The True Relationship Between Crime and Law Enforcement

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Corruption is Their Business
The True Relationship Between Crime and Law Enforcement
by DOUGLAS VALENTINE

...In 1968, cops walked the beat alone, in blue wool coats, swinging billy clubs. They didn’t act like paramilitary death squads, like they do today, moving around in group formations with bullet proof vests and automatic weapons, in armored vehicles. Along with everyone else, the village cops in 1968 noticed that city cops were moving into the suburbs, buying nice houses, sending their kids to out-of-state colleges, and buying their wives fancy jewelry. Everyone knew how they could afford to do all that.

As Frank Serpico told the Knapp Commission in 1971, after being shot in the face by fellow cops, they were all on the take. First they took a free sandwich, or walked into a movie theatre with their family without paying. If you were a small businessman and you gave things to the cops, they protected you, just like the Mafia hoods. As a cop rose through the ranks, the payoffs got bigger: membership in country clubs, discounts on cars, vacations in Mexico. You might even become president of the PBA, with all the job’s benefits.

Nowadays cops in the NYPD make a better wage, and the bribery often takes other forms; but corruption continues to define law enforcement. The corruption today is largely ideological and the payoffs come in the form of personal power. Cops get to feel extra-special: they can kill with impunity, or turn their backs on the mayor and disrespect him in public (in a way they would never tolerate) for attempting to make reforms that are ideological in nature. The cops can put a gun to your head and make you say the magic words, and there’s nothing you can do about it.

In 2014, cops are so far removed from the public that there is no hope of bridging the gap. Battle lines have been drawn, and you’re either with them or against them. They will judge you on that basis, not according to laws or any rights you think the Constitution and Bill of Rights afford you...

http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/01/02/the-true-relationship-between-crime-and-law-enforcement/

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1. NYPD's been running a silent coup against DeBlasio

Last edited Sun Jan 4, 2015, 01:03 PM - Edit history (1)

Here's an interesting timeline of events since DeBlasio took over as Mayor of New York from the comment section of a piece in Gawker ..

Comments:

AdamJohnsonNYC
Yesterday 4:09pm

The NYPD's been running a silent coup against De Blasio since the day he stepped in office. They have deep ideological and institutional reasons (to say nothing of financial) to loathe him and have been trying to take his knees out since the beginning. The first weeks in office there were a series of scandals that, in all likelihood were leaked by the NYPD, after de Blasio doubled down on his campaign promise to address inequality and get rid of stop and frisk:

De Blasio's buddy sprung from jail after mayor calls NYPD

(who else would have known about that call?)

CBS 2 Exclusive: De Blasio's Caravan Caught Speeding, Violating Traffic Laws

(guess who handles de Blasio's driving detail!)

While he actually managed to get rid of stop and frisk (because it's so goddamn unpopular) these petty, narrative-driven pseudo-scandals took the wind out of sails and relegated him to photo-ops and good-government busy work. After what happened today and the uninviting de blasio to dead police officers' funeral, when will the media start calling the NYPD's brazen insubordination what it is: an assault on democracy. They work for him (and, by extension, the voters) not any bullshit "code" or "blue blood" shit they may have concocted into their heads. If Obama's generals did this to him in such a flagrant manner, we'd call it unconstitutional if not outright fascism, but when it's the NYPD - a department larger than the FBI - the press covers it as a goddamn personality dispute.

http://gawker.com/here-are-the-scumbags-blaming-de-blasio-and-obama-for-s-1673838320