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David McElroy

making sense of a dysfunctional culture

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Cop pepper-spraying protesters is symbol for arrogant police culture

By David McElroy · November 21, 2011

You’ve probably seen this picture or seen video of the same scene. Campus police at the University of California at Davis blasted pepper spray at peaceful student protesters Friday. Many people are outraged. Many are calling for the firing of the officers. I’d like to step back and take a broader perspective with three points.

First, this incident proves again that photography matters. In many places, police arrest people for taking pictures of them doing their jobs. In some places, it’s even specifically against the law. The attempts of police, politicians and prosecutors in some places to stop photography of them are wrong, whether it’s through arrests or intimidation.

If the pictures and video from the UC-Davis incident didn’t exist, this would be a non-story. We wouldn’t be talking about the issue. It would be almost as though it didn’t happen. This is why it’s important to strongly press the case that photography is not a crime. (You’ll find plenty of stories at that site of police and other public officials attempting to stop photography that they don’t like.)

Second, these sorts of incidents — and far worse — go on almost every day, but we don’t know about them because there is such a strong “support the police” culture in this country. The people who are experiencing oppression, threats and intimidation from police are mostly those who are powerless to do anything about it. They tend to be poor, black, brown or undereducated. They tend to be people who either don’t know their rights or know they won’t be believed if they complain.

In this case, a bunch of middle-class white college kids were targeted — with plenty of evidence. If we wouldn’t be talking about this incident without photos and video, imagine how much worse it would be if you were a poor urban black male and it’s your word against a police officer’s. You wouldn’t stand a chance and you’d know that. Is it any wonder so many of them are scared of police?

Third, this isn’t a problem of “a few bad eggs.” This is the modern police culture. This is the way they’re trained. There have always been some people attracted to law enforcement because they have the kind of attitude that lends itself to believing, “I have a gun and a badge, so you will obey me,” but the culture makes it very clear that a large proportion of police believe they’re above the law — and that they should be allowed to do pretty much anything they believe is right. Many of them believe that people’s rights are irrelevant, and they’re willing to lie to make it appear they’re following the law. These people are just as evil as the criminals they supposedly oppose.

Since the incident Friday, many are calling for the firing of police Lt. John Pike, the officer in the photo above. You can sign a petition here or see a Facebook group about it here. And the university has suspended a couple of the officers while the case is being investigated, although police were still defending what they did.

I certainly don’t have a problem with firing the officers who did it, because it can at least send a message to the others on the job. Maybe. If it’s like most such incidents, the officers would be rehired by other departments immediately. The police culture protects its own — because they don’t believe they’re doing anything wrong.

And that’s the key. Firing a few officers here or there isn’t going to change things. It’s a systemic problem. Police have to learn that they’re not above the law. They have to learn that they’re going to be consistently punished if they lie or abuse people’s rights. They have to know that complaints against them are going to be taken seriously, not ignored by people more concerned with the appearance of “procedure” than with justice.

The police culture has to change. I don’t know how to do that, because I think the lousy attitudes ultimately come from the public. The vast majority of the public seems to vaguely believe that police should be supported in almost all situations. Especially in you’re in a Republican district, the safest thing you can say is that you support police and want to spend even more money on law enforcement — for higher salaries and new toys for them to “play” with.

I’m not in a lot of danger from police, because I’m a white middle-class guy, but even I get nervous with them these days. A friend of mine made the same point to me over the weekend. Until most people demand accountability and courtesy from some of the thugs who we’re giving guns and badges to, this behavior isn’t going to stop. It won’t affect those of us in our nice, safe, comfortable suburbs, but don’t be surprised when crime gets even worse as more people in minority communities turn against police.

I’m glad to see the outrage against what these thugs did Friday to some white middle-class students. I’d just like to see the same level of outrage when the victims are poor blacks or Hispanics.

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For “throwback Thursday, let me introduce you to For “throwback Thursday, let me introduce you to Sam. In 2009, I took in a young feral cat who I named for the early American revolutionary Samuel Adams. He was one of the most confident — downright arrogant, in fact — cats I’ve ever been around. He had an amazing personality and I immediately loved him. He was no more than 8 or 9 months old when he suddenly died for reasons that my vet couldn’t explain. Even though I had him only a short time, he was one of my all-time favorites. #tbt #cats #tabby #feral #birmingham #alabama
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On a live awards show Sunday night, one man made a joke about a female celebrity. The husband of the celebrity was offended and hit the man who made the joke. Or maybe it was staged for entertainment. Who knows? Who cares? Social media is full of discussion — and even arguments — about this idiocy today. This baffles me. Let’s assume for a moment that the event happened as reported. People have been having such idiotic fights ever since there have been humans. Half the bars in the world see such brief dustups regularly. It simply doesn’t matter. The fact that so many people believe they need to talk about this — or even need to have opinions about it — is more evidence of the bizarre media brainwashing that convinces many to care passionately about brain-dead trivia. Your life will be happier and saner if you focus on yourself, your family and your friends, not on whatever scripted (or spontaneous) bilge that the media wants to pipe into your home.

I’m in the middle of migrating this website to new servers this week. This means you might encounter some unexpected behavior until I get all the bugs worked out. Clicking on my links (including this one) might cause your browser to give you the message that it’s a site without a current security certificate. It’s not actually unsafe, but there’s something which isn’t yet set up for the security certificate. I apologize for any such errors you might encounter while the process is going on. If you notice any problems with content which didn’t migrate properly, I would appreciate you letting me know the details at davidmcelroy@mac.com. Thanks for your patience.

I often wonder what animals think when they look at us and consider the society we’ve created. Yes, I know this is fanciful and unrealistic, but what if they could? Would they be astounded at how we treat each other? Would they be disgusted by the ugliness and pettiness which fill so many of our daily interactions? The truth is that I’m feeling pretty disgusted with humanity tonight. I made the mistake of reading some online interactions that I should have avoided — and it sickened me. The people involved appeared to be vile and stupid and arrogant. I wish I could pretend they’re a tiny minority, but I know better. It’s times such as this when I most need to escape much of “civilization” and disconnect from their world. If humans are going to be worthy of “ruling this planet,” we have a lot of growth to do. And I fear that growth is nowhere in sight. So my buddy Thomas, above, and all of his friends would be right to judge us harshly — and to think, “Why do you folks get to be in charge?”

I should have expected this, but I honestly didn’t. The article I wrote last week about disagreements over treatment for autistic children brought me angry emails. You could almost call it “hate mail.” Of the five emails about it so far, two have been to tell me that I’m wrong to even listen to critics of the most popular therapy for autistic children — and the other three tell me I’m wrong for not condemning the treatment as the “obvious” abuse it is. If you read the article, you know I didn’t take a position on the issue, because I simply don’t know enough to have an opinion. But by talking about the issue, I stepped into a heated controversy. The emails from the two sides convinced me of nothing. But they did give me even more empathy for the unfortunate parents who have to figure out for themselves where the truth lies for their children.

Have you ever had what you thought was a new idea — and then discovered that “old you” had the same idea years ago? I had that experience tonight. And it’s been wonderful. I came up with an idea tonight for a very short satirical film that would be a promotion for a fictitious college. The point is to make the college promote — as good things — everything which is actually terrible about most modern colleges. Then I remembered a fake college that I invented back when I was in college. I had created student recruitment brochures and various newsletters back then, so I decided to call my “new” college by the same name I’d invented years ago: Ochita College. As I searched my computer for any old material I might still have about Ochita from the past, I discovered an email I sent to someone in 2009 — outlining essentially the same idea which I came up with tonight. Since I didn’t remember writing that, it felt like magic. So my next film project just might be this one instead. If all goes well, you might soon see “Ochita College: Your Future Starts Here.” This should be fun.

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