Not a Lotta Time Today
I have more on my plate than I can really handle today--without blogging. But here's something I'm thinking on:
This week, the RCMP imploded about pension money mismanagement and corruption. It's so bad that disgraced ex-Commissioner Zacardelli might be called in to testify--despite the fact that he has either a faulty memory or a penchant for lying (See: "Maher Arar" and "Zacardelli").
A US deppity and Homeland Security bozo is fighting to have a case dismissed in which he shot two movers who'd come to his home to echange a bed he claimed was damaged. He shot both men, one three or four times, then placed an iron bar on the ground and claimed they were threatening him with it.
A border patrol officer in the US stole $15,000 worth of pot out of a border enforcement vehicle.
An off-duty Chicago cop boot£µ¢λed a barmaid after she refused the drunken @$$#0!3 service. In the video, the cop looks to be about 230 lbs. The waitress might be 170.
Because oh yes, there is video. Of both those last two events.
And I pause to wonder: What sort of amoral £µ¢λwits are being hired to be cops these days?
First there's the monumental hypocrisy of law enforcement in the first place. How many cops do you know who smoke dope and drive when they're half-in-the-bag? I've met more than one. But really, that's nothing Joe Citizen doesn't do on his off hours.
But outright criminal behaviour coupled with the monumental assoholic stupidity to get caught on video?
I can just see the recruiting video:
"'Roid rage? Turn it into a career! Bad credit, no credit, bad debt? We don't care--refinance your home from the evindence locker! Make a career of bullying and intimidation!--But if you're too stupid to make it into the Fatherland Insanity Department, then there may still be work for you in law enforcement. Think about it: it's either this or 'Y'want fries with that?' again on Monday. Sign up now and get a free can of pepper spray!"
What am I saying? There's nobody too stupid for Fatherland Insanity. Look at who's running the Justice Department.
And then there's the formaldehyde-saturated maraschino cherry on this $#!7 sundae. While the cop stomped the barmaid into paste, a guy at the bar watched for several seconds, then bravely began throwing glasses and other items at the monster cop ...
Sorry, I meant: "Then bravely reached for his cell phone".
Update: someone pointed out to me that off-duty cops in the US often have off-duty guns. Maybe grabbing one's cell is the best one can do.
posted by Metro @ 10:32 am
5 Comments:
Hey MetroBoy, here's an excerpt from an article written by Paul Palango of the Ottawa Citzen. He appears to have effectively summed up the essence of that hallowed institution some refer to as the Queen's Cowboys. And to top it off, Stockwell Day is the fkhed they have to answer to.
EK
The RCMP today runs itself like a business. It employs 25,000 and has a budget of $3 billion, but that's offset by the fact that it generates for the government at least $1.5 billion or so in revenues from the provinces for contract policing and other services.
The force does everything from hand out speeding tickets in Saskatchewan to investigating organized crime to counterterrorism probes. There is no police force like it in the world, and maybe there is a reason for that. No democratic country -- or totalitarian one, for that matter -- would envision having such a monolithic beast controlling its law enforcement structure. It doesn't make sense, doesn't serve the public interest and is destined to stumble from one disaster to the next, unless Canadians wake up and come to the realization that the myth of the RCMP is precisely that, a myth.
The Mounties rarely get their man, to the point where today other Canadian police forces find it difficult to work with the RCMP. Because of police loyalties, they won't say that on the record, but get any police officer with experience with the Mounties, and he will tell you the same thing. As one put it to me recently: "The only thing the Mounties bring to the table is federal money and toys, but they are secretive, inexperienced and charge-averse. They don't know how to build cases on their own."
The problem lies with the sheer size and cumbersome structure of the force, spread coast to coast and operating at every level of policing. The force is overly politicized and answers to far too many masters in one sense and not enough in another.
Careful there, EK...Mr. Metro and I live in Stockwell "Doris" Day's home riding.
:-)
You shoulda been with me today: there was a drunk slumped up against the doorway to Golden Boy's Pizza on the Drive and the two cops were just trying to talk him into slumping against the wall instead, so he didn't block people.
The Jamie Graham countdown must be working some kind of magic on the Vancops.
You oughtta see local 'force de gendarmarie' in the states. Our 'city' police department (a town of less than 4,000 pop with an independent city charter - what a frickin joke) and the surrounding town forces have gone hog wild with federal Homeland Security grant monies since 2002 to the point that, assuming the departments' members had the gumption, they could hold off a Russian motor rifle regiment with the automatic and heavy weaponry they've purchased.
At the same time, basic policing except for traffic ticketing has continued to go down the tubes. I personally got to experience one of our 'city's' law enforcement success stories. The now-former officer in question came by and ticketed my vehicle for parking in a two-hour zone - 45 minutes after I parked there. After a direct exchange of views about his timekeeping ability, our now-former police chief showed his laziness by telling me that he checked the department radio logs and that I was overparked by 45 minutes.
It was a $5 ticket, but the fact that two officers lied through their teeth sent me over the deep end. I dragged my neighbor, the 'city' manager into this with the statement that I would oppose this in court with the intention of showing the police-unsympathetic traffic judge that his employees were not only lazy but low enough to shake down residents. He had the chief drag out the logs and - surprisingly enough - they bore out my story.
The moral to this story comes three years later, when the officer in question becomes a regional drug task force officer, gets his official vehicle stolen by some joy-riding kids who sell evidence from 12 cases left in the vehicle and are also charged with disposing of an AR-15 rifle also left in the vehicle.
Turns out, however that the weapons sharge against the youths is dismissed when it comes out that the officer had the department buy the rifle for his official use before he turned around and sold it for $5,000.
This is not an isolated sort of thing in our parts.
What the heck ever happened to "To Serve and Protect"?
I wonder: is this rampant corruption, this use of damaged goods and shoddy cops due to our societal inability to see past our noses? Or is it part of the cause?
The whole Fatherland Insanity thing is just the sort of jingoistic paranoid nationalistic bullshit enterprise that brings swastika-tattooed Xian white men out of the woodwork to whup 'emselves some brown people.
Might as well call it the Ministry of Peace.
Somewhere in his undisclosed location, Osama Bin Laden is saying:
"'Homeland Security' (chuckles) I don't know why I didn't think of that."
Post a Comment
<< Home