Even the middle class are becoming fed up with some of the shenanigans that some of our police officers are into these days. While minorities and juveniles have long complained about "police brutality" and "out of control cops", an increasing number of allegations of police misconduct and abuse of authority often comes from middle class whites.
Some of them in my neck of the woods have finally had enough of an allegedly buffoonish excise cop, whose reportedly brutish and quite possibly questionable tactics have been a fixture in southern Indiana for a generation. Those tactics have generated at least one lawsuit over alleged violations of the state's booze and tobacco consumption laws. It goes like this. Ronald McDonald (laugh while you can) a Southern Indiana Excise Police officer, has a nasty job. Keeping kiddies away from booze and ciggies. Sometimes he arrests the little darlings, in a profanity-laced exercise of lawful arrest, possibly forever harming their psyches. According to the local paper, the Courier and Press,
A video of Indiana State Excise Police officer Ron McDonald currently posted on the Web site www.youtube.com is garnering attention. In the video, McDonald is seen yelling and cursing at a 29-year-old man. (Courier & Press)
The YouTube film of the incident may be watched here:
: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zqrcyx2yuzE
As of Tuesday evening, the video had been viewed over 8,220 times.
At issue for many who have been stopped, is just how far is this excise officer allowed to go legally to enforce under-aged drinking and cigarette consumption laws? Can he walk into a bar and demand to see ID of anyone? What are the legal limits to his authority? Can he shove his way into a private home if he believes "unlawful consumption" is taking place?
Area civil libertarians are ecstatic at the video and McDonald's "anti-fan club" howl in glee over an earlier incident involving a group of black kids at a local under aged club. When McDonald tried his abusive tactics on them, they disarmed him and beat him up. Reportedly, his weapon has yet to be recovered.
Please note that according to the wife of the man being yelled at, prior to the beginning of the film, the individual who is a 30 year old member of the band that was playing, did show his ID, prior to the screaming,
I was the one doing the recording...my husband was inside the club (Boney Junes - an all-ages club). There were apparently some guys outside drinking. When McDonald and his minion went to check their IDs, they supposedly ran inside. He immediately came up to my husband and started yelling at him to go outside. My husband got his ID out & was showing it to him. His minion officer grabbed his arm & tried to force him outside. ...While following behind them, Ronald McDonald shuts the door on me three times while I am in the doorway. So far, that's four counts of assault by a police officer. That's when the film started rolling. My husband did nothing to provoke this incident. (my emphasis) (Courier blog post)
The problem this situation highlights is that many do not know their rights, some think they do, and a large majority are content merely to foam at the mouth and complain anonymously. Now, let's broaden the scope a bit and take the concept of restraint of police authority to the next level.
Since 9-11, many people in this country have been willing to give up their rights in exchange for security. But, it has been said that, "Those who give up their freedom for security deserve neither." In the course of seeing a terrorist under every bed, too many of us are willing to allow local gendarmes and federal law enforcement officials to literally get away with murder, as long as they promise to "keep us safe" in the process.
We have cops who are accused of tasing little old ladies, one of whom was allegedly having a diabetic siezure?and had dialed 911 for assistance. In another case, here in Indiana, a jail employee allegedly tased an obese man multiple times, possibly contributing to the death of the deceased. The event was witnessed by officers from other departments and the jail employee ended up with a prison sentence over the incident.
A suburban Chicago newspaper reports that:
The owner of a Tinley Park pizza joint is seeking $2 million in damages from the village and a Tinley Park police officer who allegedly Tasered him this summer, sending the restaurant owner into convulsions and causing him to bite off a piece of his tongue. (http://www.southtownstar.com/news/653880,111607tasersuit.article)
The question of what our rights are, when and where police officers have the right to stop us, what they can do if and when they stop citizens is so confused in people's minds that many are willing to let them get away with murder, while others are ready to run screaming for the ACLU if they get ticketed for spitting on the sidewalk.
While many people are outraged when they see alleged cases of police brutality occurring, interfering can be dangerous, as a prominent New York civil rights attorney and his wife discovered recently.
On the same day police held sensitivity training for new recruits, a prominent civil rights attorney says police physically abused him and his wife on the street in broad daylight. (NY 1 News).
It all began when
The Warrens say they were in their car, stuck in traffic, when they saw the arrest of this young kid here. Outraged with what they saw, they decided to get out of their car and say something. (ibid)
"We were told to get back in the vehicle and after that, I was viciously assaulted by Sergeant Talvy and wife was assaulted and we were arrested," said Michael Warren.
Black or white, many Americans are no longer content to write off their "lessons in street justice." They are suing the snot out of America's police departments over alleged civil rights abuses, and, in the process, generating fertile grounds for all sorts of businesses.
A non-profit calling itself The Police Complaint Center claims to be the most popular police accountability site on the web. They even say they will provide security if you are hassled by the cops.
On the other side of the fence, let's look at a study about police attitudes ("The Abuse of Police Authority: A National Study of Police Officers' Attitudes,") which found that:
1 Police in the U.S. believe that extreme cases of police abuse of authority occur infrequently. However, a substantial minority of officers believe that it is sometimes necessary to use more force than is legally allowable.
2 Despite strong support for norms recognizing the boundaries of police authority, officers revealed that it is not unusual for police to ignore improper conduct by their fellow officers.
When it comes to what is and what is not "abuse", it depends on what side of the fence you are sitting on. Sometimes the courts side with the cops. Sometimes they side with citizens; however, as 'Justice Anthony Kennedy observed during oral arguments last fall: "It's not a constitutional violation for an officer to be a jerk."' (LA Times, 2001)
In a nation which remains confused and conflicted over whether "water boarding" is torture, it may not be unconstitutional to be a jerk, but it is unconstitutional for an alleged jerk to abuse individuals under the color of law if he or she is a police officer.
To borrow a wiggly phrase from a former President: "It all depends on what the definition of 'abuse' is."
