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.

You see, the thing is, I hate a great number of you.  You self-righteous, pompous, law-and-order-until-the-cops-come-after-me-or-mine types.  Some of my family members are like that and, frankly, I think I’m just going to start disowning them.  Just as I disown the rest of you who are like that.  You’re the reason I believe that the rest of us should all carry weapons strapped to our waists, or in shoulder holsters, or anywhere else whence we can quickly retrieve them when we run into you.

Except, I don’t really feel that way, because if I did, that would make me just like you.

For example — and this is when I really knew I hated you — the other day there was a video posted showing a police officer punching a 17-year-old girl in the face.  The officer apparently wanted to stop a girl from jaywalking.  According to some pin-headed pundit, the girl refused to stop when he ordered her to do so and the officer grabbed her arm, whereupon she tensed up and her friend pushed the officer.  Thus, the officer was justified for punching her friend in the face.

I’m sorry, but had I been there, that would have been the end of it for either the officer, or for me.  I watched people circling and voicing their outrage to the officer and the only thing I could think of is “what the fuck are you standing there for?!”  In my opinion, the crowd should have taken that officer down the minute they saw him punch that girl.

Tony Norman writes,

As for the two females, they were clearly in the wrong, especially the young woman who shoved the officer. One of the first things loving parents tell their children as they enter their teen years is never to put their hands on an officer under any circumstance.

If I had children right now, I’d be sending them to classes where they could learn hand-to-hand combat and the fastest way to take down an out-of-control police officer.  Contrary to what Norman says, I think parents should start teaching their children how to lay hands on them in the way that will end any confrontation the quickest.

And I’m sorry, law-and-order types, but one reason more people are resisting the police is that the police have earned this response. I realize that it’s still possible for white people throughout the United States to remain largely ignorant of the extent of police misconduct: it’s still the case that the police treat white people differently than they treat everyone else.  It’s still possible for white people to wonder aloud, “What’s police brutality?”

As Bob Herbert points out,

If the police officers were treating white middle-class or wealthy individuals this way [the way they treat non-whites], the movers and shakers in this town would be apoplectic. The mayor would be called to account in an atmosphere of thunderous outrage, and the police commissioner would be gone.

Things are changing, though, as the police expand their mistreatment of non-whites to include more whites.  You only have to stop ignoring stories like this one, or this one, or this, or this, or this, or this, or this — I could, quite literally, go on all day.  Hell, just watch this for awhile.

And it’s not just because — as in England — the police are trying to balance out their racism by hitting up more white people.

The sad reality is that the police simply feel that they have the right to do whatever they want, whenever they want.  Sometimes it’s because they actually saw someone do something wrong, but then the police overreact.  Sometimes, it’s simply an unsubstantiated hunch that someone might be doing something wrong and then,as noted in this comment to a story of an attack by police on a viola player for carrying a can of Mountain Dew in his pants…

…their initial suspicion of criminal activity [results] in no charges. All of the charges bought against the student come exclusively from the encounter with police.

Sometimes it just because they think a crime might occur. Maybe. I mean, there’s a chance, isn’t there?

Regardless of the reason, the fact of the matter is that our police force is quite simply out of control. (You really want to watch that entire video and listen to the foreign commentary.  This is how badly we look to other police states.)  This is why I’ve begun to tell clients that the only way to obtain justice — and I warn them it could dramatically alter or end their lives, but it is the only chance at justice — is to fight back.

You certainly can’t get it in the courts. Courts today — not that there wasn’t an undercurrent of this in the past — wholly support those in power over those without power.  And the best way to do that is by condoning and even encouraging a police state.  So that is what they now do.

But too many of you believe that all this is okay.  Whatever the police want, the police should get.  (Until they come for you.)

So I’ve been having a little anger management problem that interferes with my ability to entertain — or even enlighten — you through my writing.

I’m more about helping to start the Revolution.

Yet every day we — collectively, as a society — slap others around and expect to change behaviors, even if we don’t necessarily expect our victims to thank us for bringing the fact that we think they have (or are) a problem to their attention.

Don’t misunderstand what I’m saying here: I’m not arguing that it’s wrong of us to lock people up in jails and prisons for committing crimes.  I might argue — in fact, I frequently do — that we lock too many people up in jails and prisons for doing things which should not be considered “committing crimes.”

Sometimes I’m talking about things like Prohibition, which worked out so well when it was enacted via constitutional amendment in 1920 that it was repealed by 1933, then re-born as the “War on Drugs” that has nearly bankrupted us while destroying the countries that cater to our black markets. (In fact, the case has been made that the War on Drugs, more than anything else, has contributed to the problems this article I’m writing highlights.)

Sometimes I’m complaining about locking up juveniles for fighting in school, where, in the old days, a trip to the principal’s office — at worst an expulsion — would have been considered more than adequate.

But nobody resolves banal disputes in such a banal manner anymore.  The ordinary response to nearly any such incident these days is to call the police.  Hell, we now even arrest 5- and 6-year-olds for throwing temper tantrums.  After an uproar over handcuffing kindergarten crybabies, the New York Police Department tried to calm parents by promising to use softer handcuffs.

“When the NYPD is writing protocols for handcuffing 5-year-olds, doesn’t that give them pause?” [the NYCLU's executive director] says. “It’s a school system that has abdicated responsibility for routine discipline to the Police Department.”

Does it give the police pause?  Does it give the majority of us pause?  No.  It does not.  Overreaction is the new norm. Resistance to authority is futile.  You will be arrestolated.

Everything that happens is subject to police intervention and our militarized police forces “take no chances.” The new “zero-tolerance” for “civilians” means that an anonymous 911 call can result in police officers surrounding a school bus, “extracting” and handcuffing every child on board until things can be sorted out.  If it turns out that neither a justification for the action, nor the 911 caller (!) can be found after such a gratuitous display of force, well, they uncuff the kids and let them go.  No harm, no foul, right?

What?  Your kid fell down and bumped his head?  You’re trained to deal with such things, having worked with medical forces in Vietnam, and your kid seems fine?  If you refuse to let the paramedics invade your home, uninvited, you could find yourself, days later, confronted at gunpoint, thrown to the ground and handcuffed after the police break down your front door “to check on” your kid.

These are not the isolated events that many would have you believe they are.  Such things happen every day.  As Scott Greenfield pointed out this morning, even judges know not to refuse to submit to the inquiries of the police when they encounter them in the wild.

Things are, of course, even worse if you happen to be already charged with a crime; worse still if you’ve been convicted and imprisoned.  In one of my juvenile cases, a guard grabbed a kid around the throat and then taunted him because he didn’t like something the kid had said.  As usual, I don’t want to give many details about my own cases, especially those involving juveniles — suffice it to say the kid resisted this, which resulted in new charges.  In a prison case I’m handling, guards mistreated my client and, when he tried to utilize prison procedures to complain, his complaints “disappeared” — as did he for a short time after he was deemed “a danger to the general prison population,” requiring an “administrative segregation.”  Because he kept trying to complain.

The toxicity — the lack of simple human decency or respect — to which we expose prisoners virtually guarantees future trouble, both for them and for us.

A story in the monthly paper Community Alliance: The Voice of the Progressive Movement since 1996 tells of a Native American religious ceremony being interrupted by a guard who — thanks to the lack of training, intelligence and understanding one might hope for in such circumstances — mistakenly believed the ceremonial activities performed in accordance with the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Person Act (RLUIPA, 42 § 2000CC et seq.) were criminal acts.  The ceremony was interrupted.  The inmates originally offered to cooperate with the guards.  They all offered to submit to drug tests to prove the guard wrong.  They offered to let the guard examine and smell — the case involved a charge of marijuana being smoked — the burning sage and sweet grass, so she could realize it wasn’t the kind of grass she thought it was.  These offers were rejected.  The inmates were strip-searched for metals.  (Did the suspicious guard, having “smelled marijuana,” possibly decide that if the inmates had “pot” and “some pots are metal” then a search for metals was in order?)

Based on the refusal to treat the inmates with basic human dignity in the face of their cooperation, the inmates stopped cooperating.  For this refusal to continue cooperating — something that had borne so much fruit already — all the inmates were accused of CDC-115 (serious) Rules Violation Reports, were convicted by a senior hearing officer in the prison, and lost “good-time credits, contact visits and phone, canteen (prison commissary) and quarterly package program privileges.” (Boston Woodard, “When the Smoke Clears (It’s Just Medicine)” (June 2010) Community Alliance, p. 3, col. 3.)

Even with our draconian sentencing laws, many of these people will one day be free.  They will be out in public again.  The indignities to which they were subjected will not be forgotten anymore than you would forget my having slapped you in the face for playing your music too loudly.

So stop, just for a moment, and think about that slap in the face.  How would you react?

Then ask yourself if maybe we — as a society — ought to change the way we treat others.

And if you happen to be one of my friendly law enforcement readers, do everyone a favor: ask yourself this several times a day.  If you overreact, it has far-reaching consequences for us all.

I’ve been resistant to the idea of owning a gun.  I’ll be frank: guns scare me.  When I was a kid, my father taught me to shoot one, but seeing what a gun could do just made me realize I wanted to be far away from them and have nothing to do with them.

Unfortunately, the type of gun I really need is not available to me, because I live in a Nation of Laws which, when it isn’t busy violating it, simply ignores its own Constitution.

Because what I really need is a weapon that will allow me to fight my own government, and they have some pretty damn big guns.

The Second Amendment to the United States Constitution notes:

A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

Of course, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms is routinely infringed.  By “law.”  In California, for example, the people are currently allowed to bear Arms, but since the Second Amendment forgot to expressly mention the ammunition that goes with it, the guns must be unloaded. A lot of good being able to bear unloaded Arms does.

Of course, when the Revolution starts, California can go fuck itself.

At any rate, as Scott Greenfield, Radley Balko, Jeff Gamso, Norm Pattis, Robert Guest and Brian Tannebaum have done, so do I bring you this disgusting video:

The police in the video followed the “accepted procedure” of our courts, announcing themselves (under cover of darkness) giving the occupants a few seconds to rouse themselves before busting down the door, rushing in and shooting the family dog.  Apparently, the dog must have refused to comply with their orders even after being shot, because after a brief pause several more shots are fired into the dog, silencing its screeches of pain.

Fortunately, they appear to have missed the children.

The officers are dressed in exactly the type of outfit that would have roused George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, Elbridge Gerry and the thousands of other Founders of our nation to go to war against their government.  And anyone who doesn’t think these men would go to war against the government under circumstances like we face today simply doesn’t know much about the history of this country.

This is one reason the government wants to ensure that you do not exercise your right to bear arms.

George Washington, for example, reportedly said:

Firearms stand next in importance to the Constitution itself. They are the American people’s liberty teeth and keystone under independence. From the hour the Pilgrims landed, to the present day, events occurrences and tendencies prove that to ensure peace, security and happiness, the rifle and pistol are equally indispensable. The very atmosphere of firearms everywhere restrains evil interference – they deserve a place of honor with all that’s good.

In actuality, there is no reliable evidence that Washington made this statement.  But he should have.  Because it’s true.  “Firearms stand next in importance to the Constitution itself.” They are our “liberty teeth” intended to protect us against our own government. The reason we have the right to bear arms is in case we need to shoot back at our own government.  This is why the right belongs to “the people” as the right of each one of us.

Don’t believe me?  You don’t think the Founders thought we might need to protect ourselves from our own government?  They frequently made comments about the fact that one thing that made America different, and unlikely to fall to a tyrannical government, was the fact that Americans own guns.

James Madison wrote in Federalist No. 46, that people had nothing to fear from the federal government partly because of “the advantage of being armed, which the Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation….”¹

Thomas Jefferson, third President of the United States, said,

The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is it’s natural manure.²

And Jefferson also said, in that same letter,

What country can preserve its liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance?  Let them take arms.³

Even Noah Webster, of Merriam-Webster (yes, the dictionary) fame, said,

Before a standing army can rule, the people must be disarmed; as they are in almost every kingdom in Europe. The supreme Power in America cannot enforce unjust laws by the sword, because the whole body of the people are armed, and constitute a force superior to any band of regular troops that can be, on any pretence, raised in the United States.⁴

In 1873 — admittedly now taking us out of the realm of the Founders — a Justice of the United States Supreme Court, Justice Story, wrote that:

The right of the citizens to keep and bear arms has justly been considered as the palladium of the liberties of a republic, since it offers a strong moral check against the usurpation and arbitrary power of rulers, and will generally, even if these are successful in the first instance, enable the people to resist and triumph over them.⁵

Story was, however, citing Tucker — as would our current Supreme Court in the 2008 case of District of Columbia v. Heller — and Tucker was writing in 1803, shortly after the founding of the United States.  And while I can’t say the same for our current Supreme Court, Tucker was no nutcase.  In a time when integrity, intelligence and honor were still the best guarantee of success, he was a judge of the Virginia Supreme Court and later the United States District Court in Virginia.

But, again, views like these are the reason why our government wants to take away our right to own weapons, or, in the alternative, wishes to limit the types of weapons we can own.  The Founders, by the way, talked about that, too.  They knew that tyrannical governments first work to disarm their citizens.  Today, that starts by making sure the weapons available to us are not nearly as powerful as the ones the government uses to shoot our dogs.

This move needs to be resisted politically.  We can vote out any politicians who try to limit our right to own weapons powerful enough to protect us against them.  For as Rich Mason of Tennessee put it,

If the arms of the soldiers of this era are automatic rifles, machine guns and sub-machine guns then it is the right, in fact the obligation, for the citizens of this country to possess such arms themselves. It is laughable on its face, as some have stated, that the Second Amendment would grant to us the right to only have flintlocks or muskets, such weapons as were in use at the time of our countries founding, to defend ourselves against an armed force raised by the government to oppress us, or to defend against an invading enemy. … If anything, we have the rights to limit the governments use of technology, not the other way around.⁶

And, frankly, to those apologists for the police who frequent this site, there is no excuse for the increasing militarization of our police force and for their willingness to shoot defenseless citizens and their puppies.

I echo the words of Norm Pattis:

So if you are thinking about bursting into my home with or without a warrant, be forewarned: Shoot to kill my dogs, and I will shoot to kill you. Period.

And if anyone has a recommendation on a good weapon, drop me an email.  Unfortunately, for now — I am an attorney until the Revolution starts, after all — I’m looking for one that’s powerful, but strictly legal.  Still, it needs to be a good one: Fresno’s police department is fond of shooting citizens, as well as dogs.

Oh, yeah, in fairness I think I have to mention: the little “war on drugs” involving the cops who busted down the Missouri family’s door and shot what I understand was a Corgi were ultimately able to charge the homeowner with misdemeanor possession of marijuana.

That’s right: misdemeanor.

1. The Federalist Papers, No. 46, at p. 296 (James Madison) (Clinton Rossiter, ed., Signet Classic 2003).
2. Thomas Jefferson, letter to William Stephens Smith, November 13, 1787.—The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, ed. Julian P. Boyd, vol. 12, p. 356 (1955).
3. Jefferson, supra, letter to William Stephens Smith.
4. Webster, An Examination into the Leading Principles of the Federal Constitution, in Pamphlets on the Constitution of the United States (P. Ford ed., 1888) 25, 56.
5. Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States: with a Preliminary Review of the Constitutional History of the Colonies and States Before the Adoption of the Constitution (1873) p. 620.  Story cited to 1 Tuck. Black. Comm. App. 299 for this.  It is worth noting that in the recent United States Supreme Court case of District of Columbia v. Heller (2008) 128 S.Ct. 2783, 2805 [171 L.Ed.2d 637] cited this same quote from St. George Tucker’s version of Blackstone’s Legal Commentaries in support of its opinion that the right to bear arms was personal; i.e., that individuals and not just militias, have the right to bear arms.
6. Rich Mason, “Why the Right to Keep and Bear Arms is Important to You” (1999) available online at http://www.tennesseefirearms.com/articles/rkba_important.asp, bold-face emphasis in the original.

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.)

On April 11, Bobby Frederick posted an article about something that, one day, is probably going to get me killed: Contempt of Cop. With a link to video.

The next day, before I could get around to blogging about Frederick’s revelation, came this story about police essentially stopping people at will and searching them.  Fourth Amendment?  What Fourth Amendment?  Oh, yeah.  In case you didn’t follow the link: that story had another video.

The next day, Brian Tannebaum steps in with an analysis of the script cops use when they violate the law regarding stopping and arresting people.  Brian’s script, accompanied by video, boils down to this:  Lather, Rinse, Repeat.

As Brian points out, this sort of thing isn’t new.  Police officers sincerely believe themselves to be in charge of the world.  The law doesn’t apply to them, because they are the law.  So you can’t question them, and you don’t get in their way.

It doesn’t matter if you’re driving a stricken patient to the hospital in an ambulance. (Video.)  It doesn’t matter if you’re an innocent victim and called the police for help.  (Video.)  It doesn’t matter if you’re lying on the ground with a broken back.  (Yep, video.)  Or if you’re already a paraplegic.  (Video.)  It doesn’t matter if your hands are cuffed behind your back.  (Video.)  Or if you’re cuffed and several officers have you pinned to the ground.  (Video.)  Sometimes, if you’re lippy, you just have to be handled, even if you’re only 15. (Video.)  Or 5 (yes, that’s five).  (Video.)  Or 62.  (Video.)  Or 87.  (Video.)  Or if you’re in your home.  (Video.)  You might just be out for a bicycle ride.  (Video.)  It doesn’t matter if you’re mentally challenged.  (Video.)  It doesn’t matter how smart you are.  (Allegedly there is video, but I can’t find it; another story alleging there is video.)  It doesn’t matter if you’re a reporter doing your job.  (Video.)  It doesn’t even matter if you’re not the person they were looking to beat.  (No video.)  It doesn’t matter if you’re one of their own.  (Video.)  Heck, sometimes they get so confused, they even attack themselves!  (Video and video.)

Sorry.  I had to make the last two links to something funny.  After watching hours of police  attacking people on video — I couldn’t stop myself; it’s like watching the great train wreck of the republic — I just had to add the funny ones.

But it doesn’t really help.  Because as Scott Greenfield noted, the day following Brian’s post, referring to the video Brian posted:

The video, and the story surrounding the video, still suggests that it’s an isolated incident. But for the video, this would be just another story about a beaten kid complaining about cops without any evidence to back him up. This isn’t to say that the police are wrong in every instance, but that the police can no longer wrap themselves in the presumption of being the good guys. The question remains, when a video like this goes viral amongst the general public and mainstream media, how to make clear that this isn’t an isolated incident?

How?  Because, truthfully, we’re not nutcases.  It is not an isolated incident.  They are not isolated incidents.  There are (at least) hundreds of them which have been videotaped.  There are thousands of them reported.  They are part of a pervasive culture of power, the natural outcome of an “us versus them” way of life.  The script Brian delineated has become so common that many — and not just defense attorneys — now know it by heart.

Especially items 4 and 5 from the script, both of which can be summed up by saying, wait until “the investigation” (which we, the police, will conduct and/or control), before “jumping to conclusions.”  Wait until we have rallied our troops, put our heads together, to come up with some explanation that will have some modicum of plausibility.

Angry that anyone would question their “split-second decisions,” the law enforcement “community” said it was wrong to jump to conclusions before the details of the investigation were complete. The sheriff defended the police publicly before any investigation even started, so he apparently was jumping to conclusions, but never mind. The consensus: calm down and wait for the department to see what happened. (Steven Greenhut, “The Militarization of American Police” (March 2008) The Freeman: Ideas on Liberty, vol. 58, issue 2.)

And we will do this.  We will wait.  We will criticize and try to silence anyone who states the obvious.  Because not to do this means to recognize the truth: that our police officers can no longer be trusted at their word.  Yes, they do protect us from the bad guys — well, the bad guys who don’t wear police uniforms.

But, increasingly, the bad guys wear uniforms.

See, the days when the uniforms designated the good guys — those were the old days.  (I’m not so naive as to think of them as the “good old days“; they are merely the old days.)  A different breed of police officer walks the beat.  Well, actually, they no longer walk.  And “the beat” has become “the beatdown.”

Police officials always depict their officers as reluctant warriors who rarely, if ever, use or even brandish their weapons. But this is a fiction from the past. Officers tell me the old-school guys are mostly gone and that the new breed of cop has a military mentality and often a military background. The SWAT-team members are the ones who do the training and get promoted to top positions in the departments.

There’s plenty of anecdotal evidence that police are far from reluctant to pull their weapons or feel much remorse when they do. After Riverside police gunned down a sleeping girl named Tyisha Miller in a car in 1998 (she had a gun in her lap, was unconscious, and after police smashed her window, she moved and they immediately opened fire), the officers involved in the shooting stood around, joked, and animatedly reenacted the shooting, according to Los Angeles Times reports. One of the officers commented, “This is going to ruin their Kwanzaa,” after upset family members showed up at the scene. One local man arrived at the scene of another officer-involved shooting and reported that the police were high-fiving each other. (Greenhut, supra.)

In the streets, the police are in control.  Anyone who doubts it needs merely to start clicking some of the videos I linked near the beginning of this article.  In the courtroom, though, citizens, jurors — or, as the militarized police call us, “civilians” — are still in control.

Therein is found the answer to what we can do about this.  There, in the courtroom, is where we can start to tear down the “us versus them” mentality, by refusing to buy into it ourselves.  As Scott noted,

This isn’t about fostering public hatred of police…. This is about healthy skepticism, the end of blind faith.

We start to eliminate the “us versus them” mentality by reminding ourselves — and through our healthy skepticism, the police — that “they” are no different than “us.”  “They” are human beings who will, like “us,” sometimes lie when it is in their own best interest to do so.  The words of law enforcement witnesses must be heard and examined with at least the same healthy skepticism that we apply to the words of other — “civilian” — witnesses.

The only way to stop the great train wreck of the republic is to remember that it’s not a matter of “us versus them.”  We’re all on this train together.  Fundamentally, we’re all the same in our drives, our motivations, and our willingness to paint the picture of a world where we are always right.  But officers must hold themselves, and be held, to a higher standard, because our republic cannot survive if we cannot trust those whose job it is to enforce its laws.

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.

Well, okay, I’ve already started expressing my opinion: In Fresno, as with much of the Central San Joaquin Valley, the police can do no wrong, even when they do. 

As I said, though, I wasn’t involved with this case.  I didn’t attend the trial.  I only read what was in The Fresno Bee.  And I know full well that The Fresno Bee seldom gets the story right when it comes to our courts.

Yet it is worth noting that the failure of a jury to convict does not an innocent man make.  Juries are not called on to decide innocence: they’re called on to decide guilt.  So when they decide someone is not guilty, they are saying only that guilt was not proven beyond a reasonable doubt.   They are not saying someone is innocent.  That is not something within their power to do.

As Michael Idiart, a well-respected local criminal defense attorney has noted:

[J]uries read about violent crime in Fresno and are inclined to believe police officers over people portrayed by the defense as gang members.

“A lot of jurors just believe police have a difficult job and criminals have it coming to them.”  (Pablo Lopez, “Jury acquits former Fresno officer” (January 26, 2010) p. A6, col. 4, quoting Michael Idiart.)

Marshall Hodgkins, speaking like the good criminal defense lawyer that he is, felt his client had been vindicated — although, remember, he was only found not guilty — and said that a half-courtroom filled with police officers had no impact on the jury:

This was one of the most analytical juries I have ever seen.  (Jim Guy, Pablo Lopez and George Hostetter, “Police chief orders two reviews” (January 26, 2010) p. A6, col. 2, quoting Marshall Hodgkins.)

In an attempt to thwart the jury’s analytical skills, the judge in the case ordered that the police officers filling the courtroom in support of their accused comrade could not wear uniforms or carry guns, except when testifying.  (The uniforms and guns are necessary when testilying to give the officers’ words extra authority, just in case a Fresno jury was inclined to doubt their veracity.)  The jurors were therefore incapable of linking the large number of broad shoulders, short haircuts, their demeanor and the fact that they sat behind the accused officer to a strong police presence.

The truth is, though, that this episode is not just good news for the modern police man (and woman).  It’s good news for all of us. 

With officers no doubt feeling emboldened by the refusal of Fresno County’s submitizens to ever convict an officer for wrongdoing — this is the second officer acquitted despite fairly strong evidence that something isn’t quite right here — the day may be almost upon us when officers will commit their crimes more openly.

Because what this acquittal convinces me of — whether this officer is factually culpable or not — is that until the abuse reaches “ordinary” submitizens and not just those the police can convincingly argue are ‘gang members,” police misconduct will continue to be a fact of life in Fresno.

Doris Daudy, a woman of approximately 38 years old, was walking north on Maroa toward her home just north of the Tower District.  Her purse was slung over one shoulder, her arms wrapped around grocery bags.  She never minded the walk; it was just a few blocks.  And although there was an occasional purse-snatching in the area, she’d walked this route for years without problems and felt perfectly safe.

Sam cut across the lawn at the end of the block, hoping to save himself a few seconds, and accidentally ran smack into Doris, knocking her to the ground.  Her groceries flew out of the bag, which miraculously was not ripped, and her purse spilled open.

Sam immediately began apologizing.  “I’m so sorry, ma’am!  I’m so very sorry!,” he said as he helped Doris to her feet.  “It’s just that I’m late for work and if I don’t get there on time my boss is going to fire me for sure!”

Doris knew the gut-wrenching feeling that went with not being able to make the bills because she or her husband were temporarily unemployed.  And she wasn’t really hurt.  She assured Sam that everything was fine as she started to collect her groceries and put them back into the back.  For his part, Sam was scrambling to help pick up her things, frantically stuffing spilled items back into her purse and worrying about how much later he was going to be now.  But he couldn’t run off without making sure she was okay.

Sam handed Doris her purse, continuing to apologize and brushing some leaves off Doris’s shoulder.

“Go on,” Doris said.  “I’m fine.  Really.  You don’t want to lose your job.”

Until a while after Doris got home, neither Sam nor Doris realized that when her purse spilled open, her wallet fell into the storm drain.

When Doris realized her wallet was missing, she didn’t really believe Sam had taken it.  She didn’t know Sam, but he had seemed so apologetic and nice.  But her husband insisted that she call the police.

“What else could have happened to it?,” he asked.

                                        * * * * *

Officer Steve “Stumper” Stevens was familiar with many people in the Tower District.  After getting Doris’s story and a description, he immediately knew who Sam was and went to his workplace to question him about “the assault on Doris and the theft of her wallet.”  Of course, he didn’t actually use these words with Sam.  Officer Stevens was smarter than that.

Officer Stevens asked Sam if he knew Doris.  Sam and Doris had not exchanged names and Sam didn’t know her, so he immediately confirmed Officer Stevens’ suspicions when he denied knowing Doris.

“Do you recall knocking a woman down earlier near Maroa and Floradora?,” Stevens asked.

“Oh.  Oh, uhm, that.”  Sam was caught off-guard.  Why would a police officer come to talk to him about accidentally knocking someone down?  The woman had assured him she was alright.  He made sure of it before he left her!  “Yes,” Sam said.

“And did you have her purse?,” Stevens asked.

“Well, uh, yes.  I helped pick everything up and gave it back to her.”

“What happened to the wallet?” Stevens asked.

“The wallet?”

“Yes, the wallet.  Did you give her back her wallet?”

“Uh…I…well…I must have.  I just picked everything up, put it in the purse and gave it back to her.  I was trying to help!”  Sam was nervous.  Officer Stevens wasn’t just asking questions.  It sounded like the officer didn’t believe him.  He seemed to think Sam had stolen the lady’s wallet.  For his part, Sam was stumped.  He knew he didn’t steal anything.  So when Officer Stevens told him he had the right to remain silent, the right to have an attorney and — as he would later tell his Public Defender — “whatever else he said,” all he could think is that he wanted to do whatever it took to convince the officer he had not done anything.

After “mirandizing” Sam, Officer Stevens ran through the questions again.  Sam gave the same story as before.  Officer Stevens told Sam he was arresting him for robbery.

“Robbery!”  Sam’s head was spinning.  “But I didn’t do anything!  I swear I didn’t take that lady’s wallet!”

                                        * * * * *

Sam’s public defender, Shirley Singer, sat across from Sam at the Juvenile Justice Campus where he was being held.  At the perfunctory detention hearing three days earlier, the District Attorney had argued that Sam was “a danger to the community” because he had “viciously” knocked “a helpless middle-aged woman, her arms full of groceries,” to the ground before stealing her wallet.  The judge agreed this behavior was egregious.  As far as the judge was concerned, Sam was “a danger to himself or to the community” and he was ordered detained.  A trial confirmation date was set.  Shirley was here to discuss “the facts of the case,” including the police report.

As Shirley read the report, she noted that, at least according to Officer Stevens, Sam had “admitted” to knocking “the victim” to the ground and taking her purse.  Sam had also “admitted” that he did not return the wallet.

“That’s not what I said!”  Sam was upset.  Shirley didn’t know whether to believe him or not.  She knew, however, that it actually did not matter.  Ultimately, if this was what the police report said, Shirley knew this was likely to be the testimony of the officer.  Sam’s denial of an admission was going to look self-serving.

Shirley knew that the judge was likely to accept the word of the police officer over that of Sam, the only other witness to the conversation.

After all, why would the officer lie?  Sam’s denial of the admission was self-serving.  But there was no way the officer’s assertion that Sam had admitted this crime to him was.

But, hey, this is just a story, right?  Things like this don’t really happen.  So go ahead, talk to the police.  Help yourself to a conviction.

Or you can watch this video of a police officer explaining why there’s nothing you can do to help yourself, once a police officer starts to question you.

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

One estimate is that in a mere two years, the shakedown of drivers passing through Tenaha has netted the Department $3 million dollars.  If I were bringing in that kind of money, I’d be well on my way to retirement!

Truth is, the only thing that surprises me is the number of people who pass through Tenaha with so much cash in their vehicles.  One couple apparently had $50,000 in cash they were going to use to buy a restaurant.  Frankly, I’d think it wise to use at least a cashier’s check for such a business transaction!

What doesn’t really surprise me is the readiness and regularity with which the Tenaha officers apparently committed their streetside shakedowns.  It doesn’t take much time in the legal field before you realize that the most common “law enforcement” tool is The Shakedown.

And it’s not just police officers who are using it.  Even well-meaning — and I’m one-hundred percent sincere when I call them “well-meaning” — prosecutors and judges engage in the practice on a routine basis.  I’ve had more than one conversation which involved something along the lines of “your client can plead to this, or else this other more serious thing is going to happen.”

For example, a client may have been charged with two “strikes,” but the offer is to allow him to plead to a single non-strike felony.  Evidence for the strikes may be strong enough to believe the prosecution has at least a 50% chance of winning at trial.  Juries being what they are, it doesn’t make sense to go to trial and risk my client being zapped with two strikes, when he could enter a no-contest plea to a non-strike felony.

The prosecutor, as I said, means well.  The prosecutor may believe my client is absolutely guilty, but is willing to “give him a break” by making this “generous” offer.

The thing is, faced with Morton’s Fork, even an innocent person would probably take the offer; the tines aren’t exactly the same.

I can’t provide a link for this — one reason I haven’t blogged in awhile is I hate making statements like this where I provide a citation — but I once read that actuaries estimate there are 100,000 innocent people behind bars.  (Actuaries are the people who use statistical analysis to make predictions relied on by others, such as insurance companies, etc.)  I can’t remember if that number was for “innocent people behind bars in California” or “in America.”  I also don’t know how recent that information is, so that number may be low.  As rights aimed at ensuring fair trials decrease and Morton’s Fork situations proliferate, the number surely rises.

Another situation — much less acceptable, but possibly more frequently used — involves police investigations and district attorney’s office investigations where witnesses who are deemed less-than-cooperative are informed that they will become more cooperative (read: will show up and testify to what the police or DA want) or risk losing their children.  Theoretically, Child Protective Services does not work for either the DA or police, but the number of witnesses who have been threatened with losing their children if they don’t do what these folks want are legion.

The Tenaha Police Department, seen in that light, is just more blatant about shakedowns in that they’re obviously abusing their position of authority to do something unacceptable, but they’re just at a more extreme end of the same spectrum.