Posted on 08/21/2002 12:42:16 PM PDT by TLBSHOW
Policing the police after Kmart raid
Attention, Kmart shoppers. You are under arrest.
Houston cops planned for weeks to swoop down on a parking lot and nab a bunch of drag racers but couldn't find any when they got there. So, what the heck, they just rounded up everyone in the parking lot outside a 24-hour Kmart and a Sonic Drive-In and charged the whole bunch with trespassing. No joke.
Police Chief C.O. Bradford has promised us an investigation of this amazing weekend bust. But if HPD's self-examination is the sole probe, it won't be nearly enough.
At times like this we need some way to police the police. Otherwise, you know what will happen: HPD will treat this contemptible abuse of power as a single, isolated incident. If an investigation actually finds that citizens were wrongfully arrested, authorities then will focus on damage control and try to put the blame on one or two individuals.
The most obvious scapegoat at this point is Mark Aguirre, the police captain in charge. Bradford recently reprimanded Aguirre for using foul and threatening language to subordinates, but an arbitrator overturned the reprimand. This Kmart raid presents Bradford with another opportunity to come down on Aguirre.
Simple scapegoat won't do But we can't settle for a typical smokescreen-and-scapegoat kind of investigation. Too many serious issues and nagging questions have been laid bare by this absurdity.
For one example: Why weren't some oversight measures in place that could have prevented the debacle, or could have at least called a halt to it in the early stages?
Ronald J. Beylott, the city's chief prosecutor of municipal courts, said he had no notification about the raid on the parking lot, although it had been weeks in the planning. He was at a loss to explain why he had not been advised.
Beylott said that while no intake screening process is in place to review the routine misdemeanor arrests made by police officers, preparations for large-scale police operations in the past have included notifying the municipal courts in order to facilitate the processing of unusually large numbers of arrests.
For another example: What about the towing charges? People whose cars got towed in the weekend raid have paid or will pay well over $100 each to get them returned.
HPD's head PR guy, Robert Hurst, said Tuesday that police have no idea how many cars got towed from the parking lot. He said that will be part of the "internal inquiry." He said police also have no idea how much time might be required to complete their "internal inquiry."
But when officials finally determine and admit the arrests were unjustified, all costs of reclaiming the towed vehicles should quickly be refunded. Not by taxpayers, however. Refunds should come from the person responsible for the towing -- perhaps the ranking cop in charge.
The practice of towing cars cries out for a thorough examination. Authorities too often allow towing by independent companies to serve as an unofficial punitive measure, and it is a penalty without sufficient or effective avenues for appeal by vehicle owners.
Questioning criminal justice Yet another example: What about the people who pleaded guilty to the charges in order to get out of jail quicker?
Our criminal justice system makes it much more time consuming and difficult and expensive and risky for innocent people to stand up for their rights. This is another issue that needs to be put under a magnifying glass.
All arrest and conviction records and pleas resulting from the weekend raid should be dismissed, expunged, erased and eradicated without requiring the people arrested to file any documents or spend any more time or money to get it done.
And for the last example we have space for today: Is a major police raid like this the best way to deal with problems such as drag racing and late-night congregating on business parking lots?
Hurst said more than 50 cops were involved. Obviously, the money and manpower would have been better invested in preventive methods such as beefing up patrols in the problem areas.
He doesn't always get it right, but this time he did.
If there is drag racing going on, arrest the ringleaders and disperse the crowd under threat of arrest. If they are not engaged in commerce, tell them to move on, and only then, arrest those who loiter, for at that point, it is more obvious as to who is loitering.
Don't cops know how to say "Okay, break it up!" anymore? Where is common sense?
It died on September 11, 2001, along with 3000 other innocent victims.
Anyone who can't find drag racers in Houston, especially in the vicinity of Westheimer, has an irreversable case of encephaloproctosis.
If that lardbutted captain had put those fifty cops rotating on Westheimer in unmarked cars, he'd still be processing drag racers.
Lots of fast cars and wannabe fast cars who don't bother going to Baytown to the only track in town.
"State Enforcement Officers".
A police officer is meant to be a citizen being paid to render as a professional service what every responsible citizen is meant to do anyway. Apart from that difference, there is nothing separating the police from the citizenry. Nothing. But give some men a badge, and they assume an authority that God did not intend to be conferred upon them to begin with. They cease serving the people and begin acting as lackeys for the government.
They shouldn't be state-enforcment, they should be peace-upholding. And these cops failed to do that.
I think it is nothing more than 'revenge of the nerds'. They had a sheltered, crappy life as a teenager and want revenge. Freedom, rights and the constitution be damned.
In the private sector. Not in the government/civil sector.
"Revenue Enhancment Officers or Revenuers".
Boonie Rat
MACV SOCOM, PhuBai/Hue '65-'66
Out-of-Town Brown pretended to be the police commish here in New York under Dinkins, and let me tell you -- he never wore a hat.
It's difficult to keep an NYPD cap on your empty head when you're using your buttocks for ear muffs. And that's the only place Out of Town's head ever went -- straight up the dark tunnel of its own incompetence and self-regard.
Poor Houston.
In the private sector. Not in the government/civil sector.
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