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The Gaffer's Philosophy:
Part 98 Law Enforcement 1:
April 12, 2004:
In my last essay I pointed out the untenable cost of lawlessness. I think we must act quickly to reduce our criminal population. One of the obvious things we need to have for that is more effective law enforcement. For that we must address the very serious problem of inept and incompetent cops along with too many dishonest cops. Some say it is just a few bad apples. I don't know because the information is not exactly freely released to the public. Even when a cop gets investigated, we hardly ever hear the result of the investigation. Even so, even if it is only a few cops, we cannot allow it. I'm sure we can say it about any profession. There are only a few bad ones. It may be true but it is unacceptable. It is particularly unacceptable for people who are in positions of public trust, like cops. One big problem here is that even so called good cops will often cover up for the bad ones.
Now, just for some examples of police misfeasance and malfeasance, here is a list of things in no particular order that I know about. It's just as they came to mind. These are from things I know of that happened in parts of my lifetime. It does not include the stuff we all see in the news everyday.
One day I came home from work and there was a huge police dog
in my yard. When I got out of my car the dog charged me with fangs
barred. I ran into the house and escaped the dog though he did
leap and slam against the door. Then I called the state police
post and asked them to do something. Here is the answer I got
from the Michigan State policeman on duty.
"I ain't going to send my guys out there if that dog attack
you!"
Another time I caught some punks cutting down oak trees on my property. They had already taken away several cords of oak when I confronted them and told them to get off. Then I went to call the Michigan State Police. What a waste. The punks took off with another truckload before the cops came. The cops explained they could not arrest the guys who had stolen the trees from my property because I had not marked the wood and could not prove it was mine even though I had seen them cutting and stealing it. The cops just refused to do anything.
One morning when I lived in Taylor Michigan I had a doctors
appointment and I needed to get out of my driveway. The problem
was, there was an abandon car parked in the street blocking my
drive. It had appeared there during the night. I called the Taylor,
Michigan police. Here is the answer I got from the officer on
duty.
"We ain't got time for that kind of stuff."
Another time in Taylor Michigan one of my neighbors was witnessing a vehicle being vandalized. She called the Taylor Police as she was watching and began trying to tell them about the crime in progress. They put her on hold.
Another time in Taylor, Michigan a neighbor was keeping two huge dogs in a very small pen against the fence. The dogs never got out and the dog crap piled up until the odor was overpowering and I could not sit on my porch. That was bad enough, but it was worse for the dogs. They had to live in their own feces. I wrote a formal letter of complaint to the city about the mistreatment of the dogs and the zoning ordinance violations. What the law enforcement people did was call the neighbor, tell him that I had complained, and warn him that they would be out to inspect in a couple of days. I discovered this when the neighbor came to my door and attempted to intimidate me.
It turned out that the same neighbor was dealing drugs out of his house. This was clear from the frequency and class of traffic at his door. This time I had not yet complained, but someone else did. The combined forces of Taylor and several other communities sent a swat team to raid the place. There were too many agencies involved and someone tipped the guy off again. They brought a dog to sniff the house but there were no drugs there. Everyone in the neighborhood knew he was dealing out of that house. We saw it every day but he had friends in the enforcement community. The cops arrested him, but a week later he was back at the same store doing the same business.
When I was younger, I was studying at a school in Detroit, Michigan called Electronics Institute. It was a night school because I was working full time. My normal day was 14 hours. One night when I left school, I pulled up on a corner to make a right turn going home. There was a cop posturing astride a stationary motorcycle in the middle of the street. He was hitting on some hookers on the sidewalk. Silly me, I made the dumb mistake of getting my car between him and the hookers. He showed me. He chased me down and gave me a bogus ticket for interfering with pedestrian traffic. I could ill afford a fine at that time, but I had no choice. I could afford even less to lose a day's work while losing a court case against a dishonest cop. I never forgot that piece of flotsam. I never will.
When I was very much younger, in grade school, a Wyandotte, Michigan cop came to the school to lecture the kids. He told us how he was there to protect us and how important it was to obey the law, be good citizens, and trust the police. I really believe that until a few weeks later. My bother and I were walking and we came to cross a street. A Police car stopped to let us cross, we thought. We obeyed the law and walked, we did not run, across the street. When we got in front of the police car, the driver jumped his car at us and frightened us witless. He had been waiting to do just that. I have always wonder what would have happened if his foot had slipped on the clutch. I'm sure he would have rationalized it and blamed us.
Another time, a little older, I was walking with my girlfriend.
I had my arm around her waist. A Wyandotte police car stopped
and the officer accused us of public indecency. He told me to
keep my hands off of the girl. It was one of the most humiliating
experiences of my life. I never forgot it.
Another time in Wyandotte, I had an old 39 Pontiac. Like many
of the cars then, it was not good in wet weather. When it rained
the Pontiac tended to stall. It happened one day and I had pulled
off of the street onto the shoulder. I was doing nothing illegal.
I was just trying to get the car started when a cop came up and
demanded to see my drivers license and registration. He did not
tell me why or ask me any questions. He just took my ID and went
back to his car for about 10 minutes. Finally he came and gave
my ID back. He gave no explanation nor anything else. I asked
If a car had been stolen or something. He said as he walked away,
"A lot of cars have been stolen." That was it. A rude
and arrogant hassle from a miserable B*****d cop for no reason
at all, done to a kid who was already in distress. That was Wyandotte.
Most of the Wyandotte cops were like that. They got their joys
by hassling kids. I doubt that it has changed.
Then there is the case of the Oakland County sheriff's protection racket. It is still going on. Here is how it was set up. The Townships collect property tax from the property owners. This money is split up between the various local and county agencies including the Sheriffs department. The Sheriff decide he was not getting enough money to fund his agency, but the Board of Commissioners turned him down for more funds. He had a solution. He decided to shake down the townships. He refused to provide patrols or protection to the townships unless they paid him extra money to do it. Most of the townships gave in to the blackmail, Groveland Township did not and we have no police protection from the Sheriff. That is why we must call the state police when we have a problem.
One time, before the blackmail scam, my home in Groveland Township was broken into. I called the Sheriff and a guy came out. I showed him where the thief had entered and showed him some fingerprints on the window. The deputy did not bother with the prints. He said he could not make a case on that. He told me I should lay in wait and when the guy comes again I should kill him then drag him into the house and call. Then he could make a case.
This same deputy, while he was there, bragged to me about how he loved to break up bar fights. He had personally broken half a dozen Ash billy clubs by hitting drunks over the head with them. He showed me his new Hickory club that he was unable to break on a drunk's head. He was very proud of it.
Twice in recent years I have called the Michigan State Police Post to complain about disturbances of the peace. Both times, instead of finding an officer on duty, I got an answering machine. One time the machine did not even work right. It was not properly set up. I don't bother to call the Michigan State Police anymore. It has no effect.
I think that's enough detail to get a general picture. I'm sure most of the readers would have similar tales of the quality of our police protection. I'll just list some others that came to mind without giving details.
There were the night shift Detroit cops who spent every night sleeping in the shipping and receiving courtyard at American Boxboard where I worked. One morning I counted six police cars parked there.
There was a speed trap in Sylvan Lake, Michigan where the triangle shaped town had a two block frontage on Telegraph road.
There was the Oakland county Sheriff who gave me a ticket and tricked me into thinking I could avoid the fine by going to court. What he really did was get me into the courthouse to publicly humiliate me before collecting the fine.
There was the cop in South Carolina who stopped my wife and lectured her and consistently refused to tell her what law she had violated. In fact, she had not violated any law. He just though he would like to hit on a Yankee.
There is the deputy in Cheboygan County, Michigan who has the speed trap going with his friend in a rickety pickup truck on route 68. The guy goes so slow you must try to pass him, then he paces you faster and faster, keeping you in the wrong lane until his deputy friend shows up.
There was the case of my house in Taylor being robbed and the cops not even trying to find the people even though they knew who did it. I knew and they knew, but they could not be bothered.
There was the neighbor kid who was a habitual petty criminal and was escalating the seriousness of his crimes. The cops bullied him once in a while but they never arrested him or charged him. Then one day he crossed their secret line and stole a car. They suddenly threw the book at him. He was facing ten years in prison because the police had encouraged him in his bad behavior without warning him about the line.
If I was to sit and think I could come up with many more of
these but that's enough to make the point. We need to improve
our law enforcement community. I'll get to that and some other
issues next time.
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