04-12-2014, 05:18 PM
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After a year dominated with news of police shootings ofunarmed citizens (including children), SWAT team raids gone awry, photo ops ofmilitarized police shouldering assault rifles while perched on top of armoredvehicles, and reports on how the police are using asset forfeiture laws to padtheir pockets with luxury cars, cash and other expensive toys, I find myself wrestlingwith the question: how do you prepare a child for life in the American policestate, especially when it comes to interactions with police?
Do you parrot the government line, as the schoolsdo, that police officers are community helpers who are to be trusted andobeyed at all times? Do you caution them to steer clear of a police officer,warning them that any interactions could have disastrous consequences? Or isthere some happy medium between the two that, while being neither fairy talenor horror story, can serve as a cautionary tale for young people who will encounterpolice at virtually every turn?
Children are taught from an early age that there areconsequences for their actions. Hurt somebody, lie, steal, cheat, etc., and youwill get punished. But how do you explain to a child that a police officer canshoot someone who was doing nothing wrong and get away with it? That a cop canlie, steal, cheat, or kill and still not be punished?
Kids understand accidents. But police shootings of unarmedpeople--of children and old people and disabled people--can't just be shruggedoff as accidents.
AiyanaJones was no accident. The 7-year-old was killed after a Detroit SWAT team launcheda flash-bang grenade into her family's apartment, broke through the door andopened fire, hitting the little girl who was asleep on the living room couch.The cops weren't even in the right apartment.
Ironically, on the same day that PresidentObama refused to stop equipping police with the very same kinds of militaryweapons and gear used to raid Aiyana's home, it was reported that thepolice officer who shot and killed the little girl would notface involuntary manslaughter charges.
Obama insists that $263million to purchase body cameras for police will prevent any furthererosions of trust, but a body camera would not have prevented Aiyana from beingshot in the head. Indeed, the entiresorry affair was captured on camera:a TV crew was filming the raid for an episode of The First 48, a true-crime reality show in which homicidedetectives have 48 hours to crack a case.
While that $263 million will make TaserInternational, the manufacturer of the body cameras, a whole lot richer,it's doubtful it would have prevented a SWAT team from shooting14-month-old Sincere in the shoulder and hand and killing his mother.
No body camera could have stopped a Georgia SWAT team fromlaunching a flash-bang grenade into the house in which Baby Bou Bou, his threesisters and his parents were staying. The grenadelanded in the 2-year-old's crib, burning a hole in his chest and leavinghim with scarring that a lifetime of surgeries will not be able to easily undo.
No body camera could have prevented 10-year-old DakotaCorbitt from being shot by a Georgia police officer who triedto shoot an inquisitive dog, missed, and hit the young boy, instead. AlbertoSepulveda, 11, diedfrom one "accidental" shotgun round to the back, after a SWAT team raidedhis parents' home.
Cleveland police shotand killed 12-year-old Tamir Rice, who was seen playing on a playgroundwith a toy gun. Surveillance footage shows police shooting the boy aftergetting out of a moving patrol car. Thirteen-year-old Andy Lopez Cruz was shot7 times in 10 seconds by a California police officer who mistook the boy'stoy gun for an assault rifle. Christopher Roupe, 17, was shotand killed after opening the door to a police officer. The officer,mistaking the Wii remote control in Roupe's hand for a gun, shot him in thechest.
These children are more than grim statistics on a policeblotter. They are the heartbreaking casualties of the government's endless,deadly wars on terror, on drugs, and on the American people themselves. Noteven the children who survive their encounters with police escape unscathed. Increasingly,their lives are daily lessons in compliance and terror, meted out with everySWAT team raid, roadside strip search, and school drill.
Who is calculating the damage being done to the young peopleforced to watch as their homes are trashed and their dogs are shot during SWATteam raids? A Minnesota SWAT team actually burst into one family's house, shotthe family's dog, handcuffed the children and forced them to "sitnext to the carcass of their dead and bloody pet for more than an hour."They later claimed it was the wrong house.
Then there are the hands-on lessons being taughtin the schools about the role of police in our lives, ranging from activeshooter drills to incidents in which children are suspended,handcuffed,arrested andeven tasered for what used to be considered childlike behavior. For example, policeofficers at a Florida middle school carried out an active shooter drill inan effort to educate students about how to respond in the event of an actualshooting crisis. Two armed officers, guns loaded and drawn, burst intoclassrooms, terrorizing the students and placing the school into lockdown mode.
It's getting harder by the day to tell young people that welive in a nation that values freedom and which is governed by the rule of lawwithout feeling like a teller of tall tales. Yet as I point out in my book A Government of Wolves: The EmergingAmerican Police State, unless something changes and soon for the youngpeople growing up, there will be nothing left of freedom as we have known itbut a fairy tale without a happy ending.
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America's Children: The Trials of Growing Up in a Police State
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After a year dominated with news of police shootings ofunarmed citizens (including children), SWAT team raids gone awry, photo ops ofmilitarized police shouldering assault rifles while perched on top of armoredvehicles, and reports on how the police are using asset forfeiture laws to padtheir pockets with luxury cars, cash and other expensive toys, I find myself wrestlingwith the question: how do you prepare a child for life in the American policestate, especially when it comes to interactions with police?
Do you parrot the government line, as the schoolsdo, that police officers are community helpers who are to be trusted andobeyed at all times? Do you caution them to steer clear of a police officer,warning them that any interactions could have disastrous consequences? Or isthere some happy medium between the two that, while being neither fairy talenor horror story, can serve as a cautionary tale for young people who will encounterpolice at virtually every turn?
Children are taught from an early age that there areconsequences for their actions. Hurt somebody, lie, steal, cheat, etc., and youwill get punished. But how do you explain to a child that a police officer canshoot someone who was doing nothing wrong and get away with it? That a cop canlie, steal, cheat, or kill and still not be punished?
Kids understand accidents. But police shootings of unarmedpeople--of children and old people and disabled people--can't just be shruggedoff as accidents.
AiyanaJones was no accident. The 7-year-old was killed after a Detroit SWAT team launcheda flash-bang grenade into her family's apartment, broke through the door andopened fire, hitting the little girl who was asleep on the living room couch.The cops weren't even in the right apartment.
Ironically, on the same day that PresidentObama refused to stop equipping police with the very same kinds of militaryweapons and gear used to raid Aiyana's home, it was reported that thepolice officer who shot and killed the little girl would notface involuntary manslaughter charges.
Obama insists that $263million to purchase body cameras for police will prevent any furthererosions of trust, but a body camera would not have prevented Aiyana from beingshot in the head. Indeed, the entiresorry affair was captured on camera:a TV crew was filming the raid for an episode of The First 48, a true-crime reality show in which homicidedetectives have 48 hours to crack a case.
While that $263 million will make TaserInternational, the manufacturer of the body cameras, a whole lot richer,it's doubtful it would have prevented a SWAT team from shooting14-month-old Sincere in the shoulder and hand and killing his mother.
No body camera could have stopped a Georgia SWAT team fromlaunching a flash-bang grenade into the house in which Baby Bou Bou, his threesisters and his parents were staying. The grenadelanded in the 2-year-old's crib, burning a hole in his chest and leavinghim with scarring that a lifetime of surgeries will not be able to easily undo.
No body camera could have prevented 10-year-old DakotaCorbitt from being shot by a Georgia police officer who triedto shoot an inquisitive dog, missed, and hit the young boy, instead. AlbertoSepulveda, 11, diedfrom one "accidental" shotgun round to the back, after a SWAT team raidedhis parents' home.
Cleveland police shotand killed 12-year-old Tamir Rice, who was seen playing on a playgroundwith a toy gun. Surveillance footage shows police shooting the boy aftergetting out of a moving patrol car. Thirteen-year-old Andy Lopez Cruz was shot7 times in 10 seconds by a California police officer who mistook the boy'stoy gun for an assault rifle. Christopher Roupe, 17, was shotand killed after opening the door to a police officer. The officer,mistaking the Wii remote control in Roupe's hand for a gun, shot him in thechest.
These children are more than grim statistics on a policeblotter. They are the heartbreaking casualties of the government's endless,deadly wars on terror, on drugs, and on the American people themselves. Noteven the children who survive their encounters with police escape unscathed. Increasingly,their lives are daily lessons in compliance and terror, meted out with everySWAT team raid, roadside strip search, and school drill.
Who is calculating the damage being done to the young peopleforced to watch as their homes are trashed and their dogs are shot during SWATteam raids? A Minnesota SWAT team actually burst into one family's house, shotthe family's dog, handcuffed the children and forced them to "sitnext to the carcass of their dead and bloody pet for more than an hour."They later claimed it was the wrong house.
Then there are the hands-on lessons being taughtin the schools about the role of police in our lives, ranging from activeshooter drills to incidents in which children are suspended,handcuffed,arrested andeven tasered for what used to be considered childlike behavior. For example, policeofficers at a Florida middle school carried out an active shooter drill inan effort to educate students about how to respond in the event of an actualshooting crisis. Two armed officers, guns loaded and drawn, burst intoclassrooms, terrorizing the students and placing the school into lockdown mode.
It's getting harder by the day to tell young people that welive in a nation that values freedom and which is governed by the rule of lawwithout feeling like a teller of tall tales. Yet as I point out in my book A Government of Wolves: The EmergingAmerican Police State, unless something changes and soon for the youngpeople growing up, there will be nothing left of freedom as we have known itbut a fairy tale without a happy ending.
"Let me issue and control a nation's money and I care not who writes the laws. - Mayer Rothschild
"Civil disobedience is not our problem. Our problem is civil obedience! People are obedient in the face of poverty, starvation, stupidity, war, and cruelty. Our problem is that grand thieves are running the country. That's our problem!" - Howard Zinn
"If there is no struggle there is no progress. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and never will" - Frederick Douglass
"Civil disobedience is not our problem. Our problem is civil obedience! People are obedient in the face of poverty, starvation, stupidity, war, and cruelty. Our problem is that grand thieves are running the country. That's our problem!" - Howard Zinn
"If there is no struggle there is no progress. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and never will" - Frederick Douglass