Baltimore…

So what do we have here.

A guy who has been arrested a crazy number of times in his adult life including four times in 2015. But that rap sheet exposes two problems that nobody has addressed but I have written about several times over the years.

First, the huge majority of these “busts” are for consensual adult acts that nobody complained about. That is, drug offenses. They’re simply a matter of control of others and a “negative mandate” imposed on other people because you don’t like that person’s particular choice of intoxicant. Other intoxicants, however (beer anyone?) are perfectly fine and in fact taxed. What sort of thuggish crap is this sort of so-called “law”?

The second problem is arguably worse. How does someone get arrested and accused of all these serious criminal acts and yet is either convicted of none or, if they were convicted, are not incarcerated? At what point do such “arrests,” which fail to lead to convictions and incarcerations, turn from “law enforcement” to an act ethically and morally indistinguishable from extortion and even kidnapping?

A few years ago I wrote on a story of a federal marshal that was shot trying to serve a summons on a convicted felon here in Florida. But not just any convicted felon; this guy had first decided that carjacking was his means of employment, was caught and sentenced to prison. Then, being released, he decided that sexually assaulting a minor (the common name for that would be “rape”) was his second calling. He got caught a second time and the people of this state let him out again. Being out he was able to shoot said marshal when he came to serve him papers (for a purpose that was not disclosed in the paper at the time.)

This situation appears to be even more-egregious, given the length of the rap sheet. But unlike the three-time loser in Florida who was committing felonies against other people, and serious ones at that, this guy was committing crimes against himself.

In other words but for the pronouncement of someone who was unaffected by his conduct he was committing no offense at all.

But we made it one, and then we went further in that it certainly appears that we used this “record,” literally conjured out of the wind because we didn’t like his chosen intoxicant, to destroy his public record and thus his ability to earn a living.

So what came at the end of this chain that we created? A burglary and assault charge, along with a malicious destruction of property and assault charge; the latter maybe a consequence of a second attempted burglary (we’ll never know, will we?) And for what reason was Gray doing this rather than attempting to support himself with a job? Was that because we made him unemployable by “deciding” that because he liked something other than beer we’d persecute him? How is this, in the main, different from deciding that you like to dress as a woman when you’re a man? Who, beyond yourself, is harmed if you cut off your own penis because you think you’re a girl trapped in a man’s body? And why is one a civil right while the other is justification for destroying someone’s ability to earn a living and support themselves through myriad and repeated criminal arrests?

Further, having first destroyed someone’s life intentionally and with malice aforethought it appears that from the standpoint of the cops it no longer mattered if you then “arrest” that person under dubious circumstances that the cops will not disclose, shackle that person and throw them in a police van unrestrained (that is, no seat belt), causing in some form or fashion subsequent to arrest an injury so severe that this individual’s spinal cord is virtually severed and he dies.

You couldn’t get away with treating a dog this way; you’d go to prison for animal cruelty. But it’s all ok in this case, right, and only “suspensions” (and paid ones at that) are warranted while what facially looks to be yet another whitewashed “investigation” is conducted. Nobody is sitting in the dock cooling their heels as would be the case if you had committed the same assault upon a dog, never mind that if anyone not in a magical blue costume had done that to another human they’d be facing at least manslaughter charges.

Does this mean that people ought to burn the city to the ground? No. But at what point do the citizens of this country come to the conclusion that this is not an isolated incident or rare thing; it is instead a pattern of intentional contempt for human decency and the protections allegedly afforded under the Constitution, petitioning for redress has failed, suing for money doesn’t bring back the dead and the intentional destruction of people without cause, ending in their death by those in magical blue costumes must stop?

These events in Baltimore are not isolated. There is myriad evidence this sort of lawless conduct is not only endemic it facially appears to be formal and national policy:

• Palm Beach in Florida where a deputy shot an unarmed man after stopping him while riding on a bicycle without apparent probable cause (said cop also appears to have lied about the incident)
• The recent case in Tulsa with the “reserve” officer where evidence has emerged of a “pay to play cop” scheme (replicated all over the nation, incidentally)
• The “raids” in Wisconsin over mere political speech.
• The “up-armoring” of police forces nationwide.
• Cops apparently planting malware on an attorney’s computer (when said attorney is is suing said cops)
• Cops kidnapping children because they’re playing a block and a half from home

Never mind countless other similar incidents.

This is a matter of national policy, intentional conduct and willful and intentional refusal by those in magical blue costumes to follow both the Constitution and the law.

Does this excuse or justify what’s happening in Baltimore? No, it does not.

But it does explain it and further, if the police expect support from the citizens as the actual first responders in any situation (not themselves; they’re the second responders), those in the magical blue costumes had damn well better cut the crap, right here and now.

There is an urgent and immediate need for a complete and immediate purge from the ranks of all so-called “officers” who think that shaking people down without cause is appropriate, that shooting unarmed people is defensible and that lying about events after the fact, covering up for other officers that commit offenses and a rank refusal by the law to prosecute conduct by cops that would land anyone else behind bars for decades, which appears to be endemic throughout the nation, is something that can or should be tolerated rather than prosecuted as the felonies that they are irrespective of who commits them.