Fucking!, meet Mr. Predictable.
I am speechless.
I know that in this country, policemen have different laws but come on...
Here, "enjoy":
http://youtube.com/watch?v=1kiPuyssrko
http://americangoy.blogspot.com/...first-
time.html
indeed. i saw this news through my own haze of dental recovery. damn i feel with you there LM. same old news.
there are still people who buy the "bad apple" thing out west when they are talking about stuff like rodney king. thing was, the only different aspect of the king case was that somebody taped it. beyond that it was business as usual for the LAPD. just another beat down delivered in the interest of justice.
san diego is coming to terms with the realization that they have, instead of a legitimate police force.
as long as they are keeping the focus of their brutality, and their oppression in the "other" parts of town (and i grew up on a rez, which is the "other" part of the country) nobody seems to care.
i do not wish for violence. but without the violence of the riots after the acquittals for the king case, the feds stepped in and began to oversee the entire culture and operation of the lapd. it seems without insurrection everyone, save the oppressed, is perfectly content to continue business as usual.
The biggest problem with this ruling is that there are people walking around today that will be put in the ground because these cops weren't held accountable. This is part of a culture of corruption.
I mean really...he fucking RELOADED and kept firing. It would've been 4-5 seconds to burst fire his service sidearm and then 8-10 seconds to change magazines and load the first round into the chamber and then back to firing again. No one buys this bullshit. This is about cops that don't have the proper training and are operating outside traditional parameters.
We had a similar but slightly different case here in Chicago probably close to a decade ago. The difference was that both the Chicago cop and the victim were black women. But the similarity was in that improper training and operational awareness led the cop to believe a cell phone was a gun and she shot and killed the victim. Of course rather than apologizing for the fuck up that killed an innocent person, the police closed ranks around the cop and made shit up about how it went down.
The fix was in as soon as the jury was dismissed. It is corruption in the most classic sense, and there will be more bullet-ridden bodies to put on the pyre in the future.
Rulings like this practically guarantee it.
we had the spectacle of Michael Palladino, the head of the NYPD detective's union gloating about the verdict at hi spress conference, replete with cheesy soundbites (“How do I spell relief? N-O-T-G-U-I-L-T-Y! That's how I spell relief!”), along with crass call-outs of Sharpton and other activists, local union leaders who backed the family and pretty much anyone who didn't four-square agree with the NYPD's account.
Like an episode of "The Simpsons", only not funny. 
Yeah, white folk never get killed by cops....pigs will be pigs. There are waaaaaay too many cops. Fairfax Co. (VA) PD is a standing army. Tax dollars spent (by force) to pay it to boot! I will have to find the story but, a few years ago the SWAT FC cops wasted a guy wanted for GAMBLING!!!!
I will look it up and link it later if anyone is interested because I'm out the door.
a criminal-tragedy, if such a category exists.
Damn.
the npr reports on the crowd reaction...
http://www.npr.org/templates/
sto...toryId=89953750
Son. Of. A. Bitch.
I should not have been surprised, yet I was.
You know, there's going to be a point in time when the actions of the police become so egregious and so over the top that the respect and/or fear of them is going to be replaced by retaliation.
At that point the entire concept of "public safety" is going to take on a radically different meaning.
Oh, White folks do indeed get killed by the cops. It's just that good old American racism skews law enforcement's authoritarian streak hard down a “man vs. beast” road that White perps don't get to see the same side of as often. Plus, there's a certain joy (on the part of authoritarians) in pounding the living hell out of an obvious other.
However, that pathology does bleed over color-wise. As noted in my post, Black cops and White cops pull together in support of each other when it comes down to “the Blue” being under siege. “The Blue” is a mighty unifying force—especially when the small number of Black members of it will do whatever it takes to “belong”—even if it includes acting as “bots” for the majority in the meting out of hurt on the minority community.
Five-O's got all kinds of problems in NYC. In addition to a penchant for inflicting heavy-handed hurt on unarmed Black and Tan folks, they also have had a longstanding inability to deal with emotionally disturbed people. Their forté is confrontation, not defusing situations, and thanks to that you get paranoid 65-plus year old diabetic women (Eleanor Bumpurs) getting shot-gunned into ground beef when they protest being evicted by weakly waving a knife. No incapacitating beanbags or stun grenades. A shotgun.
Or you have a disturbed young Orthodox Jew (Gideon Busch) gunned down in the street because no one on the scene had a clue as to how to calm him down or de-escalate the situation. Again...confrontation is their game...oft-times their ONLY game. I believe the old saying goes, “To the hammer, every problem is a nail.” And the NYPD has a shitload of hammers, unfortunately.
But as to the idea that somehow both groups—Black and White catch hell with any equanimity, something that happened within two weeks of Amadou Diallo's murder at the hands of the NYPD always stuck with me, because I remembered it's outrageousness at the time. The original link is behind a pay firewall, but I bought the story years ago and always refer to it when this “dichotomy” is brought up.
Copyright Daily News, L.P. Mar 2, 1999
A disgruntled construction worker opened fire in a storage room beneath 30 Rockefeller Center during rush hour yesterday and was arrested a short time later, police said.
After getting a pink slip, Tommaso Spatola pulled out a silver- plated .38-caliber handgun and fired a single shot into a wall, said police Capt. Frank Cangro. Then Spatola told his shaken co-workers, "I forgive you," and fled to the subway, Cangro said. Spatola, 36, of Brooklyn, was nabbed a short time later, cops said. He was charged with reckless endangerment, menacing and criminal possession of a weapon.
Although the shooting happened about 4:30 p.m. when the concourse was swollen with commuters heading for the B, D, F and Q subway lines few passersby realized anything had happened. The building houses NBC and is a tourist haven.
"I heard a bump, bump, but I thought it was a door slamming, I didn't think it was a shot," said Chris Cho, 25, a clerk at 1 Hour Photo, a few doors down from the storage room. "I mean, who would think of that here at Rockefeller Center?"
Cangro said security is tight on the concourse, where guards use surveillance cameras to scan the crowds.
Now, that story seems pretty tame in print...but the particulars and details that are un-expanded on and left out of the “police blotter” report are telling. I remember them well because in the wake of the Diallo murder, they were maddeningly “odd”.
You see, Spattola was busting off caps from his gat during a weekday rush hour in Rockefeller Center where lots of people could have been killed. Instead of confronting him there on the scene, what Five-O did was follow him out of the complex and allow him to get all the way home in Staten island where he was arrested in his driveway without so much as a shot being fired at him.
That's a pretty wild discrepancy, ain't it? Guy with no gun takes 41 slugs. Guy with gun who's firing it willy-nilly gets to ride home on the ferry, and then drive his car from the terminal all the way home where he is arrested without so much as a “Boo! from the cops.
What was the difference between the two men—aside from one being an armed nut, and the other just a dude coming home from a long workday? There's a difference in how some people are dealt with and how others are dealt with, and it's pretty damned clear who's getting the short, bullet-riddled end of the stick.
As J.J. Hunsecker used to say, “Are we kids, or what?”
And the burgeoning steroid scandal enveloping the NYPD takes on an entirely different light when you consider the amped-up demeanor of too many on the force. Hyper-aggression is a side effect of steroid abuse. 'Roid rage, anyone?
The New York Police Department will soon begin randomly testing its 36,000-officer force for steroid abuse, officials said Wednesday.
The testing program comes in the wake of allegations that an illegal steroid ring was supplying bodybuilding police officers.
Police officials insisted that the decision to test for anabolic steroids — first reported Wednesday in The New York Post — doesn't reflect a concern about widespread abuse at the nation's largest police department. Instead, they said they wanted to drive home the point that using steroids without a prescription is illegal.
Since the NYPD already tests for narcotics, it "only makes sense to include steroids," Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said in a statement.
The department plans to begin the urine testing, expected to cost about $1 million a year, in July. Currently, officers are selected at random and tested for heroin, cocaine, marijuana and other illegal drugs using hair samples.
Union officials declined to comment on the plan.
-------------------------
Last week, the NYPD issued a lengthy memo reminding officers that anabolic steroids are a controlled substance that can cause "aggressive, anti-social or inappropriate behavior," and that bodybuilding "is not a legitimate medical use."
Mmmmmmmmm-hmmmmmmmm...
Had a roomie our here in CA in the 70's. Raised in the Bronx, only a year out here.
Whew, what an edge, and what a force of life.
He claimed to have known Sliwa and the first wife who helped him with the Angels.
My roomie was HARD headed about a lot of things. I'd seen Serpico, years before. I didn't blame him. I knew the world, CA O NYC, was corrupted and unbalanced.
I though Sliwa was gone long ago. Glad to hear he's alive, but, DOING RADIO SUBBING FOR HANNITY???
I don't THINK so, homes. Sad.
On the verdict? Dawh help them all, the people and the cops of NYC.
Great read, thread LM.
Alas, this is only the beginning in the next 4 or 5 years, maybe less, and likely there's gonna be more than a FEW street 'disturbances' in cities all round the 50. Well, maybe not AK or HI.
But the lower 48? Like Robert Hunter penned: "Set up, like a bowling pin."
Best to all. Thanks for the story. Story is the fabric of our life cloak.
Hmmm . . .
Story is the fabric of our life cloak. And the telling of the story is our weaving of the threads.
Always been a huge fan of the use of narrative. Studs Terkel. On with the story.
so what happens now, Sharpton, rightfully so, calling for actions of protest and civil disobedience... What is the word on the street in NYC and especially in queens?
I should have come here first instead of spending a an hour or so looking on Steve's for the old posts with his maps. Still, I'm glad I did and so very glad for your excellent post here LM.
“the police response with respect to each defendant was not found to be criminal.”
If the firing of 50 bullets wasn't found to be criminal, then I don't know what the fuck IS!!!!! The precident this sets, not only in NYC, but all around this country is worthy of removal from the bench. Tomorrow. First thing. Removal. This verdict is criminal.
And fuck their "random" testing. Each and every law enforcement officer who is allowed to carry a damn weapon, including tasers, should be tested on a regular basis. Not only for steroids and illegal drugs, but there are certain prescriptions that should preclude them from even having weapons.
This is pure bullshit. Drug test that damn judge too. Scary damn fuckers.
tlg:
It's quiet on the streets. But it's quiet like a tinderbox is before a spark hits it. And that part of Queens, particularly near the roughneck-ass Baisley projects is under heavy patrol. The issue is going to be whether the cops follow Palladino's blustery lead and bully-boy about with a post-verdict swagger.
One of two things happening will set shit off.
1.) If a few “Po-Pos” decides to get bold and crack heads when protests start next week. If they do that, it will be on like Donkey Kong. Or if there's an ugly and deadly cop/civilian encounter within the next months or so—especially if the civilian turns out to be unarmed.
2.) If an officer catches a bullet or somehow is either wounded or dies in an encounter with civilians. They will see that as an act of vengeance on the part of the public and a few will fuck up and over-react, and once again it'll be on like Donkey Kong.
New York's five boroughs totals 8.5 million people population-wise. 2.3 mil in Brooklyn alone and 1.9 mil in Queens. There aren't but 37,000 cops on the force, and at any given time there are maximum 17-18,000 on duty at once. The rest are off-shift or “rubber-gunning” it at desks.
You get a few hundred thousand people pissed off and willing to “go off” and there ain't a preparation in the world that can stop 'em. Plus, we're just now getting consistent good weather here—days are topping out in the 70s.
Nice weather. More unemployed, angry (yeah...bitter) people in the streets and a buck-wild Five-O and what Deacon G posited upthread isn't just a possibility.
It's just a matter of when.
If you knew how many calls I got today from people talking about a nice, hot summer coming and how Five-O needs to watch their asses...
The lone saving grace is that it is supposed to rain here through Tuesday.
didnt the prosecution realize that having a judge-only trial stacked the thing from the beginning?
just wondering
The short term civic order problems this basically political verdict will set in train are not it's worst possible consequences, IMHO.
They are the consequences uppermost in most observant heads.
But the longer term consequences are what worry me.
As a nation-state slides into systemic destabilization, we see sectarian, tribal, gang, and ethnic loyalties trump national ones again and again. If things continue as they are going in this country, we'll be there sooner than most people even imagine.
When police, and the judicial system they serve, delegitimatize themselves this way, they only accelerate the process of destabilization.
One more comment: this is the way things usually trade off in this country: short term political expediency trumps long term system stability.
We are just about of hellroom for this particular sort of folly.
LM said:
"If you knew how many calls I got today from people talking about a nice, hot summer coming and how Five-O needs to watch their asses..."
CAN...you...DIG IT??!!
But please, I just pray against all hope that people keep their heads together. The media, and the GOP, are jonesing like crazy for schidt to get started during an election year...another brickbat to put upside Obama's head.
What I'd like to see is a one-day general labor strike staged by all civilian black workers, including transit workers. (Fuck the Taylor Act.) Shut the city down completely. Let the people get pissed off walking to and from work, and they'll experience a fraction of the anger that blacks are feeling right now.
LM said:
"One of two things happening will set schidt off."
Make that three things:
3) The Hasidic Jews who assaulted a black man - a cop's son - in Crown Heights last week face minimal (if any) charges.
Things could get very ugly if that happens...
.......and the judicial system they serve, delegitimatize themselves....
See Antonin Scalia and Bush v. Gore (2000). A fish rots from the head, right?
You get a few hundred thousand people pissed off and willing to “go off” and there ain't a preparation in the world that can stop 'em. Plus, we're just now getting consistent good weather here—days are topping out in the 70s.
Maybe that's why this sort of unrest rarely if ever afflicts Milwaukee: The weather here almost always sucks bitter ass. (The wind is positively howling outside my window this morning.)
Been out of the loop for a few weeks due to MAJOR pschidt at work, but here goes:
DAMN. I CANNOT believe this, although I sort of saw it coming when they requested a bench trial.
And what Myrtle said RE constant, consistent, WEEKLY drug testing of ALL armed officers.
Where I work, I need to submit pee tests on a random basis for the privilege of sitting on my ass all day in front of a computer screen, negotiating pharmaceutical agreements where I am thousands of miles away from very uninteresting drugs that I would never get near anyway. Know any crackheads who could make street bank on chemo drugs or anti-irratible bladder drugs anyone?
Sheesh.
Oh yeah you know we're all seeing the truth of a situation rather than opinions when even the trolls agree with us.
FWIW, I live in a 'hood that is FULL of cops (Astoria) and the mood here is...nonexistent. It's Greek Easter tonight, that's the local focus, and I have heard NO word on the street RE the verdict. One gets the impression that the entire area is sticking their fingers in their ears and going "blah blah blah can't hear you blah." I mean, even the crooked cop bar on my corner has generated zero buzz from the drunk guys smoking outside of it.
Oh yeah you know we're all seeing the truth of a situation rather than opinions when even the trolls agree with us.
That depends on which trolls. I'm sure Jim (Dumb Jim, not Smart Jim 
) would be calling us communist socialist fascist liberals and saying that the Officer Palladino is a hero of 'Murkin freedumb.
This is the first place I wanted to come and read about this verdict.
Thanks, LM, for writing even while in pain. I've had the same surgery, at least it was gum surgery, and it was not much fun.
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