The following debate originally took place upon my Facebook wall, after I posted artwork being shared by the page, “Cop Block“…
Rayn:
“Cops: What my friends think I do, What sympathizers think I do, What kids think I do, What society thinks I do, What I want to do, What I actually do.”
Murilo M.: The problem is not the police itself, the problem is the people who join the police, there are lots of people out there who are corrupt and violent and evil, and some of these people join the police. It is not the police that is the problem, it is the bad people within the police who are the problem. There is no such thing as an evil institution, there are only evil people inside the institutions who corrupt the institutions.
Rayn: In the US, the problem is both the institution, *and* the individual, working together. To begin, as agents of the State, police officers are literally hired, trained and paid to initiate force against, and extort money from, peaceful citizens for victimless “crimes.” The “War on Drugs” serves as a perfect example of this, and truly stands out, right in plain view, as a form of State-instituted Cultural genocide – with daily kidnappings, beatings, murders, imprisonments, rapes, tortures, and forced medical procedures to prove it! To wear the police uniform is to wear the guilt of this ongoing atrocity against humanity. Yet, to even seek out the uniform while being fully aware that police have been, and currently are, engaging in a nationwide “War on Drugs” is also absolutely evidence of individual guilt, too.
Secondly, entire police departments have been exposed time and time again for enforcing rights-violating ticket quotas against citizens as a matter of top-down policy, as well as enacting racist, harassing, guilty-until-proven-innocent-based “stop and frisk” practices, also ordered from the top- down, against communities. Yet again, these are more institutional policies, and once again, they are being willfully enacted by individuals, as well…
Finally, if and when police do get caught engaging in outright criminal activity while on duty, most receive the full and immediate support of their entire department, along with undue time and opportunity to collaborate with each other and review their own evidence before making official statements. And, if they are even investigated after those efforts, it is by none other than more members of the police force, along with various other agents of the State… And, if all of these justice-obstructing activities and agents don’t keep them from the courthouse, then the judicial branch swoops in to dutifully shield these criminal cops from as much responsibility, accountability, and repercussions as possible, whenever possible!
