The Police Disappoint Again
I just witnessed a nasty accident.
Off in the distance, I saw a minivan slam into a bicyclist. I wasn’t close enough to see the details, but when I drove up I truly thought that the bicyclist was dead. The only other people on the scene were witnesses who saw the whole thing, and were freaking out on the phone with 911, and the distraught man who crashed into the cyclist.
I got out of my car to try to help the guy on the asphalt. I checked to make sure he was breathing; wasn’t bleeding too badly; and started talking to him as he slowly regained consciousness. Then I just kept him talking until the cops showed up.
The cops are what I’m writing about.
Over the years I’ve had a number of interactions with the police (none where I’ve done something wrong). Every time I deal with the cops I think, “there is no way they are going to be assholes to me this time.” And every time I’m disappointed. I’m not looking for them to be pleasant, I’m just looking for them to not be assholes. I set low standards, and they always fail to meet them.
These cops seemed completely indifferent, uncaring, and unhelpful towards the victim. They were also very mean to the witnesses. It’s totally fucking unnecessary.
I’m so damn tired of police treating people poorly. They are supposed to serve and protect. Citizens aren’t the enemy; especially those of us who actually try to help in bad situations.
I’m not looking for a medal, or even a thank you. It’s not about that. I just don’t want the police treating me like shit when I try to help a person in need.
The next time I hear an off-duty cop bitch about how “they spend all day seeing the worst of humanity,” I’m going to tell them to open their eyes and pay attention and be thankful when they happen upon someone doing the right thing when they didn’t have to. People do it all the time, but if you’re so jaded, you will never notice.
Know Your Digital Rights
Police are becoming digitally bold, and asking to search the phones of citizens during traffic stops. As with anything, it’s important to know your rights. The EFF put together a one page card detailing the rights of American citizens as they pertain to your digital devices.
EFF – Tips for Talking to the Police
Am I in a High Crime Area?
After years of careful, non-scientific observation, I am ready to present my two signals for identifying whether one is in a high, or low crime neighborhood; without resorting to ignorant prejudices.
Signal #1
Look at the buildings around you, particularly parking lots and businesses. Do you see razor wire (not wussy barbed wire, the hardcore stuff) surrounding important buildings? Worse still, do you see razor wire around unimportant buildings?
The more razor wire you see, the worse the neighborhood it.
Nothing says "welcome" like razor wire.
Signal #2
Are the police giving traffic tickets? If they are, they probably don’t have anything better to do.
Traffic ticketing police = good neighborhood.
I actually saw these cyclists get pulled over in Minneapolis. I thought it was hilarious.
There it is folks. Two simple identifiers of crime. No bigotry.
Phoenix Police Terrorize Critical Blogger
The police out in Arizona are pretty ridiculous. I’ve seen some pretty loopy things in Phoenix and heard a ton of stories about how vicious the authorities can be in that desert city… but this is absolutely insane:
In what should send a frightening chill down the spine of every blogger, writer, journalist and First Amendment advocate in the United States, Phoenix police raided the home of a blogger who has been highly critical of the department.
Jeff Pataky, who runs Bad Phoenix Cops, said the officers confiscated three computers, routers, modems, hard drives, memory cards and everything necessary to continue blogging.
Pataky started his blog a month before his own harassment trial to rant against the police. He felt he had been wrongfully charged and ultimately a judge agreed.
After the charges were dropped Pataky was going to shut down the site when he began receiving tips from people within the Phoenix Police Department about police wrongdoing. The site has been highly critical of the Phoenix Police Department ever since – they have between 50 and 100 active and retired police sources.
Now in what appears to be an act of retaliation the Phoenix Police have confiscated his belongings and charged him with both “petty theft” and “computer tampering with the intent to harass.” No affidavits have been produced to establish probable cause for the charges or the search and seizure.
Unless there is some deeper story it seems that Phoenix Police are trying to terrorize Pataky into ceasing his criticism.
I recommend reading the whole story over at “Photography is Not a Crime.”
If the Phoenix Police have no substantive evidence of real wrongdoing on the part of Pataky, this is absolutely unacceptable.
Nuff said.
