When law enforcement has lost the trust and respect of the people a very dangerous situation is created. One in which police officers, even the good ones, the just ones, are reviled, feared, and hated. I know there are many officers who joined the force for the right reasons, who believe in justice, who believe that their job is to protect and carry out the will of the people not to try to break that will. But as horrible as it is, I understand why so many have come to hate all law enforcement. It has nothing to do with being a criminal or feeling guilty. In the last few months stories of overwhelming police brutality have flooded the news. The really horrifying thing is not that these tragedies are occurring but that they seem to be sanctioned by our governing bodies.
On November 19th, 2011, 68 year old Kenneth Chamberlain Sr. was asleep in his bed. A retired marine and ex-corrections officer, the older man had a Life Alert pendant due to a heart condition which he inadvertently activated at 5am. The procedure for Life Alert and similar services is to have the company try to contact the individual to make sure they are alright. If there is no response, the authorities are alerted to a possible medical emergency. Shortly after accidentally setting off this chain of events, Mr. Chamberlain heard a banging on his front door. Several armed officers were outside demanding to know if he was OK. He said he was but that he was not comfortable opening the door and to please leave. The officers refused, called him a nigger, and proceeded to break down his door. They forced their way into the home of an elderly man with a heart condition on a routine MEDICAL call. Once inside, the police claimed that Mr. Chamberlain rushed at them with a knife/hatchet (depending on which spin story you're reading) and so they tasered him. They tasered an elderly man with a heart condition in his own home. After which they shot him, point-blank, in the chest. Unfortunately for the officers, there is a camera on their tasers which recorded most of this. The camera shows them bursting into this man's home to find him standing, in boxer shorts, with his hands at his sides. No knife in sight. The video also shows them, immediately upon entering, charging and discharging their tasers at him. An unarmed, elderly man in his own home. In the video, shortly after tasering Mr. Chamberlain, the officers are heard to say something along the lines of "cut it off", referring most likely to the camera that was filming their actions. Again, unfortunately for them, Life Alert was audio recording these events. The audio includes an emotionally distraught Mr. Chamberlain saying "they're going to kill me." Which, of course, they did. Shortly after this incident, several White Plains news outlets released stories about an "emotionally disturbed, hatchet-wielding man". There was no mention of the fact that the police were only called to this man's house for a medical emergency. This happened in November. The officer was only recently identified by news outlets (as the department refused to identify him, an odd occurrence in a case like this). No apology was issued to the family of Mr. Chamberlain. Until last Friday when the mayor of White Plains begrudgingly offered his condolences.
The officer identified as the leader of this travesty is currently being sued by two brothers whom he falsely arrested and then proceeded to beat on the head with his baton while they were handcuffed to a pole, causing severe injuries to the face and skull of one brother. They were Arab. While beating them he used several racial epithets. This officer is still on duty.
And of course there is Treyvon Martin. The young man who was stalked and murdered for the simple crime of WWB. Walking while black. People are arguing about the fact that he was wearing a hoodie (and Lord knows, that's the clothing of choice for all Skittles-wielding criminals). People are complaining that images released of the victim and his murderer are outdated, showing Treyvon to be a child (he was 17) and Zimmerman in a mug shot. People are actually insinuating that race couldn't have played a factor because Zimmerman is Latino. None of these things have any bearing whatsoever on the case. Or the fact that George Zimmerman has not been arrested and is still wandering the streets with his gun.
These cases are disgusting. They're reprehensible. But even more vile is the reaction, or lack thereof, of the governing authorities. No action has been taken in either case to bring the perpetrators to justice. They are continually defended by their respective police departments. Even the president of the United States, to whom many African Americans turned to expecting him, at the very least, to be on the side of justice and racial equality, has only recently issued a half-hearted statement of condolence to Treyvon's family. A statement in which he narrowly avoided condemning Zimmerman's actions despite overwhelming evidence of his guilty and massive public outcry.
This can only go on for so long. A government that has lost control of it's law enforcement and has lost the faith of its people can only last so long before it collapses under the weight of its own lies.
