Are They Cops or Military?

This was a timely article to me: Open thread for night owls: America's police are looking more and more like the military

I'm reading Rise of the Warrior Cop: The Militarization of America's Police Forces by Radley Balko and this is definitely something that worries me. Even as a UMC White woman, I'm aware of just how wrong a police encounter can go and it's worse for minorities, especially African-American men and boys. So why are we OK with giving police even more power and arming them like soldiers? Are we really so afraid of terrorists and other boogeymen that we'll allow the police to arm themselves to the teeth? Balko makes a good point when he says allowing the police to arm themselves like soldiers just increased their "us versus them" mentality. As the saying goes, if all you have is a hammer then everything starts to look like a nail. I think there are good cops out there but they're immersed in a culture that expects, and finds, violence.

Anyone who's watched prime time  TV has seen countless arrests. Complete fiction! If arrested or even questioned, get a lawyer and don't say a thing until you have counsel.

I Was George Zimmerman

Let me go through the similarities:

• White or passing as White: Check
• In my 30's: Check
• Lived in a gated community: Check
• Condo complex effected by economic downturn: Check
• Uptick in crime with little resolution: Check

Lot's of similarities, the difference is I never shot and killed anyone.

I lived in a condo complex for 13 years, the housing crash put the nail in the coffin of a condo complex that was slowing deteriorating. My building of 10 units emptied out until there were 5 occupied units, none of which were on my floor. My storage bins on the property were broken into. We had assaults in the laundry room and vagrants caught sleeping in the basement. My car was broken into.

As a single woman, I was concerned for my safety so I took what I thought were reasonable measures. I had the door jambs in my front and side doors reinforced. I had a monitored security system installed. I bought a safe to keep my valuables in. I did not buy a gun.

On a rainy night in November 2011, I left my home to go to the grocery store. I pulled up to the light a quarter mile from my house when a car pulled up behind me, it's lights shining in my eyes. I saw movement and looked around to see a man approaching my driver's side window. It was pure instinct, my foot was on the gas and I was already rolling towards the intersection when I saw him. He ran back to his car and took off around me as soon as the light changed. By the time I got to the store, my adrenaline wore off and I was scared and shaky so I called a friend of mine to confirm yes, that really was an attempted car-jacking. Taking my friend's advice, I removed the bumpers tickers from my car, made sure my personal items were locked up and out of view and I changed how I carried my purse and my actions at intersections. No more playing with my cell phone at red lights! I did not buy a gun.

Last summer, I finally decided it was time to leave my home. There were too many issues to deal with living there, safety being one of them. I borrowed my boyfriend's truck one afternoon to drop off boxes and I pulled into a parking space in front of my building. I was just debating on whether or not to lug my backpack up the stairs when I saw a man weaving his way around the corner of my building. My first thought was he looked like some of the old beach bums I see in the Florida Keys, probably pickled from drinking. My second thought was what was he doing here? The man made a beeline for the truck and next thing I knew, he was asking for money and he opened the driver's side door of the truck. Luckily I still had my hand on the door so I pulled it shut and yelled at him to leave me alone. He turned around and left, wandering up the hill. I wasn't going to call the police, I figured there was nothing to be done about him, but when I saw him trying to get through the gate to the pool to harass some teenage girls, I decided to make a call. The police came and took a statement, apparently he was well known to them and he lived in the building next to mine. He was taken to jail on assault charges, I dropped off my boxes and I made sure I was never alone in that condo again. I did not buy a gun.

So what was the difference between George Zimmerman and me? For one thing, I didn't racially profile anyone. I never looked at people in my neighborhood and decided they didn't belong based on the color of their skin. Did I decide a man was a threat? In both cases, looking at their behavior, yes I did and I took appropriate action. When my neighbor speculated on who was breaking into cars and that speculation centered around two black boys in our complex, I asked if his suspicion was based on any sort of facts or just because they were black teens. As far as I know the culprits were never caught and the family of those kids left our complex and rented elsewhere. I also never got a good answer to my question. Sure, the demographics of my neighborhood changed so I got used to looking at different faces. Life goes on. That's the difference between George Zimmerman and me, the ability to adapt to a changing world.

For another thing, I wasn't able to shoot anyone because I made the decision not to buy and carry a gun. Georgia is a Stand Your Ground state and I have the right to shoot if I feel threatened but that's not a responsibility I wanted. I don't want to take someone else's life, it's not "him or me", this is not the Wild West. Nor would carrying a gun give me some awesome ability to judge at a split second whether someone deserves to live or die. The only thing a gun does is escalate the situation until someone is dead on the ground in the pouring rain. I have since inherited a gun that belonged to a family member and I still have no plans to carry. I don't live in Baghdad or Belfast, I have no compelling reason to walk around armed. That's the difference between George Zimmerman and me, the ability to see that a gun only adds to the problem, it doesn't resolve it.

I wish to god Zimmerman wasn't found not guilty because he is guilty, he has blood on his hands. He set himself as a cowboy looking to save a world that didn't need to be saved and a poor teenage boy is dead. He may have gone out to Target to shop like any other person on other night but when he came back, he found a Scary Black Man, one of those who "always got away", and not a kid walking back home from a trip to the store chatting on the phone with a friend. Unfortunately the child died but the "Scary Black Man" lives on.

How Can We Call Ourselves Civilized...

... when this is what we allow?*

Society is judged not by how the fortunate is treated but by our actions towards the less fortunate. The number of people we incarcerate every year is appalling by itself but how they're treated is a disgrace to this country. But they're criminals, you say, they committed crimes, they deserve to be treated this way. If they wanted to be a part of society, they shouldn't have broken the law.

If you have broken a law in this county, in many prisons, you can expect to be raped or sexually assaulted by inmates or guards. You may be put in solitary confinement for weeks, months or even years. If you have health issues, they could be ignored until it's too late for effective treatment and mental health issues will be almost certainly ignored.

The point of incarceration, whether punishment or rehabilitation, is a good question but regardless of the answer, under no circumstances should a country treat any of it's citizens (or visitors to this country) this way. It goes against everything a moral, civilized country should stand for.

*America's private prison system is a national disgrace

Turkey: How #occupygezi built a hashtag army

Turkey: How #occupygezi built a hashtag army | MSNBCMSNBC

This is why I'm in favor of social media. I've posted my fair share of silly cat pictures to the internet using Twitter and Facebook. There have been some horrific cases of photos and videos passed around of assaults. But used as a tool to raise awareness, to shine a spotlight on injustice, that far outweighs the drawbacks of social media.

Beatriz Has The Right To Live- Updated

The facts of the case are simple. Beatriz is a 22 year old woman with lupus. She already has one child and was expecting her second when she found out the fetus was non-viable and would not live long past birth (even if it made it that far). Because of her lupus, carrying to term would put her at a high risk of death.

So we have:

1. a woman with a critical disease 
2. and who is a mother to a living child
3. a fetus with no hope of survival
4. and the high risk of death as her pregnancy continues

If she were an American (and lived in a state which allowed abortion or could afford to travel to said state), she would have the option of terminating her pregnancy. She would be allowed to go on with her life, to continue being a mother to her son. But she's not. She lives in El Salvador, a country that doesn't allow abortion for any reason. Not for the life of the mother, not due to rape or incest, none allowed at all. Because of Catholic doctrine.

Dying Salvadoran Woman Finally Ends Her Doomed Pregnancy With A C-Section Instead Of An ‘Abortion’

Granting a C-section rather than an abortion is nothing more then legal and religious word play. It was a gamble with a woman's life the government of El Salvador and the Catholic Church were willing to take. Waiting until the fetus was viable* put Beatriz's life at risk. It put the relationship between a woman and her husband at risk. It put the life between a mother and her son at risk. And this is what it means to be pro-life?


* I use viable only in the medical sense as it was made plain the fetus was deformed and would not survive long, if at all.

Update:
El Salvador abortion woman has C-section
5 hours.

That's how long the baby lived after being born via C-section. FIVE hours versus the weeks of suffering faced by the mother and her family. The life of a baby who was born without a brain, who would die shortly after birth is worth more than the life of the woman carrying that child. The life of a woman with a family. The life of a woman who has a son and a husband who desperately want her to live.

5 hours.

Supreme Court Upholds DNA Swabbing of People Under Arrest

Supreme Court upholds DNA swabbing of people under arrest

And here I thought my WTH? moment happened earlier in the day! 

The ruling was 5-4 with conservative Justice Antoin Scalia joining liberal Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan.

The five justices in the majority ruled that DNA sampling, after an arrest “for a serious offense” and when officers “bring the suspect to the station to be detained in custody,” does not violate the Fourth Amendment’s prohibition of unreasonable searches. 

Under those specifications, the court said, “taking and analyzing a cheek swab of the arrestee’s DNA is, like fingerprinting and photographing, a legitimate police booking procedure that is reasonable under the Fourth Amendment.”

While DNA testing may not be deemed an unreasonable search, there is no definition of a "serious offense". What exactly is a "serious offense"? Speeding? Jaywalking? Kicking puppies? Driving while Black? Occupy Wall Street? Protesting?