Officer O'Malley
It must suck to be a police officer in L.A. I wonder how they manage to get recruits. They must offer insane benefits like full medical and dental, 401K plans and your own personal hooker to blow you after every shift. I don't mean it must suck to be any cop in L.A., I actually meant it must suck to be a good cop in L.A. No oxymoron jokes here (Or would it be a paradox? I forget.) All cops in L.A. get the same rap, but I don't think anyone who isn't from or doesn't live in L.A. will ever be able to accurately understand what it must be like for a cop there. And I don't mean L.A. like Malibu or Sherman Oaks. I mean the L.A. you see in Training Day. I think even an NYC cop would be lost and confused there. They'd beg to be sent back home "where it's safe." It's a whole different world. Take this newest incident with the 16-year-old who was beaten by cops trying to arrest him. I think the everyday strain of being a cop is magnified then multiplied by 12 if you're a cop in the worst parts of Los Angeles. I think in some people who are already fragile it can lead to some type of insanity. How else can you explain why the police department that has the worst reputation in the entire country, would think it's a good idea to unleash their repressed anger on suspects? Especially while they're still trying to live down the whole Rampart CRASH unit fiasco. You'd think they would know some simple submission holds that would allow them to incapacitate the subject just long enough to cuff him.
The whole Rodney King thing was ridiculous. If you asked me he deserved to get his ass beat. No, I'm not saying that racial profiling is okay or pulice brutality is okay. I'm saying that anyone who gets in a car when strung up to hell on PCP isn't only jeopardizing his own life, he's jeopardizing everyone else on the road with him. And I wouldn't want to be the one to arrest someone on PCP. I once watched some guy on PCP take down 5 guys. He had like the strength of 20 men. It's what we call "that drug addict strength." If I were a cop I probably would have done the same thing. Let me just beat the shit out of this person and incapacitate them so they won't be any more trouble, because I'm fresh out of the tranquilizers I usually keep in my bulletproof vest.
But screw Rodney King, who cares. My point in bringing him up is to reflect on what happened after the officers in his trial came back with a "Not Guilty" verdict. The inhabitants of every crappy area in L.A. used it as an excuse to riot, loot and cause general anarchy. I was on a school bus on my way home during the riots and some rioter tried to throw a bottle through a window in the back of the bus and cracked it. Guess who's normally on a school bus? Children. But I guess behavior like that is okay during a release of repressed anger from years of socio-economic subjugation. Yeah okay, whatever. 98% of them couldn't have given a flying fuck about Rodney King or the LAPD. They just wanted to cause a ruckus, burn some buildings down and score some free TVs while they were at it. So when reporters start likening this current incident to Rodney King and people start saying shit like "Oh my God this is another Rodney King" I get a trifle worried. Because it builds in the minds of easily-led people looking for a reason to score a DVD player and who knows how many innocent people will get hurt this time. I mean for God's sake... during the L.A. riots, rioters were setting fires and when firemen would arrive on the scene, snipers would shoot at them. They had to have police officers protecting the firemen so they could put the fires out. WTF???? What the hell does that have to do with Rodney King? And then after the OJ case, some people were saying it was payback for Rodney King. Huh???? Did I miss something?? Please don't get me started. I'm already started.
Anyway who knows. I hate issues like this. It's like a lose-lose situation. I never know where to stand. On one hand, I don't want to be standing with some punk resisting arrest. At the same time I don't want to be standing with some punk cop abusing his authority. And then there's the fact of the matter that while I whole-heartedly appreciate being protected by people who put their lives on the line everyday while I sit at my computer and websurf, cops sometimes give me the skeevies. I've had too many run-ins with them I guess. Racial profiling and all that jazz, but without the gunshots. I do however try to keep in mind that cops are human as well and therefore just as susceptible to human emotions (like racism) as any other person. They just have more of a responsibility than the average person to ensure that it doesn't influence how they do their job. I can say however that one thing that bothers me is people failing to comprehend that crap like that is never just black and white. Every race is susceptible or subject to it. One of the cops I had problems with once was some Spanish bitch who treated me, Net, Geo and Nev like crap because we weren't Spanish and the other person involved in the car accident was. So you see Lone Star, good will never overcome evil because good is DUMB.
Sorry, I just got tired of talking about this shit. There's too many points and counterpoints. I just hate all this because if rioting breaks out in L.A. I'm going to sit around worrying about my family all day. And if those cops don't get charged with anything, there will be riots. If it goes to trial but the jury doesn't believe the cops are guilty, there will be riots. If the cops don't get jail time, there will be riots. Any of those are possible scenarios because the lead officer in question filed a report prior to the airing of the videotape stating that he used force on a perp who grabbed his testicles when resisting arrest, and you can't see what the guy is doing with his hands prior to the cop hitting him. Plus there are a whole shitload of details as yet unavailable to the public that might sway a jury and piss off people who don't understand or like law enforcement. The jury will probably want to avoid rioting so... well, that's sad too if he doesn't deserve it. Why can't they just arm the LAPD with real guns AND tranquilizer guns?? Then all this dumb shit could be avoided. The perp could resist arrest... cops would shoot him with a tranquilizer dart in the ass... there you go. No excessive force and no videotapes that will air every 5 minutes on every station nationwide for the next 8 months.
By the way I'll send anyone $5 who can tell me where the title of this post is from.
