A police officer in Kansas stirs up outrage by posting a photo of a McDonald’s coffee cup labeled with the words “fucking pig”. He made it all up. He claims it was “just a joke”. He has been dismissed from the police force.
A class of correctional officers in training (prison guards, that is) included all of the members giving a Nazi salute in the class picture, claiming it was “simply a greeting”, and that “there is nothing wrong with it, we have people of all colors and backgrounds in the picture and every one of them are participating.” The training officer, Byrd, also said that it was an honor because she was “a hard-ass like Hitler.” All of them, including two officers, have been fired.
As a capstone to this demonstration of historical ignorance, the cadets say they were just following orders.
The report states some cadets “only followed what they perceived to be an order from Instructor Byrd to do the ‘Hail Byrd’ for the photograph because they feared they would not graduate, or would be disciplined for failure to follow the order of a superior.”
These are not the worst things the police have done and are doing — murdering citizens for being black has to top that list. It does tell you that there is something deeply wrong in the training of the police, or the kind of people who sign up to “serve”–they seem to think they’ve joined up to be tinplate authoritarians.
I’m going through several scenarios where I try to explain ACAB and anarchism to my sister-in law, who is a cop.
I expect standards for cops to be much higher in Sweden than in the US, but I had a couple of direct and not flattering experiences in Italy and Greece.
OTOH the local anarchists here run parties where they play “stick the molotov to the police car” which feels childish, particularly since they don’t seem big on actually doing stuff to improve society.
The thing that surprises me about that Kansas cop is that A) he actually faced meaningful consequences for his actions and B) McDonald’s actually stuck up for its employees unlike Starbucks (though in that instance, the supervisor who was fired also happened to be trans so their termination is more than a little suspicious).
“…the cadets say they were just following orders.”
The “Nuremberg defense” worked ever so well, got that crick out of quite a few Nazi necks – via a rope.
wzrd1@3,
In fact, it worked just fine for the vast majority of Nazis who participated in the Shoah, andor the planning and conduct of aggressive war, from Werner von Braun downward.
Cops in Alabama stole cardboard signs from homeless people and made a “quilt” as a ‘joke’ gift for their captain. How inhuman do you have to be to do this?
https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/salvadorhernandez/police-officers-homeless-quilt-apology
McDonald’s employees, on the other hand, come out looking good a second time after recognizing that a woman was being kidnapped and helped effect her rescue.
https://time.com/5756318/mcdonalds-employees-help-woman/
Even more infuriating: Jorden Marie Simms of Arizona was arrested for shoplifting on December 26. While in the jail, a cop raped her. She filed a sexual assault complaint.
While being transported, shackled and handcuffed, Simms “fell out” of a cop’s SUV. She died from the injuries, just like Freddie Gray.
https://www.abc15.com/news/region-central-southern-az/arizona-inmates-death-after-alleged-sex-assault-raises-questions
It’s not “a few rotten apples” or a barrel or a tree. The entire farm is tainted and the farmer knows it. The only way to have good cops is start over with none of the current corrupt system involved.
@5
People seem to forget that the full phrase is “a few rotten apples spoil the whole bunch.” Or rather, as Ben Franklin said, “a rotten apple spoils his companions.”
They’re all rotten now.
There are just a few bad eggs on the force, and the rest are decent, upstanding, noble souls who cover for their friends, enable their rottenness, and loudly attack anyone who observes or comments on the evil their friends (who they’d never squeal on or testify against) have done.. You can see these good eggs at the trials of the bad ones: They sit in the front row of the audience, in full uniform, and spend the entire trial glaring fixedly at the jury members, as if they are memorizing their faces for future reference.
Unfortunately, it seems to me that generally, being a police officer is a get-out-of-jail-free card.
martincohen@9:
There is a group of various, not all overlapping, classes of people in our (USAn) society whose members hold such cards. There is another group of various classes of people whose members hold “put-people-you-don’t-like-into-jail-free” cards. The police are in both groups!
Oh, and the cards also say, in small print, “and get away with murder” and “or kill them”, respectively.
If cops have to make up fake incidents, is it reasonable to assume that actual cases are extremely rare?
It doesn’t have to logically follow that incidents are rare (though I’m not sure I’ve heard yet of a real one happening). It just might be that an individual officer craves the rewards of martyrbation but despairs of it ever happening to him. (“Dear Penthouse…”)
American cops seem like such cowards.
They always say that they were scared that the prone, handcuffed victom was somehow endangering their lives.
Also, why do right wing politicians go after all unions other than the police unions?
hatstand @13: American cops are cowards. And racists, and authoritarian thugs.
And right wing politicians go after unions because they represent the plutocracy, which hates being forced to give their workers anything.
RW politicians leave police unions alone out of professional courtesy — after all, someone has to act as enforcers.
And another bad example:
Twelve Israelis gang raped a British woman in Cyprus and recorded it on video. Cyprus cops forced her to recant under duress without a lawyer. Now that recantation is being used to convict her and send her to prison for a “false accusation”.
Despite video proving the crime happened.
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-50945206
And Colin Kapernick is the disloyal American here?