The group that killed Eric Garner is protesting against the group that killed Eric Garner

Sometime yesterday, Congressional staffers (government employees) walked out on their jobs to the front steps of the House of Representatives to protest the laws (written by themselves) that led to the death (at the hands of other government employees) who were enforcing the will of government employees. Instead of meaningless symbolic gestures, why don't they protest by making it legal to sell "loosies" without a punitive tax that pays their own (government employee) salaries? Lord have mercy, what a pack of doofuses....

 

Selling Loosies vs Stealing Swisher Sweets

About 4 years ago, I advocated something called "The Neighbor In A Cage Test" for new laws. 
In short, would you be willing to put your neighbor in a cage if he refused to obey (or fund) your proposed law?  Because that's exactly what happens when your neighbors don't obey laws, no matter how stupid the laws, no matter how few people voted for them, no matter how corrupt their origins.

We've had two good cases for this in the last few weeks.  Michael Brown and Eric Garner. 

We don't often think of Government this way, but....

1)  Government is force. 
2)  Government also writes laws. 
3)  Government uses force to ensure compliance with all of its laws, including the bad ones.   
4)  If you don't agree to obey the laws, or fund them, you will be locked up....
5)  In a cage. 

Here's how it works in theory.  This is from noted Yale Law Professor Stephen Carter:

On the opening day of law school, I always counsel my first-year students never to support a law they are not willing to kill to enforce. Usually they greet this advice with something between skepticism and puzzlement, until I remind them that the police go armed to enforce the will of the state, and if you resist, they might kill you.

I wish this caution were only theoretical. It isn’t. Whatever your view on the refusal of a New York City grand jury to indict the police officer whose chokehold apparently led to the death of Eric Garner, it’s useful to remember the crime that Garner is alleged to have committed: He was selling individual cigarettes, or loosies, in violation of New York law…..

The problem is actually broader. It’s not just cigarette tax laws that can lead to the death of those the police seek to arrest. It’s every law. Libertarians argue that we have far too many laws, and the Garner case offers evidence that they’re right. I often tell my students that there will never be a perfect technology of law enforcement, and therefore it is unavoidable that there will be situations where police err on the side of too much violence rather than too little. Better training won’t lead to perfection. But fewer laws would mean fewer opportunities for official violence to get out of hand.

BTW, a "loosie" is a single cigarette.  The New York Police Department had an "opportunity for official violence to get out of hand" (in Professor Carter's words), and supposedly choked Eric Garner to death.

Garner had been selling loosies.  (The rationale for selling these single cigarettes is that retailers have to charge an ungodly tax on packs of cigarettes.  Those who are willing to sell individual cigs usually don't send additional inflated cut to the IRS.  Hence the illegality, even though the tax was already paid by the first purchaser of the "broken" pack.) 

But that's the theoretical part of it.  Here's an interview with a NYC police officer, explaining the difficulty of enforcing bullshit laws:

What do you think about all this? I mean, honestly — that video. Eric Garner looked so scared.
Well, Garner was in bad health, and Pantaleo said it wasn’t a chokehold; he was just trying to take him down so they could arrest him. The thing that nobody hears about in the media is that Garner had been arrested for this before. The store owners, they had been … saying he was taking away their business. These people pay their taxes; they pay for tobacco licenses. They wanted him gone.

Right, but he wasn’t fighting the cops. He was just standing there with his hands up.
Yeah, but he’s a big guy. He could have been holding up his hands, or he could have been threatening them. All I’m saying is that cop needed to arrest him. Once that was decided on, they had to take him in one way or the other, and he didn’t want to go … but maybe there was excessive force used. I won’t say there wasn’t.

So you don’t think this is a race thing?
No, it’s not a race thing. It’s a Ray Kelly thing. (Ray Kelly was a veteran NYC Police Commissioner.)  That man singlehandedly ruined this department. When I came up as a rookie, you were assigned an older cop who had been around and knew what they were doing. We were taught that you catch more flies with honey. Basically, if you let the small things go — like the guy selling loosies or weed or whatever on the corner — then when the big shit happens, like homicide or burglary, those are the same guys who will tell you all about it. If they hate you, they won’t tell you shit.

But this is happening everywhere. I mean, Ferguson — there have been so many of these cases for so long.
All I know is New York City. Nowadays, since Kelly’s Operation Impact, rookies are taught one thing: Write tickets, do searches, make money. They’ll have a quota they have to fill. They’re not supposed to, but they do. They come up not knowing their asses from their elbows. These rookies don’t understand how to let the small stuff go. They'll be on your back for a bag of grass.  So when things happen they overreact.   

There you have it....
The theoretical problem from Yale's Stephen Carter. 
The practical problem from a NYC cop. 
Which leaves the rest of us with a problem. 
Would you be willing to have someone strangled to death for selling loosies?  If not, then don't ask someone else to do your dirty work.

How would that work out?  Where does one draw the line? 

Well, take the case of Michael Brown. 

(If you've been living under a rock, Michael Brown, a black teenager, supposedly did a strong-arm robbery of a convenience store, walked out with some Swisher Sweets, was stopped by a white cop, then something happened that we'll never, ever, ever figure out, and Michael Brown got shot.  Dead.) 

Here's a video supposedly showing some of the last moments of Brown's life.  If you're in a hurry, the last 20 seconds are the key moments. 



Would I be willing to shoot someone to keep Swisher Sweets from being stolen?  I don't know, and I hope I never have to find out. 

Would I be willing to outsource that job? 

I can only answer with a very reluctant.... Yes. 

That's one of the Big 3 legitimate functions of the state.  (Protect the borders, provide a courts system, and protect property rights.)  Even if the property in question is a $40.00 box of cheap cigars. 

But would I willingly pay someone to shoot the people who sell loosies?  Heck no. 

Libertarianism in a nutshell is "Don't hit people and don't take their stuff."  Hitting people (except in defense) and taking their stuff is a job reserved for the state.  Michael Brown took a convenience store's stuff and hit the clerk. 

Eric Garner didn't take anyone's stuff, and it doesn't look like he hit anybody. 

Brown and Garner are both dead. 

Another Libertarian clutch-phrase is "If there is no victim, there was no crime". 

Who was the victim in these two cases?  Brown?  Garner?  The convenience store clerk?  The IRS? 

Please discuss. 

Ron Paul on the response to the Boston bombings

Why Police Officers Lie Under Oath

From The New York Holy Times, via Instapundit:

“In this era of mass incarceration, the police shouldn’t be trusted any more than any other witness, perhaps less so. That may sound harsh, but numerous law enforcement officials have put the matter more bluntly. . . . Police departments have been rewarded in recent years for the sheer numbers of stops, searches and arrests. In the war on drugs, federal grant programs like the Edward Byrne Memorial Justice Assistance Grant Program have encouraged state and local law enforcement agencies to boost drug arrests in order to compete for millions of dollars in funding. Agencies receive cash rewards for arresting high numbers of people for drug offenses, no matter how minor the offenses or how weak the evidence. Law enforcement has increasingly become a numbers game. And as it has, police officers’ tendency to regard procedural rules as optional and to lie and distort the facts has grown as well. Numerous scandals involving police officers lying or planting drugs — in Tulia, Tex. and Oakland, Calif., for example — have been linked to federally funded drug task forces eager to keep the cash rolling in. . . . In 2010, a New York City police officer named Adil Polanco told a local ABC News reporter that ‘our primary job is not to help anybody, our primary job is not to assist anybody, our primary job is to get those numbers and come back with them.’ He continued: ‘At the end of the night you have to come back with something. You have to write somebody, you have to arrest somebody, even if the crime is not committed, the number’s there. So our choice is to come up with the number.’”

Hit the Times link to read the whole thing.  And VOTE TO CUT OFF THE FUNDING !!!

Beaten for driving while diabetic

Here's a video of some government employees beating the crap out of a guy who is in a diabetic coma.  They think he's drunk. 
It's featured in the Las Vegas Review-Journal. 



The victim got $250,000 in restitution from....you.  The cops involved walked away fat and happy, of course. 

Go here to read the Vegas Review-Journal account of the mess. 
Go here to read Radley Balko's commentary on the incident, posted under the line of police dialogue "Stop resisisting, Motherf***er", and also includes the following observations:

•This certainly isn’t the first time cops have mistaken diabetic shock for intoxication—and with similar results. We’ve also seen a number of incidents where cops have mistaken epileptic seizures for aggressive behavior, often resulting in a Tasering. The root problem here is the same as that with the cops who mistakenly mistake a bounding or territorial dog with an aggressive one, and then kill it. The cops get excused because they made “honest mistakes.” (Though in this case, the honest mistake ended with mistaking low blood sugar for intoxication.) But that means they haven’t been trained properly. At some point, enough of these stories should have made the news that departments across the country would begin to implement such training. That doesn’t appear to be happening.

•Note that at one point in the video, after they’ve just beaten a helpless man, one cop asks his fellow officers if any of them are hurt.

•Not only were none of these cops criminally charged, every one of them is apparently still protecting and serving the public. The story indicates one seargeant was “disciplined,” but we aren’t allowed to know what that discipline was. The department also claims to have changed some policies in response to the incident. But we aren’t allowed to know exactly what those changes are, either.

•We also aren’t allowed to know the names of any of the officers in the video. This is inexcusable. It seems pretty clear that there’s a culture problem, here. Mistaking a diabetic for a drunk is bad enough. Beating him senseless when he clearly posed no threat is criminal. And yelling “Stop Resisting!” at a man who is clearly not resisting is indicative of a police culture in which excessive force is common enough that the officers know what to say as they’re beating someone to give them cover later. Laughing after you’ve just beaten a man, and after you’ve just discovered he was a diabetic is straight-up pathological. All of which means there’s plenty of reason to doubt this particular department’s internal review process. These officers names need to be released, so journalists and police watchdog groups outside of law enforcement can look into their histories on the job.

•Greene and his family were given a $292,500 settlement, which of course will be funded by taxpayers, not the cops who beat him senseless. This too needs to change. The cops who beat green should be forfeiting a portion of their paychecks to him for the rest of their lives. And those paychecks should preferably be compensation for work other than police work.

What if Blockbuster Video or Barnes & Noble were run by the government?

Go here for an interesting tale from The Libertarian Book Club (of Canada, thank God). 

The picture of the dreaded knock on the door in the middle of the night came from here. 

On cell phone bans

I found these two almost-unrelated links on Instapundit.  Here's the first:

First, regulating cellphone use is not a federal responsibility, even on federal roads. This is not an issue that Washington has the authority to address.

Second, there’s no compelling reason for it. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration says that 3,092 traffic deaths last year involved distracted drivers. But using a cell phone is only one of many driver distractions. Eating and drinking while behind the wheel are two others, and they are far more dangerous than yapping on a phone.

In fact, a 2009 NHTSA study found that 80% of all car wrecks are caused by drivers eating or drinking — not cellphone use — with coffee-guzzling the top offender.

Then there’s this. According to federal data, traffic deaths have fallen from 2.1 per 100 million vehicle miles in 1990, when virtually no one had a cellphone, to 1.1 in 2009, when almost everyone does.

Here's the second link, a piece of greatness from Frank J. Fleming:

The National Transportation Safety Board wants a complete ban on cellphone use while driving, even on hands-free calls. Some will protest this as yet another government encroachment on freedom, but we should think twice before rocking the boat here.

After all, have you considered how lucky we are that the government lets us drive cars at all?

Imagine if cars hadn’t been around for a century, but instead were just invented today. Is there any way they’d be approved for individual use? It’s an era of bans on incandescent bulbs; if you suggested putting millions of internal-combustion engines out there, you’d get looks like you were Hitler proposing the Final Solution.

Even aside from pollution, the government wouldn’t allow the risks to safety. . . . Driving is basically a grandfathered freedom from back when people cared less about pollution and danger and valued progress and liberty over safety. They had different equations related to human life then: We could lose 10,000 men in a single battle in a war and call it a victory.

We’re talking foolhardy people who eventually sent men to the moon strapped to a giant rocket that had less computational power than it takes to calculate the trajectory of an Angry Bird. Their kids dangled from jungle gyms over pavement.

Face it: We’re just not those people anymore. We don’t do dangerous things where lots of people could be hurt . . . even if they’re really cool and fun ideas. You can say we value human life more now, but it’s probably more apt to say we’re much sissier.

The picture of the O.S.H.A. Cowboy came from here. 

An honest question about the effectiveness of pepper-spray

Buzzfeed has published what they call The 45 Most Powerful Images Of 2011.  There are some great photos in there. 
Three of them caught my attention.....

A protester gets sprayed in the face with pepper spray at an Occupy Portland protest. (Randy L. Rasmussen/The Oregonian)

A University of California Davis police officer pepper-sprays students during their sit-in at an "Occupy UCD" demonstration in Davis, California. (Jasna Hodzic)

84-year-old Dorli Rainey was pepper sprayed during a peaceful march in Seattle, Washington. She would have been thrown to the ground and trampled, but luckily a fellow protester and Iraq vet was there to save her. (Joshua Trujillo / seattlepi.com)

I've got one question.... Our government is pepper-spraying protesters who are rallying for more and more government power and control.  I repeat....Our government is pepper-spraying protesters who are rallying for more and more government power and control.
Have the protesters changed their minds already, or do they need to be pepper-sprayed some more? 

Hit this link to see the other pics.  There are some great ones in the Buzzfeed collection.
A fresh coat of Whitening to my friend Mike Coyne for opening my eyes to this phenomenon.   

Well, THAT shut 'em up !!

Go here.  See comments. 

The Columbia Missouri SWAT team is still breaking into homes and shooting dogs

For those of you with limited time, go ahead and forward to the 5 minute mark.
This is from the Keep Columbia (Missouri) Free website.

This is a video of the Columbia, MO SWAT team serving a search warrant for marijuana on 03.07.2008 at the home of Mr. Jonathan March.




According to Attorney Dan Viets, “Mr. March had no prior felony convictions” at the time of the raid and he did “possess firearms which were absolutely legal and constitutionally protected.”

During the raid, 5 concussion grenades were exploded in and around the home. One of the grenades exploded near the feet of the young lady visitor, seen in the video, who, at the time, was seated on the couch. Two additional grenades were exploded subsequent to the arrest on the premise that the CPD needed to prove that the previous 5 grenades had done no damage. The grenades left clear charred remains on the carpet and other areas of the home.

During sworn testimony taken by Viets, the SWAT officers who executed this raid acknowledged that they had shot to death two dogs with their machine guns. Both dogs were shot in the back while retreating. One of the dogs is shot at around the 6:30 mark in the video as an officer tops the stairs, passes a suspect on the floor, and steps into a bedroom. You can see a glimpse of the dead dog as the officer stands in the doorway. The dog is obviously facing away from the officer. At 6:55 you can see another injured dog struggling in the hall.

It is important to note that this raid took place before Chief Ken Burton accepted his position with the CPD. Due to the overwhelming public outcry stemming from a more recent yet similar raid under his command, Chief Burton has, for the time being, reigned in the use of his SWAT team to serve search warrants for non-violent crimes and criminals.

While the prevalence of violent, paramilitary raids has waned in Columbia, this type of raid is happening somewhere in the United States right now. Please speak out against this government sanctioned domestic terrorism.

This next one is the real heartbreaker. 
Do we really want to be a nation that allows local Barney Fife police officers to dress up like Seal Team 6 and bust in on people who are engaging in a voluntary, victimless activity?  Isn't it now safe to say that this is nothing but a jobs program for police, jailers, the prison industry, counselors, probation and parole officers, and their suppliers? 
History would be a lot different if this had happened to Barack Obama, George W. Bush, Al Gore, John Kerry, Mitch Daniels, or any other politician who has admitted to smoking weed. 



When are we going to stop paying people to do this? 

Some thoughts on the Itasca Texas speed trap

I was thinking about the (local) cops from a little hamlet called Itasca Texas, who are always handing out speeding tickets on (federal) Interstate-35, and decided to link to this bit o' greatness by Victor Davis Hanson.  (The city of Itasca has absolutely zero responsibility for safety on I-35.  It's where the Itasca cops go fishing for funding.) 

Here's Mr. Hanson, explaining why we're becoming a nation of speed traps, red light cameras, and desperate policemen trying to hit their quota:

California in the Balance.

We calibrate California’s decline by its myriad of paradoxes. The nation’s highest bundle of gas, sales, and income taxes cannot close the nation’s largest annual deficit at $25 billion. Test scores are at the country’s near bottom; teachers’ salaries at the very top. Scores of the affluent are leaving each week; scores of the indigent are arriving. The nation’s most richly endowed state is also the most regulated; the most liberal of our residents are also the most ready to practice apartheid in their Bel Air or Palo Alto enclaves.

We now see highway patrolmen and city police, in the manner of South American law enforcement, out in force. Everywhere they are monitoring, watching, ticketing — no warnings, no margins of error — desperate to earn traffic fines that might feed the state that feeds them. I could go on. But you get the picture that we are living on the fumes of a rich state that our forefathers brilliantly exploited, and now there is not much energy left in the fading exhaust to keep us going.

I see California in terms now of the razor’s edge with disaster not far in either direction. A postmodern affluent lifestyle hangs in the balance here without a margin of error. Let me give some examples.

The examples are worth reading.  Hit the link.  It seems that stopping a genuine criminal activity is a huge administrative hassle and bother, and is a net minus for revenue.  But some dude driving while talking on a cell phone?  Cha-Ching !!!!
And in case you're wondering, the Itasca cops haven't caught me in a year and a half. 
If I ever win the lottery, I'm renting "Speed Trap Ahead" billboards to put on either side of Itasca so everyone on I-35 can watch that corrupt little 'burg struggle with living off legit revenue for a few years. 

Steven Seagal and Sheriff Joe Arapaio use tanks to invade neighborhood in pursuit of a possible cockfighting operation

Have you noticed an uptick in the number of SWAT teams being sent in to search homes for marijuana?  Officers in anti-riot regalia going in for no-knock drug raids in the homes of people smoking funny cigarettes? 
Well, Arizona has taken it to the next level. 

PHOENIX -- Sheriff Joe Arpaio rolled out the tanks to take down a man suspected of cockfighting.

West Valley residents in the neighborhood are crying foul after armored vehicles, including a tank, rolled into their neighborhood to make the bust.
Neighbor Debra Ross was so worried she called 911 and went outside where a nearby home had its windows blown out, was crawling with dozens of SWAT members in full gear, armored vehicles and a bomb robot.

“When the tank came in and pushed the wall over and you see what's in there, and all it is, is a bunch of chickens,” Ross said.

In a massive show of force on Monday, the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office executed a search warrant and arrested the homeowner, Jesus Llovera, on charges of suspected cockfighting.

Llovera was alone in the house at the time of the arrest, and he was unarmed.

“I think taxpayers should be shocked,” said Robert Campus, Llovera’s attorney. Campus said he believes the operation costs tens of thousands of dollars.

Deputies had no probable cause to believe Llovera was armed or dangerous, according to Campus.

Ok, up until this point, the story has been interesting but typical Uncle Sam Overkill.  Now it gets weird. 

Campus said he believes the entire scene was basically a stage, to help actor Steven Seagal’s TV show, “Lawman.”

Seagal was riding in the tank.

The Sheriff’s Department has entered into a contract with Seagal and part of that contract gives Seagal carte blanche to go along with the sheriff as he arrests people.

Thousands of dollars in damages were made to the property and 115 birds were euthanized on the spot.

Llovera was convicted of a misdemeanor last year of attending a cockfight and has no history of owning weapons.

Yet the sheriff’s office said they had reasons to believe Llovera might be armed.

“We're going to err on the side of caution. We're going to make sure that we have the appropriate amount of force in case we do run into anything like that,” said Sgt. Jesse Spurgin.

Well, hell, that would do it. 
Why we are tolerating this without taking to the streets is one of life's great mysteries. 

Worst Police Misconduct Videos Of The Year - 2010 edition

Happy 2011.  Since you folks generally don't hit links, I've scraped this excellent collection of videos from the Injustice Everywhere blog, stolen it, and reposted it here.  All in hopes that you will hit THIS LINK and give this guy some more traffic.  That's the only way you're going to see which video won the contest. 
I repeat, you must hit THIS LINK to see which video of Police Misconduct won. 
Here is Mr. Injustice Everywhere: 

Once again it’s time for our annual “Worst Police Misconduct Videos of the Year” reader’s poll. Here we post some of the more egregious, but not all, of the videos that were released in 2010 in association with claims of police misconduct. Of course, some of the incidents tied to these videos did not occur in 2010, but the videos for those reports weren’t released to the public until this year so they are included.
Each video is associated with a number and are listed in no specific order. At the end of the post is a poll where each visitor may select up to three of the videos that they consider the worst examples of police misconduct caught on video for the year. At the end of the voting period, midnight on New Years Eve of 2010, we will begin tallying the votes and present the five worst videos of the year on New Years Day.
(Note: Our list of the worst police misconduct videos of 2009 as selected by our readers is here.)
So, without further ado, here are the candidates…
VIDEO 1 – 47 votes

November 11, 2009:

A Texas State trooper was caught on dashcam slamming a female motorist face-first into a concrete barrier while arresting her on suspicion of drunk driving after she called police to report an accident. Prior to slamming her into the wall the dashcam recorded him telling the woman “You’re fixing to get hurt, don’t make me put you on the ground, you understand?” The woman was never charged and the now-former trooper was sentenced to probation after convicted on a misdemeanor assault charge.

VIDEO 2 – 12 votes



October 29, 2010:

A Fond du Lac Wisconsin police officer was caught on surveillance camera inside a jail holding area slamming a handcuffed mentally-ill detainee face-first into a table so hard it lifted the man’s legs off the ground and resulted in a gash that required stitches in his head. While the officer was suspended without pay for three days over the incident the man’s family claims that he suffered worse injuries than are being described and hasn’t been the same since the incident, describing him as a “walking vegetable”.
VIDEO 3 – 15 votes



October 18, 2010:

An undercover Seattle Washington police officer is currently under investigation after a surveillance camera inside a convenience store captured him kick a 17-year-old boy in the crotch then repeatedly kick him in the face while it appeared as though he was attempting to cooperate. The officer claimed the boy was just involved in a drug buy bust that went wrong when the undercover officers were robbed by the suspects they tried to buy drugs from. However, as you watch the video, note how the two kids look surprised by the commotion outside and go out to see what’s happening… would someone who just ran from a botched robbery do that? Oddly, the police apparently didn’t suspend the officer pending investigation until they found out the video was going to air on the news.
VIDEO 4 - 14 votes



October 18, 2010

The same Seattle Washington police officer shown kicking a compliant teenager in Video 3 then allegedly went outside and punched a man who was attempting to videotape what was happening. However, aside from a single report in the press, there was no other word on any investigation taking place regarding this incident. In fact, officials refused to even view the video which was sent to the press.
VIDEO 5 – 14 votes



April 17, 2010:

Two Seattle Washington police officers are still the subject of an internal investigation after both county prosecutors and the city attorney refused to press charges against them for their roles in this video captured by a freelance photojournalist where a gang officer can be heard telling what turned out to be an innocent man that he would “beat the Mexican piss” out of him before grazing his face while stomping on his hand. Later a female officer can be seen stomping on the man’s leg. Officers later released the man but didn’t offer him medical treatment even though he seemed unsteady on his feet. A second investigation began on allegations that one local TV station, which refused to air the story, colluded with officers to keep misconduct reports out of the news. One of the officers was also implicated in another incident a week after this video came out where he’s accused of choking a handcuffed suspect in the back of his cruiser. No video of that exists since the officer failed to activate his in-cruiser dashcam as required by policy.
VIDEO 6 – 9 votes



October 30, 2010

Two Miami Florida police officers are still suspended while under investigation over a cellphone video that made it’s way on YouTube showing an officer strike a man in or near his head while being held down by several other officers. That man, a youth services worker, was allegedly picked out of a crowd for now apparent reason and prosecutors were going to drop charges against him until the video went public. Then prosecutors moved ahead anyway and charged him with a stand-alone count of resisting arrest without violence for, according to his lawyer, trying to cover his head during the beating until he lost consciousness.
VIDEO 7 – 26 votes



August 5, 2010:

A Kershaw County South Carolina deputy has been indicted on a federal civil rights charge over his use of excessive force when he was caught on jail surveillance cameras repeatedly beating a handcuffed detainee with a metal baton while another deputy watched and shoved the man back when he tried to get away from the blows. The man suffered a broken leg in the attack and the other deputy seen in the video was fired over the incident as well but no word on charges against him.
VIDEO 8 – 7 votes



November 27, 2010:

Four Springfield Massachusetts police officers have been disciplined over their roles in a videotaped beating incident where officers held down an unarmed man while another repeatedly beat him with a flashlight on video captured by a nearby homeowner. One officer, who has been charged over the incident, has been fired while two others were suspended for 45 days and the fourth was suspended for 15. [0]
VIDEO 9 – 8 votes



September 21, 2010:

A Summit County Ohio deputy has been suspended for 30 days over a videotaped incident where he slammed a handcuffed detainee against a wall then sent him head-first into an opposite wall before kicking him in the jail’s intake room. The deputy claims the man tried to headbutt him though the video seems to show a head movement that appears more incidental due to the man being pushed than something intentional. The sheriff attributed this incident, and others this year, to stress over recent layoffs. [0]
VIDEO 10 – 17 votes



September 2010:

The police chief of Wister Oklahoma was caught on video slamming a 50-year-old woman into a wall then using a leg-sweep takedown on her, slamming her face onto the floor. The rough treatment left the woman with a black eye, bruised her ribs, and dislocated her knee. The incident apparently stemmed from the woman swearing at the chief when she went to complain about how the department was handling an investigation into an unspecified resident’s death. The chief charged her with using profanity in public and resisting arrest but no word on any adverse action suffered by the chief.
VIDEO 11 – 9 votes



September 5, 2010:

Six Dallas Texas police officers were involved in this video showing officers chasing a man for riding his motorcycle on a sidewalk then beating him after forcing him off his bike with their police cruiser. One officer was charged with assault for striking the man 5 times with a baton and another for striking him with his fists and knee. A third officer was also charged with evidence tampering for turning his dashcam away from what was happening. One officer was heard on radio during the chase telling them to get in close and that he was going to beat this guy.
VIDEO 12 – 31 votes



March 16, 2010:



Two Denver police officers are under investigation over a videotaped incident in March of 2010 where they detained a man who was walking his dog because he told a motorist that the officers had pulled over that he would testify on his behalf since he witnessed the driver stop when officers were citing him for failing to stop. However, once the man started to use his cell phone to take pictures officers took him to the ground and began to punch him while attempting to take his cell phone, all of which was caught on another bystander’s video recording.
VIDEO 13 – 19 votes



April 4, 2009:

Two Denver Colorado police officers are still under investigation over a year after an incident that was caught on the police department’s own “HALO” cameras which showed officers take down and beat a man who was simply standing on a street corner and calling his father, a Pueblo County Sheriff’s Deputy, asking him what to do while police were roughly arresting his friend. The video contradicted police reports filed by the officers which tried to justify the beating and arrest but, a year later, department officials decided to only suspend the officers for a couple of days for lying on the report which sparked outrage and the eventual resignation of the Dept of Public Safety director.
VIDEO 14 - 31 votes



June 29, 2010:

Two Marin County California deputies are the subject of a lawsuit filed by a 64-year-old man who was tasered three times in an incident captured on the taser’s built-in camera as shown above. The suit alleges that deputies barged into the man’s home after paramedics had already treated the man for a leg injury when he hurt himself in a fall. Cops were called because paramedics heard the man exclaim that he was in so much pain he would have shot himself if he had a gun and officers wanted to have him committed for being suicidal. He was charged with resisting arrest but those charges were dismissed later by a judge.
VIDEO 15 – 13 votes



February 24, 2010:

Two Columbia Missouri police officers are being sued by a man who was tasered on dashcam video, shown above, about 30 seconds into what appears to be a typical traffic stop after he asked why he was being pulled over. He claims that officers then began to beat him off-camera before arresting him on resisting arrest charges that were later dismissed when the prosecutor couldn’t show how the man could have known why he was being arrested in the first place.
VIDEO 16 – 11 votes



July 2008:

A New York NY police officer shown in this video footage brutally beating an Iraq war vet with a baton in the apartment building where the vet was staying with his mother was later acquitted of charges against him because the man he beat was too terrified to testify and could not be found before the trial. The video was kept from the public eye since 2008 until right before the trial this year.
VIDEO 17 - 60 votes



February 11, 2010:

A Columbia Missouri SWAT team videotaped their raid in on a family’s home that was based on questionable information they received from a paid informant. That raid resulted in a family’s corgi and bull terrier being shot while a 7-year-old was nearby inside the home. The cops say they did the evening raid because they expected this guy to be some big dealer but all they found was a pipe with resin and a grinder. The couple was charged with simple possession and child endangerment but the raid sparked a civil rights lawsuit that is still pending as well as promised reforms from the department itself.
VIDEO 18 – 44 votes



March 3, 2010:

At least four Prince George’s County Maryland police officers and two police commanders are the subject of ongoing federal and internal investigations into their actions in the above video and subsequent actions during the investigation into it. The video contradicted officer’s claims in reports that a student they beat during celebrations after a college basketball game had attacked a police horse. The video clearly showed he did nothing to provoke the attack and his subsequent arrest as well.
VIDEO 19 – 13 votes



March 28, 2010:

A Streamwood Illinois police officer has been charged with aggravated battery and official misconduct for beating a motorist with his baton at least 15 times after he had tasered the man’s passenger and it was all caught on dashcam. The men he tasered and beat were unarmed and didn’t present a threat to the officer who is now on paid leave and may eventually face even more charges in this case.
VIDEO 20 – 6 votes



November 5, 2010:

A South Bend Indiana police officer was suspended for 30 days without pay over what happened in this video. The officer was found to have violated departmental policies when he intentionally hit a suspect with his police cruiser, shattering his knee, while the man was fleeing on foot. The officer claimed he turned into the grass to avoid hitting the suspect but the video was found to have contradicted that claim.
VIDEO 21 – 6 votes



March 24, 2010:

A Newark New Jersey police officer was suspended without pay and indicted for using excessive force and falsifying reports to cover it up after this video surveillance tape captured him assaulting a teenager at an apartment complex without justification. Three other officers present during the incident were reassigned while under investigation but no updates were available in regards to their status. Charges against the 15-year-old boy were dismissed.
VIDEO 22 – 24 votes



February 29, 2009

A Carrollton Texas police officer is the subject of a federal civil rights lawsuit over a 2009 incident caught on dashcam video that shows him slamming a man against a car and then to the ground after the man informed him that he had a concealed weapon permit but wasn’t given a chance to show it to officers at the scene. He wasn’t arrested that day because he didn’t do anything wrong… the officers were investigating him on suspicion of stealing license plates but he was just a car salesman putting temp tags on a sold car.

However, when the victim went to file a complaint three weeks later he was arrested and charged with resisting arrest after an officer asked him if he really wanted to pursue this. Since then he claims cops have been intimidating him by parking at his home at night and giving him tickets for parking on the street.
VIDEO 23 – 8 votes



July 18, 2009:

A West Valley Utah police officer is the subject of a lawsuit filed by a man claiming he was picked up and thrown to the ground face-first by the officer who stopped him for allegedly running a stop sign. Apparently the officer tailed him without pulling him over until he got to his girlfriend’s house and then, when he got out of his truck, the officer turned on his lights. The officer then walked up to his truck, shoved him inside of it, then dragged him back out to shoulder-toss him face-first into the pavement while holding his arms behind him so he couldn’t break the fall.
VIDEO 24 – 18 votes



December 11, 2010:

Kenton Ohio police are investigating how the man shown in this video, arrested on drunk and disorderly charges, ended up on life support in the hospital after his family started asking how it happened. This video appears to show one of the officers handling him in a processing area performing a leg sweep on him while he was handcuffed. The thing to remember here is that when someone is handcuffed they are extremely susceptible to severe head injuries since they have no way to brace themselves when thrown down like this and, often, their head takes the full brunt of the impact.
VIDEO 25 – 122 votes



August 30, 2010:

A Seattle Washington police officer is still the subject of an investigation for fatally shooting a Native American woodcarver when he tried to stop him for carrying a block of wood and a legal knife. The man was apparently partially deaf and was wearing earphones so, according to witnesses, it didn’t appear as though he even heard the officer’s commands before that officer opened fire, striking him in the back and the side. Initial press releases from the police stated that the officer fired when the man rushed towards him with the knife but that was withdrawn in the face of contradictory witness statements. Subsequently, it appears as though his knife may not have even been open as it was found closed on the ground near his body. This, and several other cases in the last two years, has sparked calls for a federal investigation into the department.
VIDEO 26 – 11 votes



January 16, 2010:

Phoenix Arizona police officers were accused of indiscriminate use of pepper spray which doused women and children during an anti-Maricopa County Sheriff Arpaio protest in that city. While police and some groups in that protest blamed anarchists for provoking police by throwing bottles and hitting a police horse with flagpoles, others claim that protesters were trying to push a mounted officer back when the horse appeared close to trampling protesters as it pushed its way into the mass of protesters, at which point video captures the discharge of pepper spray from that mounted officer. Others also claim that Phoenix PD officers had infiltrated the protesting group of anarchists as provocateurs and began to arrest protesters when the pepper spray was released. This video was a late entry requested for inclusion by a CopBlock reader on Facebook.
VIDEO 27 – 9 votes



October 2010:

A number of Boston Massachusetts police officers are under investigation after videos taken by students at Roxbury Community College showed officers punching and using knee strikes on a 16-year-old who was wanted after escaping custody while held on assault and possession of marijuana charges. While officers claimed that the teen assaulted them, witnesses say he complied with every command given and that the arresting officers never showed their badges. This video was a late entry requested for inclusion by a CopBlock reader on Facebook.
Sorry, the poll has closed.
Please only vote for three entries. Voting ends at Midnight, December 31, 2010.
NOTE: If there’s a video that you think we missed that could be worse than the ones listed here let us know and we’ll add it as a late entry if it qualifies. Late entries are added along with a number of votes that is equal to the median number of votes for all entries at the time of inclusion.

Police raid barber shops for cutting hair without a license

I remember asking someone at a barber shop why she had to have a license to cut hair.  She told me that the licensed barbers and stylists were taught to use a straight razor to give someone a shave, and that the state didn't want that to become "a lost art". 
This conversation took place about 25 years ago, and I was not yet a politically aware individual.  But I knew that her answer was horsecrap. 
If you're willing to cut my hair for $5.00, and I'm willing to give you $5.00 for a haircut, it is no one else's business.  That also goes for embalming, dentistry, interior decorating, medicine, and flower arranging. 
Unfortunately, all of those are our government's business.  Hit the links.  You'll be amazed. 

Haircuts are a regulated industry, for reasons that I've never understood. 
Here are the consequences of those idiotic requirements, via The Orlando Sentinel:

As many as 14 armed Orange County deputies, including narcotics agents, stormed Strictly Skillz barbershop during business hours on a Saturday in August, handcuffing barbers in front of customers during a busy back-to-school weekend.

It was just one of a series of unprecedented raid-style inspections the Orange County Sheriff's Office recently conducted with a state regulating agency, targeting several predominantly black- and Hispanic-owned barbershops in the Pine Hills area.

In "sweeps" on Aug. 21 and Sept. 17 targeting at least nine shops, deputies arrested 37 people — the majority charged with "barbering without a license," a misdemeanor that state records show only three other people have been jailed in Florida in the past 10 years.

The operations were conducted without warrants, under the authority of the Department of Business and Professional Regulation inspectors, who can enter salons at will. Deputies said they found evidence of illegal activity, including guns, drugs and gambling. However, records show that during the two sweeps, and a smaller one in October, just three people were charged with anything other than a licensing violation.

Orange County sheriff's Capt. Dave Ogden, who commands the area that includes Pine Hills, described the operations as a "minuscule" part of a larger effort to snuff out crime in one of Central Florida's notorious hot spots.

Asked why his unit made arrests for licensing violations, Ogden said: "It was a misdemeanor crime being committed in our presence. We decided to make arrests."

But many of the barbers who were swept up in the operations are still angry months later.

"They made a big charade about it," barber Jason Abrams said, "like we were selling drugs or something."

Brian Berry owns Strictly Skillz, a barbershop on Pine Hills Road. He says he's used to licensing inspections, but what happened in his shop Aug. 21 was something else.

Berry said deputies entered his store and told his barbers to stop cutting and put their hands behind their backs. As barbers sat on the ground in handcuffs, he said, deputies removed his customers — including children — from the store, and began searching workstations and checking licenses without explanation.

Barbers and witnesses at several shops told the Orlando Sentinel that deputies shouted and cursed during the raids, demanding the location of illegal drugs, which they searched for extensively. They never found more than misdemeanor amounts of marijuana at eight of the nine shops they raided.

The lone exception: Just Blaze on Semoran Boulevard in Apopka, where an arrest report shows deputies found Ski Joseph Vasquez, 40, with "2 baggies of cocaine in a prescription bottle" and cutting agents in the barbershop's office during the Sept. 17 sweep. Vasquez was arrested on drug- and gun-related charges after deputies said they found a handgun in his car.

On the same day, deputies raided two other barbershops and found no illegal activity other than unlicensed barbering. And besides the arrest at Just Blaze, reports show the two sweeps turned up the following: evidence of gambling, equipment "that appeared to be used" to make pirated DVDs and CDs, "some sort of tax service," two handguns and misdemeanor amounts of marijuana.

During the smaller operation Oct. 8, deputies arrested two additional people on unlicensed-barbering charges at one salon.

With the exception of two misdemeanor marijuana charges and Vasquez's arrest, deputies were unable to connect any of the illegal activity to anyone. Meanwhile, store owners reported property damage from the raids, including a large hole employees said deputies busted into a wall at 809 Barbershop in Ocoee.

However, several owners said the damage to their businesses and reputations has been much worse.

To those who live in the communities they serve, these barbershops are more than places to get a haircut.

"They are the centers of political discourse and political organization in black communities," said Melissa Harris-Perry, professor of African-American studies at Princeton University.

Harris-Perry, author of "Barbershops, Bibles, and BET: Everyday Talk and Black Political Thought," called the idea of deputies invading shops during both a recession and an election year "pretty horrifying."

She said by violating the barbershop's role as a "safe place" in the black community, deputies may have placed the community's trust in local law enforcement at risk. "It's exactly counterproductive," she said, adding that targeting minority barbershops sends a message about "which communities deserve to be disrupted and which don't."

Still, Bishop Kelvin L. Cobaris of Empowerment Ministries Church of Pine Hills defended the actions of the Sheriff's Office. He said deputies have been effective in reducing crime in the area, and if the searches were legal and criminal activity was discovered, the deputies' approach to entering the shops "shouldn't matter."

However, if barbers who weren't committing crimes were detained, "that would be something that would leave me with concerns," Cobaris said.

On a recent Saturday afternoon, about a dozen boys and men gathered at Strictly Skillz. Many chairs were empty. Berry said he can't be sure it was the August raid that caused business to dip. While the young boy whose hair he was cutting watched football on the nearest television, Berry watched the door. He heard the Sheriff's Office had been back out.

"They should know these barbershops are the cornerstone of the community," he said. Still, he worried his last inspection was only the first of its kind.

If you didn't know cutting hair without a license was a crime, you're not alone. An arrest for barbering without a license is not just unusual — in the state of Florida, it's nearly unheard of.

Florida Department of Law Enforcement records turned up only 38 jail bookings on the misdemeanor charge across the entire state in the past 10 years — and all but three of those arrests occurred during Orange County operations during the past few months.

Most of the barbers charged with licensing violations as a result of the sheriff's operation pleaded no contest and were ordered to pay fines of about $500 — which is about equal to the ones inspectors issue when a barber or stylist has an expired license.

A licensing inspector determined that Strictly Skillz was in compliance and everyone working had a valid license displayed in plain view — but not before barbers said they spent an hour sitting in handcuffs.

Abrams, who works at Barber Kings in Pine Hills, said he knew his license wasn't current when inspectors entered, and he expected a slap on the wrist and a fine.

When he and the eight others arrested at Barber Kings that day got to jail, "everybody laughed at us," Abrams said. "Even the judge was like, 'Are you serious?' "

Abrams said inspectors could have just fined him, rather than parading him in handcuffs in front of his community. "It was just uncalled for," Abrams said.

Justifying the operations, Orange sheriff's officials said the shops targeted had displayed a lack of cooperation with state inspectors and had a history of criminal activity.

In terms of inspection history, the barbershops appear to have little in common. Records show some shops had lengthy histories of noncompliance, while others never had a complaint.

In terms of demographics, the shops had clear similarities: Their clientele, owners and staff were predominantly black or Hispanic, and all were located in or near high-crime areas.

And, although the Orange County barbershop raids were unprecedented in Florida, they're not the first of their kind.

Last year, the American Civil Liberties Union sued the city of Moreno Valley, Calif., among others, after authorities conducted what the civil-rights group described in its complaint as "a series of raid-style searches" of black barbershops.

The case has not yet been resolved, but records show some of the plaintiffs settled for $33,000 earlier this year.

The suit alleged that "police in Moreno Valley, in coordination with local and state inspectors," targeted black barbershops that "housed legitimate, respected businesses" that served the community as "social centers and gathering places."

Many of the west Orange County barbers made similar claims. Said Berry of Strictly Skillz, "There's a fine line [between] doing your job and violating a person's civil rights."