Police Brutality.

Police officers. In our society, their role is to protect, and aid those who need it, to maintain public order, to arrest criminals, to prevent and detect crime, or at least catch the criminals after the cause. In our society they are here to keep the peace, create order, and enforce it without violence, but do they really stick to that? Or mores to the point, how worrying are those who don't stick to the code, to us, the society they abuse? Lets have a look, and find out.

Today, as I was eating my sushi, don't ask why sushi, and going through coffee number three, I found this gem of an article on, yes, my favourite site, news.com.au. http://www.news.com.au/story/0,27574,25539347-421,00.html

A teenaged boy, apprehended for knocking another kid off their bicycle and punching him, so lets call it a school yard scrap, because i for one saw plenty of that sort of thing when i was in school, ends up back at the police station, alone, without a parent with him, which as we all should know is part of the legality, that he has the right to have a parent with him in the interview, with the police officer threatening him. Classy. Also highly illegal. But then again, who would anyone believe hey, the police officer, or the violent kid he arrested? Its obvious the officer will get away with this one...except for the minor detail that the kid had a mobile phone and recorded the entire thing, right down to the officer threatening to stick his baton so far up the kid's behind that he 'wouldn't know what day it was', quote.

Now fair enough, the kid was being violent toward another person, and despite not knowing the background to that, we all know that scraps should be taken care of in a little more of an adult manner. So we acknowledge that this child handled the situation badly to begin with. But by no means does the officer have the right to act the way he did in return, by threatening the kid with violence, and causing him to have a panic/asthma attack. So while both of them did the wrong thing here, and forgot all about using that thing in their head that we all refer to as a brain, the essential part of this article was that the police officer, who should know better and set the example, acted as badly as the child had; unpardonable. But I hear that's all OK, as I hear our friendly, though very scared teen, who incidentally said he 'feels abused', does not want this violent tempered officer to lose his job.

Luckily, that is not at all what was said by the victim in this particular case from late may last year, http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,23739,25276341-952,00.html

in which a man who had been attempting to break up an argument between friends was arrested in Queensland, cuffed, and therefore heavily lacking in defense, and then assaulted by the arresting officer. About half an hour later, or a little over, when he finally appeared in the station, his face had been smashed into the police car, he had been repeatedly punched and kicked by the arresting officer, and to add fuel to the fire, the officer had then proceeded to shove a fire hose into the man's mouth, and turned it on for a total of 90 seconds. Who knows how this poor man managed to survive, But i hear he pressed charges due to his extensive injuries, and that the case is due in court some time this year. My only words on this case are o for it, win the case, then hope, like the rest of us, that this sorry excuse for a keeper of the peace does not ever get the chance to do a repeat performance anywhere.

Now, just to make it clear that I am in no way picking solely on Australian officers, lets examine this video article, fresh from the US of A, in which the story of the officers, and the video evidence, are at complete odds and by no means have a hope of matching. Let me introduce to you Janet Johnson, a 62 year old woman who has recently been the victim on unprovoked police stupidity. http://www.policebrutality.info/

According to the arresting officers, Janet hit them, and they were acting in self defense. As we can all clearly see from the video of the attack, she did nothing of the sort, rather, they rushed her, and proceeded to attack for no reason that was foreseeable, and seemingly unprovoked. Janet is now suing for 8 million dollars, US, due to the damage they inflicted upon her body, and the treatment they dealt to her. And rightly so, as there is no way the treatment meted out to her was by any definition the duty of a police officer in society.

So what are our various police forces doing about officers like these? On the main, ignoring them. Or if it becomes public enough, they reprimand them. Or occasionally, such as with Constable Benjamin Thomas Price, they will fire them due to the severity of the publicity they manage to attract with their brutality. But on the whole, nothing is being done, and nothing will be, unless people such as the 14yr old boy who believes the officer who threatened him should not lose his job, change their tune, realize that the person who attacked, or threatened them is actually a danger to society due to their position of power, and make more of a fuss about their encounters, instead of being simply a doormat in the path of abuse in our society.