The Right of Political Protest in the U.S.: Nullified in the Outback by Intimidation

The First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution states in part, “Congress shall make no law respecting . . . the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of Grievances.” Peaceable protest, even to protest a government or an official thereof, has come to be regarded as a staple of American democracy. In practice, however, the right can be eviscerated such that peaceful protesting is simply not worth the trouble. Such trouble can be orchestrated by a police force or even a government within the United States.
Implicit in the right to protest is the value put on tolerating the expression of contrary opinions. Conservative and progressive views, even those of racists and anarchists, respectively, are generally accorded the right to peaceably protest in a public way. If a State is sufficiently one-sided, however, public officials, including governors, majors, and police chiefs, can reflect the dominant attitude of residents that protests on behalf certain political, economic, or social ideologies should not be allowed. If they must be allowed, then massive shows of police force can—it is assumed--legitimately be used to intimidate the protesters.

The placement of the three posters illustrates pictorially that business and authoritarian political interests can co-exist comfortably in a broader political coalition. In Nazi Germany, for instance, the industrialists were part of Hitler's authoritarian political coalition. Besides receiving purchase orders from a state that is able to resist popular calls for government spending, business likes the political stability that a "law and order" police-state can provide. 

In Arizona, for example, prior to the 2020 election, a conservative candidate for sheriff of Maricopa County, which includes the Phoenix metropolitan area, displayed signs containing the imperative, “Stand Up to the Mobs!” Just above that line was another imperative—that the laws be enforced. Presumably the unenforced laws on car-emission limits and mask requirements on public transportation were not on the candidate’s mind. Presumably he was not planning on holding the transit authority accountable for allowing passengers without masks to ride the buses and light rail. A supervisor at Metro Valley told me by phone at the time that the county law (and ordinances of the cities) that face masks must be worn on public transportation does not have “legal force” because it is just a requirement. Stunned, I did not point out that her company was in violation of the requirement because even bus drivers did not have to wear masks; I had already investigated the strange messages coming out of that company, such as, “Masks are required and we will allow passengers to board without wearing them.”
The candidate for sheriff was likely referring back to the protests against police brutality (otherwise known as abuses of power). That he did not use the word, “Rioters,” instead of “Mobs” implies that he was including peaceable protests too. Given the bad connotation of the word, “Mobs,” as “a large and disorderly crowd of people” according to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, a negative attitude toward at least certain peaceful protests can be inferred. I had heard enough Arizona residents conflate “liberal” peaceful protests with riots to know what the candidate meant by mobs. “They are all violent,” one conservative resident insisted to me as I thought of the state’s pre-college education rating of 49^th out of the 50 States.
A few years after the 2016 presidential election, some students of Arizona State University told me that protests against Donald Trump had not really been allowed on campus. One student even observed that Arizona does not tolerate “liberal” protests. Besides the errant assumption that any mob of people is bound to become violent (which in turn rests on an extremely negative view of human nature rivaling that of John Calvin), anger against “liberals,” which was clearly evident locally, was likely behind the excessive police force designed to intimidate even peaceful protests.
With ASU police regularly staked out in jeeps parked on sidewalks and even academic courtyards, an excessive show of force has been the authoritarians’ tactic of choice to intimidate protesters even if they happened to be 20 students in the Global Politics of Human Rights class whose final project was a class protest on campus on April 13, 2017. The students protested against Trump’s policies on immigration, LGBT rights, women’s rights, Black Lives Matter, and even the prison system. 

The class was fluid in its movements, rather than being intent on blocking a sidewalk. (Source: Connor Bolget of The Republic)

As vaguely reported by a local newspaper, “At one point, Arizona State University personnel asked the group to relocate in order to stop blocking the sidewalk. Protesters then stood in a staggered line, with about a foot between each person, instead of standing shoulder to shoulder. Campus police then were called to the scene, as the protesters changed from holding signs to linking arms, walking back and fourth [sic] in front of the grassy area of Hayden Lawn.”[1] The word lawn is important, as the area is a large square of grass with sidewalks on the periphery.
Who were the opaquely labeled university personnel? In addition to the routine police presence on the campus, students working essentially as police aides typically have the campus covered (even sidewalk intersection to intersection). I have seen those security students keeping a particular eye on outdoor “political” tables near the student union building. It is possible that those student-security personnel notified the campus police of the class’s final project as a protest, which the police would have understood as such rather than as an academic project.

The walkie-talkie-clad "eyes and ears" for the campus police are ubiquitous on the main ASU campus--sometimes at every sidewalk-intersection even as observant police jeeps are stationed during the day on sidewalks and even academic courtyards. 

Did the university personnel and police over-react? The local newspaper reported, “Passers-by had some difficulties finding their way around the linked demonstrators, so ASU’s campus police stepped in to give a second warning, this time directly” to the professor.”[2]  That the protesters were few (20 with some add-ons) and were generally fluid (i.e., mobile) suggests that both the university personnel and the caller over-reacted. It would not be a crisis for by-passers (especially students) to walk on the grass, especially at that square. The police stepped in to give a second warning, so who gave the first? The student security workers? Given that students ordinarily walked on the grass and the small group was mobile, were two warnings really necessary? Should a university police force be able to interfere with a class project without permission from an upper-level academic administer? I suspect that the police took it upon themselves to threaten the professor as if she deserved to be arrested because students had to make a slight detour on grassy square. I also suspect that the police viewed the event as a political protest rather than as an academic project. That it was the latter means that the police should not have intervened without the permission of an academic administrator. Instead, the incident reflected the local culture wherein mobs protest and protests can be expected to turn violent. With such a negative view of protests even as a class project, it is easy to understand why threats and intimidation would be used with impunity.
Hence even the people in the peaceful protests against abuse-of-power by the police in Phoenix during the summer of 2020 (as distinct from the riots, which rightly have no constitutional protections) had to contend with massive police shows of force. Even a small protest on behalf of Ryan Whitaker had to put up with a police helicopter circling overhead as if twenty people might suddenly lose control of themselves and go on a rampage. A resident who lived near a park where protests against police violence took place told me that even peaceful protests walking to the park had to contend with an overwhelming police presence. I was talking to the other Midwesterner after a police car hit a parking lot curb as the police employee quickly swerved closely by me as I was walking from the main library, which was closed. No one was in the nearby park or even in the library’s parking lot that early afternoon during a weekday. Even though protests were taking place nightly, I contend that the police were over-reacting to one person walking through the parking lot. The aggressive driving was totally uncalled for, and yet the police employee likely, given the culture there, regarded it as measured rather than hyperactive. The underlying assumption, which I had heard from both local police and residents, is that any grouping of citizens in public is likely to turn violent without intimidation from an exaggerated show of force. That very assumption is what puts Arizona at odds with the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.
During that summer, the city’s mayor was bragging about how minimal the protests were there compared with those in other big cities in other States. If that differential was the result of intimidating peaceful protesters under the subterfuge that they would inevitably become violent because mobs are unruly, then the “success” came by trampling on the right of the people to assemble peaceably, which means without feeling intimidated. I would not call that success.

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1. Conner Borgelt, “ASU Class Holds Protest as Part of Its Final Assignment,” The Republic (azcentral.com), April 14, 2017.
2. Ibid.

Starbucks Capitulates to Overzealous Police Union in Spite of In-Store Intimidation

On July 4, 2019 in Tempe, Arizona (Tempe borders Phoenix, which is to the west), a Starbucks' employee requested that the six police employees in the small restaurant move from the bar area where customers picked up drinks, or else leave. Because the six did not come in together, customers were provided with the special treat of a prolonged police presence throughout the store before the cops huddled near the bar. Even as the police huddled, they did so with eyes strategically perched so as to maintain visuals on the customers. One cop in particular repeated glanced over his shoulder with a darting eye towards the customers as if they were threats. That customers might be uncomfortable even with the sheer number of police in the small store was obviously lost on the police there as well as Starbucks’ employees. Yet the company was strangely without any policy on the maximum number of police who could be in a store at one time and for how long (i.e., when no incident is occurring). This is strange given the high incident of police brutality, especially in Phoenix.  Just a week later, a protest took place against the brutality in Tempe. It is natural, especially in such a context, that at least some non-criminal customer would feel uncomfortable.  Meanwhile, the police felt entitled to disrespect the customers by showing such a huge presence in the small store. Ironically, the police felt instead that it was disrespectful for a Starbucks’ employee to ask them to step away from the bar or leave after a customer complained about feeling uncomfortable with such a significant non-incident police presence. This is thus a story about institutions not taking responsibility for their own respective roles in a problem.

The police circulated in the store for some time as they did not come in together, and then huddled near where customers pick up drinks. One of the police (front left) turned his head every few minutes to glare at the customers. Who would not feel uncomfortable? 

For its part, Starbucks sought to mischaracterize the customer as “anxious, nervous or uncomfortable” when the customer actually said he or she was uncomfortable. Starbucks’ spokesman Reggie Borges also claimed that the customer “continued to ask about the officers” as if obsessed.[1] Actually, the customer approached the Starbucks employee twice, and without the “anxiety” or obsession that Borges claims the employee wanted to relieve. That the customer spoke with the employee twice suggests that the employee had not been very motivated to act on behalf of customer experience. Also reflecting a disregard for customer experience, Starbucks’ allowance of any number of police in a store at a time was part of the underlying problem, not some heavily caffeinated, hyper-strung or "problematic" customer. Deliberately mischaracterizing the customer was just Starbucks' way of denying its own deficiency in not having a policy on a maximum police presence. According the the manager of another Starbucks' store, the company should have had such a policy rather than intimating that the customer was uniquely distraught. I submit that that virtually anybody would feel uncomfortable with so many police walking around in such a small space. The customer reportedly later asked the shift manager why Starbucks did not have a policy on a maximum number of police on break in a store at one time, to which the manager reportedly retorted, “I’m going to end this conversation.” 

As for the police in the store, a certain arrogance can be said to be in people who do not act out of respect for others—such as by showing such a huge police presence in the midst of customers trying to enjoy their drinks—while perceiving a request to move or leave given the disrespect as being inherently disrespectful. Clearly, the police taking their break in the store had no concern for the customers’ comfort, given the perception that the request to move or leave was itself out of line. Perhaps the public servants in Arizona held the view that the public should take whatever the police want to do, so even a request for the police to back off would be viewed as an affront. Just as it cannot be assumed that the customer was a shaking, hyper-caffeinated anxiety case, nor can it be assumed that the customer had a criminal background, as some people on social media suggested, for even innocent customers would understandably feel uncomfortable with six police walking around with guns visible in a small room.

I contend that the local police had no recognition of having too much of a presence in the store because intimidation as a deterrent by a very visible, ubiquitous presence in the public was at the time the standard tactic, especially in the city of Phoenix. The light rail company had the same view, for it was not unusual to see four or even five security guards (with police-like badges) on just a half of a car staring at passengers. 

On a Saturday on a train, I was standing with my bike, which is lawful, so imagine my surprise when I looked up and saw three security employees wearing sunglasses standing confrontationally near me and staring at me! I put on my sunglasses and stared back. Welcome to Phoenix.

Three security guards clustered in the back half of a car. Were so many guards and such clustering really necessary?

Once a passenger sitting near me asked a guard about the huge presence without an incident, to which the guard retorted, “There can be as many of us as we want; get it?!?” His aggressive tone alone raised a red flag for me in terms of the wisdom of allowing so many security employees in a small space—not to mention giving them any authority in the first place.

A stationary Phoenix policeman on a weekday keeping a close eye on a platform as a matter of routine rather than an incident. How might waiting passengers have felt? Should this have been factored in? 

The light rail company also played a role in the excessiveness shown by the local police. Twice I saw three or four passengers on a light-rail platform surrounded by about 15 police and rail-security guards for not having had a ticket. Motorists who get a ticket for speeding were not treated to such a police presence, so I suspect the reason for the over-reaction on the train has to do with the ridership.

As another example, at a light-rail platform about a half mile from the gay-pride festival during a Saturday afternoon in a local park in April, 2019, four police cars with lights continuously flashing were parked all afternoon in the street along the light-rail platform. As I passed on a train, I saw an empty platform. When I passed by again in the early evening, I saw the four jeeps whose lights were still flashing, but this time I saw four police employees with a dog going back and forth on the platform in spite of the fact that only twenty or so people were waiting for trains. 

About a half-mile from a gay-pride fest in a city park, four policemen with a drug-sniffing dog patrol a nearly empty rail platform. 

Yet when the train picked up baseball fans in downtown Phoenix, no such show of deterrence was shown. If you can visualize four police jeeps with lights flashing next to an empty rail platform, you have grasped the distinctive over-kill mentality of Arizona. My point is that given that mentality, both the police and Starbucks employees should have realized that virtually any customer would naturally feel uncomfortable with so many police in the store. That that case took place just over a month after a notorious case of police abuse of power makes it all the more perplexing to me why the customer would be treated as a special case.

Writing about an atrocious police incident that occurred on May 27, 2019 in Phoenix, Arizona, Cedric Alexander, a former police employee, police chief, director of public safety, and deputy mayor in Rochester, New York writes that a Phoenix police employee approached a newly parked car and said, “I’m going to f---ing put a cap in your f---ing head!” Why such anger? Why such rage? The four-year-old in the car had stolen a doll from a discount store.[2] Was the enraged employee of the police department so intent to put a bullet in the girl’s head because of the nature of the crime, or else the presumed sordid little criminal? An image of a Nazi SS officer shooting a small Jewish girl may come to mind. Or did the Arizona variant determine that the mother should pay with her life because her young daughter walked out of a store with a doll and the mother had not noticed? Did the fact that a discount store had made the complaint trigger the police employee’s anger at the poor?  Admittedly, it is the poor in Phoenix who regularly ignore traffic lights and even cross-walks in crossing even very busy roads. The lack of respect for law is endemic and thus astounding there—to say nothing of the lack of consideration for other people. “The public” is a term rightly with a sordid reputation in the Phoenix valley in Arizona. So I can understand why the local police could become demoralized, even disgusted and angry, but this is not an excuse, especially as police are given the governmental power of lethal force. Human nature itself may not be up to the task, given such immense power on an interpersonal level. The Stanford Experiment in the late 1960’s, for example, demonstrated how quickly people (i.e., students) given authority over others could resort to violence even though it is expressly prohibited in the authority given. Did we not learn anything regarding human nature and police power from that experiment?

The judgment that shooting someone in the head could be appropriate rather than outrageous in the case of shoplifting by a young child (assuming the child had known what she had done!) is so warped that this itself can be taken as a red flag concerning the human mind, at least on the Phoenix police force, and having the authority to use lethal force. Cedric Alexander writes that the police employee’s conduct was “unthinkable.”[3] Perhaps the human brain or mind is altered in some fundamental sense—and not in a good way—when a dose of pure power is taken in.

The girl’s mother, along with a 1-year-old, was in the back of the car. When the police employee ordered the mother to put her hands up, she was holding the younger child and so she replied that she could not raise her hands in the air. The employee then ordered the mother’s fiancée, who was in the driver’s seat, out of the car. In spite of the fact that the man complied, the police employee pushed the guy against the car and kicked his legs apart. “When I tell you to do something, you f---king do it!” That the employee had been wrong about the driver (for he had done as commanded) brings up the troubling matter of the toxicity of power when it is mixed with cognitive issues or simply stupidity. At the time, Arizona had one of the worst systems of public (K-12) education, and faulty assumptions and incorrect conclusions were quite common even in entry-level office positions (even as managers were relying on them to deal with “the public”).

Of course, the police employee may have meant the mother, who was not able to put up her hands, but then his verdict that she was nonetheless culpable would of course be warped. The employee’s decision to take the anger out on the complying driver demonstrates bad judgment (perhaps from excessive anger), aggression, and cognitive lapses. Even when the mother shouted that her door would not open, the “understanding” employee shouted, “You’re going to f---king get shot!”[4] The assumption that putting the fear of death in the woman would somehow fix the door is interesting from the standpoints of the employee’s cognitive ability and state of mind.
Even if the employee assumed from a generally negative bias or actual experience with the poor in Phoenix (who seemed too quick to lie and even become aggressive) that the mother must be lying, the disproportionate judgment that shooting the woman would fit the lie (i.e., that the lie justified death) suggests that the employee’s mind could not handle having the power of lethal force. This would presumably be a basic matter in a police department’s hiring process as well as for police supervisors.

If the police employee was enraged because his order was not being instantly followed, both his notion of human nature in others (i.e., fallible rather than robotic) and his own psychology could be flagged. To be able to get other people to do against their will what you want is a basic definition of human power. Accordingly, the employee’s power-urge was too much for him to handle the power to kill other people. Once the mother was out of the car, the employee tried “to grab the one-year-old child” out of the mother’s arms.[5] The employee clearly had an urge for instant power, and he evinced no basic compassion. Perhaps, as in a Nazi SS officer plying Jewish kids off their parents before boarding them all on separate train cars or even trains, the human mind high on pure power chocks off any sentiment of compassion.

So far we have anger, impaired judgment, cognitive issues, aggression, and a will to power. This is a toxic cocktail to be sure, and it has no place in a human brain on a police force. Extreme care in hiring is thus important, and we can deduce that the Phoenix police department had been lax in this regard too. Adding tinder to the fire was the cultural ideological “authoritarian” assumption generally in the Phoenix valley that intimidation is an effective deterrent. A major flaw in the ideological stance is that people with good motives also get intimidated, as when the police presence is ubiquitous. This can include police helicopters as well as police cars—the former flying low even on normal routine patrols and the latter circling or standing still (i.e., patrols that cease to be mobile). The key is the frequency or amount being excessive to not only human sensitivities to being nearly constantly watched or intimidated, but also having merit in actually stopping a crime. It is no surprise, therefore, that more police were sent to the scene of the doll-heist. I would bet the number of police cars was excessive given the actual threat. To be sure, the police employee probably exaggerated it in his own mind and thus to others. Maybe the police in the Tempe Starbucks store regarded the employee’s request as a threat, given that rarely had they probably gotten push back. Similarly, bullies tend to regard anyone standing up for the bullied as a threat, and even as disrespectful!

Cedric Alexander points out in his piece that government gives police employees their legal authority to use lethal force, but police “also need legitimacy,” which according to the 2014 report by the Police Executive Research Forum “lies within the perceptions of the public.”[6] The perception of employees abusing their privilege to use lethal force does nothing to help legitimacy.

 
So I am not surprised at all in reading Cedric Alexander’s report that the police chief, Jeri Williams, said in a public forum on May 27, 2019 that real change “doesn’t start with our police department. Real change starts with our community.”[7] With the excessive show of police generally (in order to intimidate so as to deter), it was difficult to view that city as a community at all. Alexander writes of the Phoenix police department that “as professionals under oath, they have the responsibility to start the ‘real change.’”[8] Such responsibility was all the more justified because police employees were part of the problem. The police chief said in the forum that the employee’s conduct (and attitude?) on the doll shop-lifting case “unacceptable.” Cedric Alexander writes critically of this antiseptic and bureaucratic word. “Terrifying, traumatizing” are more fitting, he writes; the lift-threatening behavior of those Phoenix [public servants!] cannot be written off as ‘unacceptable.’”[9] Yet this is exactly what a department not being held accountable and certainly not holding itself accountable does. Its deterrence method of saturating the city with non-incident police presence is therefore unfortunate. More than this, it can be reckoned as a passive-aggressive instance of callousness and impaired judgment.

The incident with the little girl is a case in which police believed they had considerable discretion on how they could treat (and regard!) the public. Less extreme, the police in the Tempe Starbucks store assumed that they could bring in as many police as they wanted even if the customers could rationally be expected to be uncomfortable. Criticizing Starbucks’ reaction as disrespectful is akin to the Phoenix chief’s refusal to take responsibility; it’s the other guy’s fault. The police association even brought up the irrelevant point that some of the police in the store were veterans, and so the military was disrespected![10]  Starbucks’ request was not disrespectful toward the police, given the thoughtlessness of the police in disregarding the fact that so many police would naturally cause discomfort. Such a showing goes beyond feeling safe, especially given the police employee who felt the need to keep an eye on the customers. If he did not feel safe in the store, he should have left rather than make at least one customer feel uncomfortable. The association representing the police was so busy feeling disrespected that no thought at all went into why customers could rightly feel uncomfortable with so many police in a small store.

So in apologizing to the Tempe police department for having had the good sense to follow up on a customer feeling uncomfortable, Starbucks ignored or dismissed an entire side of the story—one in which people in the Phoenix valley understandably felt uncomfortable when the local police go too far. “When those officers entered the store and a customer raised a concern over their presence, they should have been welcomed and treated with dignity and the utmost respect by our partners (employees). Instead, they were made to feel unwelcome and disrespected, which is completely unacceptable,” according to Rossann Williams, a vice president of Starbucks.[11] So much for customer experience! By Williams' strong-handed response, the customer’s legitimate concern about the excessive police presence should have been ignored and that presence in fact greeted! I submit that the Starbucks employee had rightly judged the customer’s concern to be valid, as the police presence was rather severe for a break, and that Williams would have been fine with customers awash in police presence. In effect, Starbucks backtracked in apologizing such that the police could feel free to disrespect customers by having too much of a presence in a given store. Starbucks would no longer stick up for its customers who feel uncomfortable with the over-kill of police who do not respect customers enough to limit the police presence. Instead, Starbucks would continue to greet as many police employees as want to inundate a given store. In effect, Starbucks would enable the “intimidation as deterrent” authoritarian tactic that is so ingrained in the Phoenix-area culture. It is, “a police state,” as several new arrivals have observed. In such a state, customers wanting a break from it while enjoying a drink at Starbucks could hardly be blamed, but sadly this did not stop Starbucks from tacitly doing so. Meanwhile, like the Phoenix police chief who had viewed the public as needing to take the initiative even after the police abuse of the four-year-old shoplifter, the Tempe police chief could only see his employees being disrespected. This tells me that neither department was used to being held accountable. The prerogative to being able to get away with disrespectful conduct easily views any push-back as disrespectful. It’s always the other guy. Starbucks, meanwhile, should have stood up for its customers because six cops in a small store are simple too many for customers to feel comfortable. The uniform and the lethal right to use force render police qualitatively different than customers, hence Starbucks’ refusal even after the fact to come up with a policy protecting the experience of customers is also telling.

Recommended: Bucking Starbucks' Star, available at Amazon. 

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1, Sandra Garcia, “Starbucks Apologizes After 6 Police Officers Say They Were Asked to Leave,” The New York Times, July 8, 2019.

2. Cedric L Alexander, “The Police Overreaction to Case of 4-year-old and Barbie Doll Isn’t Just ‘Unacceptable’—It’s Outrageous,” CNN.com (accessed June 20, 2019).

3. Ibid.                

4. Ibid.

5. Ibid.

6. Ibid.

7. Ibid.

8. Ibid.

9. Ibid.

10. Amir Vera, “Starbucks Apologizes after Six Officers Say They Were Asked to Leave a Store in Arizona,” cnn.com July 6, 2019.

11. Amir Vera, “Starbucks Apologizes after Six Officers Say They Were Asked to Leave a Store in Arizona,” cnn.com July 6, 2019.

American Businesses as Police-States: The Case of Hilton Hotels

Days before Christmas in 2018, Jermaine Massey was on a phone call with his mother. It being personal, he was in a remote area and was thus not disturbing anyone—that except for Earl, Doubletree’s security guard. Massey subsequently accused Earl of harassment. While the video that Massey took of the guard during the altercation shows Earl to be quite calm, the passive aggression was doubtless off the charts. The incident points to a growing problem at the time as American businesses were increasing their security presence, at the very least in terms of exposure, and last but not least, with considerable discretion and thus power. The incident shows that guards were well aware of how to mask personal power with the air of staid professionalism.  This only makes the latent authoritarian mindset more dangerous to the public.

After Massey had relocated to another hotel (without a refund from Hilton/Doubletree as of that time), he wrote on social media that while he had been talking with his mother, Earl approached. “He said that I was a safety threat to the other guests and that I was trespassing and said that I was a disturbance because I took a personal phone call from my mom in a more remote area of the lobby.”[1] Even if Massey had been too loud in his phone conversation, considerable overkill is involved in stretching noise to a safety “issue.” Additionally, Earl presumed that Massey was trespassing even though the latter had his room key (with the envelop indicating the room and date!) visible. That Earl refused even to admit the possibility that the key might be valid points to a serious lapse in Earl’s mind. What could prompt such a distortion well in the scope of Earl’s duty?

Friedrich Nietzsche would say that the pleasure of power is the underlying culprit. Earl was simply too weak to resist his over-extended need for power, and his tendency to assume the worst in people—common, I suspect, among police—only fed his need. That Earl had handcuffs and a metal “badge” that doubtless had been designed to mimic a police badge only enabled his predisposition to act even beyond the functions of a guard. For instance, a guard does not have the authority to arrest—so why the cuffs?

Making the problem of the over-extended guard worse, the hotel’s manager on duty enabled Earl by taking Earl’s decision that the police should be called on Massey as something that should and cannot be overridden. Earl used a walkie-talky to communicate his decision to the manager, then told Massey that the police would be there to escort him off the property. Even though Massey insisted that he had a room at that hotel, Earl countered with a tone of being the person in charge there, “Not anymore.” Even though the manager followed Earl’s instruction to call the police, Massey claimed that the manager only asked him—after having called the police!—what had happened. Luis, the young manager, was derelict in subordinating his authority to a guard—taking the guard’s side as the full story. And yet Luis and Earl would presume to call the customers guests. After being a customer of Hilton Hotels (Doubletree), Massey would be well within proper behavior to laugh out loud at the sheer presumption, for who treats a guest as Earl and Luis had treated Massey?  

In conclusion, this case strongly suggests that managers should not just take the word of their respective security guards, who likely have their own agendas (i.e., power-trips). It is the absolute power that businesses allow or enable guards to have that is so dangerous. What if the police had arrested Massey? A bad situation could have gotten much worse (with a police record). Significantly, the Portland, Oregon police did not even talk to Massey; they too took the guard’s side for objective truth. An axis can be drawn from Earl to Luis to the local police: the axis of absolute power that businesses enable. At the very least, businesses should not permit their guards to wear handcuffs or police-like badges. Once I saw this in a Target store and asked a cashier about it. “I know; it is over the top. They can’t even use those cuffs.” I asked why the show. “To intimidate customers,” she answered matter-of-factly. Target would go on in following the other herd-animal retailers to call customers guests. Intent to intimidate guests—nice!


For more on Nietzsche applied to managers, see On the Arrogance of False Entitlement, available at Amazon. For more on business ethics, see Cases of Unethical Business.

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1. Keith Allen, “Hotel Employees Who Asked Black Guest to Leave Fired,” Cnn.com (December 29, 2018).

The Arrest of a Senator in Georgia’s Capitol: A Sign of a Growing Authoritarian Police-State in America?

Sen. Nikema Williams (D-Atlanta) of the Georgia Senate “was arrested along with more than a dozen other protesters” at the Georgia Capitol on November 14, 2018.[1] The demonstration asked Georgia’s government to count every vote in the gubernatorial election. As a civil rights advocate, Williams had organized domestic workers for Stacy Abrams when she was running for Governor. Protesters shouted, “Let her go!” as the Capitol police handcuffed Sen. Williams and led her from the rotunda. No sitting legislatures in Wisconsin had been arrested (as far as I know) when huge constituent protests erupted in the Wisconsin rotunda against Gov. Scott Walker’s successful effort to remove collective-bargaining from powers of public sector unions there. As odd it may be for the police of a Capitol building to arrest a sitting senator, the observations of another senator, who witnessed the arrest, are even more chilling concerning an ominous trend then well underway in American cities.

Rep. David Dreyer (D-Atlanta) of the General Assembly, which was in session at the time, later said he had gone down to the rotunda about the same time as Williams, “but for some reason, Sen. Williams was treated differently than I was treated.”[2] He was insinuating the presence of racism in the Capitol police. “Because of our system, because of the bias and the way that our laws are enforced, just like I went down with Sen. Williams to try to de-escalate the situation, Sen. Williams was taken away,” he said. “We understand she’s been left in a van for a very long time on a cold and rainy day.”[3] Was there political pressure on the police to teach the senator a lesson? The gubernatorial election had been called for Brian Kemp, before which he had lost several court cases over “his attempts to block voters of color from the polls.”[4] In other words, as secretary of state, the Republican had not only exploited a giant yet virtually ignored conflict of interest in being the head of elections in Georgia even as he was a candidate for the highest office. It is thus conceivable that he pressured the Capitol police to arrest his former rival for the governorship—maybe even to punish her for having stood up to him in contesting his conflict of interest.

Yet beyond race and garden-variety partisanship, what more Rep. Dreyer had to say is even more critical in terms of Americans’ daily lives. “For some reason,” he continued, “I saw Capitol police lined up three abreast, row after row after row, looking like they were trying to stop a riot, when we were standing up for people’s right to vote. So this is not democracy; this looks a lot more like an authoritarian government. And it seems like that’s happening a lot these days, doesn’t it.”[5] Yes, it does.

In the Phoenix metropolitan area, especially in the city of Phoenix, local residents with sufficient longevity were noticing an increased police presence. Armed police standing outside certain stores and banks as a matter of routine, four or five police vehicles showing up to issue minor traffic tickets, police standing next to security guards just inside many grocery stores—police even going aisle to aisle as a routine rather than in responding to an incident or theft—police and security guards stationed in light-rail cars (sans incidents) and on the platforms, and generally very rude police; all these data-points are indications that an authoritarian government—at least in terms of political culture—was already well ensconced in Arizona.

I lived in the Phoenix metro area at the time. Coming from California and major cities in the Midwest, I was stunned by not only the number of police cars I saw on a daily basis, but also the number of security guards stationed on a light-rail car (sometimes up to six) as a matter of policy rather than incidents. 

 Three guards, two of whom are just on the other side of the small passageway. 

 Four guards: two at the outer edges of this picture, and two others at the middle of picture (standing at one of the back doors.

Four or five guards: one perhaps watching me take the picture. The other three or four (two visible) are in the car on the other side of the passageway. 

In none of these pictures has an incident induced the coverage. Rather, it had become all too common. On several occasions while I was standing near the door, I would look up only to see three uniformed guards standing "point blank," side by side, staring at me behind dark sunglasses. They were apparently just fine with their combative, over-the-top stance. Talking with a security manager at the city's light-rail company about the excessiveness on the trains, I learned that the company (or the subcontracted guard company) believed that so many guards are necessary for the guards to feel safe because one had been hit. I suggested that two might do, hence enabling the company to cover more trains at a time. The manager saw the efficiency in this, but the manager did not understand why people would feel uncomfortable or even intimidated being watched by several guards at close range. The normal reaction of regular folks to being watched combatively by so many guards at close range was something the manager just couldn't grasp, which in itself was a red flag. In such an unconscious state of denial, a police-state can grow unimpeded, without internal checks.
Interestingly, in spite of the presence of four to six guards at times in a car, none of the ticket-checkers ever gave out a citation! The guards were more interested in intimidating a car of passengers than devoting the surplus manpower to writing citations, especially to the people who were fraudulently using low-income passes.  

In fact, only twice while on the light-rail did I see citations being written, and this was done not on the trains but by pulling a few passengers off onto one of the platforms. On the first occasion, I saw 14 police and security guards suddenly enter the car I was in while only two of the guards checked tickets. The other passengers and I were very uncomfortable. It felt as if a raid were in progress, but it was actually only about giving citations! 
I had been on a train in which 20 police and their dogs ran into the car because the smell of weed had been reported. At the time, pot was legal in several U.S. states, but to Arizona law-enforcement, you would think the stuff could blow up cities. The sheer excessiveness, the (passive) aggression, and the reputation of the Phoenix police for rudeness even to ordinary citizens (i.e., not suspects) all came together for me while watching the bizarre scene unfold on the train.  

On the two sweeps by a massive showing of police and security guards to issue citations--always after commuting hours, interestingly enough--three or so passengers without passes or tickets (one of which was merely without the transit ID to show with a low-income pass!) were taken off the respective trains and told to sit on seats at the platforms (see the picture above). Four or five police and guards would then surround each person, as if he or she were to be arrested for assault or worse! To conflate writing out a citation and arresting someone for a violent crime suggests the presence of a serious psychological issue that might be widespread in police departments. 
Besides those two sweeps, I had never witnessed (over four months) a guard give out a citation; a guard would merely ask a person without a ticket or pass to leave the train at the next platform, which had a very mild punitive effect even as the company claimed that 43% of its ridership were using low-income passes. At no time on a train did I witness a security guard ask to seek the transit ID that was in theory at least necessary for the low-income pass. The passengers obviously had the impression that no such ID was needed during the actual travel. Yet I only heard this request on the first time I witnessed 14 security people running into a car for the writing of three citations.  The second time I witnessed the same event from across the street. I never saw 14 police surround a vehicle in order to write a traffic ticket. I suspected that the police's overkill was connected to a bias against poor people. The deplorable conditions facing the legions of homeless in Phoenix supported my sense that the powers there didn't care about the poor, and even were prejudiced.  

Another way that Phoenix stood out as a whole as being a proto-police state lied in vague sense of always being watched, not only in public outside, but also while entering stores.I and other people, I would discover, stopped going to a grocery store chain (Fry's) in the Phoenix metro area because in walking into a store, a customer had to pass not only a security guard, but also a policeman wearing a bullet-proof vest! The police would even walk from aisle to aisle! Imagine a young mother shopping with her daughter in an aisle only to look up and see an uptight man wearing a bullet-proof vest  labeled "POLICE" at the end of the aisle staring. While at waiting at the deli once, I asked the assistant store manager about this. His reply revealed that he did not perceive the excessiveness. "We want our customers to feel safe," he stated. At what cost to the customers? I wondered. The lack of balancing safety with the uncomfortability of being aggressively watched plays a major role in an authoritative police state getting worse and worse.

To catch the light-rail, I used to walk down a sidewalk with a 1st Bank on one side. I noticed one day that the security guard was not only stationed outside the bank, but that he wore a bullet-proof vest. I thought all this was too much, even given the so-so neighborhood. Worst still, he would walk around the side of the building to watch people getting off the bus cross the intersection to the light-rail platform (which is in the middle of one of the streets). On another occasion, I saw the guard follow me as I crossed the street and walked up to the platform. Utterly excessive! On a Friday morning while I was speaking with two Jehovah's Witnesses who were sitting in chairs on the sidewalk (i.e., not on the bank's property), I looked up to see the creeper-guard staring at me. That he had a bullet-proof vest on, and was standing "point blank" (i.e., combatively) facing me was enough of a red flag. This was confirmed when the two religious women told me that the bank's guard had told them he would protect them as well as police the area. The women, enjoying the convenience of such protection, were not bothered by the fact that the guard was not keeping to his job-tasks by going beyond the bank's property on a regular basis. Visibly, the two woman did not need protection from me, yet the guard stared at me anyway, though when I took his picture, he turned his head as if he had not been starring. The placement of his feet, however, revealed exactly where he had been looking! 
I called the bank's centralized customer service twice, asking that only a district manager or a customer service manager contact me if needed. Not the branch manager and certainly not the guard. Yet both of them left messages on my phone! I called customer service a third time and finally talked with a supervisor, who promised he would get to the bottom of why my requests had been ignored. I even emailed him the picture below to support my initial claim regarding the creeper guard, for I worried that the lack of accountability at 1st Bank could enable the guard to turn the tables on me. In the message he left me, he practically ordered me to call him back. Or else? I thought. This is another way in which authoritarian police-states can grow--by protecting their sense of entitlement by threatening people who object. This may be partly why the Georgia Capitol police arrested Sen. Williams. 
Back in Phoenix, an authoritarian police state was well underway, with at least two Christian women just fine with it. Moreover, enough of the safety-obsessed people of the city were just fine with it too. In fact, the political culture there could be labeled as at least sporting values that enable a proto-fascist police state that takes liberties from and with respect to "civilians."  The police and security guards even assume that anyone even just noticing the excessiveness is thereby a threat. 

Going into a Goodwill store once, I was astonished to see an armed policeman standing outside the door. Thinking that an incident might be going on, I made my way around him, and turned to check him just as I was walking in. “Trying to sneak a picture of me?” he said dismissively. I did turn on my phone's video by mistake once I had entered the store (hence no sneaking around). He entered the store after me, while I was complaining to a cashier about the police employee's rudeness. Incredibly, the policeman stood near the cashier and me; we both ignored his presence--this too I took to be overkill on the policeman's part, for no reason for suspicion existed--only the human urge to eves-drop with impunity. In this video, the policeman coming in and standing near the cashier and I can be seen. I had no doubt that the motive concerned me even though it is hardly illegal to complain to a store employee or manager about the security guard, even if he is (strangely) an on-duty police employee.  

I went on to tell the store manager about the policeman's rudeness, but the manager merely replied that he didn’t mind if the local police were being rude to his customers because the strip-mall’s property management arranges for the presence of the on-duty police. There was also a security guard inside the store. Only in Arizona had I seen both a policeman and a security guard standing at the front of a store to monitor things (i.e., sans incident).

Incredibly, some Arizonans told me that such a police presence was necessary for safety. I would inevitably reply, so two security guards are not enough on a train car? Incredibly, many native Arizonans relied, “Yes.” I realized that the political culture in that republic was very different—even enabling of the encroaching police state.

If a security guard or police employee are to add to their routine measures stemming from each incident so it is not repeated, then the status quo on the streets and in businesses will become increasingly strangling for a people. Put another way, if a city’s police department is to increasingly rely on shows of intimidation (i.e., when no incident is occurring), then people will feel less comfortable, distrust will increase in the public square, and the passive-aggressive tyranny will have dimmed the natural flame of liberty. The relative comfort of the home will increasingly paint “being out in public” in increasingly stressful colors. An authoritarian police-state was already well in place at least in two major American cities when Sen. Williams was arrested amid rows of Capitol police in riot gear; such gear itself heightens the smell of aggression in the air. Mayors and heads of police departments must have at the very least enabled to trend to continue; I suspect the sheer lack of awareness of the excess and especially how people react psychologically to it on a daily basis—an indifference to how citizens could be affected—is rife throughout many police departments in the U.S. Given the extremely rude comments I heard from police employees when I lived in Phoenix, I also suspect that the low-level (or low class) police employees let the power go to their heads, even in just being rude. Such an entitlement is a symptom of an authoritative police state, which the American people have allowed to grow as if the changes were invisible or inevitable. One effect societally may be increasing levels of accumulated passive-aggression--a sort of psychological carbon that also heats the atmosphere. The problem is thus societal in nature. 

On conflicts of interest such as the one exploited by Georgia's Secretary of State, see Institutional Conflicts of Interest, available at Amazon. 

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1. Laura Bassett, “Georgia Legislature, Arrested at Work, Says She Was ‘Singled Out As a Black Female Senator’,” The Huffington Post, November 14, 2018.

2. Ibid.

3. Ibid.

4. Ibid.

5. Ibid.