Police Brutality: A Symptom of a Brain Sickness Stimulated by Large Doses of Power

Behind the ornate rooms and regalia of a head of state, the stately appearance of legislative chambers, and even revered democratic constitutions, the basis of a government is its power—even if beyond authorized limits—to use lethal force against even its electorate peacefully protesting. As the results of the Stanford Prison Experiment in 1971 show, human beings who have police power—even beyond the authorized—have at the very least a proclivity to abuse people without countervailing power. The students who were assigned as prison guards in the experiment because so abusive toward the students assigned as prisoners that the experiment had to be terminated after only 6 days in a two-week period. Even the experimenter, who took on the role of prison superintendent during the experiment, “had become indifferent to the suffering” of the students who were in the role of prisoners.[1] Lest it be concluded that college students are simply too immature to assume even what seems to be absolute power over other students, such behavior is arguably common among actual police employees. Lest it be further concluded that such behavior is part of an autocratic regime, even the known instances in republics suggest that human nature itself cannot handle such discretion as police departments and their employees have. Incredibly, even with the result of the Stanford study, no one seems to go to this conclusion; rather, primitive human nature may be poised to jump from incident to incident as if doing so enough would end the abuse of such power.

The presumptuousness that police departments and individual employees have in abusing their powers to harm even nonviolent protesters was on display to the world on June 4, 2020 as police in Buffalo, New York, pushed down a 75 year-old man who ironically had stood for peace and justice for decades. The violent act itself by two police employees was telling. Video shows Martin Gugino approaching an oncoming police employee in a nonviolent manner to talk—perhaps to ask a question. Another police employee immediately speeds up his pace—the first indication of possible aggression. Then he and another employee pushed Martin backwards. Incredibly, one of the employees who pushed Martin then shock his head back and forth as if the incident had been Martin’s fault, when the fault lied with the employee. Such shirking of responsibility is a convenient mental tactic by which the abusive mind seeks to justify/protect itself—the delusion being hidden to such a mind by the mind itself.

That the other police employees kept walking past Martin as he lied on the cement with blood coming from his right ear suggests the presence of a group-think dehumanizing even a victim of police aggression. A man off-camera then scolds the police employees for walking past Martin and not even bothering to call an ambulance. Instead of respecting the man for his compassion for Martin and justified reproach of the tax-payer salaried employees, they push the man forward and handcuff him. Perhaps that man and other people in the vicinity should have acted on an instinct to remain silent and offer a NAZI salute. I’m sure the police employees would have felt especially emboldened to exploit the personal conflict of interest out of anger. Were he alive, Gandhi might have recommended that the people in the vicinity stay silently in place and take the blows to show the employees’ moral sickness to the employees themselves and the world.  

At the very least, the moral sickness could include exploiting a personal conflict of interest out of anger, and taking non-threats as threats—that is, being over-sensitive and over-reactive. Out of arrogance, the employees may even have presumed, how dare the old man come to us to ask a question! As for the man—the anonymous Christian—who attempted to shame the Roman police into at least stopping to tend for Martin, how dare anyone talk to us that way.

In short, the mentality of the police employees on the scene may have been too used to abusing their power even and especially when its exercise goes beyond their delegated authority. This implies that accountability from and on police departments in general—and not just in New York—had been practically non-existent. In other words, police employees are routinely given too much discretion (i.e., power) relative to what the human brain can handle, and a system has been set up that protects this dysfunctional sickness such that it is no longer viewed by the aggressors as a sickness.

The implications for public policy are not merely to fix the system of broken accountability; a reduction of discretion is also called for both in terms of what authority governments give their respective police departments and what authority they in turn give to their managers and non-supervisory employees. Incident-specific responses to police brutality do not do justice even to the first task.

How police departments, police unions, and the police employees themselves react to accusations of can say a lot about the dysfunctional sickness that protects abuse manifests in a “clean up” capacity. The sickness itself may convince the infected brains, but the denial makes it possible that people without the vested interest get to glimpse the disease through its symptoms. That is to say, the sickness may cause the infected brains to unwittingly reveal too much.

In trying to defend the two abusive police employees, John Evans, president of the local police union, said, “Our position is these officers were simply following orders from Deputy Police Commissioner Joseph Gramaglia to clear the square. It doesn’t specify clear the square of men, 50 and under or 15 to 40. They were simply doing their job. I don’t know how much conflict was made. He did slip in my estimation. He fell backwards.”[2] Evans’ statement is revealing in ways that he did not likely intend. Firstly, general orders, such as to clear an area because of a curfew, have plenty of room for discretion, which the head of the labor union ignores. For example, the police could simply have stood at one end of the public square and fired on anyone in it. Alternatively, the police could have walked through the square, arresting people who refuse to leave. Both approaches are consistent with the general order to clear the square. Secondly, in asserting that Martin fell backwards from slipping, which is clearly not the case in the video, the police union’s position was that lying to protect abusive police employees is acceptable—perhaps even laudable.

Moreover, that 57 police employees in that riot squad quit because the two abusive employees were suspended allows us access into the sordid mentality of entitlement even to push over an old man and walk past him with apparent indifference. A squad’s solidarity can thus effectively enable the presumption to over-react to non-threats by committing violent acts. Such a squad, and police department, moreover, would have no moral objection to covering up episodic eruptions of the sickness within. In short, the law doesn’t apply to the departments and employees tasked ironically with enforcing the law. In conveniently excluding themselves, such departments and employees therein reveal their criminal mentality under the ripped cloak of public decency.

In spite of living in democratic republics, Americans were at the time especially vulnerable. “In recent decades, police [there] have amassed power through laws that grant them a high level of immunity, a lack of oversight, big budgets and a focus on reforms that [have brought] little change.”[3] Even though police departments are responsible to democratically-elected officers of cities in a given republic, such as New York, the International Association of Chiefs of Police has been involved in modifying anti-crime legislation and “trying to make elected officials accountable to police, rather than the other way around.”[4] An institutional conflict of interest has been exploited here at the expense of legitimate democratic governance.[5]

To be sure, electorates in some of the American republics have willing ceded to the police a lot of power. In Phoenix, Arizona, for instance, the dominant political ideology assumes that a visibly-heavy police presence is justified and even necessary as a deterrent against crime. That ideology falsely assumes that innocent citizens would not be uncomfortable seeing so many police cars and helicopters on a regular basis—in what can be called the emergencization of the status quo. That fly-through helicopters fly regularly in one area outside of the FAA-mandated corridor with impunity points to how much power the police department has and what its mentality is. That even the campus police department at a local university, Arizona State University, presumes (over academic culture) to park regularly on campus sidewalks and in the middle of academic courtyards suggests that perspective can be warped by the brain sickness of power and little accountability on that sickness would be very unlikely from a pro-police “academic” administration (and student government!), which in turn is not democratically elected. The explicitness by inconsiderate shows of the dominance by force impedes the free exchange of ideas and an atmosphere conducive to thinking. Rather than enhancing the feeling of security, especially during school days, the culture of dominance puts everyone there, especially students from more balanced States on edge. That is not an academic culture, and in fact eclipses it on its own turf. 

Given the weaknesses of the human mind, the decisions or captures of governments and especially non-governments such that they succumb to their own police departments are dangerous, and in fact can easily enable police over-reaches, whether aggressive or passive-aggressive (e.g., pensive presences) with the presumption of impunity. In 2020 with protests taking place in the U.S., E.U., Australia, and Brazil (and other countries), the world may have been awakening to just how lapse-prone the brain can be with de facto absolute physical power. 
To be sure, that those protests were blind to a likely-increasing sordid, deeply selfish disrespect for the law and inconsiderateness of strangers and even neighbors does nothing to reduce that problem (if indeed such respect and considerateness can be treated, much less forced). Although that mentality can easily spark anger, police employees who act on the basis of personal emotion are themselves disrespecting law. In other words, even if incidents of police brutality had been increasing to meet another mentality that refuses to respect the law and thus its enforcers (even apart from their abuses of power), one primitive mentality need not match another, that is naturally anger-provoking. Perhaps the flash point is disrespect being naturally met with disrespect. In the end, anti-social criminals can expect to be dealt with, but within measures that are compatible with the human brain.

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1. Stanford Prison Experiment.

2. “Buffalo Police Riot Squad Quit to Back Officers Who Shoved Man,” BBC.com, June 5, 2020 (accessed June 6, 2020).

3. Julia Mahncke, “Why Police in the US Are So Powerful,” DW.com, June 6, 2020 (accessed same day).

4. Ibid.

5. For more on institutional conflicts of interest, see Skip Worden, Institutional Conflicts of Interest.

An Aggressive Culture Applied to a Pandemic

If a local culture does not value education, such that the public education system is weak, and furthermore engages in and enables aggressive behavior, even self-protective statements and efforts can provoke aggressive responses based on ignorance. In such a culture, authorities may be particularly unlikely to stem such aggression, and they may even be inclined to engage in active or passive aggression against victims rather than enforce laws and rules. For existence, police called on a noise complaint at an apartment complex may willfully or unwittingly turn on the complainer not due to lack of noise, but, rather, out of ignorance as to what constitutes a residential disturbance, fear of confronting people who are disturbing others, a desire to inhibit future calls or simply due the aggressor’s bidding by blaming the victim for complaining. Besides indicating a corrupt, sordid police culture, that of the locality itself would likely be compromised. During a pandemic, such pathology might be especially transparent because it is clear when people and authorities are not only not enforcing laws and organizational policies geared to protecting both employees and customers, but also acting against public health by turning on the victims. The case of Arizona and, more particularly, the Phoenix police department, is particularly revealing.

On March 30, 2020, the chief executive of Arizona issued an executive order in response to the coronavirus pandemic. With enumerated exceptions, people in Arizona were to stay in their places of domicile. Essential activities constitute the first exception in the order. Obtaining food (i.e., groceries) is first on the list of such activities. Interestingly, outside exercise, including walking, and “constitutionally protected activities such as speech and religion” are also listed.[1] The order requires that when “individuals ar using shared or outdoor spaces when outside their residence or property for Essential Activities, they shall to the extent possible maintain physical distancing of at least six feet from any other person, consistent with guidance from the CDC.”[2] The word shall here means must. The executive order is stronger than mere guidance. Even so, even local police in Phoenix took physical distancing to be nothing stronger than CDC guidelines. Even though the executive order states that “(n)o person shall be required to provide documentation or proof of their activities to justify their activities under this order,” the order was enforceable against infractions. Even so, the police in Phoenix were not necessarily grasping this point.

  

For example, while I was shopping at an Albertsons (Safeway) grocery store in Phoenix on May 1, 2020, when the executive order was still in full effect, a man approached me very closely from behind while I was at the front of a one-way aisle. Even though the “cash register has emerged as the most dangerous place” in a grocery store, “according to public health and worker safety experts,” the most dangerous place for customers may be the aisles when confronted with a customer who not only refuses to keep a distance, but also becomes physically and verbally abusive as a result.[3]

The customer who I encountered was confrontational and aggressive from the outset. He refused to step back, causing me to back up past the product I had been selecting. I asked him to step back so I could get the product, but he told me I would have to go down the aisle and come around again. We were at logger-heads. The aisle was too narrow for him to pass me. Indeed, passing me so closely would have violated the store requirement that six feet be maintained where possible (e.g., excepting the cashier area). While I was calling for a store employee or manager to come (none did), the other customer rammed into my cart, causing it to block the narrow aisle. Both he and his wife (far behind him) were hurling insults to me even though he had violated the store requirement. Even as I was walking to the store manager’s office, the customer’s wife felt the need to insult me. It is such aggression on top of fault that I submit is particularly toxic, as well as prevalent in the local culture there.

A police supervisor claimed he couldn't tell tell from either my video or the store's who slammed into whom. Why would a police manager lie? I had called to complain about his subordinate, but the supervisor managed to dissimulate and deflect (indicative of the culture).

Adding insult to injury, when the police arrived—seven or eight of them!—after I had agreed to the manager’s suggestion that I report the aggression to them, four of the police were positionally or vocally hostile and even confrontational with me even in approaching me. Put another way, when the caller is the victim, he or she does not need three police standing in a hostile pose behind the police employee conversing with the victim. Such distrust applied to a victim is consistent with blaming the victim.

Even though the store manager told me later that she had told the police that the store requirement on physical distancing was not a suggestion, the policewoman told me that the manager had told her otherwise. I showed the police employee a large sign indicating that maintaining six feet of distance was a store requirement and told her that a store policy is not a suggestion, then she was once again antagonistic, threatening me by asking me if I understand that I could be charged with assault because my cart blocked the aisle after the other customer repeatedly slammed into the cart. 

I don't know why law enforcement would even venture an opinion on a store policy (and getting that wrong) when it is clear that law enforcement enforces laws. The police employee even got the law wrong. She erroneously claimed that the governor’s executive order only gave a guideline for physical distancing, so it was unenforceable. Strangely, she even told me that the police cannot enforce a store policy, or suggestion as she viewed a policy to be. “A store policy is not a law,” the police employee told a man with three degrees in business. Perhaps because she was irked at me for knowing more, she even told me that I had committed an assault against the customer who had rammed my cart because my cart was blocking the aisle. Incredible!

Was there no limit to the lengths that the local police would go to blame the victim? Later, when I spoke with the policewoman’s supervisor, who had also been at the store but had not bothered to speak with me, I was stunned when he claimed that he couldn’t tell from the store’s video (and presumably mine, as the police woman had shown my video to him in the store) who was slamming whose cart. After the police herd had left the store, the store manager and I examined very closely the store video, and we agreed that the other customer had rammed my cart—not vice versa. Yet later, the police supervisor claimed that nothing of the sort was on the tape (including my own!) and that the store manager had agreed with him. “It is on tape,” I told the supervisor by phone. “You’re wrong,” he said, “maybe your conduct was disorderly.” He was threatening to charge me with disorderly conduct!

In short, the local police seem to have been getting away with turning the tables on victims, especially if a police employee (or supervisor!) is annoyed when a victim tries to support his or her claim even with audio-video by returning to the matter of the actual aggression. Even when I called in a complaint against loud, heavy-bass music near my apartment, the policeman who responded felt the need to focus on me rather than the ordinance-violator. “She says that you taping her music from inside your apartment is harassment.” Even getting some evidence away from the culprit’s apartment outside would not constitute harassment. In fact, for a police department to discourage evidence and then refuse to intercede for lack of evidence (i.e, he said, she said) suggests (just a suggestion!) a dysfunctional police culture (as well as incompetent employees). For a police department to take such a counter-claim seriously and even use an accusation-tone with the victim of the disturbing loud noise may suggest (just a suggestion!) that the police employees are habituated to blaming the victim or even viewing every call as a dispute rather than a complaint.

In my conversations with the policewoman at Safeways and her supervisor later by phone, neither person wanted to talk about the aggression against me. They were both accusatory throughout. Even though I had both the store requirement and that in the governor’s executive order backing me up (as well as even my video of the incident), the strategy of the police was to undermine me at every point—too keep the focus on me—even accusing me of physical assault and disorderly conduct. The store manager had suggested that I let her call the police, and I concluded after the police herd had left that I could no longer trust the police to even focus on aggressors. Such passive aggression, moreover, is a glaring indication of a dysfunctional department culture.

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[1] Executive Order 2020-18, State of Arizona, March 30, 2020.

[2] Ibid.

[3] Nathaniel Meyersohn, “This Is the Most Dangerous Place in the Grocery Store,” CNNbusiness, May 1, 2020 (accessed same day).

Do Police Departments Unwittingly Attract an Aggressive Mentality?

Might the personality type most excited by inflicting pain on others be drawn to “serve” on a police force?  Might force itself be an allurement to such a personality? Moreover, might organizations populated by the personality be inclined to set up defenses against being held accountable either internally or by other organizations? At the very least, deference ought to go to the victims rather than the “officers.”

The New York City police department and the district attorney’s office set investigations in motion after video surfaced of Anthony Bologna of the police department using pepper spray against protesters of Wall Street greed and the lack of accountability there. Even as the department’s own investigation was yet to commence, the chief publically questioned whether the video offered enough context to evaluate the inspector’s actions. To the chief, merely protesting in a way that blocked traffic justifies the use of pepper spray without warning. The inspector’s union boss claimed the motive had been to restore order—though the video shows that the victims were not disorderly or resisting arrest. Indeed, the police did not attempt to arrest those sprayed. It is not difficult to see where the police investigation of its own will go.

Beyond the hypocrisy involved in those sworn to protect actually attacking and the anti-Americanism involved in trying to curtail a protest, it might reasonably be asked whether Bologna was acting on his own, or whether Wall Street money was ultimately behind the aggression. In the protest’s first four days, the mega media companies scarcely covered the protest; Bologna’s unprovoked aggression came after the news networks could no longer viably ignore the movement. So was the case simply that of American banks using the police state to keep a movement from spreading to their detriment? Were there actual accountability on Bologna, might the bird sing, affording us some transparency concerning any such hidden relationships?

Even if no such conspiracy existed, there is obviously a need for stronger instruments of accountability that could be imposed externally on police departments and their employees. In the wake of Bologna’s attacks, the media reported that such incidents are not uncommon. Indeed, I have witnessed them. While in Pittsburgh, for example, I witnessed how the police treated black teenagers who were simply walking along the sidewalks in the university area of town (Oakland). It was evident to me at the time (as a bystander leaving a restaurant) that the police employees believed they did not face any meaningful accountability. So I was not surprised to see video surface of Anthony Bologna’s sadism on full display in New York.

Thomas Hobbes writes that in the state of nature, and even in society, each person has the right to protect his or her person, as per the right of self-preservation. A sovereign cannot take this inalienable right away. When Bologna acted outside of the law, and thus outside of the social contract, his victims had the right to defend themselves, even in using pepper spray against the attacker. In other words, Bologna could and should have been treated as a criminal attacker by his victims and bystanders. Perhaps in the future protestors ought to carry pepper spray in case any criminals show up and attempt any aggressive attacks. It could be that the offending attackers are imprisoned while the self-preserving protestors are exonerated. Then maybe police departments will recognize that accountability applied to their own employees is in the departments’ interest. Legitimate force goes only so far before it lapses into criminality, and we all have an obligation as citizens to thwart crime as it is happening by whomever. If police employees do not want other citizens to be put in the position of making this judgment, then perhaps those employees might want to reassess their attitude and habits. In the meantime, citizens need to be on guard against criminals even and especially where they are least expected and perhaps most commonly found.

Source:

Al Baker and Joseph Goldstein, “Officer’s Pepper-Spraying of Protesters Is Under Investigation,” New York Times, September 29, 2011. 

Police Aggress Protesters: Sadism or Politics?

The day after several marches and rallies by the “Occupy Wall Street” movement in New York City in 2011, The New York Times reported that “two dozen people were arrested at a Citibank branch on LaGuardia Place on trespassing charges. Some witnesses said that the protesters had tried to leave but were locked inside by bank employees. ‘They were trying to leave, but they wouldn’t let them,’ said Meaghan Linick, 23, of Greenpoint, Brooklyn. She said one woman who had been inside and left was forced back inside by police officers. Citibank, in a statement, said the protesters ‘were very disruptive and refused to leave after being repeatedly asked, causing our staff to call 911.’ The statement continued, ‘The police asked the branch staff to close the branch until the protesters could be removed.’” The Times report does not mention whether the protesters were existing Citibank customers trying to close their accounts. The report does refer to this at a Chase bank. “Earlier, about a dozen protesters entered a Chase branch in Lower Manhattan and withdrew their money from the bank while 300 other people circled the block, some shouting chants and beating on drums. The former Chase customers, who declined to reveal how much they had in their accounts — though a few acknowledged it was not much — said they planned to put their money into smaller banks or credit unions.’ The more resources we give to small institutions, the more they’ll be able to provide conveniences like free A.T.M.’s and streamlined online banking so they can compete with the larger banks,’ said Hannah Appel, 33, a postdoctoral fellow at Columbia University.” The report does not indicate whether the former customers were arrested.
From the report, it does not appear that anyone was arrested for closing a bank account; the protesters at Chase closed their accounts but were not arrested, while the protesters at Citi did not close their accounts but were arrested (for trespassing). Of course, the newspaper’s information could be mistaken. Were any customers arrested simply for closing a bank account, both the bank branch’s manager and the police involved should be terminated from their respective employments and prosecuted. The report does indicate that Citi employees locked protesters inside the bank. This act constitutes false imprisonment, which is illegal. I would think that the subsequent arrests would be thrown out by a judge.

I suspect that psychologically abusive persons are a sizable presence on many police forces. From casual observation, I have been surprised at how quickly and easily a significant number of police employees cross the line simply because they can—meaning that they assume without reservation that they can get away with trespassing the rights of others with impunity. The pattern is no accident.
Beyond orchestrated political uses of police forces (e.g., to teach those kids a lesson), present police recruitment procedures across the United States are inadequate in ferretting out mentally disturbed, abusive personalities. Furthermore, mechanisms to impose accountability on individual employees of police departments are woefully impotent, given the lack of self-restraint or even apparent self-questioning by police employees who are going to do what they are going to do, period. So, besides investigating particular cases of how the political or business elite uses police departments against the rights of protesters, elected officials in towns and cities (at the urging of state- or federal-level officials if necessary) could do more in seeing to it that the citizens are not abused by individual police employees by 1) ordering police chiefs to expand the role of psychological tests and interviews in the recruitment process and 2) instituting an external, independent committee or board with the power to fire police employees for abusing (or threatening to abuse) their authority.

Concerning recruitment, it is important to keep in mind that no one has a right to be on a police force. It is especially the case that bad attitudes need not apply, yet it does appear that they are extant on police forces. The NYPD, for example, has a long history of police brutality and cover-ups, which suggests that the recruitment process is woefully inadequate in screening out psychologically troubled candidates.

        Anthony Bologna of NYPD pepper-spraying protesters following his orders

Concerning accountability, enforcement of the law against police who go beyond their authority at the expense of other people should be strengthened and harsher sentences should be enacted. In some jurisdictions, even the laws by which police can make arrests should be tightened. In New York City, for example, police can arrest people for deemed “safety issues” even if no law had been broken. Outside an event run by the Huffington Post, the police lied to author Naomi Wolf when they stated that the Post’s permit barred protests on the sidewalk. Even though Wolf verified with the event organizer that the police claim was false, the police arrested her after she joined some protesters walking up and down the sidewalk (i.e., not obstructing foot traffic). At the police station, a sergeant told her she was arrested for a “safety issue.” According to the Huffington Post, “The cop didn’t dispute her claim that she wasn’t breaking the law. But she said he explained that whenever police deem it a safety issue, they can make an arrest.” Given the propensity of the police to arrest unlawfully, this loophole should be tightened or replaced with procedures triggered in the event of a disaster (not just safety) that can be independently documented (e.g., an explosion in a subway station).

I suspect that the lack of accountability on police employees who take it on themselves to extend their force beyond the law stems from the fact that enforcement mechanisms are not typically sufficiently independent of the police and local governments. Even “internal affairs” is evidently not sufficient. Police on the beat not sensing any viable external restraint in abusing others is itself indicative of too little accountability on the books as well as in practice. In other words, the attitude itself bespeaks a lapse in the system, which the offending persons undoubtedly know exists and can be counted on as they impose themselves even on people they know to be innocent. A police employee who uses his or her position to intervene in a civil matter, for example, should be fired because it can be assumed that the encroachment was intentional. Also, a police employee who pushes or hits a non-violent citizen without the latter having resisted arrest should be fired. Additionally, the offending officer should be prosecuted. In fact, state legislatures should stiffen the penalties as a deterrent. The penalties for police employees should be stiffer than for other citizens because the right to legitimate force carries with it a special obligation. Breaking a special duty warrants a longer sentence.

Whereas some of the “Occupy Wall Street” protesters referred to “police terrorism,” such hyperbole should be replaced by sadism, the deriving of pleasure by inflicting pain on others. This diagnosis would doubtless apply to Anthony Bologna, who sprayed innocent people with pepper-spray. Beyond politics, the deeper problem is that of sickness. What would happen, je me demande, if the protesters simply chanted, “Sicko! Sicko! Sicko!” or “You’re sick!” at an offending officer as he violently lashes out without provocation?  I suspect that the truth would hurt. Moreover, the protesters could pressure elected officials to stiffen the enforcement mechanisms and sentences.


Sources:

Cara Buckley and Rachel Donadio, “Buoyed by Wall St. Protests, Rallies Sweep the Globe,” The New York Times, October 16, 2011. 

Jason Cherkis, “Author Naomi Wolf Speaks Out About Her Arrest at Occupy Wall Street,” Huffington Post, October 19, 2011. 

Related essays: "When Police Are the Criminals" and "Christian Protests in Egypt" and "Protest Movements 101"

Toronto Police as Aggressors at G-20 Summit

Police employees “ignored basic rights,” jailed people illegally, used excessive force and escalated violence at protests surrounding the G-20 meeting in Toronto in 2010, according to the Office of the Independent Police Review Director. The report could lead to charges against police employees and strengthen the hand of civil lawsuits filed against the police department. Because the police employees acted with an attitude of impunity, anything less than stiff prison sentences would be insufficient as a deterrent.

After a small group of violent protesters went on a “looting rampage” through Toronto’s shopping district without being confronted by police, the department’s deputy chief ordered his subordinates on the force to “take back the streets.” The incident commander in charge at the time told investigators that the deputy chief “wanted the streets that had been made unsafe by the terrorists that were attacking our city to be made safe again by restoring order.” This statement itself evinces a problematic attitude.

Specifically, looters are not terrorists. To claim otherwise demonstrates distorted perspective, which in turn points to an underlying psychological bias. Although not against the looters, the police nonetheless sprung into action, arresting peaceful protesters and even passers-by.  Other people were arrested in homes and other residences without proper warrants.

According to the report, the deputy’s orders were followed in ways that not only broke the law but often involved excessive force. The attitude of the police employees includes a presumption of impunity with regard to using excessive force. This is the most damning aspect of the report, for such an attitude is extremely difficult to change.  That the people arrested were held for hours in cells without toilets, food, or even water attests to possible sadism in the department.

Given the underlying attitude, the culprits on the police force must be severely punished for their aggression or they will be enabled to commit further abuses as though with the impunity they assume is the case. That decent police employees put their lives on the line to protect even citizens they don’t like does not mean that the sort of attitude described here should be tolerated and enabled rather than firmly thwarted by firings and stiff prison sentences. With the privilege of using force legally comes great responsibility. The penalties for acting at odds with it should be severe, given the significant possibility of undetectable abuse (given the huge differential in power). In other words, police employees are well aware of this differential, and given human nature, even this awareness can be dangerous.

Source:

Ian Austen, “CanadianPolice Violated Laws in G-20 Sweep, Inquiry Finds,” The New York Times, May 16, 2012.