A federal appeals court says three Seattle police officers did not employ excessive force when they repeatedly tasered a visibly pregnant woman for refusing to sign a speeding ticket.The lawyer representing Malaika Brooks said Monday that the court’s 2-1 decision sanctioned “pain compliance” tactics through a modern-day version of the cattle prod. [More]
Pain compliance.
I don't know what this reminds me of more:or
[Via Plug Nickel Times]
9 comments:
Well, they didn't turn it all the way up to 11. If they had, _then_ it would have been excessive force.
More and more I find myself thinking that to convict someone of murder for killing a cop, they not only have to convince me the defendant did it but also that the cop didn't "have it coming". And I'm thinking the later will be the higher hurdle to overcome.
There is no appeal to a bullet in the brain. It seems that is the only avenue to justice that hasn't been blocked off.
I swear to God, it's like some of them go out of their way to ensure I will be minimally cooperative in any future interaction.
Cripes, I once got lost at a Cub Scout convention as a kid, and a nice police officer found me and brought me to the security station where the adults could collect me. Detesting police doesn't come naturally to me.
But damn it, they have got to start weeding out the power-trippers and thugs. Do they WANT to be treated as the enemy?
I saw this first over at FourthAmendment.com and I e-mailed you about it.
If you care about reason over feeling, then read the dissent!
Dissent:
I dissent.
Here is what happened to Malaika Brooks, a pregnant mother, as she was driving her son to school one day: Two, soon three, police officers surrounded her. The officers thought she was speeding in a school zone; she says she was not. Brooks provided her identification when asked, so there was no doubt who she was or where to find her. The officers wrote her a ticket but she refused to sign it. Refusing to sign a speeding ticket was at the time a nonarrestable misdemeanor; now, in Washington, it is not even that. Brooks had no weapons and had not harmed or threatened to harm a soul. Although she had told the officers she was seven months pregnant, they proceeded to use a Taser on her, not once but three times, causing her to scream with pain and leaving burn marks and permanent scars.
I fail utterly to comprehend how my colleagues conclude that it was objectively reasonable to use any force against Brooks, let alone three activations of a Taser, in
response to such a trivial offense.
...
The majority’s attempt to elevate the misdemeanor of refusing to sign the notice to the gross misdemeanor of obstructing an officer is simply beyond the pale. Nor does the majority point to any authority supporting its off-the-wall theory.
We can't water board terrorists but we can do THIS???????
Cops, you wanna know what the problem is with all these "civilians"?
Look in the fucking mirror! Yours is a sick culture! Your "Cops are always right, Cops can do no wrong..." attitude is the problem. You say over and over how your ranks are filled with exceptionally good guys who just want to do the right thing. Prove it!
Whenever you have an opportunity to condemn the heinous actions of one of your own, all anyone can hear are crickets chirping.
When some one asks you why you wanted to be a cop, you take a page from The Manchurian Candidate, snap your head and eyes to the front, and say monotonously, "Because I wanted to help people..."
If you had the ability to speak the truth, you would say something like,
"Hey, you know, its a cool gig, you get paid well, people HAVE TO respect you, you get to carry a gun, you get to tell other people what to do, you get to put people in jail, if you fuck up or commit a crime, your brothers with protect you as far as they possibly can, and if you actually catch a real genuine bad guy once in a while, well, thats cool too."
And now, the Court has given you the green light to employ "pain compliance". What a deal!
The truth is your ranks are filled with bullies and thugs and that is just how MOST of you want it. Yours is the only GANG with official state sanction.
Sheep dogs? Lets get this strait. A sheep dog's function is not to protect anyone from the big bad wolf, and you know it! A sheep dog's primary function is to herd the sheep! Sheep dogs circle the herd nipping at heels, making sure the sheep never stray to far from the group, always with their heads facing toward the center. Your vision of yourself is telling. Your words clearly indicate how you see the world.
Cops, read David's "Only Ones" files daily, and look in the fucking mirror!
I cannot blame the woman for being afraid that signing the ticket was a confession. Even though the police told her that it was only a promise to appear and not a confession, how can she believe them when the courts have ruled that it is OK for the cops to lie to you.
I hear of so many people being arrested for refusing to sign a ticket, perhaps those laws need to go away.
Disclaimer: I work with cops everyday. I am not a sworn officer. About 50% of them do everything they can not arrest anyone, give people breaks, etc. About 30% of them occasionally get bothered and arrest people for stupid reasons that are borderline.
About 20% of them are truly mean sonsabitches that I would NOT want to cross. I am talking a true mean streak. Even fellow officers whisper about them, and occasionally even report them.
The brass do nothing. Some of these out of control officers ARE the brass.
Yet the police see no connection between these sorts of incidents, and the fact that so many of their "subjects" resent being protected and served so much that they are shooting them en masse:
http://www.komonews.com/news/local/78088192.html
It's nice to be in the company of like-minded individuals.
In Portland, we recently had a police officer kill a drunkard homeless man who was holding an x-acto knife. This is on top of the previous month's murder of an unarmed man (whose brother died that day), and the bean bag-shooting of a 12 year old girl (because she stopped cooperating when the police grabbed her hair).
We had riots the other day, a bunch of kid "anarchist", trying to take to the streets to protest police brutality. One of the cops I talked to, an African American no less, completely denied any sort of racial disparities in police practices (now, and in the 1960’s). He denied the racial roots of the drug war. He believed that protesters have to apply for a permit with the organization they're protesting against (who obviously would deny the marching permit). I tried explaining to the officer that recent acts of violence in California and in Washington are going to boil over into Portland without major levels of reform - he would hear none of it.
I hope this gives everyone a new perspective on Gangster Rap and their calls for violence against police (think N.W.A.’s “Fuck the Police”) – some groups have been dealing with this shit for over a hundred years.
I'm glad I'm young; it gives me a lot of energy to devote towards the pursuit of liberty. For the love of God, teach young people how to shoot.
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