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Outline:

S: This is Sprout

C: and this is Charyan, and we are the hosts of Molotov Now!, thank you for joining us on this episode of the podcast.

S: Today we are going to be discussing the police, and how it can often be difficult to address the need for abolition in a small town, where perhaps the militarization of the police is less noticeable and on display as compared to a larger metro area.

C: Yeah out here it can be a real challenge even with aspiring radicals, interactions with cops around here can be just as brutal as the cops of the city yet you don’t hear about those stories.

S: The only reporting we see on the police force here is the quotes from them found in the local paper The Daily World. They never report on the abuses of our police force, its as though its not worth covering, or they don’t really even think of it as a story. The newspapers merely ask the police what happened and then report that verbatim.

C: It can make it really difficult to advance an abolitionist position.

S: It certainly does, ACAB is not often where you start the conversation out here. We have to meet people where they are at, which is often suffering under the belief that police are mostly benevolent members of society. Its not until they are pushed back against that they exert the sort of violent force that we see in larger cities. This means that we often have to first convince people that police are actually a harmful institution at its core, before advancing the position that they should be abolished.

C: So thats the goal today, to show people how that despite the fact that some police officers in their small town may not be monsters in their personal life, their position in society creates the vast range of harm that we deal with in society.

S: Yeah, we will be reading from the article from The Harbor Rat Report titled “The Problem With Good Cops”, and talking to a member of our local community about their experiences with our police here in the Harbor.

C: Why don’t you go ahead and introduce yourself

D:

S: (Response and transition to ad)

Ad:

The Blackflower Collective would like to announce the 3rd annual May Day on the Harbor Celebration.

Come and join us May first for an all day event featuring local historical presentations with live music, food, and drinks.

Author and labor historian Aaron Goings will be discussing his newest book, “The Port of Missing Men” and will talk about his research on the real history of Billy Gohl, the infamous serial killer of the Harbor…or was he? Q&A panel and book singing to follow.

We have activities for the whole family including face painting, cornhole, arts & crafts, local history, and live music by the window smashing job creators and much more. Enter for a chance to win a brand new Nintendo Switch. Participate in our silent auction, items include your very own cornhole set, a book from our radical library, or other cool items.

All proceeds benefit The Blackflower Collective and their land projects, which aim to provide secure and permanent housing for those facing homelessness on the Harbor. For more information visit linktr.ee/blackflowerllc

Monthly Radical News Roundup:

Welcome back to Molotov Now! its time for a quick recap of the news this month

if you would like to skip this recap and get directly into the main content of this episode skip ahead to _____:

PNW News

Aberdeen

https://sabotmedia.noblogs.org/report-back-on-city-sweep-3-10-2023/

In the middle of a cold March morning The City of Aberdeen destroyed multiple peoples’ homes

After delivering a 72-hour notice  on Monday, the City moved in around 10am on Friday with bulldozers and dump trucks in order to commit an illegal sweep of the River St encampment of unhoused individuals.

Many people had no time to prepare as the week was filled with rain and wind. Despite being given a sheet of paper that described a process for the City to hold and store their property for 60 days, everything that wasn’t grabbed by the campers and set out on tarps across the train tracks was thrown in the back of the dump truck with all the other debris.

The City was using building code violations and health and safety as reasons to commit this illegal act. Although, now the campers have been further traumatized, stolen from, and will now be forced into tiny tents instead of the more spacious and easier to heat wooden structures that had been built up. There is no way this callous action was aimed at securing better living conditions for those affected.

The police were there to make sure that anyone who provided any resistance was threatened with arrest.

SOAP, or Save Our Aberdeen Please – our local fascist political organization – was present to video tape and laugh at peoples’ trauma. Their political base elected the very Mayor and City Council members who made today possible. They are well organized and motivated, and our counter operations should not underestimate them.

With smiles on their faces like this was just another day at work, the City workers used two large claw machines to smash and lift the debris into many dump trucks, the remainder was swept and shoveled up.

Chehalis River Mutual Aid Network was on site before the City. They set up a canopy with food and coffee, distributed literature on the laws and rights of people on the streets, and took some surveys responses from campers affected by the City’s actions. They also held signs in protest of the City’s actions.

Banner drops

Earlier the very same day some intrepid autonomous activists dropped two banners on the Chehalis River Bridge overpass above camp. The first banner read, “Being Homeless Isn’t A Crime, STOP THE SWEEPS” and the second read, “Stop The Sweeps, You Sweep We Strike”. Both read #StopCopCity in solidarity with the forest defenders in Atlanta.

This was all during the week of action against the City of Aberdeen announced by Sabot Media, The Chehalis River Mutual Aid Network, and Food Not Bombs. The call for action and the joint statement can be found here. A homeless right conference was held on the 5th in order to get people up to speed on what rights they had in the face of targeted harassment by the City. After a week spent distributing know your rights materials and response surveys to the unhoused community in preparation for the sweep, we found ourselves facing the wrecking crew on Friday March 10th at 10 am. People were prepared, but still traumatized and upset.

We spent the day helping people carrying their stuff out of their structures and laying it out on tarps across the road. There was no where for people to place their things out of the rain while the process of destruction was going on.

This is why showing solidarity and support through actions taken like the homeless right conference and the protest at the sweep, not to mention autonomous actions like the banner drops, is so important. When we take actions to inform people of their rights, they are more likely to want to organize to assert those rights. When signs of support show up our comrades know they are not alone. It is our duty as radical organizers to be in the streets, showing our solidarity at these times. We are grateful to all those who responded regionally to our calls for action and made their way to Aberdeen to show up for the unhoused having their lives disrupted.

Washington

Free Bike repair program opens up in Bremerton

Bremerton Bike Kitchen is an anarchist mutual aid based guerrilla bike repair program that provides free cycling repairs for homeless cyclists in the downtown Bremerton area. Ran by and for people who rely on bicycles as means of transportation, we are encouraging car free autonomy on the street level.

You can find the kitchen on Saturdays at 4:30 behind the old KRM building, at the Kitsap Food Not Bombs tent or reach out to us at 564 201 0623.

https://12ft.io/proxy?q=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.seattletimes.com%2Fentertainment%2Fvisual-arts%2F2-wa-artists-plead-guilty-to-faking-native-american-heritage%2F%23Echobox%3D1677817112

Two Western Washington artists have pleaded guilty after being charged for faking Native American heritage to sell art, despite neither having tribal enrollment or heritage.

In two separate cases, Lewis Anthony Rath, 53, of Maple Falls, and Jerry Chris Van Dyke (also known as Jerry Witten), 68, of Seattle, were charged, both in late 2021, with violations of the Indian Arts and Crafts Act, a statute aimed at ridding the Indigenous arts and crafts market of counterfeits. Both men are set to be sentenced May 17.

U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service investigations, which began in February 2019, found that Van Dyke, under the name Witten, had represented himself as a Nez Perce artist when selling his artworks, despite later admitting to USFWS agents that he was not a tribal member. Carved pendants said to be based on Aleut masks were among some of his faked works. On Wednesday, Van Dyke pleaded guilty to misrepresentation of Indian produced goods and products, which can include a sentence of up to one year in prison.

In 2021, Van Dyke told investigators that the idea to represent his work as Native American was Matthew Steinbrueck’s, the owner of Raven’s Nest Treasure. Van Dyke sold work under the name Witten at the Pike Place Market shop, The Associated Press reported at the time. When speaking with the AP, Steinbrueck denied the claim.

According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office, an investigation into Rath, which started in May 2019, found Rath to be falsely representing himself as a member of the San Carlos Apache Tribe when undercover agents purchased Rath’s artworks, including carved totem poles, masks and a necklace, from Raven’s Nest and Ye Olde Curiosity Shop. Agents executing a search warrant on Rath’s Whatcom County home and studio then found feathers from protected birds such as golden eagles and other migratory birds like hawks, jays and owls in Rath’s possession. The feathers have since been forfeited to the government.

SWARM and the AFA https://www.facebook.com/SWARM360

Our next story follows a series of publications put out by the SWARM The Southwest Washington Anti Racism Movement Facebook, about a White Supremacist Organization known as the Asatru Folk Assembly and a new business they have opened in downtown Centralia Washington, the following is a news report made by king 5 news with plagiarized research from SWARM.

[King 5 News https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=10GhmTnxpwk]

Before we move on with more details about this story i would like to give a brief analysis of this coverage of the story.

The news report falls short in several key places when it comes to how they report on this group. The coverage is borderline irresponsible and needs to be mentioned. The report in its entirety uses a typical “both sides” approach to talking about the racists and the anti-racists, this serves to normalize the behavior of racists. This platforming of racist white supremacists is done without any critique or analysis for the viewer, leading to many people hearing WS talking points without any push back. They also claim that the business is not associated with the AFA, which is irrelevant since they have the same exact beliefs and agenda. It is important to draw nuanced distinctions here since there are many within the Neo-Pagan movement who are resolutely anti-racist, and actively push back on this behavior in their own community. All of these irresponsible failures mean that this report itself needed critiquing before continuing.

Anyways, back to the story at hand, On the 9th of March following a statement made by Centralia Mayor Johnston condemning the white supremacist storefront SWARM put out a post stating

We encourage all local leaders to follow Mayor Johnston’s example and condemn white supremacy. We look forward to her taking concrete steps to address the legacy of white supremacy in Centralia and Lewis County more broadly.

The post shared a statement put out by the mayor that read as follows

Also in response to this in a post on the 22nd of march SWARM called to attention the of using Centralia founder George Washington to absolve Centralia of a long legacy of white supremacy in Lewis county. SWARM stated as follows

However this was not the only response to the milquetoast liberal condemnation of white supremacy. As this story has grown it has forced many republicans across Lewis county to send in their condemnations to provide tacit cover for their parties rhetoric after this business saying the quiet parts out loud. Some following they mayors example of clinging to George Washington for absolution. SWARM Posted on march 22nd that

In another post by SWARM on March 15th stated in response to Centralia Councilpersons Elizabeth Cameron negative response to the Mayors statement, the post reads as follows

Leah Darrud also spoke against the mayor in a council meeting demanding the mayor apologize to Tanner Thayer and the AFA, SWARM Responded with a post stating

Unfortunately this White Supremacist storefront is not just a anomaly white supremacist organization in Centralia but one of many with deep ties to the history of Washington and the legacy of its settlements such as Centralia with white supremacist groups such as the Asatru Land Union and Asatru Northwest. This brings us to Elwin Herman.

Elwin Herman had responded to Leah Darrud’s Statement claiming that quote

This was written by Leah Daarud. She is now my personal hero. Tonight was Centrailia’s regularly scheduled city council meeting where members of the council shared their outrage for the mayor’s statements, discrimination, and violation of a resident and business owners freedom to practice his own religion and do business in our town.

So who is Elwin Herman? Well according to another post swarm that states

Elwin Herman’s personal hero is now Centralia City Councilperson Leah Daarud, due to her defense of Tanner Thayer and the AFA after last Tuesday’s City Council meeting.

To remind folks once again – Elwin Herman of the Sacred Spiral Sanctuary attended the NW AFA regional gathering in 2020, she has supported the organizing efforts of the Asatru Land Union, she associates with a number of white nationalists, her husband Tom was a KKK leader, and her son Joshua is a Neo-nazi.

Tom Herman who SWARM identified in another post as

Due to the recent attention around AFA and white supremacist organizing in Lewis County, we’d like to again remind folks of other key organizers and supporters whom we have identified in the past.

Most brazenly perhaps, is Tom Herman of the Sacred Spiral Sanctuary in Ethel, WA. Not too long ago, it came to our attention that Tom was fired from his job as a police officer in New Hampshire for openly organizing KKK rallies. These days, when Tom isn’t busy with his job at WA DNR, Tom and his wife Elwin run a pseudo-spiritual grift on gullible followers from their “Sanctuary.” A few years ago, Elwin was a featured speaker at the AFA’s regional gathering in Leavenworth, immediately preceding their leaders, notorious white nationalists Stephen McNallen and Matt Flavel.

The New Hampshire Magazine wrote that

In August of 1989, Tom Herman was 28, worked for the Rockingham County Sheriff’s Department and was a police officer in Newfields when he applied for a permit for a Klan rally at Swasey Parkway. The permit was denied but Herman and his cohorts in Klan regalia walked through downtown Exeter with signs and leaflets. When interviewed by Fosters Daily Democrat, Herman remarked, “I see a lot of blacks out on the streets and they don’t act like white people,” he said. “They aren’t civilized at all. I want to be separate from that. I want to be with people who are civil.” The Boston Globe picked up the story and by 1991, Herman’s job at the sheriff’s department was terminated, a move he called “discriminatory.” Local Klan activity ceased when he moved south and essentially disappeared, but this striking photo taken by local photographer David Mendelsohn remained, presenting a question: Where is he now?

He wasn’t really hiding, but it required the services of Dover private investigator Frank Santin to track him down.

Now 53 years old, he’s a firefighter who lives in Washington State. He’s been fighting wildfires for a dozen years and that’s what he was doing on August 8, 2014, when we reached him by phone at base camp. He seemed happy to talk.

The interview similarly to other White Supremacists after being exposed, with little to no remorse for their actions and when asked “Care to offer any words of wisdom to that guy in the photo?” referring to a photo of Tom Herman dressed in Klan robes that quote

Well, I tell a lot of young people that they should think about what they post to YouTube or Facebook. The things you do there will be seen for a long time by prospective employers. I guess I should have done things more privately, but I’ve lived long enough that I’m a part of history now.

and when asked that “What do you plan to do with the photo?” he said quote

I’m gonna put it in an archival quality mat and frame it. Hang it on the wall somewhere.

Its hard to determine the full extent of the White Supremacist organizing here in Washington state and their connections to other organizations nationally, Eastern Washington following the long history of white supremacist organizing in Washington state has proven a prime ground for recruiting for various Far Right and White Supremacists organizations such as Patriot Front, Proud Boys, White Europa, and many others. Just recently in Centralia SWARM posted on the 9th of March that

For those who weren’t aware, Patriot Front recently put up stickers in Downtown Chehalis. Please be vigilant and immediately report and remove white supremacist propaganda.

This is all escalating activity following 2022 where the spread of white supremacist propaganda hit record levels, according to a report published on the 8th of March by the Anti-Defamation League.

The ADL’s Center on Extremism identified 6,751 cases where white supremacist groups distributed “racist, antisemitic and anti-LGBTQ+” materials last year, including graffiti, banners, stickers and fliers.

• That’s a 38% jump from the year before and is the highest number the ADL has ever recorded, the report stated.
• Distribution of antisemitic propaganda more than doubled in 2022, the ADL said.
• “There’s no question that white supremacists and anti-semites are trying to terrorize and harass Americans and have significantly stepped up their use of propaganda as a tactic to make their presence known in communities nationwide,” ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt said in a statement.

The ADL identified at least 50 different groups that distributed white supremacist propaganda last year. But it noted that 93% of the activity was from just three groups — Patriot Front, Goyim Defense League and White Lives Matter.

• The Patriot Front — which calls for the creation of a white ethno-state, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center — was responsible for 80% of propaganda distribution in 2022. It was most active in Massachusetts, Texas, Michigan, Virginia, Pennsylvania and Utah.
• The surge in antisemitic propaganda was driven by the Goyim Defense League. The group’s “overarching goal is to expel Jews from America,” the report stated.
• “The sheer volume of white supremacist propaganda distributions we are documenting around the country is alarming and dangerous,” Oren Segal, vice president of ADL’s Center on Extremism, said.

White supremacist propaganda has been on the rise for several years.

• White supremacist propaganda nearly doubled from 2019 to 2020 and jumped more than 120% from 2018 to 2019.

Seattle/King County cops executing a trans woman as part of an eviction in Ballard

https://twitter.com/QueerSatanic/status/1638284897730326528

A 29-year-old woman is dead and King County Sheriff Detective David Easterly remains hospitalized with a gunshot wound after deputies attempted to evict the woman from her apartment in Ballard Monday morning.

An ambulance took Easterly to Harborview Medical Center, where hospital spokesperson Susan Gregg said the detective was in critical but stable condition and headed into surgery. Law enforcement officers found the woman dead in her apartment about two hours after the shooting.

According to King County Superior Court filings, the woman’s eviction process began in September of 2022 over her failure to pay about $6,300 in rent.

Housing Justice Project Senior Managing Attorney Edmund Witter said his office handled her case but could not say more due to attorney-client privilege.

However, the connection between evictions and death was not new to him. A person can match the names of people who died unsheltered to the names of people booted from their homes the year before pretty faithfully, Witter said.

“An eviction can feel like a death sentence,” he added.

On Monday, three deputies went to an apartment complex on the 800 block of NW 54th Street in Ballard to evict the woman, according to Meeghan Black, a spokesperson for King County’s Independent Force Investigation Team (IFIT). At about 9:30 am, deputies called for backup after “gunfire was exchanged.” One bullet slipped beneath a deputy’s bulletproof vest and exited through his body. Black initially said the two uninjured deputies fired their guns, but an IFIT statement released Tuesday said “investigators found evidence indicating all three deputies probably returned fire.”

After the exchange, the woman went back into her apartment and barricaded herself inside, Black said. About two hours later, the Seattle Police Department, who responded to the call about the injured deputy, entered the apartment and found the woman dead. Update, 3/22: According to the Medical Examiner’s office, she died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head.

Black said investigators were still looking into who shot first, whether police recovered a gun from inside the apartment, and how many shots were fired.

The Tuesday statement from IFIT named the other two detectives as Benjamin Wheeler and Benjamin Miller.

A member of a mutual aid organization on scene said over the weekend he delivered groceries to her. The source said he’d been working with her and knew she was facing eviction and that she’d put up two-by-fours and metal barricades over her door to prevent anyone from forcing her out of her apartment.

Gilman Park Partners, LLC, owns the Ballard apartment complex where the woman lived. In September, the company told the woman she had 14 days to either pay the rent she owed or vacate the apartment. The woman’s lease dated back to at least 2019, though records show she may have become a tenant sometime in 2018. She paid rent on time until 2020.

In court, the Housing Justice Project lawyers cited pandemic-related financial hardship as their argument against the eviction. Gilman’s attorneys said the woman hadn’t paid during the two months after the Mayor lifted Seattle’s civil emergency. In December, the court found in favor of the landlords.

Seattle’s ban on winter evictions prevented Gilman from kicking her out until after March 1. On Monday, the King County Sheriff’s deputies followed the court order to remove her from the apartment.

Idaho

BOISE, Idaho — Republican Gov. Brad Little signed a bill allowing execution by firing squad, making Idaho the latest state to turn to older methods of capital punishment amid a nationwide shortage of lethal-injection drugs.

The Legislature passed the measure March 20 with a veto-proof majority. Under it, firing squads will be used only if the state cannot obtain the drugs needed for lethal injections.

Pharmaceutical companies increasingly have barred executioners from using their drugs, saying they were meant to save lives. One Idaho death row inmate has already had his execution postponed repeatedly because of drug scarcity.

The shortage has prompted other states in recent years to revive older methods of execution. Only Mississippi, Utah, Oklahoma and South Carolina have laws allowing firing squads if other execution methods are unavailable, according to the Death Penalty Information Center. South Carolina’s law is on hold pending the outcome of a legal challenge.

Some states began refurbishing electric chairs as standbys for when lethal drugs are unavailable. Others have considered — and, at times, used — largely untested execution methods. In 2018, Nevada executed Carey Dean Moore with a never-before-tried drug combination that included the powerful synthetic opioid fentanyl. Alabama has built a system for executing people using nitrogen gas to induce hypoxia, but it has not yet been used.

The last person to be executed by a firing squad was convicted killer Ronnie Lee Gardner, according to the group, who was shot to death by a firing squad in a Utah prison in 2010.

During a historic round of 13 executions in the final months of Donald Trump’s presidency, the federal government opted for the sedative pentobarbital as a replacement for lethal drugs used in the 2000s. It issued a protocol allowing firing squads for federal executions if necessary, but that method was not used.

Idaho Sen. Doug Ricks, a Republican who co-sponsored that state’s firing squad bill, told his fellow senators Monday (3/20) that the state’s difficulty in finding lethal injection drugs could continue “indefinitely,” that he believes death by firing squad is “humane,” and that the bill would help ensure the rule of law is carried out.

But Sen. Dan Foreman, also a Republican, called firing-squad executions “beneath the dignity of the state of Idaho.” They would traumatize the executioners, the witnesses and the people who clean up afterward, he said.

Agency Director Jeff Tewalt has said he would be reluctant to ask his staffers to participate in a firing squad.

The law takes effect on July 1.

Other News

– Police

The Civilian Review and Complaints Commission, a watchdog arm of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, said on Thursday it would examine the activities of the community-industry response group, or C-IRG, based in British Columbia.

During the Fairy Creek blockade against old-growth forest logging on Vancouver Island, officers with the special unit were accused of ripping off protesters’ masks to pepper-spray them and dragging them by their hair.

A British Columbia supreme court judge subsequently ruled that the exclusion zones created by the RCMP – set up to prevent media from entering certain areas of the injunction area – were unlawful.

The C-IRG was also involved in protests over the Coastal GasLink pipeline, deploying riot control officers, dogs and helicopters to dismantle blockades – and as the Guardian has previously reported, was prepared to shoot on Indigenous protesters.

The RCMP has long faced criticism for its conduct against Indigenous peoples, and in recent years has faced mounting concerns over accountability and a disregard for court orders. The C-IRG has faced accusations of harassment, racism and excessive force – allegations the unit’s leadership has denied.

The unit is currently the target of a lawsuit alleging it used “unlawful tactics” to dismantle the Fairy Creek protest, and is also linked to a broader press freedom lawsuit after RCMP officers detained two journalists reporting on police efforts to tear down blockades against the Coastal GasLink pipeline on traditional Wet’suwet’en territory.

The RCMP oversight body says it will assess whether the unit’s operations are consistent with Canada’s charter of rights and freedoms, as well as recently passed legislation on the United Nations declaration on the rights of Indigenous peoples. The force has said it will also ensure the unit’s actions align with recommendations from a national inquiry into missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls.

The chair of the oversight group, Michelaine Lahaie, is not part of the RCMP.

The C-IRG unit, staffed with volunteer RCMP officers, was originally formed in 2017 to help resource-extraction protests proceed by breaking up public protest and blockades. The unit has cost nearly C$50m over the past five years, according to CBC News.

The CRCC has the ability to examine the conduct of individual officers to determine if policies or training need to change, the RCMP said.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/mar/10/canada-police-unit-excessive-force-environmental-activists?CMP=share_btn_fb

After police in Ohio raided Afroman’s house last August, the rapper — known for early aughts hits including “Because I Got High” and “Crazy Rap (Colt 45 and 2 Zig-Zags)” — decided to make something out of it.

Law enforcement had searched his home on suspicion of drug trafficking and kidnapping, but found no evidence and filed no charges against him. He says they kicked down his door, broke his video surveillance system, stole money from him and frightened his family.

Afroman, whose real name is Joseph Foreman, told NPR in a phone interview that what he did next was his “smartest, most peaceful solution.”

“I asked myself, as a powerless Black man in America, what can I do to the cops that kicked my door in, tried to kill me in front of my kids, stole my money and disconnected my cameras?” he says. “And the only thing I could come up with was make a funny rap song about them and make some money, use the money to pay for the damages they did and move on.”

He released an album with songs about the raid and made music videos out of the surveillance footage. He created merchandise and social media posts calling out the officers who had been involved.

Now, some of them are suing him, his label, and a Texas-based music distribution company for invasion of privacy.

– Immigration

https://www.cnn.com/2023/03/06/politics/biden-administration-migrant-family-detention/index.html

– Labor

Warrior Met Coal Strike Twitter @GrimKim W/Democracy Now
In an interview with Amy Goodman on Democracy Now she talks about the workers returning to work after the Warrior Mett Coal Strike that lasted over 2 years on the picket line with Labor reporter Kim Kelly who has been reporting on the strike since the beginning and author of fight like hell the untold history of American labor.  The president of United Mine Workers of America sent a letter to Warrior Met granting an unconditional offer to return to work on March 2nd as the two parties continue to negotiate a new contract. Here is the recording of their interview.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wuFbFs-qt48

Tweet thread by disabled person fired by Elon

https://twitter.com/iamharaldur/status/1633082707835080705

Elon Musk who can not seem to keep his name out of headlines since his mistake in purchasing the social media giant Twitter has caught the attention of lawyers across the nation as he shoots yet another hole in his feet by publicly tweeting about firing a disabled employee for their said disability and proceeding to mock him on twitter.

One of the tweets in question stated as follows

The reality is that this guy (who is independently wealthy) did no actual work, claimed as his excuse that he had a disability that prevented him from typing, yet was simultaneously tweeting up a storm. Can’t say I have a lot of respect for that.

In a Responding Tweet Thread by Hali@iamharaldur

Hi again

@elonmusk
I hope you are well. I’m fine too. I’m thankful for your interest in my health. But since you mentioned it, I wanted to give you more info. I have muscular dystrophy. It has many effects on my body. Let me tell you what they are:

My legs were the first to go. When I was 25 years old I started using a wheelchair. It’s been 20 years since that happened. In that time the rest of my body has been failing me too. I need help to get in and out of bed and use the toilet
For a long time I thought my arms would remain strong. A doctor told me they would. But they ended up losing strength. Which, I don’t mind telling you, was hard to accept. But you okay the cards you are dealt and I’ve managed to create a wonderful life.
My family is the best. I have two kids. I see them every day. I recommend that. My wife is fantastic. Strong, kind, smart, amazing artist. Couldn’t be happier with her.
About nine years ago I started a company called

@uenodotco
I worked a lot, it didn’t do my body any favors but it’s what I felt I needed to do. The hard work paid off and the company became very successful.

We worked for more or less every big tech company. We grew fast and made money. I think that’s what you are referring to when you say independently wealthy? That I independently made my money, as opposed to say, inherited an emerald mine.
But after seven years I was tired. Covid was running for longer than the two weeks you said it would. And my body was also continuing to get weaker. After looking at many options I decided to sell my company to Twitter.
Financially it wasn’t the best decision. My company was making a lot of money and Twitter’s offer was lower than any smart valuation would say. But like you I made a bet on Twitter having a lot more potential than it has had.
I joined at a time when the company was growing fast. You kind of did the opposite. There was a lot going on. The company had a fair amount of issues, but then again, most bigger companies do. Or even small companies, like Twitter today.
Anyway, I digress, are you still reading? Or is the bathroom break over? What was I saying? Ah yes, and then you bought the company and told employees you weren’t firing 75% of them. Which you then did.
I wasn’t in the first batch. Or the second or third or fourth. I’m not sure which layoff round I was in there were so many of them. Each one came after you promised the last one was the final one.
During my time at the new Twitter, or 2.0 as you called it, I talked to my manager every week and asked what I should focus on. And then I proceeded to do those things. Every one of them.
I also contacted HR regularly and asked if my job description was correct or needed updating. I wanted to make sure I was doing what I was supposed to. They always said they were looking into it but I never got a reply.
And now finally to my fingers, which I know you have great concern for. Thank you for that btw. I’ll tell you what I told them. I’m not able to do manual work (which in this case means typing or using a mouse) for extended periods of time without my hands starting to cramp.
I can however write for an hour or two at a time. This wasn’t a problem in Twitter 1.0 since I was a senior director and my job was mostly to help teams move forward, give them strategic and tactical guidance.
But as I told HR (I’m assuming that’s the confidential health information you are sharing) I can’t work as a hands on designer for the reasons outlined above. I’m typing this on my phone btw. It’s easier for because I only need to use one finger.
I hope that helps! Let me know if you are going to pay what you owe me? I think you can afford it?

https://gizmodo.com/musk-plans-company-town-texas-called-snailbrook-1850209426

Elon Musk, in another galaxy brained 4-d chess move or whatever his fan boys call it, is adding one more title to his resume: town owner. The multi-billionaire is reportedly working on building his own “utopia” in Texas and plans to name it Snailbrook.

According to the Journal, Musk’s plans include building a place for his employees to live and charging them roughly $800 per month for one and two-bedroom homes, with the caveat that they would have 30 days to vacate the premises if they were laid off or quit. Although the plans are still in the works, it seems like a good time to ask: Is this even a good idea?

A lot could be said about the history of company towns, but to summarize we would like to show you this clip by The Trillbillies on Means TV:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SugMvGn2wQQ

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/arkansas-gov-sanders-signs-measure-rolling-back-child-labor-protection-rcna73977

Arkansas Gov. Sanders signs measure rolling back child labor protections

Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders signed a measure this month loosening child labor protections in the state.

Under the law, the Youth Hiring Act of 2023, children under 16 do not have to obtain permission from the Division of Labor to get a job. They will no longer need to get an employment certificate, which verified their age, described their work and work schedule, and included written consent from a parent or guardian. Sanders signed the bill into law on Tuesday.

Alexa Henning, Sanders’ communication director, said that the permit requirement had placed an “arbitrary burden on parents” who needed government permission for their child to get a job.

“All child labor laws that actually protect children still apply and we expect businesses to comply just as they are required to do now,” Henning wrote in a statement to NBC News.

The move comes as the Biden administration has sought to crack down on child labor after media reports, including by NBC News, on the employment of minors, sometimes in grueling and dangerous jobs. It also comes as as several other states consider legislation to undo child labor laws.

Last month, the Labor Department announced it had found more than 3,800 children working at U.S. companies in violation of federal law. More than 100 children, some as young as 13, were working hazardous overnight jobs cleaning slaughterhouses for Packers Sanitation Services Inc., one of the country’s largest food sanitation companies, the Labor Department said. Some of them used “caustic chemicals to clean razor-sharp saws,” the department said. Ten of the violations occurred in Arkansas.

Since 2018, there has been a 69 percent increase in the number of children employed illegally by companies, the Labor Department said.

– Land Back

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/indecent-assault-trial-arthur-masse-manitoba-1.6770405

Native American tribe wants to reclaim 9,000 acres of Diablo Canyon land: ‘We’ve been waiting’ https://www.sanluisobispo.com/news/local/environment/article272531331.html

What will happen to nearly 11,000 acres of land encompassing California’s last nuclear power plant when it closes?

According to one proposal, about 9,000 acres of prime San Luis Obispo County real estate could return to the Native Americans who first occupied it.

The future of the massive property on which Diablo Canyon Power Plant sits was the subject of a public meeting held by the California Natural Resources Agency in the San Luis Obispo County Board of Supervisors chambers on Feb. 10. The agency must submit its land conservation and economic development plan for the Diablo Lands to the California State Legislature by March 23, according to State Senate Bill 846. That bill, which passed in September, allowed the state to loan up to $1.4 billion to PG&E to extend the life of Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant until 2030, about five years past its originally scheduled closure date. Additionally, the bill set aside $160 million for the land conservation and economic development plan. The plan must support “environmental enhancements and access of Diablo Canyon power plant lands and local economic development in a manner that is consistent with existing decommissioning efforts,” according to the bill. Beyond that, however, there aren’t too many details of what the plan should include, or how the $160 million should be spent. In general, the land, which is currently owned by PG&E and its subsidy Eureka Energy Company, is expected to be conserved forever to prevent it from being developed, according to proposals by community groups. The 600-acre parcel where the Diablo Canyon plant resides, known as Parcel P, could be turned into a large campus for research and education on sustainable ocean practices and energy innovation. But there’s one area where San Luis Obispo County community groups can’t quite agree: Who gets to own the remaining 10,800 acres of land that surround Parcel P?

Should Diablo Lands be granted to Native American tribe? While some community groups suggest a public entity such as California State Parks should own the land, one proposal — by REACH Central Coast, an economic development think tank; the yak titʸu titʸu yak tiłhini (ytt) Northern Chumash tribe, Cal Poly in San Luis Obispo and The Land Conservancy of San Luis Obispo County — requests the state allow most of the land to be owned by the tribe. The groups want 4,500 acres to the north of the plant and another 4,500 to the south to be transferred to the ytt tribe, with The Land Conservancy holding conservation easements on the land. The remaining 2,400 acres, known as the Wild Cherry Canyon lands, is under litigation in San Luis Obispo Superior Court. The groups propose that Wild Cherry Canyon be transferred to a public entity such as State Parks for ownership and management, while the ytt tribe could hold an access easement. “When we were removed from this land, we were removed violently and never given the opportunity to return,” said ytt chairwoman Mona Tucker. “We’ve been waiting for the opportunity to become the rightful owners and also appropriate stewards so that this land will look the way it looks 500 years from now, the way it looks today.” If completed, the land transfer to the Native American tribe, which is not federally recognized, would be one of the largest in recent California history, according to Albert Lundeen, director of media relations for the state Natural Resources Agency.

– Trans Rights

Neo-Nazis Spewing Racial Slurs Stormed an Ohio Drag Queen Story Hour

Neo-Nazis were among the hundreds of protesters at an Ohio drag queen story hour on March 11th, further underscoring the connection between white supremacy and anti-LGBTQ+ bigotry.

The Rock-n-Roll Humanist Drag Queen Story Hour was organized by Aaron and Krista Jo Reed, who were promoting a children’s book that introduces young ones to humanist philosophy, a belief system not rooted in religion that teaches the importance of good ethics. The event was accompanied by “a short Rock-n-Roll drag celebration performance,” per the event description.

– Right Wing

5 held after series of Fresno bombings. Police, FBI probe links to hate groups https://www.fresnobee.com/news/local/crime/article272640614.html

Fresno Police Chief Paco Balderrama on March 1st announced the arrest of five people after a series of bombings in the city. A task force of local police and FBI agents also seized bomb-making components, firearms, methamphetamine and white supremacist paraphernalia, including Nazi flags. The investigation ranged as far as Riverside County, where Scott Anderson, 44, the suspected bomber, was arrested together with Frank Rocha, 56. Two other men are in custody after they were arrested in Fresno: Steven Burkett, 51; and Paul New, 55. Also arrested was Amanda Sanders, 41. Balderrama, at a news conference at downtown police headquarters, said investigators are trying to ascertain if Anderson or the other four are linked directly to known white supremacist groups.

The series of bombings began Dec. 13, 2022, with an explosion in a car at 5674 E. Clinton Ave. Other bombings took place at: 3560 West San Jose, in a car, on Jan. 8 2763 North Argyle, in a mailbox, on Jan. 27 5674 East Clinton, in a car, on Jan. 27 377 West Fallbrook, in a car, on Feb. 19 2048 North Fine on Feb. 21, in a car at a Fresno County Probation Office Anderson, who has a criminal record that includes being a felon in possession of a firearm, is accused of detonating an explosive device and possession of firearms. Rocha is accused of possession bomb-making materials. Burkett is facing charges of possession of firearms and ammunition as a felon. New is facing charges of possessing firearms and explosives as a convicted felon. Sanders was charged with possession of the methamphetamine. Balderrama said that it is too early in the investigation to determine whether a hate crime had been committed or if one was planned. He also said the was concerned that the bombings were becoming more frequent and brazen.

Exposed: Dallas Humber, Narrator Of Neo-Nazi ‘Terrorgram,’ Promoter Of Mass Shootings https://www.huffpost.com/entry/dallas-humber-terrorgram-narrator-mass-shootings_n_64010e78e4b0d14ed6a6a545?qah=

Florida bill would require bloggers who write about the governor and legislators to register with the state https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/florida-bill-require-bloggers-write-governor-legislators-register-stat-rcna73191

A Republican state senator in Florida has introduced a bill that, if passed, would require bloggers who write about Gov. Ron DeSantis, his Cabinet or state legislators to register with the state.

Sen. Jason Brodeur’s bill, titled “Information Dissemination,” would also require bloggers to disclose who’s paying them for their posts about certain elected officials and how much.

“If a blogger posts to a blog about an elected state officer and receives, or will receive, compensation for that post, the blogger must register” with the appropriate office within five days of the post, the legislation says.

It defines “elected state officer” as “the Governor, the Lieutenant Governor, a Cabinet officer, or any member of the Legislature.”

Failing to register would result in a fine of $25 a day, and the penalty would be capped at $2,500 per posting, NBC affiliate WFLA of Tampa reported.

The bill says the bloggers’ reports to the state “must include” the “individual or entity that compensated the blogger for the blog post, and “the amount of compensation received from the individual or entity.”

The bill defines a blog as “a website or webpage that hosts any blogger and is frequently updated with opinion, commentary, or business content,” but it says the “term does not include the website of a newspaper or other similar publication.”

DeSantis’s office said Friday it was reviewing the bill. “As usual, the governor will consider the merits of a bill in final form if and when it passes the legislature,” said his press secretary, Bryan Griffin.

Ron Kuby, a First Amendment lawyer in New York, said the law would not survive a court challenge if it is passed.

– Additional Headlines

Uniquely Evil Minnesota Republican Steve Drazkowski Votes Against Free School Lunches Because “Hunger Is a Relative Term”

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2023/03/steve-drazkowski-minnesota-free-school-lunches

South Carolina Bill to Execute People Who Have Abortions Gets Support From 21 Republicans

https://www.commondreams.org/news/south-carolina-abortion-death-penalty

9th grader sues school district after staffer allegedly ‘physically assaulted’ her when she didn’t recite the Pledge of Allegiance

https://abcnews.go.com/US/9th-grader-sues-school-district-after-staffer-allegedly/story?id=97803847

March 2, 2023-
– Minneapolis Teachers Union, Cops Battle Over Student Recruitment
– Israeli Forces Kill 11 Palestinians and Shoot Over 100 During Raid on Nablus
March 4, 2023-
– ‘Stop Cop City’ Week of Action Begins in Atlanta
March 5, 20230-
– Police Raid Atlanta Forest After ‘Cop City’ Opponents Overrun Security Post
March 10, 2023-
– ‘Don’t Let Them Kill Vio.Me.’ Decade-Long Greek Factory Occupation Threatened
March 12, 2023-
– What is the Lukov March and Why Was it Banned in Bulgaria?
March 13, 2023-
– Triple Bank Collapse hits Silicon Valley & NY amid Economic Downturn
– Manuel ‘Tortuguita’ Terán’s Independent Autopsy Report Released at Press Conference
March 14, 2023-
– FBI Bookstore Spying in Chicago Eyes Abortion Rights, Cop City, Anti-Development Activists
March 16, 2023-
– Dancing Revolution: How ’90s Protests Used Rave Culture to Reclaim the Streets
March 17, 2023-
– ‘Anti-Protest’ Measure Passes Minneapolis City Council
March 18, 2023-
– An Historic Direct Action in a Forest Outside Atlanta
March 19, 2023-
– #FeesMustFall – South Africa’s Student Movement for Free Education
March 20, 2023-
– The Case of Marvin Haynes – Part Three: The Framing of Marvin Haynes
March 21, 2023-
– Behind the #StopCopCity Domestic Terrorism Warrants
March 23, 2023
FBI Informant ‘Microchip’ Surfaces in White Supremacist Election Interference Trial
March 24, 2023
Ahead of the Final Four, Houston Criminalizes Homelessness
March 24, 2023
Eight Remain in Jail from March 5 Weelaunee Forest Raid, 15 Released
March 26, 2023
Acrylate Water Safety Emergency Hits Philly; Residents Scramble for Bottled Water
March 29, 2023
Administrative Detention and ‘Medical Neglect’ in Israeli Prisons Lead to Deaths and Protests

It’s Going Down is a digital community center for anarchist, anti-fascist, autonomous anti-capitalist and anti-colonial movements across so-called North America. Their mission is to provide a resilient platform to publicize and promote revolutionary theory and action. You can find the following articles on their website at itsgoingdown.org:

March 1, 2023-
– Cities Across the US Take Part in ‘Week of Action’ Against Cop City
– In Memory of the Unyielding Anarchist Rebel, Librado Rivera
– In Contempt #26: Fight to Free Mumia Continues; Keith LaMar on Hunger Strike; Repression Ramps Up
March 2, 2023-
Davis to Protest Charlie Kirk Tour After CEO Calls for Trans People to Be “Taken Care Of The Way We Used To In the 1950s”
March 6, 2023-
– “The Amount of Solidarity is Incredible Here”: Voices on the Frontlines of the Fight to Stop Cop City
– Fire Ant: Anarchist Prisoner Solidarity #15
– We Got Us: A Case Study and Reflections on Supporting an Arrestee from the 2020 Uprisings
– Antifascists Drop Banner Against “Grade A Grifter” Jordan Petersen in Vancouver
– Report Back from Rally in Solidarity with Resistance to Cop City in Avon, MA
– Message from Yaqui Political Prisoner Fidencio Aldama to the National Indigenous Congress
March 7, 2023-
– Freedom for Manuel Gómez Vázquez, Member of the Zapatista Support Bases
– Temporary Occupation in NYC Calls for Divestment from ‘Cop City’ in Atlanta, GA
March 8, 2023-
– The Show Must Go On: On Sunday’s Arrests at the South River Music Festival
– Atlanta, GA: Elders Say Stop Cop City!
– Canadian Tire Fire #55: CGL and TMX Updates, Immigration Policy, and Fighting Encampment Evictions
March 9, 2023-
– Ron DeSantis, Interstate Autocratization, and Building Resistance
March 12, 2023-
– Report Back from Noise Demo in Support of Those Facing ‘Domestic Terrorism’ Charges in Atlanta, GA
– Gulfgate Tenants Fight Back Against Abusive Slumlords
March 13, 2023-
– Community Defense Blocks Sacramento Proud Boys From Disrupting Children’s Event
– Mutual Aid and Banner Drops Push Back on Ongoing Attacks on the Houseless in Aberdeen, WA
Dungeons and Dugin: How an Alliance of Authoritarians Hopes to Destroy a Politics of Solidarity

March 14, 2023-
– Montreal: Banner Drop for Weelaunee Forest Defenders
March 15, 2023-
– Report from NYC Rally in Solidarity with Alfredo Cospito
March 16, 2023-
– Art Campaign for the Freedom of Manuel Gómez Vázquez
Mar 17, 23
This Is America #183: Report from Atlanta During ‘Week of Action’ Against Cop City
March 18, 2023-
– Kite Line: We Have to Stick Together++
– Charlie Kirk and Proud Boys Confronted at UC Davis
March 19, 2023-
–Final Straw: Felony Littering Trials Under Way in Asheville
March 20, 2023-
– “We are Not in the Least Afraid of Ruins”: Food Autonomy in the Weelaunee Forest
March 21, 2023-
– April 28th – 30th: 2nd Biannual Call for Weekend of Distroing
March 22, 2023-
– Corvallis Against Fascism: Five Years of Nazi Tears
– Community Defense Organizations Disrupt Transphobic Rally in Jefferson City, Missouri

Crimethought is everything that evades control:

CrimethInc. is a rebel alliance. CrimethInc. is a banner for anonymous collective action. CrimethInc. is an international network of aspiring revolutionaries. CrimethInc. is a desperate venture.

Check out these articles at crimethinc.com
March 2, 2023 – Defending Abundance Everywhere A Call to Every Community from the Weelaunee Forest
March 8, 2023 – Jin, Jiyan, Azadi (Woman, Life, Freedom): The Genealogy of a Slogan
March 16, 2023 – Disasters of State: On the Earthquakes in Turkey and Syria
March 22, 2023 – France: The Movement against the Pension Reform. On the Threshold of an Uprising?
2023-03-27 A Coup d’État in Israel? :The Bitter Harvest of Colonialism
2023-03-30 France in Flames: Macron Attempts to Crush the Movement against the Pension Reform with Lethal Violence

Segment One – The Problem With Good Cops

Every day people in this town who are unhoused and spend their nights along the city streets of Aberdeen are moved along each day by the police in this town. Even those in camps allowed by the City are routinely swept out of their spot to “clean”. This process of cleaning involves moving people out of the structures they’ve built and demolishing them, along with any belongings they aren’t able to remove in time. This causes untold instability as compared to the old River Camp, where people were able to build structures and have a stable place to camp. The police helped to evict this long term camp by the Chehalis River in 2019, and continue to keep people from entering the unused City portion of the property today.

When the City refuses entry to their unused property they force people to occupy private property and city streets. This functions as another manufactured problem, intended to drive people into the downtown streets and upset local business people. The City knows that the business community is primed and ready to blame the unhoused for their low profits, and this can be an easy way to legitimize the push for eradication of the now demonized population.

If they let them keep that property and even helped provide sanitation and water services then they could have prioritized housing people over the last four years.

And its not just that one property by the river. The City owns hundreds of properties, many of which could be used to house an encampment.

As organizers in this community we are frequently told of the harassment by the City and the police, including this constant shuffling, the throwing away of personal belongings, and the arrests of people for crimes of poverty such as petty theft, driving on a suspended license, or illegal camping. The police commit these acts under the guise of helping, but they clearly serve the City government, not the community. Police in this town are complicit and, in fact active, in the eliminationist plans of the City. Their position above us in the systems of state hierarchy results in looking down at people in need and feeling superior rather than contemptuous whether they feel any guilt for their position of privilege or not, but they enforce policies that amount to genocide, they will never feel the bond of solidarity with those struggling under the oppressive system police uphold. Can we really be proud of police who attempt to use their position to undo a tiny fraction of the pain caused by the system they enforce in the first place?

C: They also have an incredible amount of discretion to arrest or not when they are working their beat. If they like you they are more likely to let you go with a warning than if they don’t like you.

S: Doug do you have any examples of instances in which the police have utilized their discretion

D: yeah that reminds me of a situation with my old friend Jeff

S: Tell us more about that

D: Well just he had warrant for his arrest, we where standing out at his place one day and the cop driving by happened to recognize him, stopped and told him he had a warrant for his arrest. Jeff said he couldn’t go to jail right then, that he’d missed a court date or something is what it was. He said he forgot about the court date and asked if he could get another court date and he’d be there, and the cop said no that wasn’t his decision, the jail wants you, you have a warrant and you’re going to jail. And Jeff tried to explain it to him, look if I go to jail, I”m not gonna be here when it’s time to pay my rent, its not gonna get taken care of, and ill end up loosing my house. And the cop said well I guess you should have went to court you know, you should have taken care of your responsibility. Jeff tells him look I didn’t do it on purpose, I you know, I just missed court give me another court date and ill be there. The cop flat our refused to work with him at all, said it wasn’t his choice, he had no say in the matter whatsoever. And Jeff finally got pissed and told him fine take me to jail, he says, and if I loose my house when I’m in there, when I get out I’m moving in the bushes across the street from your house, and ill stay there until I find another house. Ill live there. And the cop knew Jeff too and knew Jeff was deadly serious. He would have. And it took all of like five minutes for that officer to come back and issue a new court date.

S: That’s that discretion we were talking about.

Yeah that they say they don’t have whenever they wanna arrest you.

S:Yeah but they use it to their advantage. They use it if they pull over someone they know or like, or looks like them, they’ll let them go with a warning, or a pretty lady, or whatever

-Or one of their friends

S: all this stupid shit. But all those laws are just, its like everyone is breaking the law all the time while they’re driving, and its so that they can pull you over. And its not about oh you’re speeding or oh your taillight or this and that. Its just so they can sniff your car, see if you’ve got anything else on you, look at your pupils.

-or generate revenue

S:Its all like to get like maybe there’s a bigger bust in their trunk or something.

ya, Well that’s like me driving just to go to work or what not. I know its a gamble for me driving whether i do the speed limit or not, like coming in from Elma on your average week night after work ya know 5 o clock or so when people are getting off work that average speed  through there is about 70 miles an hour, that’s 10 miles over the speed limit. so you either keep up with traffic and the cop picks you at random and he wants to pull you over because your speeding or you stand out in traffic which is a reason for them to pull you over, your not going with the flow of traffic

S: So they can basically pull over whoever they want at any time, cause they can find something on you if they follow you for ya know half a mile or whatever

-mhmm

yup,

I don’t remember what i read it in, the average person breaks i think it was 4 laws before lunchtime everyday.

S: Ya because there are so many of them and they are so arbitrary, and you don’t know

-ya

you don’t know it, its something that really makes no difference one way or the other if it was a law or not a lot of times

C: Referring back to the so called “good cops” who do what they can to differentiate themselves from the truisms of civil abuse that plague most officers, they still more often than not can still cause harm with their state mediated “assistance”. Similar to the critiques of the intersection of Billionaire Philanthropy & the Non Profit Industrial Complex, there are many problems that can arise when resources or so called “assistance” is administered by a sole arbiter with a position of authority as the one who makes the decisions on how those resources or “assistance” is doled out. Such as resources being wasted and mismanaged by non profits who launder the money of the rich spending millions of dollars from donations on things like sleeping bags and tents for the homeless when what people need is housing or say when an officer arrests someone with the hope of getting them help in prison. When in actuality this just locks them into the cycle of prisons and poverty.

That’s a great critique to bring up. The idea that one person can even make such a decision is the point. Why should one person, such as a police officer, be the one who decides your fate? The amount of discretion they have in making arrests is a huge source of abuse. We can always focus on the good stories of when a cop you knew or whatever let you off with a warning, but those stories are simply stories of privileged populations. Those stories erase the stories that we don’t hear as often of when the officer decided NOT be be lenient and give a warning but decided to enforce a law and conduct an arrest. Their decision is a decision that can affect a person’s entire life, and yet they make them based on things like familiarity with the suspect, how hungry they are at the time of the interaction, or whether or not the person in question shows them what they feel is the proper respect. People want to give the nice cop that let them go some sort of award, but the fact that they had the ability to let you go is precisely what we are critiquing, because they don’t let everyone go with that warning.

Rotten Apples

The so-called “Rotten Apple” theory of police abuse is held by both police commanders and their allies. It states that it is the exception to the rule when police officers commit abuses, that it is a tiny minority of officers who do so. It is, in other words, a means of protecting the organization from scrutiny and of avoiding change. The problem with this mentality is that it is not the individual who is to blame for the level of violence we see in police departments across the country. Police sympathizers will say that it is unfair to blame the whole police department for the actions of a few, and yet this is a obfuscation of this issue at hand. We claim that the root of police violence is the institution itself and The State that gives them their monopoly on legitimate violence. These are institutional critiques and you cannot remove them from the discussions of individual police officers. By being a part of the institution of policing, all officers are complicit in the worst of its abuses.

When police here show up to a unhoused encampment eviction, it’s not to provide assistance, it is to ensure compliance. The City would not be able to enforce these harmful policies if the police didn’t show up with their guns and the ability to arrest anyone who stood up to oppose the eviction. The “Rotten Apple” theory first appeared in the Knapp Commission Report released in 1973. This theory holds that any police misconduct is the result of individual officers deviating from the standard policy, organizational and institutional factors are downplayed or ignored. This model perceives police corruption as a rotten apple in a clean barrel. In other words, it is an individualistic model of deviance. In contrast to the “Rotten Apple” theory, the “Rotten Barrel” theory emphasizes organizational influences and factors. It is the barrel making the apple rotten.

C: Why do we keep having to deal in these ridiculous hypotheticals? We aren’t talking about barrel of apples here, were talking about the structure of policing. These hypotheticals only serve to flatten a discussion full of nuance and complexity. This drive to turn every conversation about complex issues into a simple hypothetical is infuriating!

S: Well the idea of removing rotting apples from a barrel full of apples is great when you have a barrel of apples and not an organization of violent and welll armed individuals who are given ultimate social authority. And yeah it doesnt make much sense to couch things in these terms, but even in academic papers its what they use to describe their theories.

Well back to the article:

The “Rotten Apple” theory has argued that deviant police officers bring their undesirable traits into the policing profession when they are hired. In this view, the solution becomes perhaps increased psychological screening for officers, keeping potential “bad apples” out of the barrel. Studies have found that many police officers display sociopathic and antisocial personalities. They have found that since the environment in which police work provides unlimited opportunities for corruption and abuse, many officers tend to have sociopathic traits. But these reforms and safeguards do not address the root of the problem – the institution of policing itself.

The idea that sociopaths can be screened for is absurd on its face. the very definition of a sociopath means they would be able to get around such screenings with ease.

People with antisocial personality disorder tend to purposely make others angry or upset and manipulate people. They also don’t care if they hurt people while they do so. They usually lack remorse or do not regret their behavior. People with this disorder are not just going to screened out with a questionnaire.

Exactly,  a sociopath isn’t incapable of being nice or a decent person in contrast to harming people, they often do their best to act like one in front of those that it is advantageous for them to do so, its not that they can’t do these things it’s that they have made a conscious choice not to. Screening for sociopaths in a profession specifically built to attract them is laughable for the simple fact that Sociopaths Lie!

Rotten Barrel

Over the last three decades the Structural Theory, or “Rotten Barrel” theory, of corruption has gained more attention. As more and more scholars have looked deeper into the history and subculture of policing, they have come to realize that corruption is a inherent feature of policing, that is ingrained into the structure itself.

In his book Character and Cops: Ethics in Policing Edwin J. Delattre explains that as a young, naïve individual enters a profession where the worst of people is exposed to them, they are socialized to this environment by senior officers who have become cynical and lost faith in police work. Under pressure to form bonds of mutual trust and reliance while witnessing corrupt practices, it’s realized that superiors don’t support efforts to behave honorably, that sanctions for corruption are negligible, and the young officer will probably accept the status quo and join in the corrupt practices.

There is now a huge body of work that supports this theory, as seen in the numerous reports of corruption within units in departments and entire departments themselves. Officers tend to only associate and socialize with each other because of all the social isolation brought on by the job. When the public at large complains about police work, they claim that the public is being mislead and that they have “misconceptions” about police, this serve to reinforce the bonds of the profession. This need to bond together forms what is called a “siege mentality” – where it is Us vs Them. Trust between officers up and down the chain of command is important, and since supervisors are already socialized in this way, they are more likely to have already accepted certain levels of corruption and brutality as minor things. These behaviors are minimized by the organization, to stabilize the overall system.

Individual police officers can have their own values subverted and corrupted through the social norms of the group. The “brotherhood” demanded by the job can detract from their moral belief system and cause them to do things “on the job” that they would not do to a person in their normal life.

The structure of policing provides officers with the incentive of a unique kind of social authority. It also gives them a high degree of discretion, and a low degree of supervision. Most bureaucratic institutions like police departments contain hierarchical qualities that facilitate abuse and deviance. The division of labor into specialized units, limited career mobility, and the distinct sub-culture that values maintenance of the status quo above all. These are structural and systemic issues, not individual ones, we cannot reform or modify this structure to achieve anything else, it does what it does incredibly well. This is not a broken system, it is one designed to impose the will of the ruling class on the poor and marginalized. What is needed is something that prioritizes people’s safety and the root causes of harm in society, not brutal gangs with unlimited power.

Warren v. District of Columbia^[1] (444 A.2d. 1, D.C. Ct. of Ap. 1981) is a District of Columbia Court of Appeals case that held that the police do not owe a specific duty to provide police services to specific citizens based on the public duty doctrine.

Castle Rock v. Gonzales, 545 U.S. 748 (2005), is a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court ruled, 7–2, that a town and its police department could not be sued under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 for failing to enforce a restraining order, which had led to the murders of a woman’s three children by her estranged husband.^[1] The decision has since become infamous and condemned by several human rights groups.^[2][3][4].

Bad apples do exist, but that is not the issue either. The fact that some people are abusers is precisely why we shouldn’t have the position of police. It invites too much abuse and corruption. We can find terrible sociopaths in many occupations, but only the police are given such inordinate amounts of power and lethal control over the population. When the profession in question is policing, it should be clear that the threat is too great to allow anyone to have that much power and discretion. We need to have systems of justice and safety that are responsive and accountable to us.

This is exactly the same argument that can be made for any position of authority, from police to politicians to parents, to bosses. No one should be elevated to a position of authority over another person. That is the basis for abuse, cause if there was no power imbalance in a relationship between two people than they would not be able to exert control over each other, meaning there could be no abuse.

It is those structures of power imbalances, hierarchies, that lead to abuse of authority in the first place. So if we do away with those imbalances of power, then we can reduce the instances of abuse as well.

Monopoly on Violence

The anarchist theory of The State holds that it is a tool by which a small group of people rule a large group of people, against their interest. Police enforce this rule through displaying overwhelming force against criminalized populations. This force is the only socially acceptable form of violence within the envisioned society. People are not to commit acts of aggression against one another or The State, but The State grants itself the ability to meter out violence against those deemed “criminals”. The society accepts this, and thus the power of The State is wielded at the hands of the police. Every utterance from the mouth of a politician is a police order. Without the police to enforce their will over ours, they would be nothing.

The Prison Industrial Complex (PIC) is a term used to describe the overlapping interests of government and industry which use surveillance, policing, and incarceration as solutions to economic, social, and political problems. Individuals in the ruling class use this apparatus to extract profits from the brutal enslavement of a portion of the population, with people made to work in prison labor camps for little to no money. These profits come at the expense of the poor and vulnerable, who are preyed upon by The State to fill their prisons and jails.

Bob barker industries, they are the ones who pushed for the privatizations of prisons because he sells all the, not bob barker the TV show host hes a different Bob Barker but all your indigent supplies when your in prison the soap they give you to wash with the combs they give you to ya know brush your hair with,  the shoes, the little plastic soap dishes, every little item like that is all from bob barker industries he contracts with the different states to sell them his items for the prisons like they make these uh, its supposed to be a writing pen but its basically a little tiny pen stuck in a straw its meant so you cant use someone hard to stab someone with or anything like that there ways around it like you take paper and roll it up around it and it makes it stiffen up  enough to stab someone if you needed to

he was making all the money from that then he started, well i think it was him or one of his family members that started Keefe, not just coffee they make all kinds of chips, snacks, and everything else but its only sold to prisons and inmate systems.

C:-Keefe Coffee

But they’re all the same company, its all that bob barker that owns it all. Now hes got privatized prisons that they buy the prisons and that, like hes got one i know for sure is in Arizona that are overflow that we have here that we don’t have room for or we cant house here even though we are shutting down prisons we pay him to house those inmates in his private prison in Arizona he gets the money from the industry that he creates in the prison for the inmates working he gets money from the inmates that they are paid that goes to them he gets money for money that is sent into them and he gets money from the state federally for helping or something like that he

C:- Cost of incarceration or something like that?

Ya but not like we pay our prisons OK so much of our taxes goes into keeping our prison system running  in this state OK he doesn’t get it quite like that cause he owns the prison he makes money by renting it out  but he does get it from the federal government I don’t remember weather its in tax reliefs or whatever else because he does it

This is the function of the police, to enforce the decisions and to protect the interests of the ruling class and impose their will on the people, through violence.

Police organizations hold a large share of the blame for police violence, not simply individual officers. With the complexity of modern police departments brutality may be encouraged from below or above, and can adapt to many conditions. Both formally and informally these organizations and their hierarchical nature tend to push people towards a climate of tolerating and even promoting unnecessary violence. The more formal aspects of policing that lead to violence is the training given to officers, the priorities in the field, what money and time is spent on, and the system of promotions it offers.

On the other hand, when police culture itself, as well as informal occupational norms, are the support base for violent tendencies, then this brutality can arise from below. The thin blue line mentality, the code of silence, indifference to the problems of police brutality, generalized suspicion of the population, and the intense demand for personal respect can be counted in this regard. The average officer regards the public as the enemy, and feels that their occupation is in conflict with the community. These collective experiences and feeling give rise to the shared belief that police need to be secret and insular in their dealings. The persistent refusal to deal with violent abuses with proper legal consequences is also another check in the column of systemic police abuses. Even when individual officers disapprove of an act of violence, it is necessarily condoned by the organization that seeks to protect and defend each officer involved in allegations of abuse, applying as few consequences as possible.

C: Can you think of any time any type of officer was bitten in the ass by the system for attempting to be a good cop

You see in prison a lot of times there’s always those one or two CO’s that its not that they go out of there way to treat you special  or anything like that they just give you basic human courtesy ya know  and other officers see that they don’t like it they don’t feel that’s the way you should be treated so if your consistently that way ya know towards an inmate they’ll make life hard on you to you’ll get stuck with shit shifts or working in the wrong area of the prison you don’t want to be in, most of the guys in there realize who those officers are who are decent and do treat you fairly so we don’t put them in positions where ya know seen doing that so much and kind a protect the ones who are actually treating you fairly

S: So the good officers actually make the bad officers act worse, out of spite

-at times

ya at times

S: Why are they treating you so good?

Ya why, why do the inmates  listen or respect this officer who is smaller than me ya know less vocal than me and all this but yet he says jump and they jump right to it i tell them to do it and they want to argue it and fight. Its a matter of how you treat us.  ya know you treat everyone in there like shit your going to find out some shit ya know? Treat people with respect and you’ll find most people who are in there are just people who have made a mistake.

Even in the case of Derek Chauvin, who tortured and murdered George Floyd publicly and on camera for nine minutes and 29 seconds, prosecutor Jerry Blackwell opened by telling the jurors that they would be hearing about how it was not policy to use the force that Derek Chauvin applied, and that the individual officer, not the police as a whole is what is on trial. This obscures the racist violence inherent in the US policing system.

“Black people who are unarmed or not attacking police are 3.5 times more likely to be killed by police than white people,” the Brookings Institution found. “More than 75 percent of the time, choke holds are applied on men of color.”

Every time we see this happen it is only a fraction of the cases that we don’t hear about because they weren’t filmed. Initially, when an act of violence occurs, officers face little punishment of any kind, and only when people protest and riot in the streets over it do are charges ever brought. Originally, The MPD [Minnesota Police Department] fired Chauvin, then prosecutors charged him with third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter. Only later, after much protest, did they add a charge of second-degree murder.

But what would have happened if eyewitnesses had not recorded Floyd’s death? Would Chauvin have been fired and charged with murder?

For nine minutes and 29 seconds, Chauvin continued to choke Floyd as several bystanders watched, many visibly recording the killing. Chauvin didn’t try to hide what he was doing. As eyewitness Genevieve Hansen testified, Chauvin looked “comfortable” with his weight on Floyd’s neck.

Clearly we cannot rely on the court system to bring justice to those brutalized and murdered by the police, as they are a part of the same system that is responsible for the many violent acts committed against poor people of color. We must build capacity outside of their systems of retribution and incarceration, as these are not what we want to base our justice in. We must organized the affected communities to challenge State power and the monopoly they hold on legitimate violence. By establishing ourselves as parallel sources of legitimate power, we can control our own communities free from police.

C: Your average citizen impoverished or not cannot afford a private lawyer and are stuck to the reserves of overworked public defenders, what kind of defense can we expect when our defenders are part of the same team that are trying to prosecute and profit off of you?

D: mhmm all the rights, well i wont say all of them ,  most of the rights that they read  you in court are just words there not actual rights that are enforced or anything like that or enforced reasonably just like with that example one of the things they tell you is that if you cant afford an attorney one will be appointed for you well if your going to pay for the attorney why shouldn’t I be able to pick the attorney that I want to defend me, if I had the money I’d pay for the attorney I wanted. So if I don’t have it ya know I’m not entitled to what i think is reasonable defense?  and the judge is picking your ya know your attorney your attorney for you, the judge is the one  well just that judging you and sentencing you he shouldn’t be the one picking what your defense is.

S: And paid by the same people

D: and there is no such thing as a fair trial by a jury of your peers because when you see a drug addict sitting in the court room that are in there for robbery charges. how many other drug addict robbers do you see sitting in the ya know jury’s box? They don’t poll for that stuff that would be  your peers 28 year old drug addict, thief, whatever ya know  that would be a group of the peers you don’t see that sitting in the jury box what you see sitting in the jury box is a lot of times business men and  business women and no matter what they come from in the community most of them have some sort of business background or something like that that-

S: People who have the almost the luxury of serving on a jury, I mean like who the fuck has the ability to take time off work to go serve on a jury, not the average person , I know that all the jobs Ive ever worked I would have lost if I had tried to go serve on a jury.

Well no you wouldn’t of lost it they have to give you your job if your ordered to serve on a jury but they don’t want you there its as simple as  well gee he had a bad attitude at work today I think I’m gonna let you go.

S:  ya especially working in restaurants, carrying on with the article

Who Will Protect And Serve Us?

We must establish community defense initiatives, building the capacity of these grassroots organizations to be able to defend the working class against police violence, as well as providing mediation and conflict resolution within the community.

A three-pronged approach is recommended in Rebellion Against Police Violence by The First of May Anarchist Alliance:

First we should be able to mobilize and respond quickly in our neighborhoods in order to prevent, defend, or retaliate against police terrorism. Second, we should be able to hold regular meetings in the community in order to address conflicts between neighbors so as to eliminate our dependence on police to resolve our disagreements. Finally, should one someone in our communities become a victim of police violence, we should have the ability to create enough of a disruption in the lives of the ruling class in order to force them to give us justice by meeting the demands of the victim and/or their family.

It is vital that these defense organizations be non-hierarchical and not just another gang wielding power over the people. It is to be made up of the people. Our capacity for self-defense needs to be generalized to the whole population. The power we have is collective, and The State uses rifts between sectors of society to divide and conquer us. These divisions must be healed in order to empower us to defend everyone with care, respect, and justice.

Responses to harm must be handled within the community and at the local level, with transformative and restorative approaches to justice. We do not need to replace the police, what we need is something entirely different that actually addresses the social inequities that lead to so-called crime and the actual sources of abuse and harm in our communities. These are communal and social methods of dealing with people who cause harm, it is not about punishment but about stopping the behavior and healing the community as a whole. In this light it can be seen that those most in need of being held to justice are the police themselves.

Opposing Opposition

As Crimethinc notes in their piece Why Fuck The Police, criticism of opposition to police usually falls into one of five categories. First being the argument that police are fellow workers, and should be our allies. But the police exist to enforce the will of the ruling class, they are managers, not workers, they manage the population for the ruling class. They routinely help to squash dissent and attempts at revolution and striking. They cannot be our allies until they leave their positions. By publicly deriding the police as an institution, we can insist that police get real jobs, and then join us on the barricades. But as long as they follow the orders of the day, they can never be our allies.

Today’s police officers, at least in North America, know exactly what they’re getting into when they join the force; people in uniform don’t just get cats out of trees in this country. Yes, most take the job because of what they feel to be economic necessity, but needing a paycheck is no excuse for obeying orders to evict families, harass young men of color, or pepper spray demonstrators; those whose consciences can be bought are everyone else’s enemies, not potential allies.

The second argument goes that because the police have such overwhelming force, and resources at their disposal, they can certainly win in any fight. So we shouldn’t fight them, since it is a loosing battle, not worth our time. This is a strategic calculation made by those who have never dealt with the police in a confrontation and discovered just how stupid they really are. The police are heavily limited and constrained in what they can get away with, needing to balance public perception  with the need to deploy overwhelming force. This is why a small crowd of protesters can hold off a larger, well organized force of police. These contests are not decided on the lines of a military engagement. There are complex social pressures at play that allow the clever anarchist to outsmart and outmaneuver the police. These displays of victory are important, not matter how small, as they demonstrate the willingness of people to rebel against the system, and that is always inspiring to others.  They let anarchists show that reality is negotiable, and that their grip on society is not as stable as it may appear.

The third category of argument is that the police are a mere distraction from the real enemy – The State. But as we discussed already, without the police to carry out their orders politicians would be little more than whiny brats debating alone in a room somewhere about how other people should live their lives. The police are not the end of the fight, but to ignore them is to risk loosing entirely as they are the fundamental repressive arm of The State, the one most likely to be used against us in our struggle for liberation.

The fourth line of argument is that we actually need police. Yikes! According this logic, even if we can think about a future scenario in which we have no need for police, we still need them today, because people aren’t ready to live peacefully together without armed mediators. But the social imbalances maintained by the police is far from peace. Is it not important that the abolition of police be carried out in a snap of a finger tomorrow, the point is that we need to make strides towards a concrete goal and not be abstract in what we are fighting for. If you think some police officers are good individuals, then fine. But they are still police officers, upholding the violence of The ENTIRE State apparatus, and everything that entails. Naïvety is only so much of an excuse for perpetuating this sort of cruelty on people. The idea is not that conflict and harm will disappear with police, but that we need better methods of dealing with conflict and harm than police.

The final argument is from the pacifist camp, whose opposition to all forms of violence leads them to counter that it is inherently wrong to use violence in service of liberation. To use it would make us just as bad as them, for example. But if the point is to make the world a better place, then it will necessitate violence in certain situations, such as opposition to Nazi Germany.

Ive seen this argument brought up alot, in my experience it is often used performatively by centrists and the apolitical as a way of avoiding a deeper discussion of the politics of violence and feign a position of neutrality. They would prefer the false peace that is sustained by coercion via the threat of state violence. It is impossible for us to remain neutral in the face of oppression, to do so is to provide tacit support for the actions of oppressors. So long as we are willing to look the other way we will continue to be complicit in their abuses and our hands will be stained with the blood of their victims.

Conclusion

It can be hard to talk about the need for police abolition in a small rural town like Aberdeen, WA. We seem far removed from the scenes of militarized riot police beating protestors in the large cities nearby. But we separate ourselves to our own detriment, as their struggle is the same as ours. In the event of a localized uprising police come from surrounding areas to assist the smaller local departments in their riot control efforts. This means we are not disconnected from the possibility of seeing riot police here in Aberdeen, if the need arose.

D: Ya Grays Harbor already has a long history in my experience of departments going outside of their jurisdictions to help out other departments even when they wont do that for the population take my friend  for instance

It used to be a festival sponsored by ocean shores ocean shores wont sponsor it anymore it was just a big party all weekend they had a festival to celebrate the fog and stuff and it turned into a huge party people would come from all over the state to it and stuff

they would have bonfires lined up and down the beach and in fact there was one year they had a bunch of i think it was the hell’s angels or something had parties out there where the cops wouldn’t even stop on the beach they’d do their patrols and you’d see teenagers and everyone drinking doing drugs and this is when drugs were highly illegal and all that and police would just drive straight down the beach wouldn’t stop for anyone but they quit sponsoring it because ocean shores, Aberdeen, and Hoquiam all got too vandalized and stuff from people getting to carried away partying and everything else. So Ocean Shores topped sponsoring it and it eventually just petered out

C: -so did before that did they like start having multiple agencies roll through?

ya towards the end of it

C:- what did that look like

it was just different officers ya know all from Aberdeen and Hoquiam and stuff like that but ya know it would be like Aberdeen patrolling the beach on Sunday and Hoquiam Sunday afternoon it was a multi jurisdictional deal they all work out the same thing.

Egg day was started, it was the first homecoming game that Aberdeen would play Hoquiam every year they’d have a big egg fight Aberdeen would go over and do stuff to the grizzly and Hoquiam would come over here and deface the charlie choker and it was like for fuck a few weeks before egg night teenagers couldn’t by eggs in the store you had to have you parents with you to buy eggs.

C:- Its like kids today not being able to buy whipped cream in dollar tree cause of whippits.

D: ya kinda like that

C:- Its such a dumb thing to have to need a id for whipped cream, eggs

D: Used to be a fun night, wished they still had it

C: Would you talk more about how the cops ended towards the end?

towards the end they were dicks, you get caught with eggs you’d go to juvenile all kinds of different shit, call your parents, had A’s in school still get suspended, ya know

D: Heath Layman remembered me from when I was younger and it was a personal thing between me and him but he could never let it go when i moved there and he couldn’t really, I wasn’t doing anything anymore so there was nothing he could really do to me so he would harass the kids all the time. even pushing their bicycle would threatening to give them a ticket for not having a helmet on.

So Heath Layman would harass the kids all the time and it wasn’t really because the kids were doing anything wrong it was just because being a dick because of his confrontations with me when we were younger so i got fed up with it one time and i gave___ & _____ each a great big box of high end fireworks and i sent one to one end of Cosmopolis and one to the other end of Cosi and we lived and the main street there where i could see both ends and id stand out on the porch and id call ___ up and tell him  ___ start lighting the fireworks and___ start popping them off up in the air and pretty soon you’d see the police ya know going down that direction looking to see where the fireworks were coming from about that time i said ___ why don’t you stop hey ____ why don’t you start lighting your fireworks and as soon as they get to this end of Cosi the other one would start the other end and as soon as they’d go back the other one would start at the other end and go back and forth for what was it a couple hours or so

After a couple of hours they had Aberdeen Hoquiam state patrol and sheriff’s office all of them going back and forth working a grid through Cosi. So i finally called ___ & ___ and told them to come back to the house, well no sooner than __ & ___ come in the back door layman knocks at the front door he says hey ____ are your boys home tonight?  I said yup they been sitting in that backroom playing video games all night long

he says are you sure i said ya does this have anything to do with the firework show going on tonight?  he said well what makes you say that i said that Ive been standing here on my porch watching it all of Cosi can see and hear it ya know it ain’t a big town here heath

he says so you  sure your boys have been there all night?  I said they’ve been back in that back bedroom playing video games all night long your welcome to go back there and take a look if you like,  and he says oh no, i know who it is then, its gotta be that damn ____ & _____ I said Oh no, their back there to, they’ve been back there with them all night

And then one time i lit of a m500 over in the post office parking lot it shook our house he shows up they thought one of the propane tanks there at Norcat exploded i told him well it sounded like a firework to me he thought I don’t know,  he gets firetrucks out there everybody else out there and then when they found the casing for the firecracker he comes over and  you know I could be arresting you for wasting public resources I said really? was is it wasting public resource when i told you that it sounded like a firework and you got everybody and there brother out? I said who looks like the idiot? He got mad and left

S: I would not wanna have the person who has a grudge against me be a cop

No most of them are a bunch of guys who got beat up in high shcool and their lunch money taken so they think they got to prove something to the world

C: Well whats some other examples of Layman Fucking with you?

My stepson it started off mothers day we got woke up at 430 5o clock in the morning to crying that she didn’t want to do her paper route cause it was mothers day i told her are you kidding its mothers day your going to wake your mom up to do your paper route in the rain. I said are you fucking kidding me? When it comes to never has known or ever will know how to say no so started to get up I finally got pissed and said fuck it I’ll go do the paper route ya know and I called Sarah out in the living room and I said look, get your brothers up, I want the house cleaned up when I get back well have breakfast, and I had just finished a big boat job there that I had a couple grand in my pocket I was like ill take you guys all out and well do something for mothers day.

anyway I come home are playing video games are fighting the house is twice as tore apart before i left and standing there looking like a drowned rat cooking breakfast in the kitchen and i finally got pissed and i said fuck this if this is the way you want to act towards your mother on mothers day i said now none for you are coming with us ill take her and go do something just me and her I asked what she wanted to do she wanted to go fishing. So I  loaded the boat up on the trailer and everything got everything ready and we left we got down the block and realized i had forgot my wallet sitting on top of my entertainment center in my room so i go back to the house is sitting in the car as I run in and is standing in front of my bedroom door the butter knife still stuck in the door jam and he tells me I fell against it and it came open I said I aint got time for your bullshit I walked into the bedroom I went to grab my wallet and i noticed my safe was open i forgot to turn the hasp and I usually always lock it but I had a couple eights of weed in there and I walk over and I open it up and noticed they were gone I said wheres the weed he said what weed I said the weed you stole out of my safe I said I want it back and I want it back now.

he said I don’t got nothing I didn’t do nothing I didn’t break into your room the door fell open when I fell against it and stuff I was about to back hand him then and I look up and I seen getting out of the truck and i figured it would just make a shit show of mothers day that already didn’t start out so great for her  so i took and we left for the day and I told Ill deal with you when I get home

I had 3 pot plants upstairs I had my medical card and everything for them completely legal, Tyler goes down and tells officer layman that I’m cooking meth upstairs, which was enough for them to come into the house, he let them into the house they came in an ransacked the house they couldn’t find a god damn thing other than the three legal plants that i had

They arrested me for suspicion of heroin sales because had cleaned her pipe out the night before and the resin was sitting on a piece of tinfoil on her nightstand and i told them then get your little test out , i said you can smell it anybody here knows that’s not  any type of heroin or anything else its marijuana resin but if your that stupid get your test out of your fucking car and test it he said well I don’t have one right now your going to have to go to county until they send it to the lab and they check it and that will take a few days for it to get back

and then while the overnight that we spent in jail they  took cps and took the kids and gave them to their grandmother when we got out of jail i went over there and took them home, the cps worker called me and i told him you get em you can attempt it but ain’t no one taking the kids out of my house ya know they finally let us go about that but in that time layman went around telling everyone in Cosi that i sold heroin to kids and all this other shit and ended up getting me kicked out of the building that i had my shop in

S: That’s a lot of power to have to just go around doling it out on your personal grudges

From Crimethinc:

To make this clear: yes, cops are people too, and deserve the same respect due all living things. The point is not that they deserve to suffer, or that we have to bring them to justice—that’s Christian morality again, dealing in currencies of superstition and resentment. The point is that, in purely pragmatic terms, in order that others not have to suffer, it may be necessary to interrupt, by militant and confrontational means, the injustices perpetrated by police officers.

We must not be trying to put the police up against the wall, or exact our revenge upon them, that is not the goal. Our goal is to better all life, including theirs, as we hold that it would be far better for the officers in question to not be police officers anymore. The term “police” can refer to an individual officer, but it can also refer to the entire occupation as a overall structure.

Therefore, while it may even sometimes be necessary to set police on fire, this should not be done out of a spirit of vengeful self-righteousness, but from a place of careful thought and compassion—if not for the police themselves, then for all those who would otherwise suffer at their hands.

We must continue to call the police out and oppose them ferociously, the rhetoric employed here will do little to provoke assault, but it will publicize the concept of disapproving of the police in Aberdeen. This may do more for the lives of these officers and their families than anything else —for not only do police officers have a disproportionately high rate of domestic violence and child abuse, they also get killed, commit suicide, and become addicts with disproportionate frequency. So by this measure, anything that de-legitimizes the police and their absolute authority, demoralizes them, and encourages them to quit, is in their best interest, as well as the interest of their loved ones, and society at large.

So, the problem with good cops is that there aren’t any. That’s missing the point entirely, the problem isn’t individual, it’s structural, it’s systemic. Who is on the force hardly matters, when the overall structure of policing is what it is. Until we abolish the structure of policing, the occupation of police, nothing we do to the system will ever make it less oppressive or brutal.

Fuck. The. Police.

Addendum- In contradiction to this entire article, the only good cop was Chris Dorner

Sources:

https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/crimethinc-why-fuck-the-police

https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/first-of-may-anarchist-alliance-rebellion-against-police-violence

https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/kristian-williams-our-enemies-in-blue

https://criminaljusticeaccess.com/tag/rotten-barrel-theory/https://www.studymode.com/essays/Police-Deviance-Rotten-Apple-Or-652279.html

Delattre, Edwin J.. Character and Cops: Ethics in Policing. United States: Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Incorporated, 2011.

Segment two:

S: Welcome back to Molotov Now! its time for us to analyze the article we’ve just examined and bring our guest back to talk a bit about the history of policing for a more holisitic view of abolition.

C: So, what do you know about the history of policing?

D: Not much

C: Well good, we can go over it with you then.

S: Ok, well from quelling slave revolts to busting up general strikes, the roots of policing are set in violence as a tool for social control. To help us wade through this bloody history ill be reading from Alex Vitale’s The End of Policing to guide us. We will be reading from chapter two here.

The London Metropolitan Police is often held up as
the “original” police force. Created in 1829 by Sir Robert Peel, from
whom the “Bobbies” get their name, this new force was more effective
than the informal and unprofessional “watch” or the excessively
violent and often hated militia and army. But this noble endeavor
had at its core not fighting crime, but managing disorder and
protecting the propertied classes from the rabble. Peel developed his
ideas while managing the British colonial occupation of Ireland and
seeking new forms of social control that would allow for continued
political and economic domination in the face of growing
insurrections, riots, and political uprisings. For years, such “outrages”
had been managed by the local militia and, if necessary, the British
Army. However, colonial expansion and the Napoleonic Wars
dramatically reduced the availability of these forces just as resistance

to British occupation increased. Furthermore, armed troops had limited
tools for dealing with riots and others forms of mass disorder. Too
often they were called upon to open fire on crowds, creating martyrs
and further inflaming Irish resistance. Peel was forced to develop a
lower-cost and more legitimate form of policing: a “Peace
Preservation Force,” made up of professional police who attempted to
manage crowds by embedding themselves more fully in rebellious
localities, then identifying and neutralizing troublemakers and
ringleaders through threats and arrests. This led eventually to the
creation of the Royal Irish Constabulary, which for about a century was
the main rural police force in Ireland. It played a central role in
maintaining British rule and an oppressive agricultural system
dominated by British loyalists, a system that produced widespread
poverty, famine, and displacement.

The signal event that showed the need for a professional police
force was the Peterloo Massacre of 1819. In the face of widespread
poverty combined with the displacement of skilled work by
industrialization, movements emerged across the country to call for
political reforms. In August 1819, tens of thousands of people gathered
in central Manchester, only to have the rally declared illegal. A cavalry
charge with sabers killed a dozen protestors and injured several
hundred more. In response, the British state developed a series of
vagrancy laws designed to force people into “productive” work. What
was needed was a force that could both maintain political control and
help produce a new economic order of industrial capitalism.8 As home
secretary, Peel created the London Metropolitan Police to do this. The
main functions of the new police, despite their claims of political
neutrality, were to protect property, quell riots, put down strikes and
other industrial actions, and produce a disciplined industrial work
force. This system was expanded throughout England, which was
awash in movements against industrialization. Luddites resisted
exploitation through workplace sabotage. Jacobins, inspired by the
French Revolution, were a constant source of concern. The most
threatening, however, were the Chartists, who called for fundamental
democratic reforms on behalf of impoverished English workers. Local,

requested the services of the new London Police, who had proven quite
capable of putting down disturbances and strikes with minimal force.
That force, however, always had the patina of central government
intervention, which often further inflamed movements, so eventually
towns created their own full-time professional police departments,
based on the London model.
The London model was imported into Boston in 1838 and spread
through Northern cities over the next few decades. That model had to
adapt to the United States, where massive immigration and rapid
industrialization created an even more socially and politically chaotic
environment. Boston’s economic and political leaders needed a new
police force to manage riots and the widespread social disorder
associated with the working classes. In 1837, the Broad Street riots
involved a mob of 15,000 attacking Irish immigrants. This was quelled
only after a regiment of militia, including 800 cavalry, was called onto
the streets. Following this, Mayor Samuel Elliot moved to create a
professional civilian police force.
New York leapfrogged over Boston, creating an even larger and
more formal police force in 1844. New York was exploding with new
immigrants who were being chewed up by rapid and often cruel
industrialization, producing social upheaval and immiseration that was
expressed as crime, racial and ethnic strife, and labor unrest. White
and black dockworkers went on strike and undertook destructive
sabotage actions in 1802, 1825, and 1828. There were larger waves of
strikes by skilled workers being displaced by mass production in 1809,
1822, and 1829. These culminated in the formation of the
Workingmen’s Party in 1829, which demanded a ten-hour day, and led
to the founding of the General Trade Union in 1833. Rioting that was
less obviously political was widespread during this period, sometimes
occurring monthly. During the 1828 Christmas riot, four thousand
workers marched on the wealthy districts, beating up blacks and
looting stores along the way. The night watch assembled to block them,
but gave way—to the horror of the city’s elite, who watched events

unfold from their mansions and a party at the City Hotel. In response,
newspapers began calling for a major expansion and
professionalization of the watch, which ended with the formation of
the police.
Wealthy Protestant nativists feared and resented the new
immigrants, who were often Catholic, uneducated, disorderly,
politically militant, and prone to voting Democratic. They attempted to
discipline and control this population by restricting drinking,
gambling, and prostitution, as well as much more mundane behaviors
like how women wore their hair, the lengths of bathing suits, and
public kissing.12 The formation of the Chicago police was directly tied
to such efforts. Law and Order Party mayor Levi Boone established the
first “special police” force following his election in 1855 with the
express intent of enforcing a variety of nativist morality laws,
including restrictions on drinking. In response to the arrest of several
dozen saloonkeepers, a group comprised mostly of German workers
attempted to free them, leading to the Lager Beer Riots. According to
historian Sam Mitrani, local elites responded by holding a “Law and
Order” meeting to demand an even larger and more professional police
body. The next week the City Council responded by creating the
Chicago’s first official police force.13
It was the creation of police that made widespread enforcement of
vice laws and even the criminal code possible for the first time.14
These morality laws both gave the state greater power to intervene in
the social lives of the new immigrants and opened the door to
widespread corruption. Vice corruption was endemic in police
departments across the country. While station house basements often
housed the homeless, and officers managed a large population of
orphaned youth, as Eric Monkkonen points out, these efforts were
primarily designed to surveil and control this population rather than
provide meaningful assistance.15
America’s early urban police were both corrupt and incompetent.
Officers were usually chosen based on political connections and
bribery. There were no civil service exams or even formal training in
most places. They were also used as a tool of political parties to

suppress opposition voting and spy on and suppress workers’
organizations, meetings, and strikes. If a local businessman had close
ties to a local politician, he needed only to go to the station and a squad
of police would be sent to threaten, beat, and arrest workers as needed.
Payments from gamblers and, later, bootleggers were a major source of
income for officers, with payments increasing up the chain of
command. This system of being “on the take” remained standard
procedure in many major departments until the 1970s, when resistance
emerged in the form of whistleblowers like Frank Serpico. Corruption
remains an issue, especially in relation to drugs and sex work, but
tends to be more isolated, less systemic, and subject to some internal
disciplinary controls, as liberal reformers have worked to shore up
police legitimacy.

The primary jobs of early detectives were to spy on political
radicals and other troublemakers and to replace private thief catchers,
who recovered stolen goods for a reward. Interestingly, very few
thieves ended up getting caught by the new police. In many instances
they worked closely with thieves and pickpockets, taking a cut of their
earnings and acting as fences by exchanging stolen merchandise for a
reward rather than having to sell the goods on the black market at a
heavy discount.
The extent of police corruption was so great that business leaders,
journalists, and religious leaders banded together to expose corruption
and inefficiency and demand that police both become more
professional and more effectively crack down on crime, vice, and
radical politics.17 In response to this and similar efforts in the late
nineteenth and early twentieth century, policing was professionalized
through the use of civil service exams and centralized hiring processes,
training, and new technology. Overt corruption and brutality were
reined in and management sciences were introduced. Reformers like
August Vollmer developed police science courses and textbooks,
utilized new transportation and communication technologies, and
introduced fingerprinting and police labs. As we will see later, many of

these ideas emerged from his experiences as part of the US occupation
forces in the Philippines.

In some cases, early police forces were created specifically for
purposes of suppressing workers’ movements. Pennsylvania was home
to some of the most militant unionism of the late nineteenth and early
twentieth century. Local police were too few in number and were
sometimes sympathetic to the workers, so mine and factory owners
turned to the state to provide them with armed forces to control strikes
and intimidate organizers. The state’s initial response was to authorize
a completely privatized police force called the Coal and Iron Police.18
Local employers had only to pay a commission fee of one dollar per
person to deputize anyone of their choosing as an official officer of the
law. These forces worked directly for the employer, often under the
supervision of Pinkertons or other private security forces, and were
typically used as strike breakers and were often implicated as agents
provocateurs, fomenting violence as a way of breaking up workers’
movements and justifying their continued paychecks. The Coal and
Iron Police committed numerous atrocities, including the Latimer
Massacre of 1897, in which they killed nineteen unarmed miners and
wounded thirty-two others. The final straw was the Anthracite Coal
Strike of 1902, a pitched battle that lasted five months and created
national coal shortages.
In the aftermath, political leaders and employers decided that a
new system of labor management paid for out of the public coffers
would be cheaper for them and have greater public legitimacy and
effectiveness. The result was the creation of the Pennsylvania State
Police in 1905, the first state police force in the country. It was
modeled after the Philippine Constabulary, used to maintain the US
occupation there, which became a testing ground for new police
techniques and technologies.19 The local population resented US
occupation and developed anticolonial organizations and struggles.

The national police force attempted to develop close ties to local
communities to allow it to monitor subversive activities. The United
States also moved quickly to erect telephone and telegraph wires, to
allow quick communication of emerging intelligence. When
demonstrations emerged, the police, through a huge network of
informants, could anticipate them and place spies and agents
provocateurs among them to sow dissent and allow leaders and other
agitators to be quickly arrested and neutralized.

In Pennsylvania, this new paramilitary force represented an
important shift of power away from local communities. This shift
unambiguously favored the interests of large employers, who had
significantly more influence over state level politicians. While
putatively under civilian political control, the reality was that the state
police remained a major force in putting down strikes, though often
with less violence and greater legal and political authority. The
consequences, however, were largely the same, as they participated in
strikebreaking and the killing of miners, such as in the Westmoreland
County Coal Strike of 1910 and 1911.

These practices then fed back into domestic American policing.
The most important police leader of the twentieth century, August
Vollmer, after serving in the Philippines, became chief of police in
Berkeley, California, and wrote the most influential textbook of
modern policing. Vollmer went on to pioneer the use of radio patrol
cars, fingerprinting, and other techniques now considered standard
practice.
The US went on to set up additional colonial police forces in
Central America and the Caribbean in the early twentieth century.
Jeremy Kuzmarov documents US involvement in creating repressive
police forces in Haiti, the Dominican Republic, and Nicaragua.23 These
forces were designed to be part of a Progressive Era program of
modernization and nation-building, but were quickly turned into forces
of brutal repression in the service of US-backed regimes. These US-
trained security forces went on to commit horrific human rights
abuses, including torture, extortion, kidnapping, and mass murder.
The US continued to set up police forces as part of its foreign
policy objectives throughout the postwar period. Japan, South Korea,
and South Vietnam all had US-created police forces whose primary
purposes were intelligence and counterinsurgency. Postwar police
reformer O.W. Wilson, a colonel in the military police during World
War II, was involved in the denazification of Germany following the
war. Afterwards he went on to teach police science at Berkeley and was
appointed Commissioner of Police in Chicago in 1960 and influenced a
generation of police executives with his ideas of preventative policing.

The US also had its own domestic version of colonial policing: the
Texas Rangers. Initially a loose band of irregulars, the Rangers were
hired to protect the interests of newly arriving white colonists, first
under the Mexican government, later under an independent Republic of
Texas, and finally as part of the state of Texas. Their main work was to
hunt down native populations accused of attacking white settlers, as
well as investigating crimes like cattle rustling.
The Rangers also frequently acted as vigilantes on behalf of whites
in disputes with the Spanish and Mexican populations. For more than a
century they were a major force for white colonial expansion pushing
out Mexicans through violence, intimidation, and political
interference. In some cases, whites would raid cattle from Mexican
ranches and then, when Mexican vaqueros tried to take them back, call
in the Rangers to retrieve their “stolen property.” Mexicans and Native
Americans who resisted Ranger authority could be killed, beaten,
arrested, or intimidated. Mike Cox describes this as nothing short of an
extermination campaign in which almost the entire indigenous
population was killed or driven out of the territory.24
In the sixties and seventies, local and state elites used Rangers to
suppress the political and economic rights of Mexican Americans and
played a central role in subverting farmworker movements by shutting
down meetings, intimidating supporters, and arresting and brutalizing
picketers and union leaders.28 They were also frequently called in to
intimidate Mexican Americans out of voting in local elections. Most
Latinos were subjected to a kind of “Juan Crow” in which they were
denied the right to vote and barred from private and public
accommodations such as hotels, restaurants, bus station waiting rooms,
public pools, and bathrooms. The first direct assault on this system
occurred in 1963 in the small farming town of Crystal City, in which
Tejanos made up a majority of the population but had no political
representation. The white political establishment enforced segregation,
charged Latinos higher taxes, and provided them with substandard
services. In 1962, local Mexican Americans began attempting to
register to vote, only to be faced with harassment and intimidation
from local police and employers. After an extended effort involving
outside monitors, press attention, and lawsuits, they registerered and,
in 1963, ran a slate of candidates for the local city council. In response,
the Texas Rangers undertook a program of intimidation. They tried to
prevent voter rallies, threatened candidates and their supporters, and
even engaged in physical attacks and arrests. In the end, because of
extensive outside press attention, the Rangers had to back down and
the slate swept the election, ushering in a period of greater civil rights
for Mexican Americans.

Slavery was another major force that shaped early US policing. Well
before the London Metropolitan Police were formed, Southern cities
like New Orleans, Savannah, and Charleston had paid full-time police
who wore uniforms, were accountable to local civilian officials, and
were connected to a broader criminal justice system. These early
police forces were derived not from the informal watch system as
happened in the Northeast, but instead from slave patrols, and
developed to prevent revolts. They had the power to ride onto private
property to ensure that slaves were not harboring weapons or fugitives,
conducting meetings, or learning to read or write. They also played a
major role in preventing slaves from escaping to the North, through
regular patrols on rural roads.
While most slave patrols were rural and nonprofessional, urban
patrols like the Charleston City Guard and Watch became
professionalized as early as 1783. By 1831, the Charleston police had a
hundred paid City Guards and sixty State Guards on duty twenty-four
hours a day, including foot and mounted patrols. Enslaved people often
worked away from their owners’ property in warehouses, workshops,
and other workplaces, as part of industrialization. This meant that large
numbers of unaccompanied enslaved people could move about the city
on their own as long as they had a proper pass. They could congregate
with others, frequent illicit underground taverns, and even establish
religious and benevolent associations, often in conjunction with free
blacks which produced tremendous social anxiety among whites.
Professional police were thus deemed essential. Richard Wade quotes a
Charlestonian in 1845:

Over the sparsely populated country, where gangs of negros are restricted within
settled plantations under immediate control and discipline of their respective owners,
slaves were not permitted to idle and roam about in pursuit of mischief. … The mere
occasional riding about and general supervision of a patrol may be sufficient. But,
some more energetic and scrutinizing system is absolutely necessary in cities, where
from the very denseness of population and closely contiguous settlements there must
be need of closer and more careful circumspection.32
The result, according to Wade, was “a persistent struggle to minimize
Negro fraternizing and, more especially, to prevent the growth of an
organized colored community.”33 This was done through constant
monitoring and inspection of the black population. The heavily armed
police regularly inspected the passes of employed slaves and the
papers of free blacks. Police waged a constant battle to close down
underground bars, study groups, and religious gatherings. The only
limit on police power was that enslaved people were someone else’s
property; killing one could result in civil liability to the owner. In rural
areas the transition from slave patrols to police was slower, but the
basic functional connection was just as strong.34
When slavery was abolished, the slave patrol system was too; small
towns and rural areas developed new and more professional forms of
policing to deal with the newly freed black population. The main
concern of this period was not so much preventing rebellion as forcing
newly freed blacks into subservient economic and political roles. New
laws outlawing vagrancy were used extensively to force blacks to
accept employment, mostly in the sharecropping system. Local police
enforced poll taxes and other voter suppression efforts to ensure white
control of the political system.
Anyone on the roads without proof of employment was quickly
subjected to police action. Local police were the essential front door of
the twin evils of convict leasing and prison farms. Local sheriffs would
arrest free blacks on flimsy to nonexistent evidence, then drive them
into a cruel and inhuman criminal justice system whose punishments
often resulted in death. These same sheriffs and judges also received
kickbacks and in some cases generated lists of fit and hardworking
blacks to be incarcerated on behalf of employers, who would then lease
them out to perform forced labor for profit. Douglas Blackmon

thousands perished. By the Jim Crow era, policing had become a
central tool of maintaining racial inequality throughout the South,
supplemented by ad hoc vigilantes such as the Ku Klux Klan, which
often worked closely with—and was populated by—local police.36
Northern policing was also deeply affected by emancipation.
Northern political leaders deeply feared the northern migration of
newly freed rural blacks, whom they often viewed as socially, if not
racially, inferior, uneducated, and criminal. Ghettos were established in
Northern cities to control this growing population, with police playing
the role of both containment and pacification. Up until the 1960s, this
was largely accomplished through the racially discriminatory
enforcement of the law and widespread use of excessive force. Blacks
knew very well what the behavioral and geographic limits were and the
role that police played in maintaining them in both the Jim Crow South
and the ghettoized North.

With the rise of the civil rights movement came more repressive
policing. In the South police became the front line for suppressing the
movement. They denied protest permits, threated and beat
demonstrators, made discriminatory arrests, and failed to protect
demonstrators from angry mobs and vigilante actions, including
beatings, disappearances, bombings, and assassinations. All of this
occurred to preserve a system of formal racial discrimination and
economic exploitation.
In Northern and Western cities the suppression of the movement
sometimes took a more nuanced approach at first, but when that failed,
overt violence soon followed. Many cities allowed a wide variety of
protest actions to occur with only minor restrictions. Boycotts and
pickets in support of Southern organizing were largely tolerated, as
was protest aimed at local governments calling for jobs, education, and
social services. As these movements grew and became more militant,

however, they were subjected to ever more repressive tactics. New
“Red Squads” were developed that gathered intelligence through
informants, infiltrators, and even agents provocateurs, who actively
worked to undermine groups like the Black Panthers and the Congress
of Racial Equality (CORE). Eventually local police, often working in
cooperation with the FBI, undertook the overt suppression of these
movements through targeted arrests on trumped-up charges and
ultimately even assassinations of prominent leaders such as Fred
Hampton, the Black Panther leader killed in a hail of gunfire in the
middle of the night during a police raid of his Chicago apartment. The
American Indian Movement and the Latino-based Brown Berets and
Young Lords faced similar forms of repression.
These movements were suppressed in part based on
counterinsurgency strategies that emerged out of the foreign policy of
that era. From 1962 to 1974, the US government operated a major
international police training initiative, staffed by experienced
American police executives, called the Office of Public Safety (OPS).
This agency worked closely with the CIA to train police in areas of
Cold War conflict, including South Vietnam, Iran, Uruguay, Argentina,
and Brazil. According to internal documents, the training emphasized
counterinsurgency, including espionage, bomb making, and
interrogation techniques. In many parts of the world these officers
were involved in human-rights abuses including torture, disappearance,
and extrajudicial killings. Over $200 million in firearms and
equipment was distributed to foreign police departments and 1,500 US
personnel were involved in training a million officers overseas. Even
more troubling is that many of the trainers moved in large numbers
into law enforcement, including the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA),
FBI, and numerous local and state police forces, bringing with them a
more militarized vision of policing steeped in Cold War imperatives of
suppressing social movements through counterintelligence, militarized
riot-suppression techniques, and heavy-handed crime control. They
applied this counterinsurgency mindset to the political uprisings
occurring at home.

OPS director Byron Engle testified before the Kerner Commission
on Civil Disorders that “in working with the police in various countries
we have acquired a great deal of experience in dealing with violence
ranging from demonstrations and riots to guerrilla warfare. Much of
this experience may be useful in the US.”38 The result was a massive
expansion of federal funding for the police under the Johnson
administration. Under the guise of professionalizing the police, the
federal government began spending hundreds of millions of dollars to
provide police with more training and equipment with few strings
attached. Unfortunately, and unsurprisingly, rather than reducing the
burden of racialized policing, this new professionalization movement
merely enhanced police power and led directly to the development of
SWAT teams and mass incarceration.

The YouTube channel That Dang Dad is hosted by Phil, who is an abolitionist ex-cop who does a great job talking about police culture and breaking down the most common myths around police abolition. This includes tackling questions like what about the murderers and what abolitionists recommend instead of police. He has one video discussing the lies he told as a police officer that was really interesting. One major point he brought up is how lying during interrogation is completely legal, this is why it is crucial to never speak with the police and always insist on a lawyer. Frazier vs Cupp was the Supreme Court case that set the precedent that police deception during interrogation does not make a confession coerced.

Other cases he mentions to preempt his discussion are Miller v Fenton which found that police officers pretending to be your friend can lie to you in order to get you to confess, and a case called In The Matter of DAS from 1978 where the police lied to a suspect about finding prints on a stolen pocketbook, causing the suspect to confess. The courts found that this was legal and these cases collectively help set the precedent that the police can legally lie to you in the course of their job.

• Suggesting that confessions may reduce sentences.
• Telling a person suspected of a misdemeanor that they had proof of a felony to get a confession.
• Implying that NOT talking to him would be obstruction, and that if they talked to him he wouldn’t arrest them.
• Multiple instances of lying about evidence obtained in order to coerce confessions.
• Making up fake laws.

Then he told a story about an assault on a trans sex worker. The original officer handling the call was extremely hostile. and told her that technically becasue she was a sex worker he had to arrest her if she made a report and to drop it. This guy had to come over and help her file a report.

He then quoted Anotnin Scalia out of the case McNeil v Wisconsin where he said, “Admissions of guilt are more than merely ‘desirable’, they are essential to society’s compelling interest in finding, convicting, and punishing those who violate the law.”

He concludes by saying to never talk to police, always assume you are a suspect. If interrogated tell them you invoke your right to silence and my right to counsel in order to protect yourself during any interrogation. His point being that any conversation with a cop is an interrogation.

Another interesting video which ties into what we were talking about earlier with the institution of policing being so terrible for those involved in it. Phil then goes onto describe how becoming a police officer fucked his brain up so bad. He told a story about his drug task force making a raid on a suspected drug dealer. He was standing guard to make sure the dealer didn’t run as they gassed him with round after round of tear gas. He discussed picturing killing this suspect over and over and over because he was psyching himself up to kill this person who was suspected to be armed. After this suspect was mauled by their police dogs and arrested he was off that and onto the next call.

He talks about his training being told not show weakness, and shown hundreds of videos of cops being killed by people to show him how dangerous his job was and how dangerous the public might be. At any given time someone out there might hurt you if you’re not ready to hurt them first. You let your guard down, and they will kill you. You end up running these deadly scenarios happening all day every day. “What if a man popped out that dumpster” or whatever.

As he said in one video – “When your only tool is a hammer all your problems begin to look like nails”

This lead to constant vigilance that never lets him relax in public to this day, years after he left the force. The symptoms he describes is akin to PTSD. He can never stop this hyper vigilance now and it wasn’t until he had his daughter that he realized how unhealthy this behavior was. Now he has to rely on self guided CBT books because he has no benefits or compensation for this sort of trauma.

His most chilling comment is that many of the people who have had their brain broken by police work are still police. Many of these abusive patterns can affect the lives of those around this individual, as police have notoriously high rates of domestic abuse and child abuse, as well as drug and alcohol abuse. Research, slightly outdated and skewed by a culture of silence and intimidation, suggest that police officers in the United States perpetrate acts of domestic violence at roughly 15 times the rate of the general population. Because officers protect their own, domestic victims of violent cops often don’t know where to go.

He says how there are certainly nice and compassionate officers out there, but that they are not leading department policy,or the culture of policing in this country. They are not representative of the institution as a whole. He finishes by saying that you should never feel safe when the police arrive. That anytime you are within 20 feet of a cop, you are in danger, both from their overactive imagination, and their total systemic insulation from consequences.

After a Los Angeles Police Department officer murdered his wife and committed suicide in the late ’90s, a review of domestic abuse allegations brought against officers showed that between 1990 and 1997, 227 alleged cases of domestic violence were brought against police officers, only 91 were sustained and only 4 resulted in conviction of criminal charges. Of the four convictions, only one officer was suspended from duty. He was asked to take three weeks off.

According to the Washington Post’s count 1,082 people have been shot and killed by police in the last 12 months. Additionally, the rate of fatal police shootings among Black Americans was much higher than that for any other ethnicity, standing at 5.9 fatal shootings per million of the population per year between 2015 and March 2023.

As for the best performing reforms of the day. As of 2019, it was found that police killings decreased by a mere 25 percent in the United States in police departments that implemented a policy that requires all uses of force to be reported, and all manner of force to be used prior to deadly force. Departments that implemented a ban on choke holds and strangleholds saw a decrease in police killings by 22 percent. So the very best these reforms have been able to achieve is a quarter reduction in deaths. That’s an argument for total abolition if I ever heard one.

If you would like to read more about what we have talked about today and the theory behind Police Abolition we would recommend checking out these books:

• The End Of Policing by Alex Vitale
• Are Prisons Obsolete by Angela Davis
• Instead of Prisons by the Prison Research Education Action Project
• Locked Up by Alfredo Bonanno
• The Creative Interventions Toolkit – A Practical Guide to Stop Interpersonal Violence

Conclusion:

So in conclusion what we can tell is that the problem with good cops is that they are irrelevant in the face of an institution built on brutal violence. Their role is and has always been protection of capital and the control of the population. They exist to maintain the status quo, and therefore any revolutionary must also be an abolitionist. We can not afford to sit out this fight and cede ground to the State by not challenging police departments in small rural towns. Wherever we live, the police uphold the poverty that we struggle against. Wherever we live we should seek to oppose them with everything we have. They can never be our allies as their allegiance lies elsewhere. It lies with the culture of supremacy that infests the hearts of every officer, good or bad. Police look at this capitalist hellscape of a world as something to be defended, not something to be destroyed. It is our position that every cop should quit their position and start to make amends for the harm they have caused in society. Other than that, we have no use for them. The institution of policing will never be anything than what it is, it couldn’t be. What it is underpins our entire modern social economic and political system. Without the police everything is called into question. Do we need politicians, leaders, authorities, bosses, or managers? Those curious enough to ask this question honestly will come to the same conclusion – the answer is no.

Outro:

Thanks for tuning in to this episode of Molotov Now! We hope you found it informative and inspiring. Our goal with the podcast is to reach out beyond our boundaries and connect the happenings in our small town with the struggles going on in major urban centers. We want to talk to you if your a big city organizer, we think we have a lot you can learn from, and we know you have much to teach us. If you would like to come on the show please email us at sabot_media@riseup.net with the header “Molotov Now!” and we will be in touch about setting up an interview and crafting an episode to feature you.

We want to give a shout out to our friends at:

• C: Queer Satanic, who come with Good news and bad news for our devilish comrades. The good news: the four former members of The Satanic Temple won their legal defense after nearly three years of TST suing them in federal court for online criticism. Congratulations on their victory! The bad news: the Temple has appealed their loss to keep extending this case and its expenses for the defendants, which in December exceeded $115,000. Any donations to their legal defense funds would be appreciated. Their website is queersatanic.com
• S: The South Florida Anti-Repression Committee has launched a solidairty campaign for two individuals facing 12 years for an alleged graffiti attack on a fake Christian anti-choice clinic that does not provide any reproductive care. This Federal overreach and use of the FACE Act, an act meant to protect people visiting reproductive clinics from harassment, is unprecedented. To support this solidarity campaign please visit bit.ly/freeourfighters
• C: We want to thank The Blackflower Collective for their continued support and wish them luck in their fundraising efforts. To support them or learn more their website is blackflowercollective.noblogs.org.
• S: Kolektiva, the anarchist mastodon server, is growing faster than ever thanks to Elon Musk’s stupidity as many activists close their accounts for bluer skies as can be seen in the fluctuation of followers over on IGD’s socials, join at kolektiva.social (spell kolektiva) and follow us and other online activists on decentralized federated internet.
• C: Don’t forget to go to bit.ly/lakotalawicwa and sign the petition by the Lakota Peoples Law Project telling Joe Biden and attorneys for the Department of Justice to do everything in their power to protect the Indian Child Welfare Act and defend Secretary Deb Haaland.
• S: Chehalis River mutual Aid Network is holding a fundraiser to purchase a brand new canopy tent for their weekly meals with Food Not Bombs. To donate visit linktr.ee/crmutualaidnet
• C: Don’t forget The Communique is looking for artist and author submissions, please write to sabot_media@riseup.net to submit your entry before June 7th for our Summer Solstice edition.
• S: As reported previously, Katey Hussey is still struggling in the wake of harrassment by Dayton Police that has cost her their employment and housing. Please send any donations to Venmo @katyHussey or Cashapp $KatyHussey to help them during this time.
• C: Thank you to Pixel Passionate for producing our soundtrack, please check out their website at www.radicalpraxisclothing.com and check out their portfolio in our show notes
• S: and finally we were recently featured on a two part episode of It Could Happen Here, where we delved into the dichotomies between rural and urban organizing and the plans for the radical future of the Harbor. To check it out visit the new webpage blackflowercollective.noblogs.org/press/

Remember to check out sabot media’s website for new episodes, articles, comics, and columns. We have new content all the time. Make sure you follow, like, and subscribe on your favorite corporate data mining platform of choice and go ahead and make the switch to federated social media on the kolektiva mastodon server today @AberdeenLocal1312 for updates on Sabot Media projects such as The Harbor Rat Report, The Saboteurs, Ask Annie, our podcast Molotov Now! and many other upcoming projects.

That’s all for tonight. Please remember to spay and neuter your cats and don’t forget to cast your votes at those who deserve them.

Solidarity Comrades,

This is Molotov Now! Signing off

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