Many Americans have become wise enough to record every encounter with law enforcement for their own protection. The reason for this is cameras don’t lie and police are frequently unwilling to give up their recordings when they know they are in the wrong despite they must under both the Freedom of Information Act and discovery for trial.
Perhaps one of the most chronic causes of police abuse is the financial income requirements imposed on them by the municipality they work for. In other words frequently the police create situations to fine and arrest people even if the people are not breaking the law in order to make their income quota. For the most part people pay the fine because it is too much effort to fight it and paying the fine is the lesser of two evils. Even many innocent people will plead guilty because they simply can’t afford a lawyer.
The second reason police abuse has become chronic is lack of accountability. Police unions are well entrenched and manage to get clearly abusive police officers their jobs back. When some candid hot microphone police conversations are recorded, frequently you can detect clearly the ‘Us vs Them’ attitude.
The situation has become so bold that the police have created a flag that desecrates the flag of the United States. Despite that being illegal to desecrate the flag, nothing will be done about it because it is law enforcement that is breaking the law.
18 U.S. Code § 700. Desecration of the flag of the United States; penalties. Whoever knowingly mutilates, defaces, physically defiles, burns, maintains on the floor or ground, or tramples upon any flag of the United States shall be fined under this title or imprisoned for not more than one year, or both.
The flag was originally marketed as “The thin Blue line flag” to honor police, but recently it has become to be known as the Police State flag as it has been clearly linked to police abuse. In other words there is a rising Police State in the United States with more and more people taking notice.
There are US citizens that make it their point to go and record the police because abuse is so chronic. In many cases these recordings that are beyond the control of police have stopped police abuse in its tracks. People have openly expressed to the people with cameras that the attitude of the police changed the moment they spotted the cameras on them.
Some of the more corrupt police will approach the citizens with cameras and attempt to take the cameras and delete the evidence of their misbehavior. Photography of police is protected as long as it is done from a public place or one’s own property. The US Supreme Court has ruled that 10 feet away is as close as they can get to record.
Many police will try to stop the recording citing fear for their own safety. According to some inside sources the police have been trained to say that in an attempt to limit or stop people recording them. Some replies to the police have been from ‘If you fear a camera get a therapist or get a new job’.
Of you analyze that statement of fear from the police, one can quickly conclude that says police are well aware they have been abusing people and the possibility of retaliation from the people they are supposed to protect is genuine.
This by no means says all cops are bad. Good cops that make up about 66% of the force have their hands tied because of the police unions. They simply can’t report or arrest misbehaving cops that represent about 15% of the force. As for the remaining 19% of the force, they are on a gradient between good and bad.
As it would be the founding fathers of the United States foresaw the possibility of a rising police state inside the United States. Their solution for this is the Second Amendment of the Constitution. The second amendment is not so much about having guns to go hunting or self-defense, it is about stopping a police state.
“A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”
The spirit and embodiment of this is captured in the first three words of the Constitution being WE THE PEOPLE.
