18 Los Angeles police officers have been or are being arrested and indicted in several separate criminal cases concerning brutal abuse. They are charged with beating prisoners and visitors, misconduct, unjust detention and obstruction of justice. Most of this occurred at the Men’s Central jail in L.A. and of course was unjustified.
One must immediately realize that these are the supposed keepers of the law, but that is little more than a sick joke. There is hardly a worse group of people who are guilty of committing the highest number violent crimes, at least on a per capita basis, than police. The irony in this arrest however, is that the arresting entity was another government agency of force, the FBI. I find that fact almost comical.
As quoted in an article in the Los Angeles Times, the U.S. attorney in Los Angeles said:
“Our investigation also found that these incidents did not take place in a vacuum — in fact, they demonstrated behavior that had become institutionalized.” “The pattern of activity alleged in the obstruction of justice case shows how some members of the Sheriff’s Department considered themselves to be above the law. Instead of cooperating with the federal investigation to ensure that corrupt law enforcement officers would be brought to justice, the defendants in this case are accused of taking affirmative steps designed to ensure that light would not shine on illegal conduct that violated basic constitutional rights.”
Visitors to the jail, including in one case an Austrian consul’s husband, were arrested, handcuffed and sometimes beaten. Some visitors, as well as inmates, were taken to a private deputy breakroom away from public eyes so that the deputies could beat them in secret, including breaking the arm of one.
One supervisor of deputies was accused of reprimanding those deputies for not using physical force against visitors who he said had “disrespected” them while at the center. That paints a perfect mental picture of the average low IQ cretin who becomes a cop. That lack of respect for police, a most proper position to take I might add, would make one guilty of what is called “contempt of cop.” Since I have only contempt for any state agent of force, I am guilty of this non-crime daily. I had better not visit any of the profit centers called jails anytime in the near future, as my disgust and contempt would be obvious.
No one is exempt from police brutality these days, brutality that could lead to maiming or death in many cases. This is so whether one is a common citizen, a foreign national, a visitor to any government center or those already incarcerated for mostly non-violent, victimless crimes due to the heinous war on drugs. Those in government, whether politicians, agency heads , or the enforcers for the state in the local, state and federal police departments, are the worst of men, but the enforcers are the most dangerous.
These crimes in Los Angeles by police officers and deputies amounts only to a small fraction of police crime. Criminal behavior by cops, in many cases deadly criminal behavior, has become rampant nationwide. This is due to the lack of quality of the individual certainly, but it is also due to the fact that these enforcers for the state have nearly complete immunity from prosecution. I hope this case is different, but I won’t hold my breath.