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that typical "visiting room" polaroid, we almost want as a "souvenir"....jeez!
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... yeah, yeah - they're just "doin their job."
Many may recall images like the one of cops
escorting the little children across the street
during the hate-crime shooting in CA in 1999.
The media shows us things like this, projecting an image of 'all-protecting cops' serving/protecting the innocent public. Newspapers, newscasts - media of all kinds let us know only what they want ~ some of this stuff is taken outta context or are even LIES.
If only my memory could somehow be scanned and the images projected to this page ... well, lemme put it this way: that image of the 'all-protecting cops' would soon be erased from your mind. The things I've seen while incarcerated or just under arrest ... jeez. THESE are the images that'll forever be tattooed on my mind. Needless, unwarranted violent beatings accompanied by verbal abuse, shootings that didn't have to happen...
Example and just ONE true story : Cuffed to a chair outside the holding cells in Bond Court, I witnessed a severe beating that was uncalled for. A young Puerto Rican man was being verbally abused by the Turnkeys; he mumbled, "ah, shut up ... pleeease". He was then dragged by SIX bigger men, in front of me and beaten with batons, repeatedly kicked while he lay curled in a fetal position; his blood splattering ME ... then taken to the County jail hospital~ AFTER these six cops deliberated/discussed how they would EXPLAIN this.
In the meantime I watched as the blood poured from the dude's mouth and nose, saw his eyelids puff up to bruised balls with slits as he laid in his own blood and bits of shattered teeth. I don't know if he even survived.
Had I mentioned this to anyone, the same thing would've happened to me.
Many cops defend their brutal actions, if brought to the public's attention, as being "self-defense." True, there are many times they may fear for their lives; it's INSANE out here - so many guns, gangs, psychos and whatnot.
But is it necessary to KILL - often killing without true provocation innocent- kids, the physically challenged, honor students minding their own biz but mistaken for someone else cuz of their ethnicity ... my god! If a cop feels threatened, why not just disable the alleged perp? Maybe shoot them in the leg or somewhere ... not KILL!
Chicago has no mandatory gun-training for cops. For example, I know someone who was promoted to Sergeant -AND CAN'T EVEN BREAK DOWN HER OWN GUN TO CLEAN IT!~ let alone shoot the damned thing ... should she panic and start shooting, it'll be a bullet-fest that'll end up in death. If she had any target training or was mandated to practice, perhaps she could aim and disable someone instead.
The girl who was killed because she had a cell phone in her hand would be alive today, if the cop involved hadn't panicked and started randomly shooting.
I don't know who sent this to me: "...It sounds like something that happened down the street from me at 4th and La Brea in L.A. about a year ago. Except she wasn't beaten she was shot. This homeless lady was pushing a shopping cart and had a screwdriver that made the two police officers fear for their safety. She was a grandmother who had some mental problems, not a big women and certainly not any real threat to a full grown man. They shot and killed her." hmm... pretty typical.
A joint project of the Coalition to Stop Police Brutality, the National Lawyers Guild and the Anthony Baez Foundation is a book called "Stolen Lives"; there are documented cases and some photos pertaining to what I'm talking about here ...
and I'm NOT talking about things like the Rodney King incident.
