The NYPD Lied About Protestor Behavior to Justify Arrests?

This is very, very disturbing.

I'm sorry; I still live in that fairy tale little world where cops aren't just operations bouncers for corporate America, where the bad cops really are the rarity, and where I perceive of them as not-totally-comfortable in the role of having to divide the entire world into an Us vs. Them wrestling match. I've continued this belief despite Amadu Dialo, the fellow so badly beaten (his name escapes me), etc. Why? Because I've met many very decent police officers, ones not caught up in the whole political dynamic, still just trying to be the decent peacekeeper in his or her community.

I say this even though I lived in a town where a young black man, while down on the ground, with his back turned, wearing handcuffs, was shot in the back by a police officer who claimed the man made him think he was going to do something. Even in ultra white and aren't we just so urbane? Litchfield County, Connecticut, this was a very hard thing to perceive. Blacks in Litchfield County are generally even more rare than they are in "newer" older money affluent Greenwich and there was some speculation among the populace that perhaps the greatest threat this man seemed to represent to the officer was that he was black. Then various police folks made a bad situation even worse for going after the special prosecutor assigned to investigate the case. Eventually, that officer was tried and sentenced to forty years (which I think was also an aberration, but that's for another post).

Is there really any question that anyone who joins in an assembly to speak something other than "Bush is wonderful" and "Please, Kill Social Security and Public Education! I Know Faith-Based Charities Will Support Me!" is treated very much like "suspicious" people of color who are only suspicious because they are people of color.

The dialog here - spun by the right and hailed by the MSM - in this country has come to call anyone not thrilled with Bush a traitor, Godless, "not a good Catholic like Bob Novak", and "somebody who should leave this country because they don't support our troops because they protest Veterans cuts and wants the troops not sent to war on lies and personal agenda".

I know and have heard from hordes of people who say they got the message. They think twice or twenty times before they choose to participate in even contacting their Congress critters about issues that concern them or write a letter to the editor or sign a petition. They say they know they're under more scrutiny. They hear about the Secret Service or CIA or FBI showing up at somebody's house or asking questions at their neighbors or job. They see the stories about normal Americans - including vets, retirees, and lots of average Americans who may have so little as a critical bumper sticker getting "disinvited" to events, suddenly getting pestered by the IRS, and guys in suits and sunglasses taking lots of pictures and writing down license plate numbers at peace rallies and Bush protests. They've also heard about some of the widows and grieving parents of 9/11 victims and the war(s) trying to express their profound rage and getting attacked for it.

So who's going to hold the police accountable when they decide that if you've got a certain bumper sticker or attend a certain statehouse rally, or solicit signatures on a petition for a particular type of cause, you're a terrorist or unAmerican and they can treat you any way they like with no repercussions? With all the talk of mandates, and "the country has sent a single strong message", and "I think I speak for all of you when I say this country is founded on Jesus Christ Our Savior and the only good law is God's law as I said He meant it, we know have about 60-70% of the population now on the "outs". So don't think you couldn't make it onto the watch list.