Tag Archives: police

On Sheriffs, Counties and Connecticut

law, Politics, , , , , ,

In regards to this October 2023 post from Democracy Docket about the non-necessity of elected sheriffs, I looked up which states abolished the role of sheriff. Turns out that there are few, but notable, examples:

  • Only Alaska and Connecticut lack an office of sheriff
  • Alaska does not have county governments.
  • Connecticut voters moved to abolish the office of sheriff in 2000, replacing the elected office with both state marshals and judicial marshals, which are both non-elected contractors.

But also, who runs the jails if not a sheriff?

Connecticut seems to be far ahead of most states on the question of the relevance of sheriffs, as well as the role of counties, to modern-day government and corrections. This also eliminates the nonsense of “constitutional sheriffs”, and the corruption and feudalism inherent to the office itself.

Imagine such abolition taking place in larger states. How much efficiency would this allow to state government when it comes to zoning, housing, infrastructure, and more?

The United States as a Police State

Politics, Uncategorized, , , , , , , , ,

I was just reading this article on JSTOR from right after Jean-Bertrand Aristide was first forced into exile by the Haitian military, and how one way to bring stability back to Haiti at the time is to create a police state, which had already been tried and failed (the other was to build democratic institutions in Haiti through party-list PR elections and an independent judiciary).

I wonder if this applies to us.

Is this how we maintain the semblance of peace while our elections system is below international standards, maintained by at least 50 election regimes who are in jealous, bitter legal conflict with each other, and threatened by a racist party which is willing to sell the postal service for parts and gum up the census returns to exclude noncitizen residents in order to, among other things, ensure their victory at the polls?

Does the larger body of those who have a monopoly on violence – military, reserve, law enforcement and armed partisan civilians – actually maintain a police state?

We have an incredible number of military bases per capita. I wonder if we have the most domestic military bases in the world, in addition to the most overseas military bases.

We have over 17,000 law enforcement agencies across the country, and we have the world’s largest prison population, maintained largely by at least 50 state governments.

We live with the legacies (and ongoing practices) of redlining and housing discrimination, draw up discriminatory districts for elections and for boards of education, segregate against multi-family housing through downzoning, and create whole cities from non-annexed land so that those apartment-dwellers don’t move near and hurt the property value.

We keep people apart by force, and have built our entire political system upon keeping people apart through geographical isolation of the undesirables. And we’re supposed to be OK with this when we see the destruction, waste and resentment caused by this forced isolation? When so many of us deride any semblance of overriding responsibility to other Americans in the name of convenience because we’re not one of those city people, only to be the recipient or cause of someone’s receiving of COVID-19?

When the Third Reconstruction comes, I hope it means we can opt out of being residents of any state and just be citizens of this country. I hope it means that we can abolish state prisons, create a federal voter roll for a single voter registration website, replace the U.S. House’s elections with party-list proportional representation (or, as a half-measure, ranked-choice voting), move to single-payer healthcare, and establish not only an affirmative right to vote, but also an affirmative right to participate in free and fair elections.

VIDEO: I Spoke at Columbus City Council for a Citizens’ Review Board

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Went to the council meeting and spoke in favor of a citizens’ review board with subpoena powers for Columbus, largely from the perspective of Black LGBT people and the high rate of police misconduct we face. Short and sweet speech, in and out.

Touching moments when the widow of Kenneth Walker and the relative of the triple homicide victims in Upatoi area also spoke in favor. I left with Raijeim and Connie when the opposition went on for way too long.

Also talked with the Muscogee County Republican Party chair about, among other things, ranked choice voting. He’s not sold on it but I’d *really* like to talk with him more.

A rare sighting of me outside lol

It Isn’t Good That Police Shoot Twice as Many Unarmed White Civilians as Black Civilians

Politics, Uncategorized, , , ,

If police kill twice as many unarmed European-Americans as they do African-Americans, isn’t that a problem with police, too? Shouldn’t the police be fixed to stop killing so many people across the country?

Why do you think there are so many White sovereign citizens who proclaim themselves to not be subject to American law? Why do you think that anarchist/libertarian White guys run Cop Block and Photography Is Not A Crime! in direct and sustained critique of police behavior?

Don’t be so cluelessly self-absorbed as to think that only Black, or only liberal, or only “SJW” people are raging against law enforcement abuse.

It’s not just #BlackLivesMatter. It’s not just #Kaepernick.

It’s also #StopKillingUs.

Police Abolition?

For the love of all that is just, don’t look at the comments. It’s a Fox News video.

I wouldn’t go as far as abolishing the police, but we should consider more non-armed LEOs.

In fact, non-armed officers already exist. They’re known as Community Service Officers, or CSO. CSO are non-sworn civilians who, besides filing reports, are dispatched largely for cases which don’t involve known direct suspect information. They are not deputized to arrest suspects, do not carry handcuffs, and do not carry weapons belts.

CSO typically number in the single digits in the police departments which employ CSO. I think they should be increased in number.

Do we have any CSOs here in Columbus’ Police Department?

The Obama Diary has a lineup of tweets concerning racial harassment of a Philadelphia Barnes & Noble patron by management, as reported by HuffPost Live’s Dr. Marc Lamont Hill:

Everyone knows you can hang out at Barnes & Noble for hours, not buy anything, and not be harassed or have the cops called. That’s pretty much what a lot of high school kids do with their Saturdays. But hey, not for Black people, right? The injustice never ends.

*

via What It Means To Be Black In America | The Obama Diary.

#disclaimer Again, the craven bootlickers will say “FALSE NARRATIVE” and “OBEY THE LAW LIKE WE DO” and “DON’T RESIST”, just to derail this train heading off a cliff. Just know that I don’t care for your derailing or concern-trolling at this time. I really don’t.

You may be human and an American, but you still lick the boots of people who are trained to see their jurisdiction’s community, and often people who look like me, as a mortal threat worthy of death. It’s nicer to see that in #BDSM fantasies, not in real life. Please stop licking police boots for a few seconds and think about more than yourself or your personal resentments. Otherwise, law enforcement will continue to dehumanize every last one of us, including you. Yes, YOU.