Why is all this happening with the TSA searches? Why now? It’s a good question. There’s some confusion about whether or not the body scan or the invasive pat downs are separate issues, which is giving Will Saletan an excuse to say that people should just acquiesce to the scanner and stop throwing fits. But the problem is that they escalated the amount of groping you have to endure if you say you don’t want to be scanned. Plus, there’s a problem with framing this as a choice, as Lindsay notes.
Saletan purports to be an expert on applied ethics, yet he is blind to the sexualized coercion implicit in the “choice” between allowing a stranger in another room to see your naked body vs. having your junk touched.
She expresses a concern that a National Opt-Out Day would be used not to stop the searches, but to privatize the searches. That’s a distinct possibility, but I think it’s true regardless of how people protest. If opt-out days actually are organized effectively, they can be used as protests against whoever the hell is groping people in airports, so I’m coming around to the idea that it might be a good idea. My main concern is that opt-outers will be seen by non-opting-out passengers as the enemy, and the point of the protest could be lost. But the problem of backlash is true of any protest.
Anyway, more Lindsay:
Ostensibly giving passengers a choice between a scan and a pat-down makes the invasion of privacy seem more acceptable. It gives the passenger the illusion of control. We’re so busy playing “scan or grope?” that we forget to ask why we’re paying for scanners the TSA can’t even justify with a cost-benefit analysis.
This is the way it works. Invasions of basic privacy are tied to “choice”, to make it easier for people to blame the victim. You’re seeing this in action here with some people saying, “Well, you don’t have to fly,” and certainly with the “choice” between the scanner and the groping. But, as Lindsay explains, that doesn’t quite work, since sometimes you’re groped after the scan, and some airports don’t have scanners, making the grope mandatory. The “you don’t have to fly” thing is also bullshit, but it’s precisely the kind of bullshit women have been putting up with for millenia when it comes to restraints put on our freedom of movement and association. If you get raped, well, it was your choice to go out without supervision/and drink/wearing that. Obviously, restrictions on woman’s access to abortion and contraception are justified by saying you had the choice to keep your legs shut. And so on. This is why “women’s issues” are inseparable from police state issues, or letting a bunch of assholes work as a voluntary police abuse force of rapists.
So why now? There’s another reason for the false choice. Lindsay again:
My theory is that the agency wants to bully people into submitting to their very expensive and unpopular new toys…..
The new body search procedure seems designed to make the scanners look attractive by comparison.
When you tell people, get the scan or we’ll grab your genitals, you’ll take the former. Why is it so important that people take the former? To save time, for one, which is why the protest being suggested is to jam up the works by having people in large groups demand the pat down. But I suspect there’s another reason, as well. (Via.)
The companies with multimillion-dollar contracts to supply American airports with body-scanning machines more than doubled their spending on lobbying in the past five years and hired several high-profile former government officials to advance their causes in Washington, government records show.
L-3 Communications, which has sold $39.7 million worth of the machines to the federal government, spent $4.3 million trying to influence Congress and federal agencies during the first nine months of this year, up from $2.1 million in 2005, lobbying data compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics show. Its lobbyists include Linda Daschle, a former Federal Aviation Administration official.
Rapiscan Systems, meanwhile, has spent $271,500 on lobbying so far this year, compared with $80,000 five years earlier. It has faced criticism for hiring Michael Chertoff, the former Homeland Security secretary, last year. Chertoff has been a prominent proponent of using scanners to foil terrorism. The government has spent $41.2 million with Rapiscan.
You know you’ve fucked with privileged people when USA Today suddenly starts engaging in the investigative journalism of government corruption that you usually only find in places like The Nation.
Point is, there’s a lot of money to be made by selling scanners to airports. And there’s a revolving door between people who work in high levels of government and those profiting off selling these devices. It’s in the financial interest of these corporations that are lobbying the hell out of this to have you told that you use their products or you have your junk touched.
Yep, we seem to have reached that stage of capitalism where sexual abuse is being used as a threat to get people (taxpayers in this case) to spend money to pad corporate profits. I wonder, once wingnut America figures that one out, if they’ll calm down with the outrage? I mean, the free market is why you have to submit to the groping! Suggesting your privacy comes before their profits is just as good as saying that you’re a dirty commie, didn’t you know?
Due to traveling, I haven’t had much time to comment on the uproar over the TSA upping the game on security theater, to the point where people who are generally supportive of security theater—-aka, conservatives—-are getting upset. So upset, in fact, that some of the dumber ones were taunting me over Twitter, having convinced themselves that I support the pat downs, on the grounds that I’m obviously Satan. Of course, grown adults realize that someone like myself who wrote an entire chapter in my book denouncing security theater is unlikely to suddenly think that penis-fondling at the gate is great. My main objection to conservatives getting involved is that they’re mostly acting out of racism—-they aren’t upset at junk touching, per se. They just think the junk fondled should be excused if it passes some modern paper bag test, except the paper bag should be super white.
Since I did my time in security lines this weekend, you may be wondering if I saw anything out of the ordinary. Answer: no. By the way, the choice between scanners and searches isn’t anything new. I was pulled for a random search in El Paso in August, and I chose the full body scan, because I’ve been patted down with the old procedures before, and if you’re a woman you still feel pretty molested by that. The shift that’s created all the anger is that the procedures have gotten invasive to the point where men might feel molested. Don’t fuck with the privileged, man. The procedures already had a heightened humiliation factor for women, which I’ve experienced myself*, but it took making white men feel like women and people of color often do for this to be pushed into the next zone of full blown anger.
This makes me want to join in the outrage, with concerns that the TSA is simply going to readjust the protocols to the standards set by conservatives flipping out—-which is to say, if you do it to women and non-white men, okay, but leave the white guys alone. Of course, you could argue effectively that this is a good first step. If they simply introduce discrimination into the system, you can sue and then it brings a complete end to the assaulting searches. But what I worry about is that rarely do people introducing discrimination into the system do it in a straightforward manner that makes them vulnerable to lawsuit. Instead, a bunch of complex rules evolve that just so happen to have the desired results, where white guys get a pass but no one else does. Then they get to have their cake (creating unnecessary security theater to cow the populace) while eating it too (keeping the most privileged out of the loop so that the complaints go ignored by the mainstream media).
Early signs show my concerns are valid. For instance, the TSA allowed the pilot union to get an exemption for their staff, but disallowed this for the flight attendants. This creates a nifty system where a predominantly male group doesn’t have to have the pat downs, but a predominantly female group does. Now, I’m not saying women are being targeted because everyone enjoys groping women or anything. I’m annoyed by the people who are acting like your average TSA agent is dying to touch your junk. I’m saying that women are an easier target because they get less attention and empathy than men when they complain. The fact that “don’t touch my junk!” has become the rallying cry shows how much male privilege is wrapped up in people’s understanding of why this is wrong. Not that I’m saying junk-touching is good! I’m saying no one deserves to have junk touched, even if they have junk—-as women do—-that tends not to be called “junk”.
My understanding of the police state is such: it exists in order to increase government power and decrease civil liberties. Highly theatrical security theater in particular functions to increase people’s tolerance of privacy invasions. As such, it’s wise for those instituting a police state to prefer vulnerable victims over privileged ones. Their first instinct when they’ve gone too far is not to roll back the invasions of privacy, but to find a way to make sure the people whose voices are heard aren’t affected, and therefore the complaints stop. Notice that “keeping the public safe” plays no role in my understanding of this, because I seriously doubt that it does. Most of these searches are more about “sending a message” than anything else.
Of course, the pragmatic side of me says that even if the TSA just tries to rewrite the rules so that vulnerable people are getting the most invasive searches, you still have an opportunity to sue and bring the whole thing down. And there’s a possibility that the TSA can’t find a way to stop the searches of white men without stopping the searches of everyone else. (Yes, I’m aware many of the examples upsetting people are women. I’m glad for that, but wonder if the pile-on would be as all-encompassing if it was only women feeling horribly humiliated.) While I’m cynical that the outrage would stop the second the privileged decided that it was someone else’s problem, I’m super glad there is outrage. It’s a reminder that the objections to civil liberties violations are a matter far beyond the way conservatives portray those objections when it’s someone else’s liberties at stake—-as some intellectual exercise instead of a serious humiliation for the targets.
And hey, there’s always a possibility that we can use the anger about these TSA searches and start directing it to all the other ways the highly invasive police state works in our culture. That would be awesome, even if it’s a long shot.
*Mainly because certain items of women’s clothing were more of a problem, plus they touched your boobs if they did the pat down. And my feeling in terms of the old leg pat down is they might as well have touched my junk on the outside of my pants, they got so close. Thank god I was wearing pants.
Via Towleroad, a clear sign that it’s not a post-racial society across the pond either. Bonus points in this case for these clubs employing a shared security system to do their racial profiling and have closed ranks regarding the controversy.
“When Amaechi questioned the decision, the doorman said it was a ‘private members’ bar.’ He then allegedly claimed that the New York Times best-selling author had been flagged up as ‘trouble’ on the gay village’s shared security radio network. A spokesperson for the bar later told Amaechi’s representative: ‘Your group was stopped from entering the venue on Friday night as a message was received over the NiteNet radio system, (a system where several venues work together within the village, where they announce any issues they have with any customers), that your group had been argumentative and aggressive to another venue’s doorstaff. On interview with the staff who were present at the time, we are satisfied that there were no racism or bigotry comments as you suggest. All three staff who were present on the door at the time have been with us for over 14 months and none of them have ever displayed the attitude or characteristics you suggest in your email. You have clearly misunderstood the situation and perhaps justifying your exclusion that evening. We consider this matter closed now.’”
The other bars, VIA and Taurus, which use the NiteNet system deny there was any such warning about Amaechi’s behavior.
According to the paper, “Amaechi’s representatives have lodged a complaint with the Equality and Human Rights Commission along with a complaint to the Manchester City Council LGBT affairs director, Terry Waller and also with the Greater Manchester Police LGBT liaison office.”
This took place in Manchester, UK, Amaechi’s flipping hometown! Oh, and what part of “big and black and could be trouble” isn’t racist? Why would Amaechi even bother making something ridiculous like that up? I wonder where this case will go.
Wake County Sheriff Donnie Harrison says the constitutional protection against unjustified searches and seizures inhibits law enforcement and it would be better if police could pull over motorists without probable cause.
Harrison, a Republican seeking election to a third four-year term in November, makes his comments in a video interview on the YouTube channel of Tom Murry, a Morrisville councilman running for the state House in the 41st District, which includes parts of Raleigh, Apex, Cary and Morrisville.
In the video, Murry asks, “Is the state making it easier for you to do your job or making it more difficult?”
Harrison, a former North Carolina Highway Patrol trooper, responds, “The biggest thing I see is the way we interpret laws. Back when I was a young trooper, we could stop a car anytime we wanted to to see if they had a driver’s license. Now you can’t do it. You have to have suspicion of probable cause. So, to me, it’s sort of burden on us.”
I posted on this when it broke awhile back, so I thought it was a good time to update. Now that they’re facing a lawsuit and and FBI investigation, the Lower Merion School District has decided to come clean and hand over 56,000 photos it took of students by remotely activating the webcams in the laptops issued to the students. However, I’m suspicious of this whole coming clean thing. There’s holes in the story, at least from what I can tell from the Philadelphia Inquirer reporting.
For one thing, the cameras got pictures like the one above, of a student sleeping. (His family released the photo to the press; I’m not violating his privacy by posting it.) But the school district is adamant that they didn’t get pictures of anything more private than that.
The district’s attorney, Henry Hockeimer, declined to describe in detail any of the recovered Web cam photos, or identify the people in them or their surroundings. He said none appeared to show “salacious or inappropriate” images but said that in no way justified the use of the program.
Color me skeptical. Teenagers keep their laptops in their bedrooms, most of the time. Bedrooms are places where you disrobe, and who among us can say that we make sure never to naked in front of our computers? To make it worse, I’d be hard-pressed to imagine that they spied on a number of teenagers with computers, and not one of them did anything you might call indiscreet in front of the computer. Last time I checked, 99% of home computers are occasionally used in the service of self-relief. Since the district has stonewalled and been dodgy all this time, I wouldn’t put it past them to destroy and conceal the fact that they got naked pictures of students.
Then there’s this dodginess:
The “vast majority” of instances, he said, represent cases in which the technology appeared to be used for the reasons the district first implemented it in 2008: to find a lost or stolen laptop or, in a few cases, whether a student took the computer without paying a required insurance fee.
About 38,500 images - or almost two-thirds of the total number retrieved so far - came from six laptops that were reported missing from the Harriton High School gymnasium in September 2008. The tracking system continued to store images from those computers for nearly six months, until police recovered them and charged a suspect with theft in March 2009.
The next biggest chunk of images stem from the five or so laptops where employees failed or forgot to turn off the tracking software even after the student recovered the computer.
Okay, but if it was just randomly taking pictures and no one was really monitoring them, then how is it that the school officials outed themselves by contacting a student about what they’d seen? And if it was just randomly taking pictures, how is it that no naked pictures were taken? I’m skeptical. The investigators have 15 separate incidences where they can’t figure out why the student’s webcam was turned on and pictures started to be taken.
Here’s what I think is likely: The program was started to find missing laptops. And then maybe an incident here or there caused the school district to expand the parameters of what that meant—-for instance, they flipped on the camera for a kid who didn’t pay the $55 insurance fee. And their internal limits on what was an acceptable reason to flip on the camera expanded over time. And now some of the reasons they thought sounded so reasonable internally seem kind of awful now, so they aren’t talking to the investigators. For instance, every school has a few kids that the staff thinks are up to no good, and the temptation to flip on the camera and prove it must have been strong. Strong enough to do it? We can’t know for sure, but it’s weird that the investigators have no explanation in 15 cases.
Oh really, now—how long have I been blogging about this "electrical shock device" and the deaths, maimings and abuse heaped upon the guilty and the innocent, the elderly, the mentally disabled, the bedridden and wheelchair bound, as well as humans minding their own business on bicycles and at a child's baptism party? Never mind the story of a Taser being used to sodomize a suspect.
Law enforcement officials around the country have been on a mission to prove that face-to-face negotiations are passe, and compliance should be achieved by physical assault, even in cases where there is no threat to the officer. Occasionally (well in too many cases), the Taser "negotiation" ended up with the Tasee DOA.
Now the company has decided to issue this hilarious-if-it-wasn't enraging advisory to police that there might be a bit of a problem if you unleash the 50K blast directly into someone's chest. Did someone need to consult Mr. Wizard to figure out this "problem?" (Raw Story):
Taser International stressed that suffering an "adverse cardiac event" after being zapped was "extremely unlikely," but human rights groups say hundreds of people have been killed by the electroshock weapons.
In a bulletin dated October 12, the Arizona-based company issued new guidelines saying it had "lowered the recommended point of aim from center of mass to lower-center of mass for front shots."
"When possible, avoiding chest shots with ECDs (Electronic Control Devices) avoids the controversy about whether ECDs do or do not affect the human heart," it explained.
"Researchers have concluded that a close distance between the ECD dart and the heart is the primary factor in determining whether an ECD will affect the heart. The risk is judged to be extremely low in field use," it said.
Read that carefully - Taser International still doesn't take responsibility for the danger and outcomes we've seen of its "non-lethal device."
"We have not stated that the Taser causes (cardiac) events in this bulletin, only that the refined target zones avoid any potential controversy on this topic."
Taser's training bulletin states that "the risk of an adverse cardiac event related to a Taser. .. discharge is deemed to be extremely low." However, the bulletin says, it is impossible to predict human reactions when a combination of drug use or underlying cardiac or other medical conditions are involved.
"Should sudden cardiac arrest occur in a scenario involving a Taser discharge to the chest area, it would place the law-enforcement agency, the officer and Taser International in the difficult situation of trying to ascertain what role, if any, the Taser. .. could have played," the bulletin says.
The bulletin recommends that when aiming at the front of a suspect, the best target for officers is the major muscles of the pelvic area or thigh region. "Back shots remain the preferred area when practical," it says.
Meanwhile the devices are being handed out to guards at schools, and proliferating without any standardized training to law enforcement departments all over the world. And of course, this bit of business from Taser International shows a buff black brother getting it right in the target zone.
If I were on trial for robbing a house, the last thing in the world I would do is give a series of public lectures on cat burglary techniques. “I’m completely innocent,” I’d say, as the sample lock clicked open. “I’ve lived a clean life. Any questions about the order in which to rifle dresser drawers?”
The health insurance companies, admittedly with the help of a few journalists and bloggers, seem intent on demonstrating just how good they are at heisting TVs and jewelry. They’re denying babies for being too fat. They’re denying babies for being too skinny. They’re denying women for having been raped. They’re charging women 84% more than men, although that last one may be par for the American course.
That’s seriously audacious. They claim they’re fighting for their lives, that health care reform is going to make it impossible for insurers to stay in business, that the public option would be the death knell of private insurance companies. And you could say that this is crazy, or this is arrogant; that they’re less like a housebreaker than like a depression-area bank robber, lauded in the press while stealing from the poor to give to the rich; Robin Hood in reverse. But in truth, they’re not crazy. These denials and “dumb moves” are so inherent in the system that it actually surprises me that Rocky Mountain Health Plans changed anything at all.
The Democrats seem to have gotten that message. “It is absolutely clear that it is an unsustainable situation as we go forward, and it is well known to the public that the health insurance companies are the problem.” Nancy Pelosi, especially, seems to have shifted into gear.
Obama mocked the insurance companies and those who would bow to them in his speech yesterday. “Oh this is actually harder than expected, the insurance companies don’t like health reform, I guess we’ll just pack up and go home.”
I’m convinced that at least part of the reason for this hardening of rhetoric is a sense in Washington that the American people have finally started to wake up - or at least make their voices heard - about the abuses of the health insurance industry. Good. I’m not enjoying the thought of what will happen to the lower-level employees of the health insurance companies if we finally manage to deliver the coup de grace, but when I weigh them against the now-estimated 45,000 deaths a year , I have to conclude that I’m just happy that they’d have health care while they’re looking for other work.
Josh at Right Wing Watch emails me some of the most over-the-top stuff and this is no exception. With the hanging of that census worker Bill Sparkman in Kentucky with “FED” on his chest, it’s not hard to compile TEH CRAZY. Take a look at the legitimacy that Faux News gives the deranged Michele Bachmann as she whips up hysteria and paranoia over the 2010 Census.
Over at Jesus’ General, one of his commenters is a census worker who works in the deep woods of western North Carolina mountain country. This person gives a first-hand account about the sentiment out there.
The overwhelming anger is directed straight at the President. No question. Fear and racism at the core that has manifested into anti-government radicalism. We’re threatened and intimidated almost daily, just for trying to earn a days pay and uphold the Constitution. I’ve been called an “employee of president nigger” and team members have been bitten by dogs and threatened with shotguns.
I point you over to Electronic Village, where Villager is keeping track of some sobering stats—the number of deaths due to the misuse or abuse of the Taser. We're up to 36 deaths this year, with 39% of the pre-trial, extra-judicial electrocutions and executions were perpetrated against black men, who represent only 6% of the population in the U.S.
Jan 9, 2009: Derrick Jones, 17, Black, Martinsville, Virginia
Jan 11, 2009: Rodolfo Lepe, 31, Hispanic, Bakersfield, California
Jan 22, 2009: Roger Redden, 52, Caucasian, Soddy Daisy, Tennessee
Feb 2, 2009: Garrett Jones, 45, Caucasian, Stockton, California
Feb 11, 2009: Richard Lua, 28, Hispanic, San Jose, California
Feb 13, 2009: Rudolph Byrd, Age Unknown, Race Unknown, Quincy, Florida
Feb 13, 2009: Michael Jones, 43, Black, Iberia, Louisiana
Feb 14, 2009: Chenard Kierre Winfield, 32, Black, Los Angeles, California
Feb 28, 2009: Robert Lee Welch, 40, Caucasian, Conroe, Texas
Mar 22, 2009: Brett Elder, 15, Caucasian, Bay City, Michigan
Mar 26, 2009: Marcus D. Moore, 40, Black, Freeport, Illinois
Apr 1, 2009: John J. Meier Jr., 48, Caucasian, Tamarac, Florida
Apr 6, 2009: Ricardo Varela, 41, Hispanic, Fresno, California
In the above video, Stanley Harlen was pulled over for allegedly speeding; he stopped in front of his house. As his mother came out in her robe, she watched as officers wrestled with him. One officer fired the Taser three times for 31 seconds. For 14 minutes he received no medical attention; when paramedics arrived it was too late. He was dead. The Moberly city manager’s response is hardly reassuring. Andy Morris: Harlen’s death is “unanticipated and unintentional. Police officers must often make split-second decisions in tense, rapidly-evolving situations.”
Ken Burton, the Police Chief of nearby Columbia, MO’s PD also has officers who use Tasers but he strictly limits their use—no fleeing subjects are allowed to be tased, and when deployed, only for 5 seconds at at time.
This CBS report showed a graph of statistics, compiled by Taser International itself, and the growth in the use of these “non-lethal” devices has skyrocketed from 500 law enforcement agencies in 2000 to 14,201 in 2009. And there are no mandatory standards or training for Taser usage. Taser International has actually put out a disingenuous statement that defies reality, considering the rising body count.
The electrical output of a taser device is incapable of causing death.
Sure, the voltage alone in one blast itself may not kill, but what about the medical condition of the tasing victim? What about shocking someone for 31 seconds? What about repeated blasts to an elderly or disabled individual? This is a situation out of control.
And why does the school board reserve the right to do this—no parental consent required?
Family members said this week that Atlantic high school officials forced five teenage girls to remove their clothes during an investigation into a theft.
The girls' families and their lawyers said the incident at Atlantic High School amounts to a strip-search, which is illegal in Iowa schools.
But school officials said the search was "allowable" under board rules.
The search took place during a gym class after a classmate charged that $100 was stolen from her purse. And it wasn't just stripped down to underwear—one girl was stripped naked. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in June that no school official has free rein to do intimate searches of students. Making a girl pull the waistband of her underwear away from her body constituted a strip-search, the court ruled. And after the indignities heaped on these girls—the money was not found.
What do you think occurred as a result of this egregious behavior on the part of school officials?
Atlantic Interim Superintendent Dan Crozier has confirmed that an Atlantic administrator had been placed on administrative leave, but did not name the individual. Unconfirmed reports have identified Activities Director Paul Croghan as the individual placed on paid administrative leave, pending further investigation into the incident.
Crozier said the faculty denied the searches were strip-searches, but he added that there are different interpretations of what the term means. "According to the people that we've talked to the first time, and I've talked to them maybe once or twice, they've said it would not fall into that category," he said. "I'm real careful about saying that because it could be interpreted differently."
OK, here are additional details. You decide:
Each girl stripped in varying degrees, families and the lawyers said.
Hudson's client, who is 15, "was asked to remove all of her clothing including her undergarments," he said.
One mother said the girl refused to take off her underwear in front of everyone, but went around a corner and did so.
Some of the girls didn't take off their underwear because it was more revealing than the other girls', making it more obvious that nothing was hidden underneath, said Noethe, one of the lawyers.
Hudson said, "Someone asked if they could just lift up their bra and they were told that wasn't good enough."
One of Noethe's clients was searched twice, he said.
"She was told to take her clothes off and put them back on, then told to do it again because we need you to take your bra off," Noethe said.
Is there some other meaning for "strip-search" that I'm unaware of?
This Esquire article about Dr. Warren Hern is dated August 5, but I don’t think anyone posted it here, and it’s a must-read. He’s a complex man, in a complex position, but it’s almost impossible to come away from the article without an admiration for his work. Unless you’re a crazy person.
The patients can be upsetting too. They’re under terrible stress, of course, but sometimes they come in very angry. One had conjoined twins and would have died giving birth, but she exploded when he told her she couldn’t smoke in the office. And some treat him with contempt and disgust, usually the ones who have been directly involved in antiabortion activities. They hate all abortion except for their special case. One even said they should all be killed. Only fourteen, she came with her mother. What brings you here? he asked. I have to have an abortion. Why? I’m not old enough to have a baby. But you told the counselor we should all be killed? Yes, you should all be killed. Why? Because you do abortions. Me too? Yes, you should be killed too. Do you want me killed before or after I do your abortion? Before.
He told her to leave. Her mother was very upset. But he isn’t an abortion-dispensing machine. He’s a physician. He’s a person.
Go to one of the town halls listed here and, when you’re there, remember the advice listed here. If you know the local organizers of your specific town hall, make especially sure they have a copy of that second link. Item #10 is particularly important.
Don’t let anti-Americans (and yes, those against health care reform, wishing harm upon the people of this country, are indeed anti-Americans. The rhetoric may be overwrought and familiar from the other side, but I nevertheless mean every word) like these douchebags win:
Sadly, I haven’t found a town hall yet within 100 miles of me, but I’ll be watching that calendar.
Back in March I blogged about yet another example of cops out of control—the murder by cop of a 73-year-old black man, a cancer survivor, who was hosting a family cookout in front of his humble home in Homer, Lousiana.
Officer Tim Cox, and Officer Joey Henry showed up at Bernard Monroe's house to speak with the elderly man's son Shawn (he had a record, but didn't have any current warrants against him). The younger Monroe ran toward the house and Officer Cox pursued him and…
[T]he elder Monroe had started walking toward the front door, carrying only his drink bottle, to try to intervene. When Monroe got to the first step on the front porch, the witnesses said, Cox opened fire, striking him several times as adults and children stood nearby.
"He just shot him through the screen door," said Denise Nicholson, a family friend who said she was standing a few feet from Monroe. "After [Monroe] was on the ground, we kept asking the officer to call an ambulance, but all he did was get on his radio and say, 'Officer in distress.' "
As Monroe lay dying, the witnesses said, the second police officer, who has not been publicly identified, picked up a handgun that Monroe, an avid hunter, always kept in plain sight on the porch for protection. Using a police-issue blue latex glove, the officer grasped the gun by its handle, the witnesses said, and then ordered everyone to back away from the scene. The next thing they said they saw was the gun on the ground next to Monroe's body.
Well, here we are in August (the shooting was on Feb. 20) and there have been at least two investigations. Did anything come of this? The update is the two officers are moving on to other jobs. No one with a badge did any time for the slaying of an unarmed, elderly black man.
"Tim Cox told me he is moving to St. Tammany Parish and I think will be training canines for police departments," Colvin said. "I don't know what Joey Henry is going to do."
Both officers had been on paid administrative leave after the shooting, which is still under investigation by the FBI and state police.
"They should have been gone," said Rev. Willie Young, head of the Claiborne Parish NAACP, on Wednesday. "I don't think taxpayers should have been paying their salaries all this time."
This story was mentioned in the last Taser police abuse thread, and it deserves its own post.
God almighty, it makes me sick to keep reporting on this bullsh*t police brutality state because we all know there are so many good law enforcement officers putting their lives on the line every day. But they are working alongside some seriously disturbed/power-mad sadists with a badge who clearly have no skills, training or desire to properly subdue or communicate with civilians—they reach for the Taser, which is meant as a substitute for a GUN, and blast people into submission.
Officers who used pepper spray and a Taser to remove a man from a store bathroom found out only later he was deaf and mentally disabled and didn’t understand they wanted him to open the door, police said Tuesday.
A spokesman for the Mobile Police Department said the officers’ actions were justified because the man was armed with a potential weapon - an umbrella.
The man, Antonio Love, has, according to his mother Phyllis Love,
the mental capacity of a 10-year-old
and didn’t realize the police were trying enter the bathroom.
Police spokesman Christopher Levy said Tuesday store workers called officers complaining that a man had been in the bathroom for more than an hour with the door locked. Officers knocked on the door and identified themselves, but the person didn’t respond.
Officers used a tire iron to open the door, but the man pushed back to keep it shut. Officers saw the umbrella and sprayed pepper spray through a crack trying to subdue the man, Levy said. They shot the man with a Taser when they finally got inside, he said.
Officers didn’t realize Love was deaf or had mental problems until he showed them a card he carries in his wallet, Levy said. He was arrested on a charge of disorderly conduct, but officers released him and took him home after a magistrate refused to issue a warrant.
Levy said officers were justified in using force against Love since he had an umbrella.
“The officers really worked within the limits of our level-of-force policy,” he said. “We had no information about who this guy was.”
BTW, Love said that the officers laughed at him after they found out he was deaf. The officer has since been placed on administrative leave. I don’t know if it’s a training issue, a lack of humanity or what, but these weapons are being abused all around the country by the police—and the abuse is being affirmed by their superiors in many of these cases—it’s frightening. How can we stop the madness?
Why is all this happening with the TSA searches? Why now? It’s a good question. There’s some confusion about whether or not the body scan or the invasive pat downs are separate issues, which is giving Will Saletan an excuse to say that people should just acquiesce to the scanner and stop throwing fits. But the problem is that they escalated the amount of groping you have to endure if you say you don’t want to be scanned. Plus, there’s a problem with framing this as a choice, as Lindsay notes. 
Due to traveling, I haven’t had much time to comment on the uproar over the TSA upping the game on security theater, to the point where people who are generally supportive of security theater—-aka, conservatives—-are getting upset. So upset, in fact, that some of the dumber ones were taunting me over Twitter, having convinced themselves that I support the pat downs, on the grounds that I’m obviously Satan. Of course, grown adults realize that someone like myself who wrote an entire chapter in my book denouncing security theater is unlikely to suddenly think that penis-fondling at the gate is great. My main objection to conservatives getting involved is that they’re mostly acting out of racism—-they aren’t upset at junk touching, per se. They just think the junk fondled should be excused if it passes some modern paper bag test, except the paper bag should be super white. 
Via 
Back on our side of the Atlantic, and close to home, a sheriff here in NC goes on a nostalgia trip because 
I posted on this when it broke awhile back, so I thought it was a good time to update. Now that they’re facing a lawsuit and and FBI investigation, 
Oh really, now—how long have I been blogging about this "electrical shock device" and the deaths, maimings and abuse heaped upon the guilty and the innocent, 
Back in March 
God almighty,