Back in the day, when I was a kid, cops would go after crooks with nothing but a 6-shot .38 Special revolver. No bullet-proof vests. No sub-machine guns. Nada. Just blue uniform, shiny black leather shoes, and blue police officer's hat, accompanied by cuffs, nightstick, and holstered revolver.
In our city of 250,000 people there were 40 cops on duty at any given time to patrol the whole city. If they needed to execute a warrant, a couple of cop cars would pull up at the target's house, two cops would walk to the back door, two cops would walk to the front door, and then... they'd KNOCK. Yeah, if the guy was reputed to be hardcore they'd yank the shotgun out of the trunk and one guy on each side would have a shotgun, but that was the closest they got to paramilitary nonsense. They prided themselves on their courage and did whatever it took to execute their job with honor and dignity while respecting the citizenry that they had sworn an oath of office to serve, even if -- and, for some, especially if -- it placed themselves in physical danger from time to time. They were by-god men, and would conduct themselves as such. And they had balls that would fuckin' clang when they walked down the street.
Today... it takes a paramilitary police unit to take down the Four Chess Players of the Apocalypse. Or, in this latest case, the crippled elderly Gimp of Mass Destruction, a gent by the name of David Cole, who was jumped by 10 officers of the U.S. Marshall's Service here in San Jose CA recently in a mistaken identity case where the guy they were looking for didn't even look like Mr. Cole (but hey, you know all them niggers look alike to white people, so it was an honest mistake, right?). Because today's cops view their job as being to keep themselves safe, not to keep the public safe.
My only thought: Perhaps diapers should be required wear for cops today, since elderly gimps and chess players scare them so much? Just sayin!
And the sad thing is that every time one of these stories comes out, brown-nosing lovers of fascism come out of the woodworks to excuse the behavior of the pants-pissing ball-less wonders in blue... because having a paramilitary team of cops throw brown people to the pavement makes them feel safe. They would have fit right in with the German people in 1940, who utterly supported the roundup of the Jews because, well, everybody knew that those people were all a buncha criminals anyhow, so clearly our brave men in brown are just doing their job and how dare anybody criticize their behavior or accuse them of being, well... a buncha cowards so scared of gimps and chess players that it takes a paramilitary team of'em to do the job that once two guys with .38 revolvers and blue uniforms did all by themselves? Hmm...
-- Badtux the Snarky Penguin
Back to Columbine--the shooting had stopped for some time but they let a teacher bleed to death that easily could have been saved. They knew there were wounded but no one had those kind of balls to go in.
ReplyDeleteI try to distance myself from all the badges that carry guns.
The Seattle cops have been given to dressing up like Robo-cops and kicking the shit out of people ever since the WTO mess. I quit going to the city pretty much at that time. And yet, they are milking the sympathy teat because several of them have been shot recently. The can't seem to do the math OR find real balls.
ReplyDeleteRemember the flight attendant story where the guy blew the evacuation slide and strolled off home?
ReplyDeleteWell, that was one of the most stylish job exits, ever... but apparently he broke a law or two.
So fifty cops surrounded his tiny house and smashed down the door. Fifty. For a flight attendant.
Perhaps their salary should be calculated based on how many of them it takes to do the job of a 60's cop.