November 22, 2006
Senseless
This is why search/arrest warrants should never be served by plainclothes police unless they actually can see the subject of the warrant before they serve it, especially in the middle of the damned night.
This is why any clerical staff attached to law enforcement, either at the precinct or in some judge's office, must be accountable for their errors before these errors lead to death or injury.
This is why the police as an organization need to quit defending mad dogs and screw-ups for no other reason than that they wear a badge, and spend more time weeding these morons out of the force regardless of their seniority or whether or not they help fill some arbitrary quota.
This is why Grandmother should be living with you, not alone in some older neighborhood where the social order is decaying faster than the roof over the back porch.
This is why G. Gordon Liddy was abso-fucking-lutely correct when he said to always take the head shot. If she hadn't been startled, probably from a deep sleep, and been able to take that head shot, she may have been alive today.
Some people are calling the War on Terror this nation's equivalent WW3, even WW4. They could not be further from the truth. This relic from the past, the so-called "War on Drugs" has consumed this nation's resources, destroyed families, homes and lives, given validation to the criminal lifestyle, and glamourized the thug image. And given the terrible sacrifice this nation has made through the War on Drugs, we have nothing to show for it but a steadily increasing police-inflicted bodycount, many of them victims as innocent as those struck by gangbangers in drive-by shootings.
It has to stop. It simply has to stop. No longer can city, state, and federal government sanction brutality the likes of which we saw in Atlanta, GA on Tuesday night. Nor can it tolerate the damage control that the police force has engaged in, stating first that they knocked and announced before entering, then proclaiming today that this 92 year old woman fired on them as they approached the house. And if the government will do nothing to stop it, then the people will be forced to do it themselves, first with their ballots, then with whatever means necessary.
This is an issue that crosses gender, ethnic and racial lines and affects us all, especially if we live in transitional, mixed, working class, or poor neighborhoods. It was an act of sanctioned violence against us all. Every one of us is wounded by this, and every one of us demands not merely an explanation and a delayed mea culpa, but that someone accepts both responsibility and the punishment the commission of such a crime demands.