To: New GOP Majorities in the MN House and US Congress
From: Mitch Berg, Uppity Peasant
Re: Agenda
All,
Want something to show you’re serious about getting the boot of government off of innocent citizens’ necks?
Reform civil-forfeiture laws. Now.
Including, preferably, eradicating laws that allow corrupt pettifoggers to run rackets with the blessing of “the law”.
Do it now, so we can see who the real enemies are.
That is all.
Police departments – at least, some that Mother Jones talked with – are ostensibly trying to get rid of surplus military gear:
Even before police militarization made the news, hundreds of police departments were finding that grenade launchers, military firearms, and armored vehicles aren’t very useful to community policing. When Chelan County police officers requested one armored car in 2000—the request that landed them three tanks—they pictured a vehicle that could withstand bullets, not land mines. Law enforcement agencies across the country have quietly returned more than 6,000 unwanted or unusable items to the Pentagon in the last 10 years, according to Defense Department data provided to Mother Jones by a spokeswoman for Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.), who has spearheaded a Senate investigation of the Pentagon program that is arming local police. Thousands more unwanted items have been transferred to other police departments.
The catch? The Pentagon doesn’t really want it all back. It’s cheaper to let local cops maintain it than to keep it in Federal storage.
Which is vexing some cops:
In reality, however, police departments may find the returns process slow, mystifying, or nonfunctional. Online law enforcement message boards brim with complaints that the Pentagon refuses to take back unwanted guns and vehicles—like this one, about a pair of M14 rifles that have survived attempts by two sheriffs to get rid of them.
I’ve got an obvious answer – one that’ll make cops, the Pentagon and citizens (the right ones, anyway) happy: sell it to private citizens. Or at least the private citizens that pass the same background check that qualifies them for a state carry permit. It’ll save government money, and make the country safer by making Real Americans better-armed.
Facetious? Halfway. A fair chunk of this equipment could, and should by all rights, be going into the “Civilian Marksmanship Program”. But Barack Obama has been sandbagging the CMP for the past six years – which is why the price of surplus M-1 Garand rifles (from WW2 and the Korean War) is so very high these days.
But I digress.
And I’m about to digress some more; it’d seem we have some real powderpuffs in uniform (empasis added):
[Hillsborough NC police lieutenant Davis] Trimmer has twice requested permission to return three M14 rifles that are too heavy for practical use.
“Too heavy for practical use?” They weight eight pounds. Our troops lugged them all over Vietnam, for crying out loud.
Maybe the lieutenant was referring to carrying all three of them together?
Turn them over to me, if that’d help…
And now, from the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals, comes this radical news; law-enforcement officers’ qualified immunity doesn’t allow them to act like storm troopers just because they feel like it.
When the founding fathers created our Constitution, one of their biggest fears was that of the standing army. In Europe at the time (and in most dictatorships today), the Army was a professional, full-time force, frequently composed of mercenaries whose loyalty to the local king was purchased; in larger kingdoms, it was composed of units from different parts of the kingdom, who had no loyalty or affection to the people of the local province.
The Army, in short, was an agent of oppression.
The first municipal police department (in London in the 1820’s) on the other hand was an attempt to distance itself from the idea of the military.
Kevin Williamson at NRO goes through the squandered legacy of Sir John Peel, the inventor of the modern police force. Peel’s nine guidelines to the then-new Metro Police are – or were – a standard for cops for well over a century:
The first order of police work is, according to Peel, “to prevent crime and disorder, as an alternative to their repression by military force and severity of legal punishment.” The second principle is “to recognize always that the power of the police to fulfill their functions and duties is dependent on public approval of their existence, actions, and behavior, and on their ability to secure and maintain public respect.” He called this “policing by consent.” The policeman, in Peel’s view, was a citizen: “The police are the public and that the public are the police, the police being only members of the public who are paid to give full-time attention to duties which are incumbent on every citizen in the interests of community welfare and existence.”
And the importance of the uniform. The bright colors and towering headdresses of the uniforms of post-medieval Europe (still worn by the Guards at Buckingham Palace) were intended to try to intimidate the opposition, especially an opposition of peasants and rabble that didn’t have uniforms:
In that context, the function of the police uniform is simply that of an imprimatur — of the municipal government of London or of New York or Mayberry. It tells little Peter Pat whom he can trust.
We seem to have lost that idea:
Our contemporary and increasingly militarized police uniforms are designed for a different purpose: the projection of force. Peel organized the Metropolitan Police as an alternative to “military repression,” but we, in turn, have turned our police into quasi-military organizations: Armored vehicles roam the mean streets of Pulaski County, Ind. Why? “It’s more intimidating,” the sheriff says.
Cops will note in response that there are times when they do need to assert control – to “intimidate”. That’s true. But that “time” is not “when in contact with a general public that is exercising its right to protest”, among quite a few others.
The more I think about it, the more it seems modern law enforcement has become the standing army our founding fathers were worried about.
What do I think about what’s going on in Ferguson, Missouri?
Re the Brown shooting: On the one hand, American police do a lot more shooting than any other police force in the world. More shots were fired in that single incident in Ferguson than were fired by the entire German police force in six whole weeks.
On the other hand, African-Americans do get a disparately-harsh response from law-enforcement. It causes some to prejudge all cases involving black shooting victimes.
On the third hand – that cuts both ways. We don’t know the facts – not all of them – about the Brown shooting, but we’ve seen the media whitewash the likes of Darren Evanovich, trying to create a racial incident out of what turned out to be a perfectly clean self-defense shooting.
On the fourth hand, if Brown was going for the officer’s gun, that’s a legitimate cause for self-defense. Even for a regular citizen. If someone grabs your gun, the law doesn’t require you to read his mind as to what he intends to do with it.
On the fourth, we may not ever really know why the scuffle happened, or exactly what happened.
And that, in fact, is the only real response I have to add. Remember the media’s reports in the first hours, days, even weeks after Columbine? Virginia Tech? The Giffords and Aurora Theater and Newtown shootings? Remember how close to the actual facts of the stories they got?
Not at all.
So I’ll wait for the facts to shake out, assuming they ever do.
Regarding the Police Response: I’ve written before about how I oppose the militarization of the police. And the first couple of days of the Ferguson PD’s response was the Keystone Kops led by Major Frank Burns. Oh, don’t get me wrong; I have no problem with the DoD selling military firearms and armored vehicles to police departments – provided they sell them to law-abiding citizens, as well.
And yet when the Ferguson Fusiliers were withdrawn and replaced by the kinder, gentler, New-Ageier Missouri State Police? The violence ebbed ,then came back as bad as ever, prompting local, black residents to wonder to the media why the cops weren’t shooting looters. And now the National Guard is involved.
The Charlatan Caucus: Of course, where there are grievances, there will be grievance vultures. And sure enough, Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton are on the scene – which in and of itself devalues much of the local community’s complaints.
As bad, in their own way? The media – which continue lead with inaccurate info, when they’re not making the story about themselves.
Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:
This legal analysis is interesting because it starts from the basic assumption that the police have NO obligation to protect citizens from crime. The police create an obligation to protect you only if they go out of their way to make the situation worse than it was before they intervened.
The obvious implication of this “no obligation” ruling – coupled with the Supreme Court’s holding that individuals have a Constitutionally protected right to keep and bear arms for self-defense – is that the fundamental legal principle of public security in American law is . . . you’re on your own.
Which Conservatives have known all along, but it’s nice to see the Courts spell it out so clearly for us. Now, Liberals, do you have any questions?
Joe Doakes
I’m gonna guess “no”.
Y’know, as a conservative, I have a bent toward law and order. With an emphasis on “rule of law” and “general order”.
We’ll come back to that.
A New Jersey cop responds to a citizen’s allegations about his First and Fourth Amendment rights being violated:
“I’ve made you objections (sic) about what’s going on at the shelter over there,” [an animal rights activist] told the cop. “My 1st and 4th Amendment rights were violated – my civil rights were violated…”
The Helmetta police officer replied, “Obama just decimated the freakin’ Constitution, so I don’t give a damn. If he doesn’t follow the Constitution, we don’t have to.”
Just a crabby cop having a bad day and picking a lame excuse?
Perhaps.
But our founding fathers understood better than our generation does that freedom only survives when “the authorities” respect the idea.
And to too many of them, it’s just not there. Continue reading
Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:
. Connecticut mother leaves 11 year old child in car, gets arrested by police.
California mother leaves 12 year old child in car while she visits bank, gets shot by police.
Is it just me, or is “child protection” getting out of hand?
Joe Doakes
Como Park
Like all those Vietnamese villages that had to be destroyed to protect them…
The American Civil Liberties Union is a “civil liberties” group – defending the liberties that the political class east of the Hudson and West of the Sierra Madre value, first and foremost.
Don’t get me wrong – in the great scheme of things, someone has to defend the First Amendment rights of Nazis to march in Skokie, or for artists to create statues of the Virgin Mary made of cow dung. And it’s not going to be me – not beyond the intellectual plane with any great vigor, anyway.
Of course, the ACLU has always believed the Second Amendment was a collective right – incomprehensibly believing that while rights “of the People” in the First Amendment refer to individuals, in the Second they attach to the National Guard.
But once in a while they get one right – as in the report earlier this week on the excessive militarization of the Police.
Minnesota’s property forfeiture laws – which allowed law enforcement to confiscate property they believed was involved in crimes even before anyone was convicted – started out under the Carlson Administration – during America’s last major round of drug hysteria, in the early-mid ’90s, when the national murder rate spiked over the crack trade and Minnesota was reeling from the early-decade carnage in Minneapolis where, driven by gangs, the murder rate briefly spiked to some fairly astronomical levels.
If the police grab your property – car, house, whatever – you have to file suit to get it back, proving that your property didn’t in fact commit a crime or some such other legalistic buncombe.
And for all of Jesse Ventura’s libertarian palaver, his administration never addressed the issue. And if anyone pulled Jesse Ventura’s strings, it was Dean Barkley, moderate-DFLer turned “Independence Party” guru and Jesse Ventura’s main advisor and for two months, US Senator after Paul Wellstone died (and Ventura passive-aggressively refused to appoint election winner Norm Coleman to fill the period between the election and the swearing-in).
So maybe events have conspired to create another small-l libertarian?
Barkley’s ordeal started in April, he told me. He had lent the vehicle for a day to a relative to haul some tires. That relative was driving the GMC SUV when he got pulled over on Interstate 394, and Golden Valley police charged him with DWI and drug possession. They also seized the vehicle.
When Barkley went down to police headquarters, he was informed that they intended to keep the vehicle permanently under forfeiture laws. Barkley, who’s an attorney, was appalled.
Barkley has one distinct advantage: lawyer friends who will take his case on pro bono. Normally, it would cost about $5,000 to hire a lawyer to fight a forfeiture, making it pointless to do so if your property is worth less than that.
One of his attorneys, Philip Villaume, said the Golden Valley police have not violated any policies by refusing to give up the car so far, but he said he expects that as an innocent owner, Barkley will win it back in court – eventually. How long will that take? About three months, he said.
What’s the old saying? “A Republican is a Democrat that’s been mugged; a Libertarian is a Republican who’s been audited”?
Barkley said he did not think much about forfeiture law in his political days, but he’s thinking about it now. “It goes against every constitutional concept that I studied in law school. If somebody is guilty of something, fine. This way they presume you’re guilty… I think it’s screwy. I think it’s completely backwards.”
Yes, it certainly is.
Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:
A buddy writes, regarding citizen journalist Andrew Henderson’s acquittal:
So one year and thousands of dollars in lawyer’s fees later, he is acquitted of all charges. But where is the apology, the admission of wrong doing by the cops? Or the assessment of defense costs and fees?
Here is a little excerpt that perfectly, although I’m sure accidentally, portrays the abuse of process and authority of this whole thing:
Deputy Jacqueline Muellner, now retired, told the court that she confiscated the camera, stored it in her squad overnight and then in her work mailbox in an unsecure location for a day or two instead of the secure property locker.
Norgaard and Muellner said they were concerned about the patient’s privacy because it was a medical call.
They were so concerned about the patient’s privacy that she stole the camera and arrested the citizen, but then left the camera in sundry unsecured locations over the coming days while she worried about the invasion of privacy that the footage on the camera contained, and later discovered that the footage was somehow magically wiped. I’m not surprised it took the jury less than an hour to vindicate Henderson, her story has no credibility at all.
The larger issue is what to do about a law enforcement culture that sees itself as above the law. The officer violated Henderson’s First Amendment rights, using her authority as a government agent, then destroyed the evidence against her. What is it about Minnesota’s union-DFL-Big-Brother government that made her think she could get away with that?
Joe Doakes
The fact that they always do get away with it?
The founding fathers were worried, more than just about anything, about the threat a standing military would provide a free people.
Their worries were answered for the first 140 years of our nation’s history with a national military that was the absolute bare minimum needed to secure an isolated nation’s peacetime borders – the US Army in the 1870s included ten regiments of cavalry, 20 of infantry, and about eight of artillery, which was a tiny fraction of the army of any continental power – augmented in times of national emergency by troops raised by the states and lent do (and paid for by) the Feds for the duration of the emergency (which was where units like the “First Minnesota” and “67th Massachusetts” came from).
And between the strictures built into the system – the Posse Comitatus rule – and a generally well-directed sense of duty , the military has been generally good at staying out of internal business pretty much as long as there’s been a military.
But one thing the founding fathers never predicted in the 1780s – when “local law enforcement” meant a constable and whose main job was to watch for out-of-control fires – the power and scope of local and federal law enforcement today.
Whether it’s local police turning their SWAT teams into Panzergrenadier units, departments turning “law enforcement” into a stream of cash flow, cops turning crime scenes into free-fire zones and civilians into collateral damage stats, or even the most innocuous corners of the Federal Government coming up with the budget to have paramilitary units with full battle rattle, it’s fairly clear to me that the dynamic the Founders were worried about is alive and well…
…and turning the local and federal police into the “standing army” they were worried about in the first place.
…who’ve wondered “whatever happened to Landen Beard…”
Well, we don’t have any indication whatsoever that he was the BATF agent who flashed a gun at someone in rush-hour traffic yesterday, shutting down traffic in I94 while cops chased him down…
…and then released him. Because the law apparently allows “undercover” plainclothes cops to threaten people with lethal force when they’re one cup of coffee short for the morning.
“Police powers” have gone way, way too far.
It’s looking more and more like Miriam Carey, the Connecticut mother who was killed last year near the Capitol was guilty of nothing more than having a panic attack around the wrong cops.
The DC Capitol Police first called it a terrorist incident. Then, they said Carey was on drugs.
Now? Apparently she was just a flustered driver who panicked over cops’ response to her driving:
Columnist Mark Steyn memorably remarked, “Ms. Carey does not appear to be guilty of any act other than a panic attack,” and, “We are told Ms. Carey was ‘mentally ill,’ although she had no medications in her vehicle and those at her home back in Connecticut are sufficiently routine as to put millions of other Americans in the category of legitimate target.”
But now, it is a certified fact that Carey did not even have prescription drugs in her system when she was shot to death.
Even before that confirmation, it became clear months ago that there was no good explanation for why Carey was shot, and the story disappeared entirely off the mainstream media radar.
It’s been six months since the shooting, and the DC Capitol Police still haven’t released their report on the incident.
The list of explanations for this other than “the cops are closing ranks to cover up a major screw-up leading to the death of an innocent, panicky woman” is fast dwindling through the lower single digits.
The traditional deflection against charges of excessive police power and force is “if you haven’t done anything wrong, you have nothing to fear”. The line is corrosively stupid on its surface…
…but if “making cops nervous” rates a bullet in the back of the head, then clearly even that very stupid line is wrong, these days.
The whole article is worth a read.