Too Much Power: Cops Serve and Protect Themselves and the Government Only

For those who think that the police are the good guys who "serve and protect" us ordinary citizens here are a handful of examples of what they can also do, if they like. In most of these cases there were no charges filed, charges were dropped, or the charges were reduced to minor fine-worthy offenses.

Imagine if a private security agency were to treat those who employed it in this fashion.

All links, quotes and articles come directly from LewRockwell.com. For a far superior defense of liberty and a compendium of sound economic thought, visit LewRockwell.com on a daily (hourly) basis.

Police can perjure themselves with impunity...
“When an officer is involved in a violent incident, he’s going to use his best recollection when writing up the statement of charges,” insists Major Andy Ellis, a spokesliar for the Prince George’s County Police. “If there’s a discrepancy, that should be clarified in court.” And, presumably, if it’s the word of a perjurious police officer against that of a mere mundane, well, the “best recollection” of the former would prevail, correct?
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Assault clergymen...
Pastor Jose Elias Moran was preparing for an early Wednesday prayer service yesterday (July 1) at the Iglesia Profetica Peniel in Webster, Texas when he was informed that a member of his congregation had been stopped by the police.

Out of concern for the church member, Pastor Moran went out to inquire what had happened, only to have the officer, Raymond Berryman, snarl at him to go back inside. According to witnesses, when Moran tried to explain, “I’m the pastor,” Berryman grabbed at his shirt.

According to Berryman’s official account, Moran pushed him and then fled into the church and returned with 40 other congregants. Moran, his family, and others present at the scene dispute this version, insisting that the pastor never touched the officer and went inside to enlist some church members to act as witnesses.
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Attack groups of bystanders...
Last Friday, the Encintas station of the San Diego County Sheriff’s Department wrote another chapter in the annals of law enforcement overkill by dispatching an eight-man force, augmented by a helicopter, to deal with a spurious noise complaint prompted by a congressional fund-raising party in nearby Cardiff.
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Kill without question...
A police car pulled up and an officer ordered the brothers to stop. A surveillance video shows that the pedestrians stopped beneath a lamppost and made no threatening gestures of any kind. Seconds later, reports the Washington Times, 29-year-old Husien is seen falling out of the frame. He had been shot by Officer Adam Tavss. The young man was taken to a hospital, where he died.
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Shoot people without identifying themselves...
White (a cop), who was off-duty at the time and accompanied by his wife, initially claimed that he fired in “self-defense.” He later claimed that he fired his gun when Silva refused his demands to get out of her car. White never displayed a badge or identified himself as a police officer; witnesses to the shooting didn’t recognize the incident as a traffic stop or other enforcement action, but thought it was a domestic squabble.
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Get drunk and pistol-whip people...
Officer Paul Abel, a veteran of counter-insurgency warfare in the Regime’s illegal occupation of Iraq, was deeply drunk last June 28 when somebody punched him at a stoplight.

Abel, an eight-year veteran of the police force, “drove around the block, until he spotted [21-year-old Kaleb] Miller, whom he knew from the neighborhood,” recounts the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. “Witnesses said the officer hit Mr. Miller on the neck with the butt of his Glock and the gun went off, grazing Mr. Miller’s hand.” (...)

Abel maintained that the violence he employed was “necessary” because Miller wouldn’t obey commands to lie on the ground. Bear in mind, first of all, that Miller had done nothing wrong, and secondly, that as far as he could tell, Abel was simply a deranged, drunken individual wielding a weapon, rather than a deranged, drunken, armed individual clothed in the supposed majesty of state “authority.”

Predictably, Judge Manning ruled in favor of Abel, insisting that while the off-duty officer’s conduct was “inappropriate, imprudent and ill-advised,” it was still justifiable, since police enjoy broad discretion in the use of force. Apparently that “discretion” extends to driving under the influence of alcohol, in addition to pistol-whipping and shooting a completely innocent bystander.
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Tell you how to decorate your home...
The Kuhns, an engaging couple with very detailed knowledge of the plague of authoritarian militarism afflicting our country, were assaulted by police two years ago for the non-crime of displaying a U.S. flag upside down as a form of protest.

On July 25, 2007, a local Sheriff’s deputy named Brian Scarborough — a National Guard soldier who had recently returned from combat duty in occupied Iraq — attempted to arrest Mark under an ancient, and long-since overturned, state statute against “flag desecration.”

As can be expected, Scarborough treated these Americans as if they were Iraqi “hajis,” vandalizing their home, threatening them with various kinds of violence, and then summoning ten other officers to provide lethal “backup” in order to subdue two peaceful, unarmed citizens who had done nothing wrong.
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Beat women...
His sentence? A home curfew and anger management classes. The Judge actually said (hold on): “If I believed sentencing Anthony Abbate to prison would stop people from getting drunk and hitting people, I’d give him the maximum sentence.” Since the same logic could apply to all crimes, can we apply that logic to non-crime crimes like drunk driving and selling/using drugs? Also note that the scumbag claimed “self-defense,” even in light of the video play-by-play of the beating.
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Taser people armed with fly-swatters...
During a forced entry raid in California in February 2008, police Tasered a man for “cursing” and “threatening” the officers with a flyswatter. The aggressive entry was unnecessary, since the suspect being sought was already in police custody. Yet the man who was treated to electro-shock torture was charged with “obstruction” nonetheless.
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Brandish firearms at drive-thru employees...
Two of Denver’s “Finest” placed an order at a McDonald’s drive-through in the early morning hours of May 21. Distressed over what they perceived to be unsatisfactory service,the officers became agitated, and one of them “flashed his police badge and pointed a pistol through the drive through window in a threatening manner, before driving off without paying,” reports the local CBS affiliate.
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Issue charges for non-crimes...
If the point of a traffic enforcement zone is to ensure that people are driving carefully, why would police cite drivers who flash their headlights to warn others about it, thereby prompting them to slow down? On the other hand, if the purpose of enforcement zones is revenue collection, issuing such a citation makes perfect sense.

Washington, D.C. attorney Mark Zaid was recently given a $50 ticket for flashing his lights to acknowledge a warning of an enforcement zone in Maryland’s Montgomery County. True to form, the armed tax-feeder tried to impress his victim by his generosity, claiming that Zaid could have been charged with “obstructing a police investigation.”
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Cause fatal accidents...
New Jersey State Trooper Robert Higbee was in hot pursuit of revenue on September 26, 2006 when he ran a stop sign and his cruiser collided with a minivan. At the time Higbee was speeding in pursuit of a speeder, doing at least 65 m.ph. in a 35 m.p.h. zone.
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Club the mentally ill...
Surveillance tape from Lawrence’s Grill and Bar in Passaic on May 29 shows a police car pull up to Ronnie Holloway, who is standing still on the curb outside the restaurant. After a few moments Holloway zips up his sweatshirt — because the female officer in the car instructed him to do so, Holloway said.

At that point, the other officer in the vehicle, Joseph R. Rios III, exits the car, grabs Holloway and slams him onto the hood of the police car. He then pummels Holloway with his fist and baton.
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Alert criminals to your security vulnerabilities...
This video news story reports how police in Rocklin are placing sticky notes on citizens’ personal property as friendly warnings that the property in question may be vulnerable to a crime (e.g., a purse left in a car, a garage door left open, etc.).
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Engage in torture...
Now, in response to a defense challenge, Judge Sperazza has upheld her own exceptionally dubious order, ruling that police can employ electro-shock torture to extort DNA samples as long as this is not done “maliciously, or to an excessive extent, or with resulting injury.”
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Electro-shock the elderly...
After a police officer stopped Mrs. Winkfein for allegedly driving 60 in a 45 MPH zone, the grandmother refused to sign the ticket stub. Under Texas “law,” motorists are required to sign traffic tickets under threat of arrest.

According to the police officer, Mrs. Winkfein not only refused to comply, but she “swore” and became “violent” with him. Palsied with terror over the threat posed by a frail septuagenarian woman, the officer hit her with a blast from his Taser. Mrs. Winkfein disputes every element of the official account, and intends to file a lawsuit.
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All of these in the name of those who "preserve law and order."

"They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety. (They also justifiably lose both. --ed.)" - Benjamin Franklin

--M.A. Hargett

Don't Be Fooled: Not Thomas Paine

Bob Basso (the man in the video) is a tool and a USEFUL IDIOT for the establishment. This is as close to a point-by-point rebuttal that I could provide as I could only stomach one viewing.

E-Verify is a plank in the NATIONAL ID CARD SCAM (REAL ID) that challenges both the sovereignty of the individual states in their capacity to distribute and verify identities and the sovereignty of individuals to engage in private transactions without their names being logged in government record books.

American JOBS will go to American WORKERS when American workers stop DEMANDING SALARIES that the MARKET will NOT SUPPORT and when the AMERICAN GOVERNMENT stops IMPEDING the FREE MARKET with its INFLATIONARY MONETARY POLICY.

The current policy for the MANAGEMENT of IMMIGRATION in this country is CONTRARY to the CONSTITUTION of these United States and is a notion TREASONOUS to the PEOPLE living on American shores. Any effort made to prevent the free transmission of oneself from one land to another is anti-human. You fence cattle, not people.

Americans should stop being stirred to arms by unwitting morons with a flair for the dramatic who denounce the OTHER HALF of their country's ONE PARTY POLITICAL SYSTEM. They should instead become human beings who challenge illogical ideas like jingoism, economic charlatanism, the central bank and the long-disproved Hobbesian chestnut of the necessity of government.

Bob Basso would be justifiably DRAWN AND QUARTERED by THOMAS JEFFERSON, ANDREW JACKSON and most of all PATRICK HENRY. It's people like Bob Basso who built the current BIG BROTHER GOVERNMENT through their implicit and explicit CONSENT under the Repugnantcans but then WITHDRAW that consent when the SAME THINGS ARE DONE by the Dimwitcrats. The same is true when the names of the parties are swapped to protect the grifter's shell game.

Bob Basso denounces Americans for being lazy, consumerist and for demanding that the government solve their problems right after DEMANDING that the GOVERNMENT SOLVE a "PROBLEM" for LAZY AMERICANS unable to SECURE JOBS so that they can continue to CONSUME! This about-face is really nothing to be surprised by, as NEOCONSERVATIVES readily endorse the TORTURE of PEOPLE, so why not TORTURE LOGIC?

DEMOCRACY is a friend only to TOTALITARIANISM. It is a god that FAILED. When those IN POWER have the camoflauge of the MASSES to obscure their EFFORTS to STRIP an INDIVIDUAL of his PROPERTY, LIBERTY and ultimately, if he refuses to consent, his LIFE, it isn't long before they will do so.

Bob Basso's "ANSWERS" are like applying antiseptic OINTMENT to a 3 pound mass of CANCER. He wants to "LIMIT" the power of a GOVERNMENT that holds in its hands the ability to WIPE WHOLE CITIES and possibly states OFF THE MAP! He's concerned with minute PAY INCREASES when Congress spends TRILLIONS of dollars KILLING people whose crime is a desire for SELF DETERMINATION!

"Make CONGRESS PAY into SOCIAL SECURITY?" That's an answer? Here's a better one, DON'T MAKE ANYBODY PAY into Social Security, which is soon to become a WING of the DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY. Twenty-million "illegal" aliens collecting Social Security? Seriously? More to the point, people "LEGITIMATELY" collecting Social Security only really paid in about the first TWO YEARS they collect, so THEY THEMSELVES are LEECHES after that point. A better idea, get rid of the Social Security system so there's an incentive to save, plus the "illegals" can't take money that isn't there.

Bob Basso wants to institute TERM LIMITS for CONGRESS, but unelected bureaucrats, cabinet members and SUPREME COURT "JUSTICES" (law students grading their own papers is more accurate) can stay FOR LIFE! His level of sophistry is something rarely seen outside of a high school freshman civics class.

Passing laws on INSURANCE COMPANIES? We're in the mess we are BECAUSE Congress passed TOO MANY laws! If it weren't for HMO's and MEDICARE/AID, HIPAA, the FDA and AMA it would cost about $25 cash for a doctor's visit. $100 cash for a hospital visit, $15 for a drug prescription, $50 for an x-ray, and so on.

Bob Basso wants to throw out every Congressperson who DIDN'T READ the huge SPENDING BILL? Great! I'm on board, but what about the CONGRESSWHORES who didn't read the PATRIOT ACT before voting for it? You know, the PATRIOT ACT that gives the PRESIDENT the POWER to DECLARE ANYBODY he dislikes (such as a political enemy) a TERRORIST without evidentiary cause and with UNILATERAL power to ARREST without warrant, IMPRISON without a trial and TORTURE without repercussions because they aren't "enemy combatants?" I hear crickets.

The men and women of the ARMED FORCES FAILED ME the moment they LEFT the FREE MARKET and became LEECHES siphoning away my INCOME without providing a single good or service.

"Start no war unless you intend to win it?" I have a better solution for this barking seal. START NO WAR. PERIOD.

OFFICIAL LANGUAGE laws, like LEGAL TENDER laws, simply LIMIT the capacity for engaging in FREE TRADE. The call for declaring English the official language of the United States is as ridiculous as declaring that all cereal must be manufactured by Kellogg's. If Spanish, Arabic, French or even Pig-Latin happen to take hold in a given region it is because the MARKET has BENEFITTED by it. RACISM and JINGOISM are the only reasons for attempting to declare ONE LANGUAGE to be SUPREME.

"UNITED WE STAND" is NOT a principle of LIBERTY. IT IS a principle for TYRANTS using a HUMAN SHIELD.

"Not ONE CENT of TAXPAYER MONEY for ILLEGALS?" How about NOT ONE CENT OF TAXPAYER MONEY. EVER. How about ELIMINATING TAXES. They aren't necessary!

ABOLISH THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE in order to put the power back in the hands of WE THE PEOPLE?!? Is this man serious?!? Am I on Candid Camera? This mongoloid has gone on a diatribe about the U.S. being a NATION OF LAWS and then DECRIED THE CONSTITUTION and its establishment of the Electoral College.

Only a person with no understanding of the ELECTORAL COLLEGE and its purpose would demand its abolition in order to bring power "back" to the people. The Electoral College EXISTS precisely to ENSURE that the LOCAL and REGIONAL governments CONTROL the election of the EXECUTIVE. The STATES at least have some responsibility to their CITIZENS, and they in turn can demand certain outcomes from the PRESIDENT. Without it, Presidential candidates would no longer even have to pay lip service to the individual states and would focus their attention in dense population centers (largely populated with the "dreaded" ILLEGALS (Oooooh, bogeyman, oooooh!) in order to secure their victories. Well placed federal handouts guarantee a favorable outcome.

"Bring back UNIVERSAL SERVICE?!?" Service to whom? Service for what? Service in the military? What? Bob Basso is SUPREMELY STUPID or even more of A SHILL for the establishment and POWER ELITES than I originally thought. He's on the SAME PAGE as Rahm Emanuel, OBAMA'S CHIEF OF STAFF! Universal (COMPULSORY) SERVICE is simply SLAVERY! It is IMMORAL and anybody who suggests it is a CRIMINAL!

I have no duty to "your country," Mr. Basso. MY ONLY DUTY is to those whom I DEEM FIT to receive the BENEFIT of my SKILLS and EFFORTS. What you DUPES listening to him and APPLAUDING him don't realize is YOU DON'T HAVE A COUNTRY! It isn't YOURS! You don't even OWN YOUR OWN "PROPERTY!"

Bob Basso is an inhuman ANIMAL who is NOT ENTITLED to ONE SECOND of MY TIME or my LABOR because HE HASN'T EARNED IT. George W. Bush hasn't, Barack Obama hasn't, Bill Clinton hasn't. General Petraeus hasn't. The soldier in Iraq hasn't. NOBODY HAS! They all made CHOICES to do as they do. And so do I.

HOW DARE Bob Basso assert that the COMMON CITIZENRY is RESPONSIBLE for the actions of UNELECTED, UNACCOUNTABLE POWER ELITES! How dare he leave the BANKING ESTABLISHMENT, the MILITARY INDUSTRIAL-CONGRESSIONAL COMPLEX, and CLANDESTINE MACHINATIONS of so-called PUBLIC SERVANTS unmentioned while demanding STILL FURTHER GIVING from a people largely wanting to be LEFT ALONE!

Further, HOW DARE he invoke the loss of life on SEPTEMBER 11, A DIRECT, albeit incorrectly aimed at civilian targets, RESPONSE TO THE UNITED STATES MILITARY and INTELLIGENCE AGENCIES' UNILATERAL VILLAINY ACROSS THE GLOBE, as a RALLYING POINT to attempt to UNIFY the PEOPLE behind the same BLOOD-STAINED FLAG representing the LEADERSHIP that ENCOURAGED IT TO HAPPEN IN THE FIRST PLACE.

The difference between Bob Basso and any other person currently elected, is simply that he isn't. He's angry that he isn't in charge and people aren't doing things his specific way. He put on those foolish clothes, invoked the names of people whose works he has never read, and bellowed into a camera for six interminable minutes in order to stir people to demand more of the same. His ideas are no different from Barack Obama's, George W. Bush's, John McCain's or Bill Clinton's.

His "Second American Revolution" has more in common with Lenin than Jefferson, with Adolf Hitler than Patrick Henry, and with Mao than Samuel Adams.

The only real solution is MASS NON-CONSENT. Stop voting. Stop giving them your consent. Become an ACTIVE NON-CONSENTER. Encourage others to do the same. Don't demand change! Demand dissolution!

--M.A. Hargett