#defund minneapolis police

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Christian Paz at Vox:

Tim Walz was just over a year into his first term as Minnesota governor when a Minneapolis police officer murdered George Floyd in May 2020, touching off a generation-defining summer of global protests against police brutality and racial inequality. Four years later, Walz’s handling of the demonstrations — which included mass unrest in Minnesota’s largest cities — is under new scrutiny after Vice President Kamala Harris tapped the governor to be her running mate on Tuesday.

At least two people died during the violence in Minnesota’s Twin Cities, more than 600 arrests were made in the initial days of unrest, and the whole span of rioting and law enforcement response made it one of the most costly and destructive periods of civil unrest in US history. Minneapolis and Saint Paul sustained hundreds of millions of dollars in damage during those riots, and hundreds of buildings were heavily damaged. Conservatives have charged Walz with essentially allowing rioters to “burn Minneapolis to the ground” and waffling on the deployment of National Guard troops to quell the violence. Walz wasn’t the main authority in charge of responding to the unrest — that was the task of local officials, including Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey. But the task eventually passed to him once it was too much for local officials to handle. Both Walz and Frey’s governments have traded blame and presented their own versions of the events of those days of rage, but the full story of what happened is still not completely known.

What did Walz do during the unrest?

The main line of criticism of Walz’s response to the late-spring riots hinges on the time it took for him to deploy the Minnesota National Guard and coordinate with other state and local officials in restoring order.

Floyd was killed on May 25, and large protests, with some vandalism and police violence, began the next day. By the evening of May 27, largely peaceful protests grew more violent, with looting and arson around the city. Frey, the mayor, reportedly contacted Walz that evening and asked for help from the Minnesota National Guard. The city’s police chief then sent Walz’s office a written request for 600 troops, in addition to some other logistical notes. Walz and his office did not sign an executive order authorizing National Guard deployments until the following afternoon, May 28, at which point much of the city had shut down, businesses were closed and boarded up to prevent looting, and buildings were smoldering after overnight arsons. That night saw some of the worst rioting, violence, and arson, as well as one of the indelible scenes of the protests: the breach and burning of the Minneapolis police’s Third Precinct police station. A few hundred National Guard and Minnesota State Patrol officers had been deployed to Minneapolis by then, but were charged with protecting federal buildings and downtown areas of the city, as well as escorting first responders, instead of immediately going to hot spots.

Walz would later say that the city had not specified where the troops should go — and state and local officials later reflected that there was a breakdown in communication, coordination, and understanding of just how long it would take to get National Guard troops prepped. The next morning, once National Guard troops and the state patrol had taken control of the area around the station, another lasting moment occurred: the arrest of CNN correspondent Omar Jimenez and his crew while reporting live near the police station. At a press conference on May 29, Walz would take responsibility for the state patrol’s mishandling of the news crew, saying, “There is absolutely no reason something like this should happen. Calls were made immediately … I failed you last night in that.”

That press conference was also the first time Walz acknowledged that local officials’ response had been an “abject failure” and that he would now be leading the response. He said he had spoken with President Donald Trump and said that his tweets about “shooting” starting after looting were “unhelpful.” He deployed more National Guard troops and instituted a curfew. Still, more violence and vandalism occurred. The following day, Saturday, May 30, Walz would fully mobilize the National Guard, speak with Secretary of Defense Mark Esper and Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley, and acknowledge that the situation had gotten worse because “outside agitators” had entered the region. The protests and riots wouldn’t be fully tamped down in the Twin Cities until June 7.

[...]

Republicans are attacking the governor’s response now that he’s on the VP ticket

Since the Walz announcement, Republicans have assailed him as “weak, failed, and dangerously liberal,” and zeroed in specifically on his response to the Floyd protests and their aftermath. Given that the racial reckoning that the Floyd murder kicked off included the rise to prominence of the “Defund the Police” slogan and movement, some conservatives have also claimed that Walz was being “soft on crime” for supporting police reforms in the state that banned chokeholds, created new mental health resources for police and first responders, and required excessive-force trainings. And others in right-wing media have conflated his response to the Floyd murder specifically, which he connected to “systemic issues” with policing and “institutional racism,” with Walz offering excuses for the violence.

During the immediate aftermath of the George Floyd protests that escalated into riots in 2020, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D)’s response to the protests has been facing scrutiny from Republicans who saw Walz as responding too slowly.

[news4dzhozhar]

The internet needs to figure out who these 2 witches are and make sure those around them (and their employers) know what kind of racist, Islamophobic pieces of 💩 they are. And how can the cops refuse to allow the men to file a complaint against these Karen's for calling in a bogus bomb threat? 🤬

And what sense does it make for them to claim it was suspicious that the men went to the bathroom separately? It's a freaking plane! How else are you supposed to use those tiny bathrooms?

UPDATE - 1 OF THESE BITCHES IS A COP WHICH MAKES THIS SO MUCH WORSE. SHE KNEW SHE WAS MAKING A BOGUS CLAIM & THE AIRPORT SECURITY COVERED FOR HER. CONTACT HER POLICE DEPARTMENT IN BLAINE, MINNESOTA AND GIVE THEM A PIECE OF YOUR MIND. HER NAME IS HAILEY LARSON.

THE POLICE CHIEF IS BRIAN PODANY AT 763-785-6132 or 763-427-1212 OR ON TWITTER & INSTAGRAM @BLAINEPOLICEMN

HERE IS THE UPDATE FROM THE SISTER OF 1 OF THE MEN ACCUSED

[bearfoottruck]

I hope anyone here who ever supported Black Lives Matter is happy with themselves, because this is what you brought.

[whatwould-misha-do]

I think ACAB is a useful concept but doesn't describe exactly what I believe. I have met cops who are useful and nice in certain circumstances, including more than a few who helped save the lives of kids. There was one who was a suicidal teen's only contact outside of a hospital and the way they checked in on them and encouraged them is part of why they survived. But you have to assume that due to training in their system, the way coworkers force out people who aren't rough enough or think a certain way, as well as how the profession draws people or abusers who want power and authority over others, that those same cops are still dangerous in different circumstances. I know this is compatible with ACAB, but some people who say that do mean cops are awful all the time.

I think of cops as a loaded gun. Always assume they could go off at the wrong moment. Don't leave kids alone with them. Useful in specific circumstances, but don't point them at anyone without warning, and unless you're okay with them possibly getting hurt or there aren't better alternatives. There should be steps before they are used. There should be alternatives.

[chaddavisphotography]

Protester wearing a "Defund the police" shirt.

[mckitterick]

it's almost as if having too many cops around - and using them for things that others can handle better - makes things worse

before some bootlicker comes in and says, "cAuZatiOn iZzn'T corrELatiOn!" this absolutely shows having too many cops doing things they're no good at doesn't help

Source

Source

Nearly every category of violent crime went down for the first time since 2019 as Minneapolis continues to have fewer police among its ranks

[nando161mando]

"#Minneapolis: Dozens gathered this evening at 41st & Lyndale Ave. N. for a protest for Ricky Cobb II, a 33 y/o father who was killed two days ago by @mndps_msp officers during a traffic stop near 42nd Ave. & I-94. Cobb II was unarmed & shot in the abdomen."

https://bird.makeup/users/ur_ninja/statuses/1686551768736391168

[crimethinc]

Four years ago today, demonstrators grieving the murder of George Floyd destroyed the Third Precinct in Minneapolis, showing the world what police abolition could look like in practice.

http://crimethinc.com/ThirdPrecinct

Immediately afterwards, politicians scrambled to promise to defund the police, if only activists would confine themselves to seeking change through the institutions of the state. None of those promises came true.

Instead, for four years, politicians of all stripes have engaged in a concerted effort to make us forget that moment of possibility, doing everything they can to equip the police with even more public funding and perceived legitimacy even as the police go on murdering with impunity.

In a society wracked by extreme disparities in wealth and power, police are essential to governance itself. The politicians can't afford to do without them. But neither capitalism nor police nor politicians are beneficial to the rest of us.

As we wrote in 2020,

"Remember this moment. Later, there will be misinformation campaigns, conspiracy theories, rumors to distract us from our agency. But right now, we are seeing what we can accomplish together when we stand up to our oppressors. Don't let anyone tell you we can't change the world."

[workingclasshistory]

On this day, 25 May 2020, George Floyd, 46, a Black security guard and father of two, was murdered by Minneapolis police, as an officer knelt on his neck for over eight minutes. The killer, who had eighteen previous complaints filed against him, ignored Floyd's desperate calls that he could not breathe, and that the officer would kill him. He kept kneeling on Floyd's neck after he lost consciousness, and even after paramedics arrived he kept kneeling on his neck for a further minute and twenty seconds. Meanwhile, three of his colleagues stood by and protected him while onlookers filmed and called for help. Combined with a spate of other killings of unarmed Black people by police and vigilantes, including Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, and Rayshard Brooks, the Black Lives Matter movement re-emerged and swept the US and internationally. Within the next two months, over 4,700 protests took place in some 2,500 towns and cities around the US with between seven and 26 million participants, which would make it the largest protest movement in US history. This has been despite violent attacks on demonstrators by police, National Guard, and armed white supremacists. The full scope of the movement cannot be known at present, but so far it has resulted in criminal convictions for the killers of Floyd and Arbery, and has sparked growing calls for the defunding or even abolition of police forces. In Minneapolis itself this resulted in the city council initially pledging to dismantle its police department, although after protests died down, authorities backtracked on the plan. More information, sources and map: https://stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/9773/george-floyd-murdered https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=632513372255215&set=a.602588028581083&type=3

[anarchotahdigism]

"

This narcotizing blanket of small lies, slowly nudging us toward acceptance of fascist policy, has also functioned by being distinct from the more blatant, bizarre and openly violent right wing culture wars, which have served as a convenient ideological cover for the Biden admin's slow dismantling of the Covid safety net.

The archetypal move here, I think, was the CDC stopping tracking and collating Covid data at all. After 40 years of preaching transparency, studies and "more information", liberals have made the distinctly fashy pivot to "less data, more vibes" (see also Democratic governor of New York Kathy Hochul saying that subway crime is "not statistically significant, but psychologically significant" in justification of deploying soldiers to the MTA). This has gone hand in hand with the dismantling of the journalistic apparatus, which seems to be reaching its apotheosis over the last 12 months. Not to mention the rise of AI and the collapse of internet searchability.

While the right has been busy attacking the institutions and idea of history itself, in book bans, school board and university takeovers, the liberals have been engaged in an active campaign of forgetting the very thing we're literally experiencing right now." ... "They want us to forget that, a mere four years ago, the president of the United States cowered in a bunker underneath the White House as rioters shook the gates and destroyed the guardhouse at its entrance. They want us to forget what it felt like to take the streets with one another, they want us to forget that we fought the police and won, they want us to forget the promises to defund the police, they want to forget that ACAB became a slogan on every lips, that the burning of the third precinct in Minneapolis had higher approval ratings than either presidential candidate, that few things have ever been so beautiful as that hideous building given over to the flames." ...

"We can not afford such comfortable forgetting. In an age of mass gaslighting and mass misinformation in the name of mass disablement and death, where the state offers us nothing except the comforting lie that this is normal, the simple stating of the facts, standing up for our own memories, becomes an act of resistance.

Do not forget what you know. Do not forget who you are. Forgetting is an active process, and it's one we must resist and refuse."

[dailyanarchistposts]

What is CHAZ?

The Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone (CHAZ) will most likely be a short lived communal project of local socialists and anarchists in Seattle. But it’s fascinating lesson in how to build communal societies and what benefits they can provide to a large group of people. After a week of tough protesting against the Seattle PD, local anarchists began to create roadblocks in and around the Capitol Hill area of Seattle once the department retreated from their East Precinct. CHAZ was established only after the Seattle PD abandoned that precinct. Capitol Hill is a posh, LGBTQ community where a lot of younger urban professionals already lived. On June 8th, they officially declared a six block radius under their complete control and gave it a new name, The Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone (CHAZ), aka “Free Capitol Hill.” Anarchists used the moniker “Free Capitol Hill” in homage to the “Free Derry” sign erected in the Bogside neighborhood of the Northern Ireland city of Derry, which became an embattled city during the Troubles. These developments are amazing when you consider that in just two weeks, three different police precincts were either abandoned or burned down (2 in Minneapolis, 1 in Seattle). We’ve never seen this before in America and it does signal what can be possible through numbers and sheer determination. Now, obviously the goal is not to take over police stations, but to defund departments and attempt to rebuild policing from the ground up. Some may toe the line of “reform” but anarchists and socialists in this country know that much more than that is needed. CHAZ is a local experiment, but one worth taking lessons from and it’s a breath of fresh air during a time of inhumanity.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Chris McGreal at The Guardian:

Donald Trump has pledged to shield police officers from legal accountability if he is re-elected as president after falsely claiming the US is in the grip of a wave of violent crime that he blamed on the Black Lives Matter movement and people crossing the Mexican border.

Speaking to police officers in Michigan on Tuesday, the former president sought to pin responsibility for the imagined crisis on his Democratic opponent, Kamala Harris, whom he characterised as among “Marxist district attorneys” with a record of being anti-police and pro-criminal during her term as the district attorney in San Francisco in the 2000s.

At the same time, Trump lamented his own legal difficulties, including his criminal convictions for fraud in New York and other looming prosecutions. “They go after guys like me, but they don’t go after guys that kill people,” he said. Flanked by local sheriffs in Howell, a small city in greater Detroit where a group of white supremacists marched last month chanting “We love Hitler, we love Trump” and carrying signs reading “White Lives Matter”, Trump painted a picture of Americans living in fear of leaving their homes because of crime. “It’s just insane, but you can’t walk across the street to get a loaf of bread. You get shot, you get mugged, you get raped, you get … whatever it may be,” he said.

The former president claimed that this alleged crime wave materialised when Joe Biden and Harris took office. “Since Comrade Kamala Harris took office, her administration’s crime statistics show she’s presided over a 43% increase in violent crime. These are all government numbers,” he claimed. In fact, official statistics show that violent crime is at an almost 50-year low in the US. Nonetheless, Trump pledged to “crack down on local Marxist DAs who refuse to enforce the law” while, he said, ruining the lives of police officers for doing their jobs. “Over the past four years, the Marxist left has waged a vicious war on law enforcement in our country. They’ve taken away the dignity and the spirit and the life of some of these police officers, and that’s why you see it – the crime is so out of control in our country,” he claimed.

Trump said that the police “have a lot of difficulty with the laws of our land”. “We’re going to get rid of that difficulty, because they shouldn’t have difficulty, our police,” he said. Trump added: “We’re going to be guaranteeing immunities.” The former president accused Harris of a “pro-crime, anti-police record”. “She repeatedly endorsed defunding the police,” he said. “If she ever had a chance, she would do whatever she could to defund the police because that’s where her spirit is, that’s where her heart is, and we can’t have a president like that.”

In 2020, then senator Harris gave support to the “defund the police” movement in the wake of a white police officer’s murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis and the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement. Harris said at the time that it was right that BLM questioned the amount of money spent on “militarising” police departments at the expense of social services, housing and education.

[...] Trump blamed much of the imagined increase in crime on people crossing the Mexican border, for which he also blamed Harris as the supposed “border tsar”, even though immigrants are less likely to commit crimes than US citizens. He also claimed that some Latin American countries are exporting their criminals to the US.

See Also:

Daily Kos: Trump sinks deeper into hatred while Democrats unite in joy

[whatevergreen]

The Police...

An overview of an epic horror going back decades, with too little or nothing done: -

Killings by police (USA), and racism:

"US law enforcement killed at least 1,176 people in 2022, making it the deadliest year on record for police violence since 2013 when experts first started tracking the killings nationwide, a new data analysis reveals.

Police across the country killed an average of more than three people a day, or nearly 100 people every month last year according to Mapping Police Violence. The non-profit research group maintains a database of reported deaths at the hands of law enforcement, including people fatally shot, beaten, restrained and Tasered."

"...in 32% of cases last year, the person was fleeing before they were killed, generally running or driving off – cases in which experts say lethal force is unwarranted and also endangers the public. In June, Ohio police officers fired dozens of rounds at Jayland Walker, who was unarmed and fleeing; a month later, an officer in California exited an unmarked car and immediately fired at Robert Adams as he ran in the opposite direction.

The racial disparities have also persisted: Black people were 24% of those killed last year, while making up only 13% of the population. From 2013 to 2022, Black residents were three times more likely to be killed by US police than white people. The inequality is particularly severe in some cities, including Minneapolis where police have killed Black residents at a rate 28 times higher than white residents, and Chicago, where the rate was 25 times higher, Mapping Police Violence reported." -

Worldwide, figures are hard to come by. 10,000s of people are killed by police annually, with the USA, the Philippines and Brazil being among the worst.

Also:

Are there any statistics for the numbers of assaults by police which don't result in fatalities? How many police assaults are going unnoticed because the victim didn't die but is nonetheless seriously injured?

"...The simple truth is law enforcement as a US institution does not treat Black Americans as people worthy of humane treatment. They reserve their “to serve and protect” mottos for white people committing the most inhumane of crimes. It is ingrained, it is institutional, it is personal, and it may be universal. All of this is key to why law enforcement in the US must be defunded and needs to be abolished. A system designed to allow cowardly actions and near sociopathic behaviour in the name of “law and order” is too deadly to remain intact. Unless that is the point – to cower Black Americans into accepting oppression – which it may be for people like Biden.

It’s probably evident: I don’t like cops. I’ve felt threatened by them since I was five.

My first encounter with law enforcement in action was in July 1975. I was half asleep when awakened by a fight between my mom and dad. When my intoxicated father lunged at my mom with a dull kitchen knife, my mom used her arms and legs to deflect the attempt, right into the left side of my father’s stomach. Back then, we lived on the second floor of a duplex six blocks from the Bronx border in Mount Vernon, New York. My father stood in the stairwell outside the door to our flat, bleeding and moaning softly.

A few minutes later, two of Mount Vernon’s finest showed up – one white man and one Black man – along with an ambulance. After peppering my mom with questions, and then checking out my father’s stab wound, the two cops idly stood by and laughed as two EMTs put my father on a stretcher. I will never forget that they found my mother fighting off my dad funny, because he ended up stabbing himself. I have never not remembered the look of stunned hurt in my traumatised mother’s eyes.

It wasn’t a joke to me. Yet, somehow, the two officers found domestic violence humorous. The Black cop patted me on my head like I was some lost cat or dog. This was the first lesson in racism, patriarchy, misogynoir and policing I received, long before I had learned any of these words or what they meant." ...

... "When the moments came when I should have called 911 in the 1980s, whether it was me witnessing domestic violence at home or me being the object of physical abuse, I never picked up the phone. I knew the police were untrustworthy. The killing of the 25-year-old graphic artist, Michael Stewart, in 1983, and of the 66-year-old grandmother Eleanor Bumpurs, in 1984, by New York officers helped reinforce a few things. One, that it’s rare for law enforcement to stop a crime in progress. Two, that police often end up committing a crime for no good reason. And three, that the penalty for Black folks having a mental illness or a bad day is often death.

Since my 17th birthday at the end of 1986, I have been accosted, stopped, frisked and followed by police in different parts of the country – whether for walking while Black in Beverly Hills or driving while Black in Pittsburgh and in Silver Spring, Maryland. I was held at gunpoint by a shaking 60-something white policeman on my own campus at Carnegie Mellon University in 1994.

All these encounters involved either “fitting the description” of someone much shorter than my 190cm (6-foot, 3-inch) frame or for a minor traffic violation. Each interaction brought on anxiety that could have left me vulnerable in the hands of police all too willing to beat me into a hospital bed or shoot me into the afterlife.

Farmington Hills, Michigan, is one example of how easy it is to build a police force that will shoot to kill a Black person for anything. As of this spring (2022), they used pictures of Black men with guns as target practice training for their mostly white police officers. Irrespective of an officer’s race or ethnicity, white supremacy is the default position of law enforcement. ..."

..............................

And then there's the many other "issues" (not in any order of importance) -

Homophobia...

Homophobic actions by police are countless. It is after all what caused the Stonewall riots in 1969, and countless other protests since.

It may be less of an issue in many parts of the world nowadays (though as recent reports have shown, anti-lgbtq prejudice is still common among cops), but that doesn't wipe away the many decades+ of abuse. Arrests for consensual sexual activity in people's own homes, arrests for cruising, the raids on bath houses, bars, and clubs. The instances of sexual assault against LGBTQ by police (for example there have been claims in the past of police detaining then assaulting men caught in the main cruising area of Newcastle (UK). The attacks on LGBTQ rights activists. The police involvement in the assassinations of Harvey Milk and George Moscone. The failure to properly respond to and investigate serious hate crimes.

And of course if you live somewhere like Qatar, Saudi Arabia or Iran, then you can be tortured, jailed, or even executed.

How long is it going to be before Florida, Texas, or the Dakotas is added to that list? I'm not joking. Many US states are on a sharp downward spiral in regards to LGBTQ rights, race, misogyny, abortion and sexual health, and so much else. See also the likes of Russia, the UK, and Poland.

-

Thefts...

"According to their data, local police departments have seized more than $68 billion dollars worth of personal property without due process over the last 20 years. In fact, since 2014, police have been stealing more than actual burglars—and most of that came from people who hadn't been convicted of a crime." 21 Dec 2020

When it comes to actually solving crimes: UK police for example have failed to solve over a million thefts and burglaries in recent years.

Meanwhile in the US only 2% of major crimes are ever solved.

The New York Times reviewed national dispatch data from the FBI in June 2020, and found that just 4% of officers’ time is devoted to violent crime.

"In 2019, 88% of the time L.A. County sheriff’s officers spent on stops was for officer-initiated stops rather than in response to calls. The overwhelming majority of that time – 79% – was spent on traffic violations. By contrast, just 11% of those hours was spent on stops based on reasonable suspicion of a crime.

In Riverside, about 83% of deputies’ time spent on officer-initiated stops went toward traffic violations, and just 7% on stops based on reasonable suspicion.

Moreover, most of the stops are pointless, other than inconveniencing citizens, or worse – “a routine practice of pretextual stops,” researchers wrote. Roughly three out of every four hours that Sacramento sheriff’s officers spent investigating traffic violations were for stops that ended in warnings, or no action, for example."

- When politicians claim more police is going to make everything better: "In 2016, a group of criminologists conducted a systematic review of 62 earlier studies of police force size and crime between 1971 and 2013. They concluded that 40 years of studies consistently show that “the overall effect size for police force size on crime is negative, small, and not statistically significant.” -

Targeted killings (assassinations)

The police were involved in the assassinations of such figures as Fred Hampton of the Black Panthers (and arguably Harvey Milk and George Moscone), among others.

- Sexual assaults...

"Some 2,000 allegations of sexual misconduct including rape have been levelled against serving police officers over the last four years, according to data released under freedom of information rules.

Figures from 39 forces showed nearly two-thirds of complaints were discontinued, but that about 30 per cent of officers, special constables or PCSOs accused of sexual misconduct had previously faced separate claims of wrongdoing.

Among the complaints were more than 370 allegations of sexual assault, almost 100 accusations of rape, and 18 alleged child sex offences. Overall, there were 514 proven allegations across 33 police forces.

However, just one third of guilty workers were sacked in cases where sexual misconduct complaints were upheld, according to numbers uncovered by Channel 4’s Dispatches." ...

... "A separate set of figures released under freedom of information on Monday revealed that, of 750 sexual misconduct claims against police officers from 31 forces between 2016 and 2020, 34 resulted in sackings."

"...we traced the outcomes of 689 reports of sexual assault made to the SIU between 2005 and 2020. We found that the vast majority of allegations of sexual assault do not result in meaningful consequences for the police officers involved." ...

... "For the reports that did receive a full investigation, 86.3 per cent did not result in charges being laid. During the 15-year-period of our study, only 7.4 per cent of investigated complaints of sexual assault led to charges." -

Killing dogs:

Some estimates claim that over 10,000 dogs are shot annually by police in the US. Whatever the actual figure, it is certain from the many documented cases that many dogs are being killed - mostly without justification - by police. There are many horrific videos online showing that no one and nothing is safe from the blatant sadism of out of control cops.

And of course...

(This started as a smallish post and then spiralled. There's much else that could be added to this)

[crackdaddycaine]

About the Leftöver Crack song “Shooticide” & its inspiration by Stza Crack

When I was 12, my step-father killed himself & the news was broken to me by an NYPD officer that was just inside of the apartment door when I got home from school. I was shocked, saddened & surprised. It felt like an ambush & they had no business being in our home. It was not a crime scene & was it the officers place to tell me this news when my mom was already there?

Growing up a block from Bellevue hospital, I saw police corruption, brutality & the victims of their violence up close all of the time & although I was “taught” that the police were there only to help us, as I grew, I soon learned to only loathe & fear them.

In 2014, with the public's access to video camera's on their smart-phones & with the advent & simplification of social media posting, holding police accountable for murdering people seemed to almost become a reality when news coverage momentarily shifted from the police departments “official” stories to the documented stories of civilian eye-witnesses. The evident & widespread abuse of police power & their flagrant lack of respect for human life started to trend until it was part of mainstream media & and unavoidable national conversation.

Then, all of a sudden, the "fad" waned, the media moved on to something else & nothing changed at all. Mandatory body cameras were either not worn or routinely shut off &/or "broken" at critical moments during confrontations with often unarmed black individuals many of whom were not even suspects in any crime.

With the botched “no-knock” raid that left Breonna Taylor murdered that March in Kentucky to the surfacing of footage of Sandra Bland’s arrest in Texas years earlier that led most people to the conclusion that she was murdered by the same police that had her detained illegally in a jail cell, by the time that George Floyd was murdered in Minneapolis, the people witnessing his mistreatment knew what to do & their film proved what most of us already knew, that the police were cruel & sadistic, but, as filming police violations became the norm & police started going on public trials for murder, the disturbing trend became more & more evident: the police were not only poorly trained & often racially motivated, but, time & time again, they explained that they were "scared". Now, this could seem like a "strategy" to get a police officer out of a murder charge, but, in the wake of the Uvalde school shooting & in light of the evacuations of their own precincts during national anti-police protests in major cities like Minneapolis & Seattle, even leaving behind guns, ammo & prisoners without food or water, a veritable checklist of state-irresponsibility, it became painfully obvious that police were very rarely "heroic" & almost always cowards.

Shooticide is about how the police in America have undermined their own authority by "outing" themselves as terrified of just about everything & that the farce of the slogan "to protect & serve" only applies to themselves & that 9 times out of 10, when they have their guns drawn, they are all pissing themselves in panic & afraid of their own shadows. Emptying their clips & their bladders simultaneously.

That's why "Defunding" the police is such an ill conceived idea (besides the fact that one vowel changed turns that slogan into “Defend the Police”, coincidence? Nobody’s that stupid, not even the cops), when these officers are so badly trained, less money means even less training. We believe that fundamentally, in its wide-spread corruption & systemic racism, policing needs to be abolished & people need to figure out a way to elect folks from their own communities to actually keep "the peace" instead of sowing chaos & fear through corruption & violence. The war on drugs needs to be suspended & condemned. And the judicial system needs to be reimagined & not as the even less equitable, zero tolerance of the cancel culture that is an essentially fascist style of moral policing that relies entirely on one person’s own testimony while ignoring any & all forensic evidence & the testimony of the only other witness present. Corruption & injustice collide with social media & the back lash of moral outrage & misinformation that used to set the dissenting & bigoted right apart from logical thinkers, but is now reserved for leftist activists in a political ruse to destroy us & our goals.

These are the themes in the song lyrics of “Shooticide”.