Trump's Support Of Cops Pays Off: Multiple Police Officers Under Investigation For Illegal Invasion Of The Capitol Building

from the enjoy-those-federal-building-sentence-enhancements,-lawboys dept

At the beginning of his term, President Trump promised he'd turn regular America into police-loving America:

President Trump will honor our men and women in uniform and will support their mission of protecting the public. The dangerous anti-police atmosphere in America is wrong. The Trump Administration will end it.

But cops kept being cops and the "dangerous anti-police atmosphere" continued. Actually, it escalated. When a Minnesota cop pressed his knee into the neck of an unarmed black man until the man was dead, the country exploded.

Voters decided Trump was no longer worthy of leading the nation. In response, Trump claimed the election had been stolen and insinuated the only way to keep America great was to overthrow anyone who stood in the way of Trump being President for another four years -- even if the electoral college vote and the popular vote said otherwise. Following an incendiary "rally," Trump supporters marched down Pennsylvania Avenue to the Capitol Building to stop VP Mike Pence and the Senate from certifying the election results.

Fans of peaceful transitions of power were horrified. Trump supporters overran the Capitol, stole documents, took selfies, destroyed property, attacked Capitol police officers, planted explosive devices, and otherwise made it clear that opposing Trump meant inviting violence.

Some people disingenuously speculated that this was the boiling-over point for disenfranchised (mostly white) Americans who felt beltway insiders and coastal elites had sold them out to special interests and political correctness for years, elevating the plight on non-white Americans and foreign interests ahead of their own constituents.

The attendees of this rally-turned-raid likely included some of the supposedly disenfranchised. But it also included -- in large numbers -- the same sort of "elites" and "special interests" the allegedly disenfranchised were warring against in their proxy, Pyrrhic war on the Capitol.

They were business owners, CEOs, state legislators, police officers, active and retired service members, real-estate brokers, stay-at-home dads, and, I assume, some Proud Boys.

[...]

The members of the mob that attacked the Capitol and beat a police officer to death last week were not desperate. They were there because they believed they had been unjustly stripped of their inviolable right to rule. They believed that not only because of the third-generation real-estate tycoon who incited them, but also because of the wealthy Ivy Leaguers who encouraged them to think that the election had been stolen.

This wasn't an uprising by the downtrodden. This was a mass tantrum led by people with plenty of power and/or money.

Let's not forget that five people died during this "protest" over electoral college votes -- the same electoral college Trump supporters claimed was sacrosanct when it handed him a victory over Hillary Clinton, despite Trump losing the popular vote. This is what led to five deaths. And this is what will likely lead to increased domestic surveillance and has already converted Washington, DC into a war zone patrolled by the military.

This is apparently the America Trump supporters want. And some of the biggest Trump supporters are the same people we pay (and trust) to keep the peace. Trump spent four years unabashedly supporting law enforcement, no matter how awful their acts and violations. In return, police officers showed Trump they had his back… by breaking the law and assaulting [checks the goddamn tape] police officers.

Several police departments across the country have opened investigations into cops among their ranks to find out if they were involved in the siege on the U.S. Capitol on Washington, D.C. on January 6th.

The growing number of probes follows an announcement from the Seattle Police Department on Friday that two of its officers have been put on administrative leave pending an investigation into allegations that they were in the nation’s capital during the raucous events.

Seattle wasn't anomalous. It was indicative. Similar investigations have been opened in Texas, Pennsylvania, and New Hampshire.

And those four states aren't an anomaly. Here's The Appeal with updated numbers:

[Update, Jan. 14, 5:15 p.m., Eastern time: One more law enforcement officer has been reported as having attended the Jan. 6 rally, bringing the total to 29 officers from 13 states.]

There's a spreadsheet tracking law enforcement officers' involvement in violating federal laws. It includes officers who have been reassigned, suspended, or are still under investigation for their participation in this half-assed attempt to overthrow the part of the government these officers don't like. It also includes federal officers, including at least one Secret Service officer who made public Facebook posts encouraging the attack on the Capitol Building.

And it's not just the "left-wing" media reporting this. Here's an article from pro-cop site The Police Tribune.

Two Rocky Mount police officers have been federally charged for being inside the U.S. Capitol at the time of the Jan. 6 riot.

A veteran Houston police officer is also expected to be charged for the same behavior, Houston Police Chief Art Acevedo told KTRK on Wednesday.

And this report from BuzzFeed is fucking unreal. It's not often a cop tells another cop the beatings will continue until morale improves.

The [Capitol police] officer even described coming face-to-face with police officers from across the country in the mob. He said some of them flashed their badges, telling him to let them through, and trying to explain that this was all part of a movement that was supposed to help.

“You have the nerve to be holding a Blue Lives Matter flag, and you are out there fucking us up,” he told one group of protesters he encountered inside the Capitol. “[One guy] pulled out his badge and he said, ‘We’re doing this for you.’ Another guy had his badge. So I was like, ‘Well, you gotta be kidding.’”

The War on Cops continues.

This isn't irony. It's hypocrisy. Too bad it's a human trait and we have to rely on the human race to staff our law enforcement agencies. It would be nice to see the police align with the populace in the event of an actual revolution. But this wasn't a revolution. And it featured cops siding with themselves, willing to stomp any other law enforcement officer standing in the way of them invading and looting a federal government building to prevent a lawful election from being certified.

Yet another reason we should never trust cops. When push comes to shove, police officers will push, shove, and assault anyone who stands between them and their goals -- even if it's another law enforcement officer. Cops don't just dislike the people they serve. They dislike anyone who keeps them from doing what they want.

Filed Under: capitol, donald trump, insurrection, police, riot

Arizona Legislators Approve Bill That Would Allow Government To Seize Assets From Protesters

from the police-state-groundwork dept

Building legislation on top of the political equivalent of an urban myth is never a good idea. Fold in something routinely abused by law enforcement and you've got a proposed bill whose short name should be "Shit Sandwich."

That's the (tentative) plan in Arizona, where the existential threat of "paid protesters" has resulted in a terrible bill that promises to use a handful of Constitutional amendments as a doormat. (via Raw Story)

SB1142 expands the state’s racketeering laws, now aimed at organized crime, to also include rioting. And it redefines what constitutes rioting to include actions that result in damage to the property of others.

Nothing good can come from the expansion of racketeering laws, which are already abused by government agencies and citizens alike. But it gets worse. A lot worse. It doesn't just apply to protesters who damage property. It applies to anyone possibly connected to a protest in which damage occurs, even if they don't induce or encourage the destruction. (Perhaps even if they speak out against violent acts, but still support the demonstration's premise.)

And, to top it all off, police officers would not only be authorized to arrest people engaged in First Amendment activity just because someone down the street broke a window, but also to enrich themselves in the process.

But the real heart of the legislation is what Democrats say is the guilt by association — and giving the government the right to criminally prosecute and seize the assets of everyone who planned a protest and everyone who participated. And what’s worse, said Sen. Steve Farley, D-Tucson, is that the person who may have broken a window, triggering the claim there was a riot, might actually not be a member of the group but someone from the other side.

Supporters of asset forfeiture always claim it's a great tool for defunding criminal ventures. I can only imagine the verbal gymnastics that will need to be deployed to justify taking cash, cars, whatever from protesters, especially when the state's existing laws already criminalize rioting but without the added "bonus" of depriving rioters of their cash, homes, cars, etc. Do the legislators actually believe protesters are being paid in small, unmarked bills and mid-priced sedans?

The "guilt by association" aspect allows law enforcement to apply its discretion, which is seldom a good thing. The moment anything is damaged, it's open season on protest attendees. In fact, it's open season on non-attendees as well, if cops can dredge up anything that appears to be evidence of protest planning. Acquiring a permit pre-demonstration is no longer an act of good faith. It's self-incriminating.

One supporter of this truly stupid legislation believes the state's existing riot laws don't work because… wait for it… the bail system exists.

Sen. Sylvia Allen, R-Snowflake, said the new criminal laws are necessary.

“I have been heartsick with what’s been going on in our country, what young people are being encouraged to do,’’ she said.

She agreed with Quezada that there already are laws that cover overt acts. But Allen said they don’t work.

“If they get thrown in jail, somebody pays to get them out,’’ she said. “There has to be something to deter them from that.’’

I don't often can't even, but... here we are. People have argued against the bail system because it's stacked against the poorest criminal suspects, but I've never heard the system portrayed as faulty because it works exactly the way it's intended to. And the new law wouldn't change anything this legislator is concerned about. Brand new criminal charges stemming from the stupid bill would still allow suspects to post bail. The only difference is they may not have the cash to do it or a car to drive home if they make bail. Maybe that's what Allen is referring to: extra layers of punitiveness because most current protests are targeting the senator's party -- which also happens to be the party in power at the moment.

This made it past a House Senate vote in Arizona, suggesting the state's craziness isn't confined to Maricopa County. It won't survive a Constitutional challenge if it somehow manages to stumble out the governor's desk without being vetoed.

Filed Under: arizona, asset forfeiture, civil asset forfeiture, first amendment, free speech, protests, racketeering, rico, riot, snowflake