*sigh* First of all, to be clear where I stand, I am not against the police and I am not against the community. I believe that there are people on both sides who are doing their best and I believe that there are people on both sides who are causing harm, lying, hiding the truth, and creating distortion.
A major portion of the reason I want more transparency is so that the truth can be more easily ascertained to help the victims on both sides of the issue. I feel very badly for the officers who are doing their best to do their job well and are falsely accused of brutality. There are people who will believe those accusations because they've either experienced the real thing or have heard enough stories of others who have. I feel very badly for civilians who are mistreated but their claims are not believed because people assume the officers involved must be telling the truth and that the civilians must be criminals and therefore their testimony is considered unbelievable. These victims exist on both sides of the issue. It has been suggested off list that I become involved with Communities United Against Police Brutality. I would like to become involved in a process to improve relationships between the police and the community, but unfortunately, I've seen a few press releases and statements by CUAPB that automatically assume fault on the part of the police and automatically assume that any civilian stories are correct. I say automatically assume because they are made before anyone has actually investigated the issue. This does not help the relationship between the community and the police. Perhaps if there were an organization called People United For Police-Community Cooperation ... Now to the resurgence of the labor day discussion: On Wednesday, the statement was made (based, I presume, on my original post) that: "why are some posters NOT upset by the idea of pepper-spraying a BABY???Isn't it understandable a great-grandmother--or any other rrelative--would have been upset & tried to stop it?" What I originally said and have maintained since was that a report was made to Indymedia in which the author spoke with one of the people in the house who stated that (paraphrased): "The great grandmother kicked an officer in the shins after he pointed pepper spray at a three month old child." The other mention I made of this was in the questions I was asking about the occurance. It should also be noted that I made the post asking if anyone here had further information regarding the incident (which I got to an extent) and attempting to highlight the need for more transparency. I knew that on Indymedia, there were going to be people who took the report as truth, but I made the mistake of assuming that here, people would understand (based on my copious qualifiers) that these were allegations that had been made and that I was looking for more information. The question in specific was: "If the report is accurate in describing the level of force used, isn't this a bit extreme? Would pointing chemical irritants at a baby be considered provocation? I wasn't there, so I don't know what actually happened, but I know I'd be pretty upset if I saw someone pointing pepper spray at a baby." Today, another post (in response to Wednesday's post) stated that: "no police officer pepper sprayed a child. no police officer was accused of pepper spraying a child. one poster on another list did accuse the police of pointing the pepper spray at a child, and this rumor was maliciously reported on this list as fact, and now it is being embellished and repeated again." The person who posted is absolutely correct that there were no allegations of an officer pepper spraying a child. There were allegations made (and posted here as allegations, not as known fact) that an officer did point pepper spray as a child. I thought I made it clear in the discussions around this last week, but the statement "this rumor was maliciously reported on this list as fact" is inaccurate. I reported an allegation, I did not report it maliciously, and I did not report it as fact. It should be made absolutely clear that no one has accused the police officers of lying. Reviewing the original Indymedia report (which has one known inaccuracy - the type of citation issued) and the police report, there are no contradictions, therefore what is known to have been stated by the police is not being challenged. Had I known at that time how to get it, I would have included the police report in the original post (I did look for it online but was not able to figure out how to get it). The problem is that there is not enough information from the police. The original purpose of the officers were to cite the people at the party with a noise violation. That escalated into three obstruction of justice charges. The charges allege that the people were trying to prevent an arrest. Who's arrest? The person who was going to receive the ticket was not arrested, so it can be assumed that she was cooperative enough to not be arrested. What arrest was being obstructed and how did it escalate? It very well may be that the people at the party did start the actions which led to escalation and arrest, but the only allegations I have to go on are theirs because the police report says nothing. Without further investigation, I'm not going to assume what the truth of the matter was, and I really don't think anyone else has the information to do so either - other than those present and anyone who has investigated further than I have. . . . There is a problem with the assumption that the police are always absolutely credible. Any group of people who learn that their actions and statements are not going to be questioned are going to have some among them who take advantage of that. How many workplaces can you think of would have every worker working 40 hours a week if they did not have to report what they've been doing? None that I've experienced. Same basic thing. If questioning the police is a taboo, there are going to be police that take advantage of that. The police is not the judge and jury - their words provide testimony, but that's it. Just because an officer says someone is guilty does not mean they are - unless you want a society like the movie Judge Dredd. Our police should not be offended by their statements being questioned - that's how the system is supposed to work. They're supposed to collect evidence, bear witness, and the accused get their day in court. Again, and I'm starting to sound like a broken record, what is needed is greater transparency and more detailed testimony. What would make it even better is if "neutral" evidence could be collected and made available (eg: video/sound). What is also needed is that when that evidence is collected and testimony is made, if a conviction is made, there should be approriate consequences (along with opportunities for real rehabilitation). In my opinion, this debate goes to show that there is a need for greater transparency and access to information so that questions can be answered more easily. And for what little it matters, I do agree with the people who stated that it was unwise for the family to turn the music back up and that the citation was justifiable. - Jason Goray, Sheridan, NE __________________________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! News - Today's headlines http://news.yahoo.com _______________________________________ Minneapolis Issues Forum - A Civil City Civic Discussion - Mn E-Democracy Post messages to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe, Unsubscribe, Digest option, and more: http://e-democracy.org/mpls
