no third solution

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Category Archives: Police State

Do You Feel Safer Now?

May 14th, 2009

From my brother, via e-mail, “I cant decide if this (login required @ NYT)is somewhat disturbing or incredibly disturbing. Oh, wait — it’s incredibly disturbing.”

14explorers2-600a

The NYT’s Jennifer Steinhauer reports on an Explorer Scout program, indoctrinating training American youths — some as young as 13 and a half — to preserve the Empire, which of course means learning how to shoot brown people from poor countries trying to make a better life for their families and learning how to destroy lives by perpetuating the war on drugs.

Explorers were instructed on how to quiet an obstreperous lookout. “Put him on his face and put a knee in his back,” a Border Patrol agent explained. “I guarantee that he’ll shut up.”

“Cathy Noriego, also 16, said she was attracted by the guns. The group uses compressed-air guns — known as airsoft guns, which fire tiny plastic pellets — in the training exercises, and sometimes they shoot real guns on a closed range. “I like shooting them,” Cathy said. “I like the sound they make. It gets me excited.””

Children, malleable minds, lured by the sound of gunfire. Hell in a motherf*cking handbag.

There’s some sick irony when teenagers with surnames like Noriego are learning how keep people, who were unfortunately born on the “wrong” side of some arbitrary and purely imaginary line, out of their country.  And I can’t help but think that many of these children wouldn’t be here today if there had been a draconian border policy a cenutry or two hence in order to preserve America’s “Manifest Destiny”.

Drug War Victim Wants to Apologize

April 22nd, 2009

There are now reports that Derek Copp (who you might recall, was unintentionally shot by an Ottawa County Sheriff’s deputy Ryan Huizenga, during the execution of a drug-raid on his partment over 1/8 of one ounce of marijuana) would like to apologize to the officer who shot him.

Read it again.  Copp, the fucking coward, is not asking for an apology from the Jackboot who shot him, he’s asking for permission to apologize to the Jackboot who shot him.

Although the shooting was an accident, and Huizenga has since been charged with careless discharge of a firearm, (better than nothing, but not good enough, IMO) I can’t help but think that if Copp had been holding a gun, or had “carelessly” discharged one on accident that evening, he’d be very, very dead today.  In fact, given the circumstances, he’s very lucky to even be alive.

And he’s the one who wants to issue an apology?  This is very upsetting, and I can’t help but wonder, just WTF Copp is thinking? And from what sort of battered-victim syndrome is he suffering?*

Maybe a little humor will lift your spirits? It might help to imagine something like this:

sorry

+++

*My guess is that Copp’s attorney thinks that this might improve his chances in the “justice” system. Maybe it will. This is how it works: if you confess your “crimes,” if you bow obediently before the State and ask forgiveness, your punishment will be less severe. This is how injustice is perpetuated: by threatening you with severe injustice, you’re browbeaten into accepting a somewhat milder injustice. Your obedience/deference is seen by others as penance, as an admission that you really were the bad guy all along, and thus legitimizes the draconian actions taken by the police, and enabled by the courts.

Deputy Reinstated After Shooting Unarmed Student

April 14th, 2009

About a month ago, Derek Copp, a 20 year old Grand Valley State University student was shot during the execution of a drug warrant on the apartment in which he lives.

Ryan Huizenga, the 37-year old officer who accidentally shot Copp, will probably face nothing more than a slap on the proverbial wrist. He was initially placed on unpaid leave pending investigation. And although yesterday, Huizenga was charged with “careless discharge of a firearm,” a misdemeanor offense, he has also been reinstated, and is now performing “administrative duties.”  In other words, he’s being paid to do nothing. What’s alarming is the Undersheriff’s logic for reinstating Huizenga:

Undersheriff Gregory Steigenga says Huizenga was reinstated because it could take a long time for the case to wind its way through the court system.

I’d be less offended if they just put up the Blue Wall and cleared him of any wrongdoing.

Let’s think about it for a moment: If you’re pointing a gun at someone, it’s pretty impossible to “carelessly” discharge it. The only reason you point a loaded gun at someone, is because you plan to (or anticipate that you might) shoot him. It might well have been an accident, but it wasn’t “careless”.  No — it’s never merely “careless” to point a loaded weapon at anyone who is not posing a clear and immediate threat — it’s reckless and criminally negligent.

If Copp had had “carelessly discharged a firearm” at one of the officers, and lived to tell about it (in all likelihood he’d be very, very dead), he’d most certainly be facing several felony charges.

Particularly discomforting, is the blind deference to the authorities summed up in a statement from Joe Putra, one of Copp’s neighbors who although describing Copp as a “real nice guy”, automatically assumes that Copp must be guilty of something and implies that he probably deserved whatever he got:

It must have been something more than just weed

Otherwise he wouldn’t have been shot, right? Because the police can’t make mistakes, right? Because kicking down some college kid’s door in the dark of night with guns drawn is not a recipe for disaster, right?

And what if it was “just weed”? Did he deserve to be shot?

no third solution

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