the city and 27% percent of the driving age population in the greater metropolitan area
• BPD officers found contraband twice as often when searching white individuals compared to African-Americans during vehicle stops and 50% more often during pedestrian stops

The three passages above should be considered some of the most damning things you could say about a democratic society. Yet, no such harsh interpretation is applied. If these descriptions were about the governments of Saudi Arabia, North Korea, China, Turkey, Yemen, Iraq or Iran, we would simply shrug our shoulders and say "what do you expect." However, these descriptions are from the Department of Justice of the United States of America and they are directed at a major metropolitan police department. The outrage that America has fallen to this level under a democratic president, or any president, should be palpable. Instead, there is silence.

Poverty will put more and more citizens in conflict with the police.

Politicians brag about the falling poverty rate and cite the current value of 15.7%. However, a quick look at the chart reveals the lies that can be hidden by using averages. More and more Americans struggle to stay out of poverty and a liveable wage has, for many, become only a dream. Ultimately the number of citizens demanding their fare share of the wealth will put more and more Americans in conflict with the enforcers of inequality. Only then will Americans begin to regret their silence.

As long as the police are the internal military of the establishment, they will continue to be in conflict with democratic principles and continue to be a threat to citizens seeking justice and equality under the law. Regrettably, the DOJ report does absolutely nothing to address the Blue cancer that is eating away at the fabric of American society.

America's existing criminal justice system, police, and prison industrial complex are incompatible with the ideals of freedom, liberty, and justice for all.