OMNI
POLICE USA NEWSLETTER #2, September 3, 2014
COMPILED BY DICK BENNETT FOR A CULTURE OF PEACE AND
JUSTICE
(#1 August 17, 2014)
What’s at stake: We
live in “a country that seems at once
happy to whine about “Big Government” and slam civilian public servants as
“government bureaucrats” – all while telling pollsters it holds the biggest
appendage of “Big Government” – aka the military – in great
esteem. Thanks to such a martial culture, few ever stop to wonder why our
politics so often distinguishes between civilian and military public service,
and then insinuates that one is to be denigrated and the other venerated.
Newsletters
Index:
See: Militarism, Nonviolence, Violence,
Contents US Police
Newsletter #2
Service
David Sirota: Police, Firemen, Teachers, et al. All Services
Misconduct
Lying Under Oath
Excessive Force
US and UK 2013: US 409 Killed by Police, UK Zero
Derek Flood, Sojourner’s,
God’s Politics Blog, History of US Violence
Militarization
Timm, Why Homeland Security Arming Police Departments
Zeese and Flowers: Ferguson, Militarized, Racist Police
Neff, More Armor than in Afghanistan
Hayes Brown, Congress Must Review Weapons Transfers
Reed, One City Returns Its Armored Truck
Filming and Archiving
Abuses on Smart Phones
Goodman and Gonzalez, Democracy
Now, Yvonne Ng
Compare Police
Practices: Unarmed Police
Unarmed Police Around the World
UK Unarmed Police, Information About Police
Contact Representatives
Service
MONDAY, MAY 27, 2013 06:45 AM CDT
Memorial Day should also
honor fallen police, firefighters and teachers
There are many ways to
serve your country. Holiday should also include first responders, and others
who died for us
TOPICS: MEMORIAL DAY, U.S. MILITARY, TEACHERS, VETERANS, FIREFIGHTERS, POLICE, UNITED STATES, EDITOR'S PICKS, FIRST RESPONDERS, PUBLIC SCHOOLS,
(Credit: Reuters/Gene
Blevins)
I am the
grandson of a veteran, and so among other things, Memorial Day brings up early
childhood memories of my dad’s dad telling me about his public service in the
military. While he gave me kid-friendly versions of his recollections, I was
just old enough to vaguely understand his allusions to the injuries,
casualties, lost friends and the trauma he likely experienced while serving
overseas in World War II. Those allusions to the downsides of war – downsides
that are too often glossed over in our sanitized recollections of World War II
– gradually informed the way I came to see Memorial Day as a sacred moment to
honor those who lost their lives in service to America.
In recent
years, though, I have found our national celebration of Memorial Day lacking because
while I am indeed the grandson of a soldier, I am also the son, son-in-law,
nephew and friend of many other kinds of public servants. Through their
civilian work, I have come to understand public service as something much more
than only military service. Trouble is, while there may be a few lower profile days meant to
honor their service, these public servants are not included as part of the
high-profile Memorial Day – even though they should be.
Remember:
Memorial Day is not supposed to be a national excuse to have a barbecue in
celebration of the kickoff of summer – it is supposed to be about honoring
those who lost their lives while serving in the armed forces. A holiday of such
significance – including a designated off day for many workers – is more than
warranted. Regardless of the judgments we might make about whether particular
wars are just, smart or necessary, these men and women who lost their lives
carrying out the war decisions of our country do deserve to be honored for
their sacrifice.
However, it
doesn’t insult my grandfather or his fallen brothers in arms to point out that
the narrowness of the holiday is both painfully outdated and unduly
exclusionary – the latter in a way that buttresses pernicious ideological
judgments about different kinds of public service.
On the first
point about Memorial Day’s scope being outdated – let’s remember that in
so many ways, our government is telling us that we are now in a permanent
state of war (officially deemed “persistent
conflict”), one demanding that, as the saying goes, we see “the
whole world as a battlefield.” If that is true, then it logically
follows that soldiers are not the only ones defending our national security –
nor losing their lives – on the figurative frontlines. On the contrary, if this
is truly a boundary-less war against all kinds of threats, then it stands to
reason that our national security is being protected not just by soldiers, but
also by police officers, firefighters, first responders, teachers and myriad
other public servants.
The best way
to appreciate that truism is to take a look at all the civilian public servants
who have lost their lives defending the country.
If you do
that, you will inevitably run across details of the 412
emergency workers (13 percent of the total fatalities) who died at the
World Trade Center on 9/11. You will also probably find names like Stephen Tyrone
Johns, Timothy
Brenton, Michael
Chiapperini and Tomasz Kaczowka. And you may even stumble upon the
aggregate statistics showing that in the last decade alone, 1,539 police officers were
killed in the line of duty; since 1977, there have been 4,325
on-duty firefighters fatalities; and that, according to The Foundation for First
Responders and Firefighters, “Several hundred first responders die in the
line of duty every year.”
These are
exactly the kind of public servants who, along with fallen soldiers, should be
remembered on Memorial Day, but who aren’t.
One argument
against including them is the fact that not all of these
public servants are killed trying to protect what America selectively
sanctifies as “national security.” For instance, some of these public servants
are first
responders who die running into fertilizer plant explosions. Some of them
are public
school teachers who die trying to protect kids from being gunned down
by mass shooters. Some of them are police
officers killed while trying to keep the peace at public events. Despite
the fact that these kind of heroic life-risking efforts are the definition of
working to secure the country from danger (ie. “national security”), they are
simply not seen as “defending America” or “serving our country” or protecting
“national security” in the same way martial action is – and so they aren’t part
of Memorial Day.
That gets to
the latter point about today’s holiday being unnecessarily exclusionary. In
excluding the memories of those civilian public servants killed in the line of
duty, Memorial Day seems to be contributing to a larger value judgment about
different kinds of public service. Specifically, whether deliberately or
inadvertently, it seems to be suggesting that martial service should be
automatically held in higher regard than any other kind of public service. In
other words, the Orwellian message seems to be: some public servants are more
equal than others.
This, no
doubt, is hardly surprising in a country where such a subjective value judgment
is the unquestioned assumption undergirding our political discourse. Show me a
Republican politician, and I’ll show you a person who is probably happy to block
aid to first responders and to slam police and
firefighters unions – all while pledging undying fealty to soldiers.
Similarly, show me the typical Democratic politician, and I’ll show you a
person who is probably thrilled to portray
teachers as leeches all while praising our men and women in the armed
forces.
In both
cases, politicians are reflecting a country that seems at once happy to whine
about “Big Government” and slam civilian public servants as “government
bureaucrats” – all while telling pollsters it holds the biggest appendage of
“Big Government” – aka the military – in great
esteem. Thanks to such a martial culture, few ever stop to wonder why our
politics so often distinguishes between civilian and military public service,
and then insinuates that one is to be denigrated and the other venerated.
Of course,
both sets of public servants deserve America’s honor and respect, but only one
set of public servants really gets it from our country. That’s an enormous
political and cultural problem that ends up destructively distorting so much of
our country’s public policies. However, it can start to be fixed with modest
steps – like, say, officially expanding the Memorial Day holiday to include all public
servants – martial and civilian – killed in the line of duty.
It sounds
small, and for those who see Memorial Day as nothing more than the beginning of
summer, perhaps it will mean nothing. But to those of who take the holiday
seriously – and especially to those of us with familial connections to both
martial and civilian public service – it would send a powerful message that
there are many honorable ways to serve one’s country, and that losing one’s
life in one form of national service is no less worthy of remembrance than
losing it in any other form of service.
David
Sirota is a senior writer for the International Business Times and the
best-selling author of the books "Hostile Takeover," "The
Uprising" and "Back to Our Future." E-mail him at ds@davidsirota.com, follow
him on Twitter @davidsirota or visit his website at www.davidsirota.com.
Misconduct
Lying Under Oath
Perversely,
the criminal justice system gives officers an incentive to perjure themselves.
|
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Excessive Force, US
Police Violence
In
2013 British Police Fired Guns 3 Times
Public Radio International, Reader Supported News, August 24, 2014 Excerpt: "In 2012, 409 people were shot and killed by American police in what were termed justifiable shootings. In that same year, British police officers fired their weapons just once. No one was killed." READ MORE
ON THE
GOD'S POLITICS BLOG
View the latest articles from the God's Politics blog » Ferguson and America's Love Affair With Violence by Derek Flood Before opening her private praxis as a psychotherapist, my wife worked with institutionalized mental patients. ... Because of laws passed that focused on protecting patients rights and dignity, the days of strapping mentally ill patients to a gurney or pumping them full of sedatives and throwing them in a rubber room are increasingly becoming a thing of the past, and were non-existent where she worked. So the staff learned other ways to keep safe and deescalate volatile situations. Given that, I have to ask: If my tiny wife can handle an angry 6-foot paranoid schizophrenic man, shouldn’t cops be able to learn to do the same?
Militarization
Why
Is Homeland Security So Busy Arming Cops to Fight Americans?
Trevor Timm, Guardian UK, Reader Supported News, Sept. 2, 2014 Timm writes: "For three weeks and counting, America has raged against the appalling behavior of the local police in Ferguson, Missouri, and for good reason: automatic rifles pointed at protesters, tank-like armored trucks blocking marches, the teargassing and arresting of reporters, tactics unfit even for war zones - it was all enough to make you wonder whether this was America at all." READ MORE |
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 Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers, Op-Ed,
NationofChange, July 18, 2014A bright light needs to be shined on the policies, practices and weaponry that are being used. It’s time for police to serve the people.
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 Hayes Brown, News Investigation, NationofChange, July
18, 2014The matter of Ferguson and arm transfers must be discussed. A review by Congress can’t be silenced or one-sided—this is a serious problem. |
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Citing
Unsettling Ferguson Images, Davis Police Department to Return Armored Vehicle
Veronica Rocha, Los Angeles Times, Reader Supported News, August 30, 2014
Rocha writes: "Davis, Calif., city officials have directed the police department to return a surplus U.S. military armored vehicle to the federal government after residents, citing images seen during protests in Ferguson, Mo., expressed fears of militarization."
READ MORE
Veronica Rocha, Los Angeles Times, Reader Supported News, August 30, 2014
Rocha writes: "Davis, Calif., city officials have directed the police department to return a surplus U.S. military armored vehicle to the federal government after residents, citing images seen during protests in Ferguson, Mo., expressed fears of militarization."
READ MORE
Filming and Archiving
Smart Phone Video
Democracy Now, A DAILY INDEPENDENT GLOBAL NEWS HOUR
with
Amy Goodman & Juan González
AUGUST 28, 2014
Part
2: Yvonne Ng on the "Activists’ Guide to Archiving Video"
We continue
our conversation with Yvonne Ng, senior archivist for WITNESS, a group
that trains and supports people using video in their fight for human rights.
She has been giving advice for the growing number of people filming protests,
human rights violations and police abuse with their smartphones and video
cameras — particularly with respect to how to properly preserve such video. She
co-authored their resource, "Activists’ Guide to Archiving Video."
Watch Part
1, 'After
Police Abuses Caught on Video, a New Guide Teaches How to Best Archive and
Distribute Footage'
AMY GOODMAN: This
is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace
Report. I’m Amy Goodman, with Juan González.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Well,
we continue our conversation on the growing number of people filming police
abuse on their smartphones and with video cameras. Yvonne Ng is the senior
archivist for WITNESS, which trains and supports people using video in
their fight for human rights. She co-authored their "Activists’ Guide to
Archiving Video," which is available in
English and Spanish and Arabic, after hearing from activists that this was a
skill set that they were largely missing.
Welcome
to Democracy Now!
YVONNE NG: Thank
you for having me.
AMY GOODMAN: So,
before we talk about archiving, how people should actually film when they want
to document something?
YVONNE NG: Yeah,
so, a few tips that I can share is, well, first of all, be prepared. So bring
extra memory cards and extra batteries with you. So, if you’re filming an
incident and you’re afraid that footage might be confiscated from you, you want
to swap out those cards and preferably work in pairs or in teams, so you can
hand off those cards to somebody else. The second thing is to, when you’re
filming, document landmarks that are notable or street signs, and this makes it
easier for people to verify and identify your video later on. So we’ve seen
this, for example, in Syria, where activists are using mosques as ways to
identify where certain undocumented footage is taking place and so that they can
map where things are happening.
MORE
COMPARE POLICE:
www.dpreview.com/forums/post/50601024
DP Review
Jan 5, 2013 - Which countries
have unarmed police forces
aside from UK and
Japan? ... In 1995, when I first found out that regular police force in Japan
don't ...
UK
UNARMED
POLICE
British
Broadcasting Corporation
Sep 19,
2012 - The deaths of two female police constables have brought
into focus theunarmed status of most British police. Why does Britain
hold firm ...
www.politifact.com/.../university-rhode-island-professor-s...
PolitiFact.com
May 31,
2013 - He wrote that having armed police can lead, out of fear,
to shooting ... "The UK has an unarmed police force
and a firearm fatality rate that is 40 ...
Crime
and policing in England, Wales and Northern Ireland
Find
details of how to contact the police in emergency or non-emergency situations.
Explore
and compare crime and outcomes of crime in your neighbourhood.
See
how your force is performing and how its performance compares to other areas.
Discover
more information about your area and the team responsible for policing it.
Find
out about your force's police and crime commissioner, and details of how you
can contact them.
Practical
information about reporting incidents, how the police work, and how to help cut
crime.
Find
out how to help reduce crime and avoid becoming a victim of crime.
Browse
third-party apps which use the data powering this website.
Contact
Arkansas Congressional Delegation
|
SENATORS
Sen.
John Boozman
Republican, first term 320 Hart Senate Office Building Washington, D.C. 20510 Phone: (202) 224-4843 Fax: (202) 228-1371 Arkansas offices: FORT SMITH: (479) 573-0189 JONESBORO: (870) 268-6925 LITTLE ROCK: (501) 372-7153 LOWELL: (479) 725-0400 MOUNTAIN HOME: (870) 424-0129 STUTTGART: (870) 672-6941 EL DORADO: (870) 863-4641 Website: www.boozman.senate.gov
Sen.
Mark Pryor
Democrat, second term 255 Dirksen Office Building Constitution Avenue and First Street NE Washington, D.C. 20510 Phone: (202) 224-2353 Fax: (202) 228-0908 Little Rock office: (501) 324-6336 Website: www.pryor.senate.gov
Rep.
Tom Cotton
4TH DISTRICT Republican, first term 415 Phone: (202) 225-43772 HOT SPRINGS: (501) 520-5892 PINE BLUFF: (870) 536-3376 Website: www.cotton.house.gov |
REPRESENTATIVES
Rep.
Rick Crawford
1ST DISTRICT Republican, second term 1771 Independence Avenues SE Washington, D.C. 20515 Phone: (202) 225-4076 Fax: (202) 225-5602 CABOT: (501) 843-3043 MOUNTAIN HOME: (870) 424-2075 Website: www.crawford.house.gov
Rep.
Tim Griffin
2ND DISTRICT Republican, second term 1232 Independence Avenues SE Washington, D.C. 20515 Phone: (202) 225-2506 Fax: (202) 225-5903 LITTLE ROCK: (501) 324-5491 Website: www.griffin.house.gov
Rep.
Steve Womack
3RD DISTRICT Republican, second term 1119 Longworth Office Building New Jersey and Independence Avenues SE Washington 20515 Phone: (202) 225-4301 Fax: (202) 225-5713 Arkansas offices: ROGERS: (479) 464-0446 HARRISON: (870) 741-7741 FORT SMITH: (479) 424-1146 Website: www.womack.house.gov
Con
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Contents US Police
Newsletter #1
Police Service
Police
Public Service
Like
Firemen
Citizens
Review Boards
Prosecuting Alleged
Police Murderers
A
Death in St. Augustine
Excessive Force
Fayetteville,
AR
Scarlet
Sims: Use of Force, NW Arkansas
Barbara
Fitzpatrick, Example I Fayetteville
NYC
Hartmann: NYC Jay-Walking Instance of Police Violence,
Need for Public Oversight,
Community-Oriented Police
Community-Oriented Police
Dan
Wise, NYC’s “Stop and Frisk”
Militarization of
Police
Radley
Balko, The Militarization of US Police
Glenn
Greenwald, The Intercept: “Militarization
of America’s Police Forces”
Jim
Hightower, Absurdly Dangerous Militarization
Sarah
Lazare, SWAT Teams vs. Transparency
War
Resisters League, Stop Urban Shield
Border Patrol
US/Mexico
Border, Low-Intensity Warfare
Steven
Hsieh, Border Patrol Lethal Force Policy
Presente,
Letter to President Obama, Stop Killing Rock-Throwers
END POLICE
NEWSLETTER #2
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