Amendment IV
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
Showing posts with label cops. Show all posts
Showing posts with label cops. Show all posts
Sunday, January 16, 2011
Fuck Second Amendment Rights, Give Me Back the Fourth Amendment!
This kind of thing happens all the time. Cops burst into a house, guns drawn, fuck with everyone in the house, tear shit up, and then realize they've got the wrong place. I want my country back:
Thursday, July 15, 2010
Glimmer of Hope? D.C. Agrees to Mass Arrest Settlement
The District of Columbia has settled a decade long class action lawsuit over the illegal mass arrest and detainment of peaceful protesters. The fact is this will make no difference in New York or Los Angeles, or Chicago until similar suits have sat in courts for a decade or more. It is shameful that the people we hire for cops have no time for serving the public because they believe the public is a bunch of prisoners they have to beat.
Sunday, July 5, 2009
Police Violence Against Middle Aged Ladies
It is distressing to me that this story has gotten so little coverage in the major media. In case you haven't heard, here's a synopsis:
San Diego - Friday, June 26 - A middle aged lesbian couple in a nice neighborhood was holding a fundraiser for Francine Busby, a Democrat seeking state office. A short speech was made around 8pm using a small P.A. All the while a neighbor was shouting obscenities, especially anti-gay slurs. It would appear that the neighbor then called in a noise complaint. This was around 9pm and the noise ordinance doesn't come into effect until 10pm. Nonetheless the sheriff's department sent a deputy. This wasn't a rock concert, it was a small gathering (the cop says 50 people, the fundraisers say no more than 30) of mostly middle aged ladies. When one of the owners, 60 year old Shari Barman, questioned why the deputy needed her age since he had her name and address he proceeded to twist her arm behind her back and throw her to the ground. When the other partygoers protested and Barman's partner begged the deputy to be careful with Barman's arm as she'd just had shoulder surgery the deputy freaked out and pepper sprayed everyone within range in the face. He called in back-up which came in the form of six more cars, a helicopter, a fire truck, and a canine team!
These wealthy San Diego ladies will probably get justice in the end, but its because they can afford it. We have two justice systems in this country, the one that favors the rich and the one that jails the poor. And lord help you if you're poor and black! They say there is no honor amongst thieves, but there is far less honor amongst cops.
“It was a private, quiet party,” Busby said. “I can't reiterate enough that there was never any noise.” ...There is a lot of speculation that this was caused by steroid abuse. Whatever. This deputy is typical cop: vindictive, stupid, angry, mean, spiteful, dangerous and worst of all, armed. This is not an isolated incident. Cops are fucking insane in this country and we have to find some way to turn it around. There is a prison guard mentality that is endemic in law enforcement and the cliched "I am the law" approach is now standard but we continue to increase the number of crimes and we recruit the kind of knuckle dragging bullies that will beat anyone that argues with them. You show me one good cop and I'll show you at least one piece of shit that would be jailed if he didn't tend to fuck with the poor and helpless.
The American Civil Liberties Union also has weighed in, releasing a statement yesterday calling for the sheriff to release more information about “what appears to be a significant abuse of power by a peace officer who intruded into a person's home and reacted with unwarranted force to an unsubstantiated complaint alleging a minor infraction.” more
These wealthy San Diego ladies will probably get justice in the end, but its because they can afford it. We have two justice systems in this country, the one that favors the rich and the one that jails the poor. And lord help you if you're poor and black! They say there is no honor amongst thieves, but there is far less honor amongst cops.
Wednesday, May 6, 2009
Cops
What an old fashioned idea: the beat cop. A cop that walks around your neighborhood, knows your name and the names of your kids and is more worried about keeping you safe than trying to find an excuse to search your car.
Monday, March 23, 2009
Spending Money Just Because They Have Money To Spend
A letter I fired off today:
Office of Mayor Jerry Abramson
Metro Hall / 4th Floor
527 W. Jefferson St.
Louisville, KY 40202
c.c.: LMPD, Governor Steve Beshear, LG&E, Miller Pipeline Co., MSD, LEO Weekly, Louisville Courier Journal, Me Talk Big Noise blog
Re: wasted money
To Whom It May Concern:
There is a question that has bothered me for some time and today I sought an answer: “Why does every utility project require at least one, and usually two cops sitting in their cars with the engine running and lights flashing?” A half of a block on Clay Street, between Market Street and the alley was closed for work by the electric company today. That particular block is short to begin with and the distance from the corner of Clay and Market to the alley is less than 200 feet. There were two massive Louisville Gas & Electric Company trucks blocking the western lane. The eastern lane was blocked by traffic cones and two police cars with an officer in each. One of the cops was asleep, and the other was watching a movie on his laptop. There is very little traffic on that stretch of road as the street is closed at the end of the block. The absurdity of two cars being used to block this is staggering and I would go so far as to say it is a form of theft from the public coffers.
I asked the movie watching officer (the one that was awake) what the logic of this set-up was. He answered that they were “under contract” with LG&E and officers were required wherever work was being done. He couldn’t explain why and I don’t think anyone in government or at LG&E can either, at least not honestly. These two officers, being paid well over $25/hr while their two cars were burning gasoline were doing the job that could be done just as well by a pair of barricades with flashing lights.
This ludicrous use of our police force has bothered me for years. Several years back when I-65 was being resurfaced there was an officer at every single exit and entrance to the highway, sitting in a running police car all night long every single night for several weeks. Explain to me how it would be more expensive and less effective to place concrete barriers with flashing lights and a sign at each of these ramps and remove them at the end of the night. You can’t because it would, in fact, be cheaper and just as effective. Put a phone number on the barricade and pay one person to answer and give directions to those confused about getting out of town. Paying a cop to sit there (especially at the ends of exit ramps) is at best moronic.
Last year here in the Highlands the gas lines were being replaced and along the blocks where work was on-going police officers were stationed with their cars. As best as I can tell they were doing absolutely nothing other than accompanying their gasoline wasting, pollution producing police cars turned lighted barriers. For several days in a row there were large trucks and backhoes parked along the shoulder at Winter and Edward, a difficult intersection in good times and during this work it was impossible to see if there was traffic coming from either direction. Were the officers directing traffic? Were they letting the drivers entering blind from Edward know that it was clear or they should wait? No. They were standing around talking to people from the pipeline company, not directing traffic. Not once in the months the gas crews were working this neighborhood did I see any of these officers doing anything other than standing around, getting paid for breathing.
During heavy work on Bardstown road there were cop cars parked behind concrete barriers with their motors running and lights flashing. To what purpose? None. These cars were doing nothing that could not be achieved by placing flashing lights on the concrete barriers. They were wasting our money, they were wasting natural resources, they were adding age and wear to the vehicles, and they were most certainly not patrolling our streets and alleys, reducing crime.
I thought this stupid waste would have ended after a deputy sheriff was killed while playing barricade on I-64 last year. He was sitting in his car where there should have been a couple of big, dumb hunks of concrete with lights and signs when a truck ran over his car at highway speed, killing him instantly. Did anyone in government think, “Wow, having living people acting as a barricade to traffic may not be a good idea”? Of course not.
And best yet, after witnessing the absolutely moronic use of police officers on Clay Street I drove past Cherokee Park where a far more complicated and much busier set of streets were half closed by barricades and a couple of guys with signs directing traffic. Not a cop in sight and traffic seemed to be moving fairly smoothly.
The city of Louisville has closed parks, cut education funding and increased fees for services because of budget woes but we’re still pissing away thousands of dollars a day having police officers and police cars doing unnecessary jobs. I want these officers on foot patrols in the housing projects, or walking the Highlands at night, not sleeping in a car blocking a half a block of downtown street. Maybe if these fat cops (the officer watching the movie had a belly that would have embarrassed Homer Simpson) were hiking around the city bad things like babies being shot in the Shepherd Square projects or my elderly neighbor’s house being emptied by thieves in the middle of the night might not happen.
Every year I pay my taxes to this city and this kind of thing makes me more angry than I can express in words. Rather than protecting and serving, the Mayor and Chief of Police are going for pretending and soaking. You go to the rich, white parts of this city and wait an hour and you’ll see a police car cruise through, slowly. You can sit at the corner of Jacob and Jackson (huge open air drug market) for two weeks and you won’t see a single cop that’s not driving fifteen miles an hour over the speed limit, eyes forward, passing through. That is unless it’s the week where they try to get in their drug busts for the quarter so they can suck at the Federal teet of “drug enforcement” funding. Then there are dozens of cops being rude to everyone in the area, pushing people around and telling kids to shut the f#@! up while pulling over and searching everyone they profile (i.e. white people or black kids in nice cars). Again, a waste of money, a waste of time, and a waste of any good will of the people that live there.
I invested in property in Smoketown (the historically black part of Louisville) expecting the housing projects to be destroyed and a light rail system (streetcar) to run in front of my door. Neither of these things happened but I’ve kept up the property and lived there for years. Last year my brother and I were held up at gunpoint by three young boys with a very big revolver. It took over a half hour for an officer to arrive (we were two blocks from Broadway). When we called the detective about this, two weeks later, he hadn’t even looked at the case and implied we were criminals ourselves asking sarcastically, “What were you doing in Smoketown, huh?” As it was 11:30am on a school day you would think a quick check of absent male students that lived in that area would’ve solved the case. I doubt he did a thing as we never heard a word from him. Perhaps if the officers sleeping in their cars where street work was going on had been walking around that neighborhood those kids wouldn’t have decided to hold us up. Perhaps if officers were interacting with these children and acting as roll models they wouldn’t think of police only as the bastards that beat up their uncle or sent their mother to prison.
What the police department is doing by accepting these “living barricade” jobs is a form of theft. It enriches the officers that get paid for doing nothing and it fattens the coffers of the police department by payments from the utility companies while taking officers off the street and away from actually keeping the rest of us safe. All of us citizens end up paying for this stupidity whether it’s through our taxes or through the money we pay the utilities. The vehicles we buy are worn doing nothing, the air we breath is polluted by these senselessly running engines, and our police officers feel they deserve to be paid for sitting on their asses which might explain the crap attitudes so many Louisville officers bring to the public they harass and ignore. This just reeks of one thief scratching the back of another thief. The executives of the utility companies get to rub shoulders with the mayor, assuring there will be little examination of what they charge the city, the chief of police can do that bureaucratic thing of taking pride in controlling more money than necessary while doing as little as possible with it, and the mayor can pretend that he’s worried about the city’s budget as he closes parks and slashes pay and benefits and ignores flagrant wastes of money like this while making the donors to his campaigns feel safe by sending cop cars cruising through their crime free subdivisions.
If anyone can explain to me how this makes any sense whatsoever I will be amazed. It smells like business as usual to me and that business is not to the benefit of the vast majority of the taxpayers and utility customers of this community.
Sincerely,
Alan Miller
Office of Mayor Jerry Abramson
Metro Hall / 4th Floor
527 W. Jefferson St.
Louisville, KY 40202
c.c.: LMPD, Governor Steve Beshear, LG&E, Miller Pipeline Co., MSD, LEO Weekly, Louisville Courier Journal, Me Talk Big Noise blog
Re: wasted money
To Whom It May Concern:
There is a question that has bothered me for some time and today I sought an answer: “Why does every utility project require at least one, and usually two cops sitting in their cars with the engine running and lights flashing?” A half of a block on Clay Street, between Market Street and the alley was closed for work by the electric company today. That particular block is short to begin with and the distance from the corner of Clay and Market to the alley is less than 200 feet. There were two massive Louisville Gas & Electric Company trucks blocking the western lane. The eastern lane was blocked by traffic cones and two police cars with an officer in each. One of the cops was asleep, and the other was watching a movie on his laptop. There is very little traffic on that stretch of road as the street is closed at the end of the block. The absurdity of two cars being used to block this is staggering and I would go so far as to say it is a form of theft from the public coffers.
I asked the movie watching officer (the one that was awake) what the logic of this set-up was. He answered that they were “under contract” with LG&E and officers were required wherever work was being done. He couldn’t explain why and I don’t think anyone in government or at LG&E can either, at least not honestly. These two officers, being paid well over $25/hr while their two cars were burning gasoline were doing the job that could be done just as well by a pair of barricades with flashing lights.
This ludicrous use of our police force has bothered me for years. Several years back when I-65 was being resurfaced there was an officer at every single exit and entrance to the highway, sitting in a running police car all night long every single night for several weeks. Explain to me how it would be more expensive and less effective to place concrete barriers with flashing lights and a sign at each of these ramps and remove them at the end of the night. You can’t because it would, in fact, be cheaper and just as effective. Put a phone number on the barricade and pay one person to answer and give directions to those confused about getting out of town. Paying a cop to sit there (especially at the ends of exit ramps) is at best moronic.
Last year here in the Highlands the gas lines were being replaced and along the blocks where work was on-going police officers were stationed with their cars. As best as I can tell they were doing absolutely nothing other than accompanying their gasoline wasting, pollution producing police cars turned lighted barriers. For several days in a row there were large trucks and backhoes parked along the shoulder at Winter and Edward, a difficult intersection in good times and during this work it was impossible to see if there was traffic coming from either direction. Were the officers directing traffic? Were they letting the drivers entering blind from Edward know that it was clear or they should wait? No. They were standing around talking to people from the pipeline company, not directing traffic. Not once in the months the gas crews were working this neighborhood did I see any of these officers doing anything other than standing around, getting paid for breathing.
During heavy work on Bardstown road there were cop cars parked behind concrete barriers with their motors running and lights flashing. To what purpose? None. These cars were doing nothing that could not be achieved by placing flashing lights on the concrete barriers. They were wasting our money, they were wasting natural resources, they were adding age and wear to the vehicles, and they were most certainly not patrolling our streets and alleys, reducing crime.
I thought this stupid waste would have ended after a deputy sheriff was killed while playing barricade on I-64 last year. He was sitting in his car where there should have been a couple of big, dumb hunks of concrete with lights and signs when a truck ran over his car at highway speed, killing him instantly. Did anyone in government think, “Wow, having living people acting as a barricade to traffic may not be a good idea”? Of course not.
And best yet, after witnessing the absolutely moronic use of police officers on Clay Street I drove past Cherokee Park where a far more complicated and much busier set of streets were half closed by barricades and a couple of guys with signs directing traffic. Not a cop in sight and traffic seemed to be moving fairly smoothly.
The city of Louisville has closed parks, cut education funding and increased fees for services because of budget woes but we’re still pissing away thousands of dollars a day having police officers and police cars doing unnecessary jobs. I want these officers on foot patrols in the housing projects, or walking the Highlands at night, not sleeping in a car blocking a half a block of downtown street. Maybe if these fat cops (the officer watching the movie had a belly that would have embarrassed Homer Simpson) were hiking around the city bad things like babies being shot in the Shepherd Square projects or my elderly neighbor’s house being emptied by thieves in the middle of the night might not happen.
Every year I pay my taxes to this city and this kind of thing makes me more angry than I can express in words. Rather than protecting and serving, the Mayor and Chief of Police are going for pretending and soaking. You go to the rich, white parts of this city and wait an hour and you’ll see a police car cruise through, slowly. You can sit at the corner of Jacob and Jackson (huge open air drug market) for two weeks and you won’t see a single cop that’s not driving fifteen miles an hour over the speed limit, eyes forward, passing through. That is unless it’s the week where they try to get in their drug busts for the quarter so they can suck at the Federal teet of “drug enforcement” funding. Then there are dozens of cops being rude to everyone in the area, pushing people around and telling kids to shut the f#@! up while pulling over and searching everyone they profile (i.e. white people or black kids in nice cars). Again, a waste of money, a waste of time, and a waste of any good will of the people that live there.
I invested in property in Smoketown (the historically black part of Louisville) expecting the housing projects to be destroyed and a light rail system (streetcar) to run in front of my door. Neither of these things happened but I’ve kept up the property and lived there for years. Last year my brother and I were held up at gunpoint by three young boys with a very big revolver. It took over a half hour for an officer to arrive (we were two blocks from Broadway). When we called the detective about this, two weeks later, he hadn’t even looked at the case and implied we were criminals ourselves asking sarcastically, “What were you doing in Smoketown, huh?” As it was 11:30am on a school day you would think a quick check of absent male students that lived in that area would’ve solved the case. I doubt he did a thing as we never heard a word from him. Perhaps if the officers sleeping in their cars where street work was going on had been walking around that neighborhood those kids wouldn’t have decided to hold us up. Perhaps if officers were interacting with these children and acting as roll models they wouldn’t think of police only as the bastards that beat up their uncle or sent their mother to prison.
What the police department is doing by accepting these “living barricade” jobs is a form of theft. It enriches the officers that get paid for doing nothing and it fattens the coffers of the police department by payments from the utility companies while taking officers off the street and away from actually keeping the rest of us safe. All of us citizens end up paying for this stupidity whether it’s through our taxes or through the money we pay the utilities. The vehicles we buy are worn doing nothing, the air we breath is polluted by these senselessly running engines, and our police officers feel they deserve to be paid for sitting on their asses which might explain the crap attitudes so many Louisville officers bring to the public they harass and ignore. This just reeks of one thief scratching the back of another thief. The executives of the utility companies get to rub shoulders with the mayor, assuring there will be little examination of what they charge the city, the chief of police can do that bureaucratic thing of taking pride in controlling more money than necessary while doing as little as possible with it, and the mayor can pretend that he’s worried about the city’s budget as he closes parks and slashes pay and benefits and ignores flagrant wastes of money like this while making the donors to his campaigns feel safe by sending cop cars cruising through their crime free subdivisions.
If anyone can explain to me how this makes any sense whatsoever I will be amazed. It smells like business as usual to me and that business is not to the benefit of the vast majority of the taxpayers and utility customers of this community.
Sincerely,
Alan Miller
Tuesday, December 9, 2008
Kop Busters
Proving yet again the endemic corruption and disregard for the Constitution or law of any kind by our nation's police force. The Odessa, Texas police force is apparently driving around scanning houses with infrared calendars which the Supreme Court deemed unconstitutional.
Thanks to JM for the heads up.KopBusters rented a house in Odessa, Texas and began growing two small Christmas trees under a grow light similar to those used for growing marijuana. When faced with a suspected marijuana grow, the police usually use illegal FLIR cameras and/or lie on the search warrant affidavit claiming they have probable cause to raid the house. Instead of conducting a proper investigation which usually leads to no probable cause, the Kops lie on the affidavit claiming a confidential informant saw the plants and/or the police could smell marijuana coming from the suspected house.
The trap was set and less than 24 hours later, the Odessa narcotics unit raided the house only to find KopBuster’s attorney waiting under a system of complex gadgetry and spy cameras that streamed online to the KopBuster’s secret mobile office nearby.
-so amazing. here’s why the cops were definitely up to no good: “There was nothing illegal going on the bait house, just two evergreen trees and some grow lamps. There was no probable cause. So a couple of questions come up. First, how did the cops get turned on to the house in the first place? Cooper suspects they were using thermal imaging equipment to detect the grow lamps, a practice the Supreme Court has said is illegal. The second question is, what probable cause did the police put on the affidavit to get a judge to sign off on a search warrant? If there was nothing illegal going on in the house, it’s difficult to conceive of a scenario where either the police or one of their informants didn’t lie to get a warrant.”
this is interesting in part because arguments that police are doing illegal drug raids are usually raised by people who were raided and found to have illegal drugs, who don’t make great spokespeople for why the police shouldn’t be allowed to do this kind of thing. (boingboing)
Saturday, April 5, 2008
Art, Nuisance, or DANGER?
You would think that driving an artcar would make you a police magnet, but in my experience and in the experience of almost everyone I've talked to, police won't hassle you just because they feel like, unlike being a black male in a car with big wheels. In Louisville a missing taillight on one of those will get you pulled over by two or more cop cars and a dog will run back and forth over your custom seats while you sit on your hands on the sidewalk. I've seen it happen several times. I've had a few cops ask me questions about my old truck that sported a voodoo theme, but only out of curiosity, and none have done more than give a questioning look at my car. I guess maybe since we're so aware of our extra lights, etc. we go to great lengths to make sure we're also legal.
But in the city of Austin, Texas, a pair of restaurants is up against the LAW for using artcars for planters in front of their shops. They demolished an old car and then had it painted by local artists. They filled it with dirt and planted cactus in it.
I had always thought of Austin as particularly progressive but apparently they have some politicians with sticks up their asses there as well. The restaurants have been repeatedly ticketed for violating a junked car statute. It has worked its way up the courts and is being fought on a First Amendment basis. Good luck to them!
But in the city of Austin, Texas, a pair of restaurants is up against the LAW for using artcars for planters in front of their shops. They demolished an old car and then had it painted by local artists. They filled it with dirt and planted cactus in it.
I had always thought of Austin as particularly progressive but apparently they have some politicians with sticks up their asses there as well. The restaurants have been repeatedly ticketed for violating a junked car statute. It has worked its way up the courts and is being fought on a First Amendment basis. Good luck to them!
Thursday, March 13, 2008
I Hate Cops
I hope where you live the cops aren't the worthless sons of bitches they are here in Louisville. I could tell endless stories of their shitfuck behavior but I'll just tell you about how my day started off today.
I went to pick up my helper for the drive out to Prospect (I think it's about 20 miles away) and, like every day, I pulled up across the street from his house, in a No Parking zone and waited for him to come out. A cop pulled up behind me and wrote me a ticket. He was brusque and simply ordered me to move after giving me the ticket. So I went down the street, turned around, and parked on the other side of the street. When I looked at the ticket I saw he had circled "No Stopping." He was writing another ticket for a car that was parked (as opposed to standing as I was doing) so I walked up to him and said, "Excuse me, sir, did you mean to circle 'no stopping' on the ticket because the sign says 'no parking.?'" Guess what his answer was? Well, it wasn't anything nice. What he said was, "OK, I'll write you a State citation." He ticketed me for having out of state plates (I just bought the van from my cousin in Tennessee) as well as being in a "No Parking" zone. Fucking asshole.
It really sucks that the only people Louisville seems to be able to find to be cops are thugs and bullies just looking for a fight. Now I have to waste my time going to court because of this stupid fucker and I'm pretty sure I'll get off. I have pictures of his car next to the "No Parking" sign and I'm well aware that you are allowed to stand in a no parking zone.
Someone explain to me why I should respect these people. Because they've got a badge? Mall cops have badges too. Louisville cops are the worst I've ever encountered. The attitude is "I AM THE LAW!" The attitude is almost exactly the same as that of the deputized Eric Cartman in the cartoon South Park, especially in the case of my cop today (I believe his name is Ryan. His badge number is 2780). He wrote me the extra citations because I didn't respect his authority (pronounced "uh-thor-ih-thai"). I have a feeling if he'd been down by my other house in the "black" area downtown he would've beaten me for questioning him.
The culture in this police department is historically thuggish. I have heard many stories from long-time Louisvillians that, though shocking, would not seem unusual today. In most cities these events would have resulted in firings and demotions. Here nothing happens.
I have no doubt that despite my filing an official complaint against this officer tomorrow that nothing will ever happen to him. He appeared to be in his late 40's and I'm sure he's been being a dick for years with no punishment other than having to drive around giving parking tickets in school zones.
What the hell is wrong with this country that we deserve public servants like him?
I went to pick up my helper for the drive out to Prospect (I think it's about 20 miles away) and, like every day, I pulled up across the street from his house, in a No Parking zone and waited for him to come out. A cop pulled up behind me and wrote me a ticket. He was brusque and simply ordered me to move after giving me the ticket. So I went down the street, turned around, and parked on the other side of the street. When I looked at the ticket I saw he had circled "No Stopping." He was writing another ticket for a car that was parked (as opposed to standing as I was doing) so I walked up to him and said, "Excuse me, sir, did you mean to circle 'no stopping' on the ticket because the sign says 'no parking.?'" Guess what his answer was? Well, it wasn't anything nice. What he said was, "OK, I'll write you a State citation." He ticketed me for having out of state plates (I just bought the van from my cousin in Tennessee) as well as being in a "No Parking" zone. Fucking asshole.
It really sucks that the only people Louisville seems to be able to find to be cops are thugs and bullies just looking for a fight. Now I have to waste my time going to court because of this stupid fucker and I'm pretty sure I'll get off. I have pictures of his car next to the "No Parking" sign and I'm well aware that you are allowed to stand in a no parking zone.
Someone explain to me why I should respect these people. Because they've got a badge? Mall cops have badges too. Louisville cops are the worst I've ever encountered. The attitude is "I AM THE LAW!" The attitude is almost exactly the same as that of the deputized Eric Cartman in the cartoon South Park, especially in the case of my cop today (I believe his name is Ryan. His badge number is 2780). He wrote me the extra citations because I didn't respect his authority (pronounced "uh-thor-ih-thai"). I have a feeling if he'd been down by my other house in the "black" area downtown he would've beaten me for questioning him.
The culture in this police department is historically thuggish. I have heard many stories from long-time Louisvillians that, though shocking, would not seem unusual today. In most cities these events would have resulted in firings and demotions. Here nothing happens.
I have no doubt that despite my filing an official complaint against this officer tomorrow that nothing will ever happen to him. He appeared to be in his late 40's and I'm sure he's been being a dick for years with no punishment other than having to drive around giving parking tickets in school zones.
What the hell is wrong with this country that we deserve public servants like him?
Tuesday, September 4, 2007
Louisville Cops "Community Relations"
I'm not a big fan of cops in general and Louisville cops specifically. More and more the police force has become a haven for failed jocks and thugs looking for an excuse to push people around and bash heads, especially "nappy" ones. I could go on for pages about them but I'll start with one post about last Friday.
I am renovating a house I own in the "historically black" section of Louisville known as Smoketown. I currently live in a part of town known as the Highlands but I lived in my Smoketown house for over five years so I'm pretty familiar with the neighborhood. Immediately across the alley behind my garage is a decaying housing projects called Shepard Square. Now I have spent many hours working on the roofs of my garage and house as well as many other exterior repairs that gives me a great view of the projects and as best as I can tell cops enter those projects for only one reason: to arrest somebody. There are no community patrols, no cops on foot or bicycle that regularly pass through, for that matter there aren't even cops driving around the area.
"But the police force is stretched thin," I hear you say. If that is true then why when I work in the wealthy white parts of town do I see regular (like every hour or two) patrols pass by? There is not a lot of crime in the cul-de-sac neighborhoods around the park, no crackheads cutting across the two acre lawns in front of the 10,000 square foot homes, but you can guarantee a cop is going to cruise by several times a day. Go to where the crack is being sold and the babies are being shot by stray bullets and you can't get a cop to your house within twenty minutes of a 911 call. Get mugged in the Highlands and the cops are there in minutes, get mugged in the projects and the mugger can walk leisurely away because the cops sure as shit aren't going to get there quickly enough to find him.
So last Friday I pull up to my house in the afternoon and there are cops everywhere. Cops on bikes, cops in cars, cops standing around. The first cop I saw crossed the street ahead of me on his bike and I thought, "Excellent. They're finally patrolling the area." Then I turned the corner and saw the cops were everywhere. They weren't in there getting to know the people, talk to the kids, or keep an eye on the crack addicts heading to the same three apartments they always go to for their rocks. They were in there to push people around. They were in there to be thugs. My brother was working on his building next door to mine and when he left to drive back to his farm in the country he was pulled over by vice squad who, of course, treated him like a liar and criminal until they realized he hadn't been buying crack. They were jarhead thugs out to push somebody around. Of course if there were patrols in the area they would've known he's there three or four days a week, parked in his yard, working in the building. For that matter, if they'd been paying any attention at all they would've seen him parked there all day, working on his house. He was parked in his yard on the alley in site of two of the crack dealing apartments. His view of the third one is blocked by a building while I've got a clear view from right next door.
Rather than devote an officer full time to walk around those projects and make friends and allies, the Louisville Metro Police feel they should come in once every few years and make sure everyone hates them. The kids trust the crack dealers and will look out for them because every time they've had a dealing with a cop they've either been ignored or threatened with arrest or watched someone they know get carted off in handcuffs. The crack dealers will give them five bucks to go buy candy and the cops will arrest their uncle. They're not busting the dealers for reasons I can't understand. If I can watch the courtyard behind my house for fifteen minutes and figure out which apartments the crack is coming out of (the crackheads are so obvious you can't mistake them for residents), why can't the cops? Oh, that's right, it's because they're never actually in the projects unless they're reacting to another shooting of a baby or serving a warrant against some poor loser that fucked up his parole again.
In the future I will write about the way Louisville (and Kentucky cops in general) drive and make a tenuous connection between the fact they feel traffic laws do not apply to them and the "I am the law!" attitude exhibited by cops shooting suspects in the back or assassinating political adversaries.
One observation I've made is that you can always tell from a distance the color of a driver that's been pulled over in Louisville by the number of cars behind it. White female driver = one car. White male driver = one car (unless they're a "wangsta.") Black driver (of any sex but not looking like a "gangsta") or a "wangsta" = two cars. Black driver looking like a gangsta = two to five cars. I've been making these observations since I moved here in 2000 and only once have I seen two cars behind a non-wangsta white person.
I am renovating a house I own in the "historically black" section of Louisville known as Smoketown. I currently live in a part of town known as the Highlands but I lived in my Smoketown house for over five years so I'm pretty familiar with the neighborhood. Immediately across the alley behind my garage is a decaying housing projects called Shepard Square. Now I have spent many hours working on the roofs of my garage and house as well as many other exterior repairs that gives me a great view of the projects and as best as I can tell cops enter those projects for only one reason: to arrest somebody. There are no community patrols, no cops on foot or bicycle that regularly pass through, for that matter there aren't even cops driving around the area.
"But the police force is stretched thin," I hear you say. If that is true then why when I work in the wealthy white parts of town do I see regular (like every hour or two) patrols pass by? There is not a lot of crime in the cul-de-sac neighborhoods around the park, no crackheads cutting across the two acre lawns in front of the 10,000 square foot homes, but you can guarantee a cop is going to cruise by several times a day. Go to where the crack is being sold and the babies are being shot by stray bullets and you can't get a cop to your house within twenty minutes of a 911 call. Get mugged in the Highlands and the cops are there in minutes, get mugged in the projects and the mugger can walk leisurely away because the cops sure as shit aren't going to get there quickly enough to find him.
So last Friday I pull up to my house in the afternoon and there are cops everywhere. Cops on bikes, cops in cars, cops standing around. The first cop I saw crossed the street ahead of me on his bike and I thought, "Excellent. They're finally patrolling the area." Then I turned the corner and saw the cops were everywhere. They weren't in there getting to know the people, talk to the kids, or keep an eye on the crack addicts heading to the same three apartments they always go to for their rocks. They were in there to push people around. They were in there to be thugs. My brother was working on his building next door to mine and when he left to drive back to his farm in the country he was pulled over by vice squad who, of course, treated him like a liar and criminal until they realized he hadn't been buying crack. They were jarhead thugs out to push somebody around. Of course if there were patrols in the area they would've known he's there three or four days a week, parked in his yard, working in the building. For that matter, if they'd been paying any attention at all they would've seen him parked there all day, working on his house. He was parked in his yard on the alley in site of two of the crack dealing apartments. His view of the third one is blocked by a building while I've got a clear view from right next door.
Rather than devote an officer full time to walk around those projects and make friends and allies, the Louisville Metro Police feel they should come in once every few years and make sure everyone hates them. The kids trust the crack dealers and will look out for them because every time they've had a dealing with a cop they've either been ignored or threatened with arrest or watched someone they know get carted off in handcuffs. The crack dealers will give them five bucks to go buy candy and the cops will arrest their uncle. They're not busting the dealers for reasons I can't understand. If I can watch the courtyard behind my house for fifteen minutes and figure out which apartments the crack is coming out of (the crackheads are so obvious you can't mistake them for residents), why can't the cops? Oh, that's right, it's because they're never actually in the projects unless they're reacting to another shooting of a baby or serving a warrant against some poor loser that fucked up his parole again.
In the future I will write about the way Louisville (and Kentucky cops in general) drive and make a tenuous connection between the fact they feel traffic laws do not apply to them and the "I am the law!" attitude exhibited by cops shooting suspects in the back or assassinating political adversaries.
One observation I've made is that you can always tell from a distance the color of a driver that's been pulled over in Louisville by the number of cars behind it. White female driver = one car. White male driver = one car (unless they're a "wangsta.") Black driver (of any sex but not looking like a "gangsta") or a "wangsta" = two cars. Black driver looking like a gangsta = two to five cars. I've been making these observations since I moved here in 2000 and only once have I seen two cars behind a non-wangsta white person.
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