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| ACAB applies to McGruff, too. Sorry bud. |
In case you don't know, ACAB stands for All Cops Are Bad. And yes, I'm going to spend five nights this week explaining why I think this. Because I don't think Defund the Police goes far enough. No, if it were up to me the slogan would be Abolish the Police.
But! But! But! But what about . . . ? Relax. Take it easy. I'll address your points.
Let's start with my own experience. When I was a kid I was like everyone else. I believed the police were the good guys, the only people who could protect us from the bad guys. But as I grew older I lost faith in that incrementally. A huge blow came over the Rodney King beating. My faith in the police dropped drastically that day. But it kept dropping and dropping until I just can't find it in my heart to say there are any good cops. There are plenty who think they're good, plenty who others would say are good, but they're bad. The fucking lot of them.
I've been arrested once. I did a whole diary about it on this blog and other places (RIP MySpace), so I won't go into details. I spent most of the night in jail in Lisle until my grandparents got me out. Being in jail is not fun. I can't imagine what prison is like.
But that's not my only run-in with people who claim to uphold the law. I've been detained and harassed many times. One time I got a written warning from a cop who pulled me over for NOT speeding. Let me repeat that. I was NOT speeding, and that was why he pulled me over. (I would have been speeding, but I saw him, so I kept the needle between the speed limit and the grace period.) I got ticketed once for going through a stop sign when I came to a full stop at said stop sign. Hard enough that I felt myself jerk. They pulled me over because I was young and had my radio loud. Because that's what cops do when they have teenagers in their clutches. They *need* to be cruel, and what's anyone going to do about it? Are the kids going to tell their parents? Hey Mom, I got in trouble for tobacco possession, but this cop treated me like a dick, and I think my rights were violated. And where is that teenager going to get the money to hire a lawyer to sue?
In Elmhurst, my hometown, the cops' favorite pastime is fucking with underage kids. They thrive on it. Gets their dicks hard. And I know it for a fact. I wasn't always on the receiving end of the police. As a parts driver for the city, I drove them around often, and they liked to talk.
I feel certain that I've written about the time I was almost arrested for attempted murder with two of my friends. For jack fucking shit. We were young, we were loud. A warning would have sufficed. But no, they decided to make our lives miserable simply because we were young. I was 18, my friends were 19. There was alcohol in the apartment, but thankfully the lease had my friend's dad's name on it, so it wasn't our booze, officer. I remember the vehemence the cops had for us when we said we weren't drinking. And we weren't. I hadn't yet had my first drink as an adult. But they threatened and cajoled us because we were young, and they felt it was their right.
One of us unfortunately had a warrant out for his arrest, so their bullshit bore fruit. That's why they fuck with so many people. They're looking for that goddam fruit, and they want to skip finding an actual reasonable cause.
But these are minor grievances compared to what the cops do to other people. I'm going to tell you about some of those people over the course of this week. You'll be horrified by the crimes these motherfuckers commit. CRIMES. Lest ye forget, the police are supposed to STOP crime.
I can hear you asking, "Aren't you a pro-union guy?" This article should answer all of your "police union" questions. Long story short, it's not a real union. It's a tool cops use to help their members get away with committing crimes up to and including murder. Because those people you *think* are good cops? They're in that "union," too. All they have to do is speak up, and the bad cops will get punished. But they don't because there's safety in numbers. The good cops keep their mouths shut because they're all brothers. In my opinion they are, to quote Jerry Cantrell, "Leaning more toward Cain than Abel."
And the author is right. Police officer isn't even in the top 10 most dangerous jobs. It comes in at #22. You know what's higher up on the list? At #12 we have crossing guards. And let's not forget that they like to talk themselves up to match with the military. They even call us civilians or citizens, like they're not civilians themselves. Even the guys with military backgrounds are now civilians. But hey, it's a dangerous job. We need military grade weapons in case some guy--er, civilian hurts my feelings. I don't want to just "accidentally" shoot him. I wanna blow him away with a rocket launcher while I stand there looking pretty in my stormtrooper armor.
"Just trust the police, and everything will work out in the end." Eh, no. These fuckers are trained to distrust us. Why should we trust them? And it doesn't matter if they get the guilty party. As long as they have someone for the crime, they're satisfied.
So I'll present some horrific stories of police brutality. I'm going to leave race out of it because I don't want that to confuse the issue. We all know that white people are less likely to be killed by a police officer during a stop. By far. I feel certain I could wave a gun at a cop at a traffic stop, and he'd just try to calm me down. This is a fact of life. Even racists, in their heart of hearts, have to admit that this is a fact. Hell, they're helping make it a fact. Ever hear of ghost skins? They're KKK or neo-Nazis or "white nationalists" (but we all know what that means) who don't have any tattoos, and they're not loud. They're sneaky about their views and can pass easily for non-racists. But their goal is to infiltrate police forces in the name of protecting their white brothers and punishing anyone they don't like with anything from a beating to flat out murder. This is a real thing. It's the subject of an FBI investigation.
But I want to cut through to the heart of the matter, which is this: THE POLICE ARE OBJECTIVELY BAD AT THEIR JOBS. In some states, all they have to say is the phrase, "I thought my life was in danger," and that's practically a Get Out of Jail Free card. They're people who claim to be the best of the best, but when the chips are down, they prove themselves to be cowards who, in "fear for their lives," decide to just fucking kill another person rather than deescalate the situation, which is what they're supposed to do.
"But they deal with people shooting at them all the time." No, not all the time. You're thinking of 'Eighties action movies. But how often do they shoot someone they "thought" had a gun? Which is code for "shoot first, make up lies later." Are you OK with having triggerhappy cowards patrolling your streets? Where your kids walk to school? They're supposed to have cooler heads. They're supposed to be trained for that. But . . . well . . .
You'll hear some stories. Starting tomorrow. And don't ask what my solution is. That's what part 5 is for.
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