Need to rant
briefly. You've been forewarned.
1. I get asked -- often -- if I
hate police
2. I don't; I look at
"police" generally like I look at teachers generally
3. When a
teacher decides to rape a student, we don't demonize all teachers. Same w/
teachers who are woefully inept at teaching.
4. But, at the same time, no
sane person denies there are teacher-rapists and teachers who suck at their job
5. I view
police the same; I'm willing to take a leap of faith and assume you're
competent, until you prove otherwise
6. Soooooo that brings me to
court today
7. Client is a 17yo black male,
"YBM" in defense lawyer parlance
8. My YBM client is charged with
reckless driving to endanger, a very serious. He's terrified. Cried in my
office explaining situation
9. Insisted he was just trying
to avoid an animal that darted into the road, and swerved to the right
10. I pull the shuck, and read
the officer's narrative of what happened: "Neighbor saw driver doing
donuts in street, nearly hit wife."...
11. Cont'd: "Skid marks
show clear 360° circles. Driver claimed he was trying to avoid hitting cat."
12. Re-read that: "clear
360° circles"
13. Thankfully (how f*cking sad
is it that "thankfully" is the appropriate word here?) his mom didn't
trust the officer, and took pics
14. Which she kept, and sent to
me
15. (Most of which were useless.
Ppl take pictures of a lot of useless sh*t when they're terrified btw.)
16. The
money shot:
17. Now go
back and re-re-read: "clear 360° circles"
18. What. The actual. F*ck.
19. Do I
hate police? No. I hate raging incompetent cowboys w/ badges financed by my tax
money who clearly haven't had an eye exam recently
21. The DA was kind enough to
dismiss the case without putting up a fight.
22. My YBM client's family is
out what they paid me. Client himself is traumatized. And basis for police
mistrust gets a fresh exhibit.
23. While
the officer who (wrongfully) charged him — and pretty clearly lied on official
court documents — will face -0- repercussions.
24. This is
what police brutality looks like. It's not just people having their rights
violated and the sh*t kicked out of them.
25. It's an
innocent 17yo black kid trying to be a good human being and not running over a
cat getting thrown headlong into our court system
26. It's
having to come up with money you don't have, to defend yourself against charges
that shouldn't have been filed
27. And recognizing that — but
for photographs that someone had the foresight to take immediately — you'd have
been convicted
28. Based
solely on the word of a law enforcement officer who swore an oath to serve and
protect who then lied to the court with impunity
29. The State doesn't care of
course. For every one case dismissed, hundreds more plead guilty. Court costs
are $188+ apiece
30. A day's worth of traffic
cases can finance an ADA's salary for a year. Likewise for a clerk or a judge.
31. Guess what that means for
legislators? They can cut preexisting court funding and put it somewhere where
it'll buy them more votes
32. So you've got a court system
that ends up somehow being underfunded despite charging a sh*tload of money for
minor offenses...
33. Police routing more and more
people (predominantly young and black) into the court system, patting
themselves on the back
34. (For protecting us from
eeeeeevil 17yo YBMs trying not to hit cats while driving)
35. While the politicians fiddle
as their constituents burn, because people naively assume things like this
would never happen
36. Welcome to the clusterf*ck
that is our criminal justice system. I filed to run for the State Senate
precisely b/c of this bullsh*t.
37. It doesn't matter if you put
an R or a D or a U beside your name — this is wrong.
38. Sorry for taking up your TL.
For reasons I don't understand, I'm *still* in disbelief that this sh*t *still*
happens, when I know better
39. I'm now going to clog my
arteries with Bojangles in the hope/prayer that I won't still be flamingly
pissed after lunch.
40.
"clear 360° circles"
And this is my biggest issue with the "Justice" System. When people in positions of authority -especially officers- commit a crime they are NOT always held accountable. And worse, the system usually tries to support them by covering up the crime or intimidating the victim.
This was also an issue in the Catholic Church not that long ago when priests were committing acts of pedophilia and the church then sought to hide them and prevent civil actions from taking place. Imagine if our school system did the same with Teachers and not only failed to hold them accountable for those kinds of crimes, but ASSISTED them in covering them up -as is what happened with Sandusky and Penn State.
ANY institution that does NOT hold people WITHIN that institution accountable for crimes they commit, and even tries to assist them in covering the crimes up, is a CORRUPTED institution in need of reform.
If police want to be trusted and if the justice system wants to be deemed "JUST", they must actually uphold the law and defend the rights of people.
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