Friday August 11, 2006
I hate billboards. You hate billboards. Now we can do something about them. Go download the petition [PDF] and distribute far and wide. (via Transit Miami)
Miami International Airport has a SWAT team; they just said so on the Early Show. What’s interesting is that MIA’s web site says nothing about it. The best I could do is this—some reports about the guy shot by Air Marshalls mentioned it.
Yes, apparently there are seven commandments. The flag of the USA has been tastefully cropped to accomodate them. Oh, the glory! Update: Ok, it’s a bit more complicated then that; see Comment #4 (thanks, NicFitKid).
Five rubber bullets @ a peaceful demonstrator
Super-quick recap: back in 2003, Miami hosted a meeting of the Free Trade Association of the Americas (FTAA), and hilary ensued. We’ve all read the CIP’s report, so we know the outlines of what happened. I bring up the case of the lady who was hit five times with rubber bullets fired by Broward police because it so succinctly demonstrates my understanding of police mentality. Let’s recap:
- The video (the Herald’s video doesn’t work for me) clearly shows her not doing anything threatening (duh) — she’s walking away from the police.
- They fire FIVE RUBBER BULLETS at her. Nice work, fellas!
- The next video shows them laughing about it. Let me repeat for emphasis: they’re all standing around laughing about it.
- When it all comes out (this Wednesday), the police department apologizes for laughing about it.
Where is the apology for hitting her with rubber bullets? Wait, nevermind that; it turns out that no police officers were disciplined for anything in all of this. OK now I have some observations.
- No apology for the rubber bullets.
- No officers disciplined. Ah but of course: we “have no way of knowing which officers fired the rubber bullets.” You know why? Because the the guy standing next to the guy who fired won’t say. And the guy on his other side won’t say.
- . . . i.e. when police officers do fucked-up criminal shit their buddies cover for them. This utterly refutes any sort of “it’s just a few bad seeds” argument that anyone would care to attempt to make, right?
- And nevermind discipline. I believe we have a name for shooting at someone, and it’s actually a crime. So how about filing some charges. Oh, right: see #3, above.
- You know how killing a cop is a worse offense then killing a random person? OK, I understand that rule, and have no problem with it. But by the same token, the police are entrusted by us with special power. I think that when they abuse that power in committing a crime (which is precisely what this was), their punishment should be similarly more harsh.
The worst thing about all of this? For every instance of police abuse of power that gets caught on tape, there are hundreds or thousands that are never heard of. Messed up.
Permalink · Comment [14] · Tags: police · Post to del.icio.us, digg, reddit
