Great – the New York cops are still flirting with fascism by making a great show of their opposition to civilian control of the police department. Apparently they want cops to answer only to other cops, and for everyone else to simply obey the armed police force.
Hundreds of police officers have turned their backs on the mayor of New York at the funeral of the second of two officers shot dead last month.
Wenjian Liu, a son of Chinese migrants, was killed with his partner Rafael Ramos on 20 December by a gunman with a grievance against the police.
Speakers lined up to pay tribute at the service in a Brooklyn funeral home.
In the street outside, hundreds turned their backs to a video screen when Mayor Bill de Blasio spoke.
Police departments can’t be autonomous in a democracy. People who are issued deadly weapons as part of their job simply can’t be somehow independent of civilian law and oversight and administration. They have to be accountable, and they have to follow the rules. It’s not negotiable. Pay is negotiable, hours are negotiable, benefits and tenure and promotion are negotiable, but autonomy from the civilian government is not.
No police coup in New York City thank you.
Notice how the assailant ‘[had] a grievance against the police.’ It wasn’t that he was mentally ill (though he was); it was that he was a vigilante. I wonder how that line would’ve played out if the shooter had a paler colour of skin?
No police coup in New York City thank you.
Sounds like it’s already happened. Big mistake to give those goons guns instead of tasers.
The way to rein back police militarism is to defund them and downsize out the trouble-makers. Of course, that didn’t work very well with the Iraqi army…
Noam Chomsky said something, once, that really terrified me (because he has a scary habit of being right about things) to the effect that as inequality rises in a society, the police will be militarized to protect the powerful minority as it is increasingly recognized as a threat to the masses. That appears to be exactly what is going on in the US. The police and the military will almost always pick the side of the oppressor instead of the people.
@Seth #1: I don’t think it would have made a difference; it didn’t for Tim McVeigh. Whatever their skin color, these individuals are potential sparks of rebellion and are going to get crushed, and crushed hard.
But every police drama ever told me that the cops are perfect and are held back by jurisprudence
Every management-level officer that turned their back on their *boss* should be summarily demoted to a non-management position. It’s called insubordination (perhaps sedition, given they are authorised [by us lowly civilians] to carry arms) and there’s plenty of evidence to support the charge.
Better yet, though impractical, dismiss, or at least disarm, every back-turning cop for gross insubordination.
#2 Marcus Ranum: “Noam Chomsky said something, once, that really terrified me (because he has a scary habit of being right about things) to the effect that as inequality rises in a society, the police will be militarized to protect the powerful minority as it is increasingly recognized as a threat to the masses. That appears to be exactly what is going on in the US. The police and the military will almost always pick the side of the oppressor instead of the people.”
I suspect it has more to do with the departments’ reputation for ‘dirty’ officers. Civilian oversight means they might actually face consequences for taking bribes, selling the drugs they seize, etc.
Kamaka: Seemed to work out OK for Georgia (ex-Soviet Georgia, not US state Georgia); they sacked the entirety of their corrupt traffic policing division, nation-wide, and weren’t able to recruit and train replacements for three months. Three months of the least problematic traffic flow in Georgia, apparently – most of the snarls and accidents were apparently caused by the corrupt cops.
Considering the main job of the NYC at this point seems to be harassing black folks in order to… keep crime down? – iono, your guess is as good as mine – getting rid of pretty much every squad commander and above doesn’t sound like that much of a bad idea. Even if there’s some lead time in getting replacements in.
Of course, the office of the mayor may not always deserve respect. The NYPD seemed fine with Jimmy Walker, and the whole parade of corrupt, machine politicians.
This current business is equivalent to secession support in the US Army in 1860. But these traitors don’t have any real place to put their toxic ‘loyalty.’ The kind of ‘policing’ they want to defend is a parasite on the functioning of law and government.
This is equivalent to the old corruption scandals. An outside investigator, and a LOT of dismissals seem to be absolutely required at this point.
The graf about autonomy is an excellent piece of writing. Thank you.