Probable Cause

I haven’t written for long enough that the last few days I’ve been jonesin’.

The problem isn’t that I haven’t had anything to write about.  Quite the contrary: I’ve had too much to write about.  The problem is that what I’ve had to write about made me so angry that I decided to try to cool down a bit first.

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Cops lie.

If you haven’t the moral courage to hear that and consider what should be done about it, then go somewhere else: you’re not going to be happy reading this blog post.  (Be sure to stay away from Injustice Everywhere, too.)

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When I was young, I remember a version of the Bible which was titled “Good News for Modern Man.”  Given that this post involves the prosecution and subsequent acquittal of a police officer for excessive force in Fresno — arguably in the center of the Bible “Belt” of California — and given Supreme Court “Justice” Scalia’s not too distant comments about the “modern” and “professional” police force, it seems appropriate to play off that for this post’s title. 

First, let me be clear about something, because every time I write about police abusing their authority, it seems the police supporters come crawling out of the woodwork.  In Fresno, as with much of the Central San Joaquin Valley, the police can do no wrong, even when they do.  Having said that, this post is not my own personal pronouncement that the jury screwed up and let a guilty man go free.  I actually don’t know if that’s true. 

I am, however, going to talk about what the newspaper has reported, throw in a few comments from things I’ve heard from attorneys who are more familiar with the facts, and express my opinion.

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Today’s San Francisco Chronicle, in a story titled “Gates 911 tape raises more issues in case,” is important because it mentions — and I’d like to highlight — something that happens every day.

And no, it’s not that the police are prejudiced and immediately suspect, stop and harass African-American males for being in the wrong place, any time.

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I thought I’d mentioned the town of Tenaha, Texas before, so this story looked familiar to me.  A link sent by Bunny Chafowitz, however, makes the story look fresh so maybe it’s just my imagination.

Police in Tenaha are accused of committing — quite literally — highway robbery.

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I’m working on a quite serious case involving an innocent man accused of things he could not possibly have done.  This impacts my ability to write the type of blog entry I prefer.

On the other hand, I looked briefly at the news today and I just have to ask again why we’re so insane as to believe that the more police officers we have on the streets, the safer we are.

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Believing that law enforcement officers are good guys is one of the linchpins of our society; probably of all societies, even where they don’t officially call them “law enforcement” officers.  But to believe in law enforcement officers, we must be able to believe law enforcement officers.

So far that doesn’t seem to be a problem for the majority of submitizens, even though newspapers as small as the Fresno Bee contain at least one — and usually more than one — story almost every day about the illegal activities of police officers.

But there’s one type of malfeasance in which police officers engage even more routinely that usually goes unreported.  Until now.

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