Minor Thoughts from me to you

Orin Kerr provides an interesting analysis, at the Volokh Conspiracy:

1) A lot of people assume that the police are required to read a suspect his Miranda rights upon arrest. That is, they assume that one of a person’s rights is the right to be read their rights. It often happens that way on Law & Order, but that’s not what the law actually requires. The police aren’t required to follow Miranda. Miranda is a set of rules the government can chose to follow if they want to admit a person’s statements in a criminal case in court, not a set of rules they have to follow in every case.

There are questions of legality and questions or morality. Based on Kerr's analysis, it looks like it's legal to question Tsarnaev without reading him his Miranda rights. But is it moral? I think it is. I don't see the harm in allowing the police and FBI to interrogate Tsarnaev about this attack, if they aren't planning on using his statements against him.

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I've been following a story from Peru, IN. In June of last year, we learned that a local policeman had tazered a 64-year old man, suffering from Alzheimer's disease. In late August, we learned that the police departmant had fired the man involved.

Former patrolman Gregory Martin is currently appealing his firing. I'm watching that case, for any developments. Meanwhile, the Indiana legislature has gotten involved. Representative Bill Friend (R-Macy) introduced a bill "requiring all law enforcement officers in the state to receive training regarding people with Alzheimer’s disease". That bill passed the Indiana house unanimously.

I think this is probably a good idea. I know I don't know how to handle a violent Alzheimer's patient. I know that tazering someone with mental dementia is a bad idea, but I don't know what the right approach is. The "peace officers" on call should.

Hey, look! It's yet another area where public sector unions are making the world a worse place. I'm 100% in favor of getting rid of police unions.

All of these Rhode Island cops, and many more like them across the county, were able to keep their jobs and benefits—sometimes only temporarily, but always longer than they should have—thanks to model legislation written and lobbied for by well-funded police unions. That piece of legislation is called the "law enforcement bill of rights," and its sole purpose is to shield cops from the laws they're paid to enforce.

The inspiration for this legislation and its similarly named cousins across the country is the Police Officers’ Bill of Rights, introduced in 1971 by New York Rep. Mario Biaggi (D), at the behest of the Police Benevolent Association. Having once been the most decorated police officer in the country, Biaggi didn't need much convincing to put forward the union-friendly bill.

Biaggi pushed for the POBOR until March 1987, when he received two indictments back-to-back. The first was for accepting a paid vacation from Brooklyn Democratic Leader Meade H. Esposito in exchange for using federal funds to bail out a company in Esposito's neighborhood. A second indictment handed down three months later charged Biaggi with extorting $3.6 million in cash and stock options from a small Bronx machine shop called Wedtech. Both charges resulted in convictions and Biaggi's resignation from Congress.

While Biaggi's bill never made it through Congress, police unions didn't wait for city managers or police department higher-ups to write their own. Benevolent associations in Maryland successfully pushed for the passage of a police bill of rights in 1972; Florida, Rhode Island, Virginia, New Mexico, and California followed suit before the 70s were over. The 1980s, 90s, and 2000s saw still more states adopt police bill of rights at the behest of police unions.

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As if raising kids wasn't hard enough.

A stay-at-home mom from La Porte has filed a lawsuit against the city's police department, an unknown officer and one of her neighbors.

Tammy Cooper said she was wrongly accused of endangering her children and was even forced to spend the night in jail, all because she let her kids play outside.

She said her children, ages 9 and 6, were riding their motorized scooters in the cul-de-sac where they live while she watched from a lawn chair in her front yard just a few feet away.

"I was out there the entire time," Cooper said. "I never left that lawn chair the entire time."

Cooper said a little while later, a La Porte police car pulled up in front of her home.

"I went out there to see what he was here for and he said, 'Ma'am, we're here for you.' I said, 'Oh really? Why?' He proceeded to tell me he had received a call from one of my neighbors that my kids were riding their scooters unsupervised.

Cooper said she was handcuffed, put in the back of a police car and forced to spend the night in jail.

∞

Two months ago, I wrote about a police officer who tazed a man with Alzheimer’s. This weekend, I followed-up on the story, to see what’s happened since then. I’m happy to report that the Peru, IN police chief recommended firing Officer Gregory Martin. The Peru Board of Works held a hearing from from July 30-August 10, to review the recommendation. They ultimately upheld the decision and voted to fire Officer Gregory Martin.

I’m happy about this decision but it’s not over yet. Officer Martin is planning to appeal the decision, in a Miami County court.

Excerpt: Here’s another story where the public’s supposed protector practices assault and battery instead. Clifford claims in the police report that Vander Lee was using offensive language, but according to the criminal complaint, no one else in the restaurant heard it. No one claims Vander Lee struck Clifford first, though Clifford apparently claimed [...]

Here's another story where the public's supposed protector practices assault and battery instead.

Clifford claims in the police report that Vander Lee was using offensive language, but according to the criminal complaint, no one else in the restaurant heard it. No one claims Vander Lee struck Clifford first, though Clifford apparently claimed he feared Vander Lee was about to. After striking Vander Lee, Clifford then fled on foot to a nearby parking lot as Vander Lee’s brother and friend chased him. His wife then swung by in her car to pick him up, and the two of them fled. He turned himself in the next day.

The Minneapolis Police Department initially went into defensive mode, noting that Clifford had received two medals of valor and “no sustained allegations on his disciplinary record.” A couple things, there. First, let’s keep in mind that this is the same Minneapolis Police Department that gave its SWAT team “medals of valor” for raiding the wrong house, resulting in a shootout with an innocent Hmong man. His wife and six children were in the house, which the police filled with at least 22 rounds. As for Clifford’s alleged clean record, the key word in that sentence is sustained. In this case, it merely means he hasn’t yet done anything so severe that even other cops and prosecutors were willing to hold him accountable.

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This is despicable.

Police announced Monday they have launched an internal investigation, but would not comment about the incident or the investigation.

Police Chief Steve Hoover said no time frame has been set on the investigation, noting several people need to be interviewed regarding the incident.

“I would just ask from the citizens of Peru to be patient and allow us to do a thorough investigation into the matter,” he said Monday. “We assure you that we are taking this seriously, but it will take some time to do the investigation correctly.”

Given the alleged facts, the investigation should take about a day to do. And then the people involved should be fired with extreme prejudice. Given the "thin blue line" and the power of police unions, the people involved will probably end up with a medal for their valorous actions.

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How insane is this?

If you defend your family and property from a knife-wielding druggie in Massachusetts, you’d better be prepared to also defend yourself from the justice system, too.

McKay is the young father who, seeing a local druggie breaking into his truck and stealing the tools he uses to pay the bills, confronted him, subdued him and held him for the police. When the police arrived, they found the bad guy had a knife, a billy club and — thanks to the unarmed McKay — a broken jaw.

Instead of thanking McKay for helping get an armed criminal off the streets, Swampscott officials charged him with a felony. As a Swampscott police spokesman said at the time, “We don’t urge anybody to fight back. We want them to call us.”

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I was disappointed to see that state Representative Robin Vos is undoing one of the good reforms that Governor Doyle put into place.

In the bad old days, Milwaukee police officers had cut a sweet deal that allowed them to keep collecting paychecks and benefits when they were fired by the police chief until a final ruling on the dismissal was made by the Milwaukee Police and Fire Commission.

That meant, of course, that it was in the best interest of a fired officer - even a guilty one - to challenge and delay a dismissal as long as possible. Keep those paychecks rolling in, pardner.

And it was like that for a quarter of a century, under a law that treated Milwaukee cops differently from those in the rest of the state. When they were fired, Milwaukee police officers appealed - 96 percent of the time. And they collected salaries and benefits during that appeal time - appeal time that was dragged out. For the 26 years that the law was in effect, the appeal time for police officers in Milwaukee was double that of fired firefighter dismissals.

Back in October 2004 that cushy deal blew up, after off-duty Milwaukee police officers viciously beat Frank Jude Jr. at a house party, and three fired officers collected more than $500,000 in pay while awaiting trial. The Legislature cut off the continued pay for police accused of felonies and Class A and B misdemeanors, and in 2009 extended the cutoff of salaries and benefits for all fired officers.

That did not mean that officers who were mistakenly fired were without recourse: if they appealed their dismissals and won they were entitled to back pay - in a lump sum. That has been the standard for the past three years. It is a fair standard.

So why, early in the morning last week, did Vos and the Joint Finance Committee move to reinstate the 2008 law that would keep officers fired for things other than felonies or Class A and B misdemeanors on the payroll during the appeals process? In 2006, we noted that over the years the City of Milwaukee had paid out more than $2.5 million to officers who were ultimately fired.

Bad move, Representative Vos. It's wasteful and it assumes the wrong that: that police are blameless, that complaints are generally baseless, and that police need to be protected against the general public. Those assumptions aren't always right and acting as those they were is a good route to making sure that the police and the public view each other with hostility and distrust.

I just heard about this today, courtesy of PJTV (the May 26, 2010 episode, "Euro-Style Liberalism Leads to Euro-Style Violence").

Three die in bank during Greek riots - USATODAY.com

Riots over harsh new austerity measures left three bank workers dead and engulfed the streets of Athens on Wednesday [May 5, 2010], as angry protesters tried to storm parliament, hurled Molotov cocktails at police and torched buildings. Police responded with barrages of tear gas.

The three bank workers a man and two women died after demonstrators set their bank on fire along the main demonstration route in central Athens. As their colleagues sobbed in the street, five other bank workers were rescued from the balcony of the burning building.

A senior fire department official said demonstrators prevented firefighters from reaching the burning building, costing them vital time.

"Several crucial minutes were lost," the official said, visibly upset. "If we had intervened earlier, the loss of life could have been prevented."

Demonstrators set a bank on fire, trapping 3 people inside, and then prevented fire fighters from getting to the people to either release them or put out the fire before they burned to death.

This is absolutely unaccceptable. It's mob rule. Mobs cannot be allowed to firebomb buildings and then prevent the fire department from reaching the building. The solution: the next time it happens, give the police the authority to fire into the crowd to disperse it. With real bullets, not rubber bullets.

Can you trust the police? What about the courts? The answer may depend on whether or not they think anyone is watching.

Last March, after the University of Maryland men's basketball team beat Duke, students spilled out into College Park to celebrate. That brought out the riot police. In footage captured by several students with their iPhones, Maryland student Jack McKenna dances down the street with dozens of other students, then stops when he sees two cops on horseback. Unprovoked by McKenna, three riot cops then enter the picture, throw McKenna up against a wall, and begin beating him with their batons. According to attorney Christopher Griffiths—who is representing McKenna and another student, Benjamin Donat—both suffered concussions, contusions, and cuts from the beatings.

McKenna was charged with disorderly conduct, a charge that as of last week was still pending but now seems certain to be dropped. Prince George's County has since suspended four police officers, the three captured on tape beating McKenna and the sergeant who supervised them. But were it not for those iPhone videos, it would have been McKenna's word (and possibly those of whatever celebrating student witnesses he could round up) against the word of three of Maryland's finest. Or at least three. It seems likely that a number of other cops would have come forward to lie on behalf of those who beat McKenna.

If that sounds harsh, consider this: After the iPhone video of McKenna's beating emerged, investigators subpoenaed 60 hours of surveillance video from the College Park campus police. The only video police couldn't manage to locate was the one from the camera aimed squarely at the area where McKenna was beaten. Funny how that works. Campus police claimed that a "technical error" with that particular camera caused it to record over the footage of the beating. As public pressure mounted, police later found what they claimed was a recording of the lost video. But two minutes of that video were missing. Coincidentally, those two minutes happened to depict key portions of McKenna's beating. The kicker? The head of the campus video surveillance system, Lt. Joanne Ardovini, is married to one of the cops named in McKenna's complaint. (Washington D.C.'s ABC News affiliate, WJLA, a station with a history of deferring to police spokesmen without bothering to verify the accuracy of their statements, quaintly referred to this as "a bizarre coincidence.")

In another instance, Maryland police raided an individual's home for video tapes after he committed the non-crime of video taping a police officer, on a public highway. The judge who authorized the illegal raid?

According to Graber, the name of the judge who signed off on the raid of his parents' home doesn't appear on the warrant. As Graber told Miller, "They told me they don’t want you to know who the judge is because of privacy." If true, that statement is so absurd it's mind numbing. A judge issued an illegal warrant for police to invade the private residence and rummage through the private belongings of a man who broke no laws, and we aren't permitted to know the judge's name in order to protect the judge's privacy?

Here's the bottom line: government officials, acting in their official capacity, have no right to privacy. You work for us. You have no more privacy rights, in the performance of your job, than any private sector employee in the performance of his job. And you're not above the law either. Wearing a uniform isn't an authorization to go out and beat people -- or otherwise break the law -- with impunity. Period. And, no, having a stressful job isn't a good justification for mistreating American citizens.

Off-duty O.C. sheriff's deputy is arrested on DUI charge after crashing twice within 30 minutes | L.A. NOW | Los Angeles Times.

An off-duty Orange County sheriff’s deputy, who allegedly was intoxicated when he crashed his Mercedes-Benz into another vehicle and injured a passenger, had crashed 30 minutes earlier and was allowed to drive from that accident scene by fellow deputies, authorities said Friday.

Sheriff’s deputies were called Monday afternoon to a crash involving Deputy Allan James Waters, 36, and another vehicle outside City Hall in Dana Point. Deputies took a report and permitted Waters keep driving, said Assistant Sheriff Mike James.

About 30 minutes later, at 5:20 p.m., Waters crashed his Mercedes-Benz into a Toyota in Laguna Niguel, causing it to cross the center median and slam into a tree, according to the California Highway Patrol. Dolores Molina, a 78-year-old passenger in the Toyota, suffered minor injuries.

And that, right there, is pretty much why I don't respect law enforcement these days.

Maurice Clemmons

It is of course entirely possible that, as FOXNews.com quotes the Pierce County sheriff's department, "Maurice Clemmons [who is said to have killed four policemen] was shot to death after a 'very alert patrol officer' investigating reports of a stolen car recognized him."

But I think it should be noted that it is certainly also possible, considering it's a fairly open secret that the Thin Blue Line easily transforms into a Thin Blue Garrot when its own go down, that Mr. Clemmons was simply executed. Not that I'm necessarily wringing my hands about that, mind you, but why do we simply take the word of notoriously biased investigation boards?

Incidentally, FOX's story includes a great quote that I think illustrates one of our society's many faulty paradigms. When asked what motive Clemmons had, the spokesperson replied: "There is no answer, other than that he was angry about being incarcerated... There's never going to be an answer that makes any sense."

Right. 'Cause everyone knows, when someone locks you up in a cage for a major part of your limited time here on Earth, ya just gotta laugh it off.

Here's a bit of news I know I know I'm very late to the party on, but I think it's still worth mentioning for those who remain unaware ('cause it's great): After doing a little soul-searching and winding up an ardent supporter of marijuana legalization, a former narcotics officer named Barry Cooper now produces videos informing drug users how to avoid arrest, and has actually partnered with investors to conduct sting operations against police forces breaking the law in their investigations.

You don't have to buy his videos to become informed about your rights and the proper manner in which to handle law officers. Nor do you have to be a pot-smoker to benefit from that information. Publicly available films like "Busted: The Citizen's Guide to Surviving Police Encounters" are short and well worth watching, giving you a step-by-step guide to the common traffic stop and other unfortunate occasions.

In America, are we ruled by men or by laws? Theoretically, we're ruled by laws -- everyone is under the law and no one escapes justice. In practice, that's not true. And the very people who are charged with enforcing the law are often the first to ignore the law.

Take the traffic laws for instance:

Some patrol officers let drivers with protected plates off with a warning because the plates signal that the drivers are "one of their own" or related to someone who is. The Register used public records laws to obtain OCTA computer logs for the 91 Express Lanes and found 14,535 unpaid trips by motorists with confidential plates in the past five years. A Register analysis showed that was 3,722 separate vehicles, some running the toll road hundreds of times.

Among the top violators on OCTA's list were Dwight and Michell Storay (he's a parole agent with the Department of Corrections), with 622 violations and Lenai and Arnold Carraway (she's an Orange County social worker), with 239 violations.

Some police officers confess that when they pull over someone with a confidential license plate they're more likely to let them off with a warning. In most cases, one said, if an officer realizes a motorist has a confidential plate, the car won't be pulled over at all.

"It's an unwritten rule that we would extend professional courtesy," said Ron Smith, a retired Los Angeles Police Department officer who worked patrol for 23 years. "Nine out of 10 times I would."

Many police departments that run red light camera programs systematically dismiss citations issued to confidential plates.

"It's a courtesy, law enforcement to law enforcement," San Francisco Police Sgt. Tom Lee said. "We let it go."

It's not a "courtesy". It's breaking the law. These police officers should be prosecuted for obstruction of justice. I'm as angry about this practice as I was the last time I wrote about it. It is wrong -- absolutely wrong -- for justice to be perverted this way. Being related to a police officer -- being a police officer -- does not make you special. It does not exempt you from following the rules. The police should know better.

Let me be blunt: any officer that would do this does not deserve to wear the badge.

I don't trust police officers. Here's another story illustrating why:

Unfortunately, Arizona Sheriffs, including our own egregious Joe Arpaio here in Phoenix, still have a wild west mentality:

On the night of July 29, 2007, Dibor Roberts, a Senegalese-born American citizen living in Cottonwood, Arizona, was driving home from her job as a nurse's aide at an assisted living center located in the Village of Oak Creek, an unincorporated community near Sedona. Along Beaverhead Flat Road, an unlit, unpopulated route through the desert, she suddenly saw flashing lights in her rearview mirror. Fearful of stopping on a deserted stretch of pavement, especially in light of reports she'd heard of criminals impersonating police, she decided to proceed to a populated area before stopping the car, thenearest such area being Cornville, an unincorporated settlement along the road to Cottonwood. She slowed her car to acknowledge the flashing lights and continued to drive. Her decision wasn't especially unusual -- in fact, it's recommended by some police departments....

On Cornville Road, well before the populated area, Sheriff's Sergeant Jeff Neunum apparently tired of waiting for Roberts to reach a settled area. While he was, in fact, a police officer, he now proceeded to justify every fear an American may have about rogue cops. He raced his cruiser in front of Roberts's car, forcing her off the road. He then smashed her driver's-side window with his baton and grabbed a cellphone she was using to check his identity. Accounts vary at this point. While police deny it, the press has reported that Neunum dragged Roberts from her vehicle, threw her to the ground, and handcuffed her while driving his knee into her back.

All of this because she was going 15 miles over the speed limit on a deserted rural road.

(Via Coyote Blog.)

And please don't say that the cop's actions were justified because she was breaking the law. Two wrongs don't make a right -- didn't your mother teach you that?

How's this for on the job competence?

According to the lawsuit, about 9 p.m. June 15, Vega came to Guardi's and ordered pasta salad. When Mendez walked into the cooler to get the food, Vega asked Mendez's wife if she wanted to see Vega scare her husband. She said "no," according to court documents.

Then, Vega allegedly pointed the gun at Mendez's head and fired, causing the prongs to stick to Mendez's right temple and collarbone. Mendez went into convulsions and later became unconscious. He also bit off a piece of his tongue, the lawsuit said.

Vega is accused of immediately removing the Taser prongs, which caused Mendez to bleed profusely. Vega then called for back-up, and a supervisor and two detectives showed up and confiscated bloody towels, Mendez's bloody glasses, the Taser prongs and the video surveillance equipment in the restaurant, the lawsuit claims.

Reading a prepared statement, Zabrocki said Vega was conducting a routine check on the business when he noticed his Taser safety deactivated. While resecuring it, the Taser accidentally discharged, striking Mendez in the head and chest and knocking him to the ground, Zabrocki said.

It really doesn't matter which version of this story is true. Officer Vega should be fired either way. He was either guilty of gross misjudgment for using a taser to play a "prank" or he was guilty of gross incompetence for pointing his taser as somebody while adjusting the safety.

The first law of firearm safety is "thou should not point thy weapon at people". For violating that rule one or another, for hurting the very people he was sworn to defend, Officer Vega should be fired.

He won't be. The police department will call the entire thing an accident, verbally reprimand the officer, and sweep the entire incident under the rug. Rather than standing up to protect their reputation, the police department will stand up to protect "one of their own". And that's why it's getting harder and harder to trust America's police officers.

The Wisconsin State Journal reports that two homes were invaded recently, by robbers looking for drugs.

"These guys kicked in the doors of people 's residences who had nothing to do with the drug trade, " said Madison police spokesman Joel DeSpain. "It was a terrible event for both couples. "

And a violent one, especially for the women in each couple.

In the first attack, at about 2:55 a.m. on Sachtjen Street on the North Side, the woman was hit in the head with a pistol that one of the two intruders was carrying when they burst into the couple 's bedroom and demanded to know, "Where it at? " according to a police report. They fled without taking anything after the man in the couple yelled at them to leave.

In the second break-in, at about 3:30 a.m. at an apartment on Pike Drive on the South Side, the intruders kicked in the couple 's front door and punched the woman in the face while yelling "something about money and drugs, " the couple told police.

The men in that case rummaged through areas of the apartment before leaving. And again, one of the two intruders was armed with a handgun.

"The couple could not think of any reason why someone would try to rob them, " the report said.

This is a horribly, horribly ironic story. Why? Well, it reads exactly like the stories I've read about cops kicking down the doors of the wrong house, looking for drug dealers. The treatement is exactly the same however. Homeowners terrorized, brutalized, and left without an apology for compensation for damages. Don't believe me?

How about this?

The couple baby-sitting their grandchildren when police mistook their home for a drug dealer's residence has been awarded a $325,000 settlement, their attorney said yesterday.

That's when, without a warrant authorizing entrance into the home of William and Sharon McCulley, but rather with an "anticipatory search warrant" that authorized them to search any property where the marijuana was transported, police entered their home.

Though the Toyota truck they had been following and the transported box wasn't at the McCulley's home, police then threw Sharon McCulley on the ground next to her grandchild and handcuffed her, pressing a gun so hard into her head it left a circular mark, according to the complaint.

Her husband, William McCulley, who has a severe nerve disorder and has a walker and leg brace, was also ordered to lie on the ground, but was unable to do so quickly because of his disability. Thrown to the ground by an officer, William McCulley's implanted electronic shocking device to alleviate pain malfunctioned causing him to convulse, court documents state.

Or this?

The three defendants were among a group of DEA agents who burst into the couple's home Dec. 19 using a search warrant signed by a Sonoma County judge for an investigation of a cross-country shipment of six pounds of marijuana.

No drugs, drug residue, money or weapons were found during the search of Keane's house.

Strange, 63, said in the suit that a DEA agent held her down with a boot on her head as agents stormed through the house yelling, "Where are your weapons?" and "You know why we're here."

Or this?

Williams said he believes the team was supposed to be raiding a parolee's home Aug. 24 when they inadvertently hit the wrong door.

Officers ended up at the home of David and Lillian Scott, just off Rancho California Road.

Lillian Scott said she and her husband were in the living room discussing family plans, their 15-year-old daughter was in the garage with two friends and their 16-year-old son was in another room feeding the Scotts' 5-month-old baby.

That all changed at 9:35 p.m. she said, when Temecula police officers -- four or five, she's not sure -- carrying rifles charged though the unlocked front screen door and ordered the couple to the floor.

"Two of them came over and put handcuffs on the two of us," Lillian Scott said. "We asked what we had done wrong and didn't get an answer."

Elsewhere in the house other officers handcuffed their daughter and her two friends.

"(The officers) told them to get down on the f---ing floor," she said.

Her 16-year-old son, who was feeding the baby, was also ordered to the floor and handcuffed, Scott said.

From the other room, Scott heard her infant crying.

"I asked if my baby was OK and the officer told me if I moved he was going to put a bullet in my head," Scott said.

Or this

Law-enforcement officers raided the wrong house and forced a 77-year-old La Plata County woman on oxygen to the ground last week in search of methamphetamine.

The raid occurred about 11 a.m. June 8, as Virginia Herrick was settling in to watch "The Price is Right." She heard a rustling outside her mobile home in Durango West I and looked out to see several men with gas masks and bulletproof vests, she said.

Herrick went to the back door to have a look.

"I thought there was a gas leak or something," she said.

But before reaching the door, La Plata County Sheriff's deputies shouted "search warrant, search warrant" and barged in with guns drawn, she said. They ordered Herrick to the ground and began searching the home.

"They didn't give me a chance to ask for a search warrant or see a search warrant or anything," she said in a phone interview Thursday. "I'm not about to argue with those big old guys, especially when they've got guns and those big old sledgehammers."

Or this guy, who accidentally tripped his own security system?

"I felt a lot of voltage going through my body," Mr. Hicks said recalling the events of that late July weekend. "That's what woke me up."

Jumping to his feet, Mr. Hicks was aware of an intense sensation between the shoulder blades of his 150-pound body. It didn't stop there. His whole body felt as if it were on fire.

... According to Mr. Hicks, the cops were skeptical. "How do we know that you're who you say you are?" the shorter of the two cops asked.

At that point, the cop holding the Taser squeezed the trigger, sending Mr. Hicks into paroxysm of agony. It was not a short jolt like the first one he received. He fell to the floor. His screams woke the neighbors.

"What do you want?" Mr. Hicks asked. "Please stop [shooting] me." The shorter cop helped him to his feet. Swaying unsteadily, he offered to show them his identification. They searched him and found his wallet. After inspecting it, they threw the wallet on the coffee table.

"I told you I lived here and that I'm the legal resident," he shouted, believing he finally had justice, common decency and the angels of heaven on his side. A staff member at the African-American Chamber of Commerce of Western Pennsylvania, Mr. Hicks counts himself on the side of the law-abiding citizen.

The cop with the Taser squeezed the trigger again, anyway. Mr. Hicks flapped his arms wildly, but didn't fall. All he could do was scream loud enough to be heard all over the Mon Valley.

After removing the pellets from his bloody back, the cops handcuffed Mr. Hicks and led him out his front door to a police van. They did not read him his rights, Mr. Hicks says. The back of his shirt was soaked with warm, sticky blood.

Meanwhile, cops from six neighboring boroughs searched the house for other "burglars."

Mr. Hicks' mother, Arlene, arrived just as her son was being escorted out the door. She had Mr. Hicks' 11-year-old daughter and a niece in tow. "Why are you arresting my son?" she asked. The taller of the two cops answered that he "didn't have to tell her anything."

When Mrs. Hicks persisted, he said her son was being arrested for "being belligerent."

Ah, yes. Belligerence. A crime truly worthy of repeated tasering, false arrest, and a night in jail. Sounds to me like the cops were angry because the rest of the world doesn't take them nearly as seriously as they take themselves. Of course, they won't face any discipline for the behavior. Honestly, I'm more frightened of hopped up SWAT teams than I am of actual criminals.

Even the King is under the law. That's one of the fundamental ideas behind the British and American system of government. No one in power -- not the king, not the president, not the judges -- is allowed to break the law.

That idea has a strong corollary: those who enforce the law are also under the law. After all, who is the king if not the chief enforcer of the law? And if the king is under the law, shouldn't those who work for him also be under the law?

That's why I reacted with anger and outrage when I saw this site. Cops Writing Cops - Where's the Professional Courtesy? Law Enforcement and Police Officers help each other.

This is a site for officers getting traffic tickets that ANY normal civilian could get a warning on, verbal or written. This is a site for cops, about cops, and designed by cops. Needless to say, we are fed up with hearing about this and think something should be done. There's always another ticket down the street. We are all family and maybe someday you may need one of us to get out of our car and save your sorry ass. But odds are you're the cop that doesn't do anything to begin with.

If you are a police officer, trooper, court officer, correction officer, telecommunicator, highway patrol, federal agent, or any other type of police (peace) officer either full-time, part-time or retired that has been disrespected or insulted by another police agency (officer) by not receiving some sort of professional courtesy, please email staff (at) copswritingcops.com with the information.

They have all kinds of nifty features like "DICKS OF THE MONTH", dedicated to exposing cops who have the absolute gall to actually write up another cop for breaking the law. Personally, I think that feature should be renamed "HEROS OF THE MONTH".

The entire idea that cops -- by virtue of their job -- should be immune from "minor" tickets is utterly offensive. They shouldn't be granted special privileges just because their job has a certain element of danger. Despite what they seem to think, they are civilians just like the rest of us. They are no more or no less under the law as a result of enforcing the law.

Many people believe we live in a Christian society. Well, the Bible had some pretty specific things to say about treating everyone justly.

[esvbible reference="Deuteronomy 16:19" header="on" format="block"]Deuteronomy 16:19[/esvbible]

These officers aren't accepting bribes, but they sure are showing partiality. That never works out well for society.

[esvbible reference="Proverbs 11:1" header="on" format="block"]Proverbs 11:1[/esvbible]

A false balance: sometimes traders would have one scale to measure goods and money for friends and another (false) scale to measure goods and money for people they didn't know. What better way to cheat somebody? These officers are cheating society by using one standard for "brothers" and another, harsher, standard for everyone else.

[esvbible reference="Proverbs 20:10" header="on" format="block"]Proverbs 20:10[/esvbible]

I don't like that kind of a double standard. And neither does God. Non-Christian officers aren't expected to follow God's standards -- they're not His, after all. But Christian officers had better beware if this is the standard of justice that they're using.