Scott Walker, the Wis of Odds, (Karl) Rove Warrior v. Julian Assange & More...

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Produced by: 
KBOO
Program:: 
Air date: 
Fri, 06/01/2012 - 12:00am
Interviews with Josh Laughlin , Colleen Rowley and Citizen Action Wisconsin's Robert Kraig

www.cascwild.org/ for the Murrlet source, www.accuracy.org/, Colleen Rowley on Obama's War on Whistleblowers, Julian Assange and Karl Rove's convenient manufacture of the new Swedish extradition law, citizenactionwi.org/ for the Word on the Wis Scott Walker, the Wis of Odds

The War on Fear is Everywhere:

Laws and law enforcement in all its glorious manifestations, an expanding Army of Occupation; these are symptoms of Fear. American consumers have been conditioned to treat symptoms, rather than the causes of whatever it is that ails them. After all, if you address the cause of life-threatening discomfort and the cause is dispatched …then there is no need to buy The Medicine. And where’s the profit in that?

No. Symptoms are the font of infinite streams of revenue.

So: Cops as the symptoms of Fear. Fear as the Enemy Within.

That said, we have here a bill for the services provided to us by the California-based Office of Independent Review Group. The Group looked into seven Portland officer-involved shootings between 2004 and 2010 and didn’t like the view.

What they found was more of the same. The same tactical and communication problems that have plagued local police for more than a decade.

Communication gaps among officers at the scene, excessive delays in getting medical care to wounded suspects, the failure of AR-15 rifle operators to use earpieces to monitor radio talk, long waits to interview involved officers and a reluctance by the training division to second-guess officers' actions…laid out like a Last Supper, a Feast of Fear.

 

The Review Crew urged the Portland Police Bureau to end a 48-hour rule now in place with the union that allows officers to wait two days before answering investigators' questions. Over the past 20 years, no Portland officer who has used deadly force has ever agreed to give a voluntary statement on the day of the shooting.  Cops can thank their Big Bad Union for that grace period.

 

The consultants reviewed the shootings of James Jahar Perez, March 2004; Raymond Gwerder, November 2005; Jerry Goins, July 2006; Lesley Stewart, August 2007; Jason Spoor, May 2008; Aaron Campbell, January 2010; and Jack Dale Collins, March 2010. 

 Rather than opting to end its life of crime, the Police Bureau wants a compromise; it wants to have officers provide an on-scene "public safety statement" that would give supervisors crucial details on who was injured, whether any suspects are at large and where bullets went. In other words, the Police Bureau wants laws that its powerful union can get behind and push.

Alas, The Group shot back: They said that wouldn't rectify the problem because such statements don't provide full accounts of what happened.

The consultants, hired by the city, also found the bureau has failed to learn from past mistakes. It is only a short step in the right direction to discover that “learning from past mistakes” is not the same thing as accountability, random yet regular drug testing (Steroids, in particular, I’m thinking here…) and constraints designed to prevent the Police Union from rising to the defense of indefensible behavior.

Instead of addressing the symptoms of Fear…isn’t it time to blow the head off and go for the juice?

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