Many of us know the tactics used by the anti-Pit Bull hate group DogsBite.org. Probably the most notable is selectively highlighting certain happenings and then using those specific incidents to push an all-encompassing ideology of demonization onto the “group” that is being targeted or alleged to be committing the incidents. This is the concept of collective blame.
So with that, I’m going to use this same type of tactic to highlight individual police officers who have acted criminally, maliciously or unlawfully; in an effort to then mirror the vilification process of what groups like DogsBite try to do to Pit Bulls. This is obviously done for example purposes only…
Below is a snapshot in time that aims to focus on April 16th through April 30, a mere 15 days. I easily come up with 17 highly egregious incidents carried out by individual police officers in less than 1 hour of research, and another (which is noted but happened in March) that’s present for further context. This wasn’t hard, this was easy. In reality, this list probably signifies less than 5% of all highly insane actions carried out by differing police officers from across the United States in the same time frame.
4/16 ~ A Riverside County police officer entered a fenced yard and accidentally shot himself after trying to kill a “very large” dog that he said was “threatening his life.” The dog’s owner refuted this version of events and said that the dog simply barked at him after he entered the fence. Live news coverage showed the dog, a much smaller Pit Bull-type dog named Precious, playing with the family’s 3 children.
4/18 ~ A Green Bay police officer threw a bar patron up against a car, slammed him onto the ground, and all for simply questioning the arrest of 1 of his friends. They’ve since charged the man who was assaulted with disorderly conduct and resisting arrest.
4/19 ~ Buffalo police brutally beat a man after he willingly submitted to them after exiting his car and running across the street. This was all brought upon after an undercover officer began tailing the man, causing him to fear for his life and attempt to speed away. As the handcuffed man is being roughed up he is seen repeatedly apologizing and asking them to stop. He was charged with resisting arrest.
4/21 ~ Jurors finally began deliberations on a 2008 police raid of a wedding party where more than a dozen guests were beaten with batons, tazed and pepper sprayed. This happened after an off-duty cop thought that he saw the bride’s brother walking outside with an alcoholic beverage and called for backup. Incredibly, none of the almost 40 cops who were eventually present reported any use of force.
4/21 ~ An elderly Missouri man dialed 911 to get an ambulance for his wife who has dementia. When the police showed up they proceeded to throw the man down, beat him and handcuff him.
4/21 ~ A 19-year-old New Mexico woman was shot and killed after being suspected of stealing a truck. She allegedly pointed a gun at someone. This came on the heels of the U.S. Department of Justice having released a report on their police department, Albuquerque, in which they detail what was defined as “patterns of excessive force.” Since 2010 the Albuquerque police department has shot 38 people, killing 24 of them.
3/16 ~ A month earlier an Albuquerque police officer shot and killed a homeless man after he was found to be “illegally camping” on a hillside in a rural part of the city. He was not resisting their advances but was still shot at least 7 times in the back after being told to “get on the ground” by numerous officers who were pointing guns at him. The police chief later said that the shooting was “justified.”
4/22 ~ A Texas man called the police to report that his home had been burglarized. Upon arrival, 1 of the officers promptly shot his dog, a Blue Heeler named Candy, in the head for no reason. They then mocked the dog’s owner and threatened to taze him as Candy lay dying on the ground. The dog was actually shot behind the ear, indicating that she was shot from behind.
4/22 ~ 8 shots were fired in a crowded Utah courtroom, ultimately killing the defendant, after he made his way towards the witness stand while holding an ink pen in a “threatening manner.”
4/22 ~ Philadelphia police officers dressed in plainclothes demand that a pizza delivery driver stop for them while he was walking back to his car on a dark street. He suspected that he was being robbed so he began running for his car. The officers proceeded to shoot the man’s car 14 times, hitting him at least 3 times. The victim could possibly be left permanently blind after the incident, as 1 of the shots damaged his eyesight.
4/23 ~ Virginia police tie up and interrogate a 75-year-old woman after cops mistakenly raid her home.
4/24 ~ Kern County police officers raid the wrong apartment complex, point weapons at a nude mother who was getting into the shower, and this played out right in front of her children.
4/25 ~ Multiple Boise police officers arrested a resisting high school student and then confiscated the cell phones of the many other students who were recording the altercation.
4/26 ~ A Tennessee police officer choked a 21-year-old college student out of consciousness while he was handcuffed and not resisting.
4/27 ~ Long Beach police shot and killed a man as he exited a car and ran toward the beach. They shot him multiple times in the back. The police department first claimed that the man had “assaulted” an officer, but as witnesses began coming forward the story changed to the man having a “large wooden stick,” which caused the officers to fear for their lives. Their story changed again when it was claimed that the man was reaching into his waistband.
4/28 ~ A Louisiana police officer shot and killed a homeless man’s dog, a Black Labrador-mix named Arzy, while it was calmly tied to a leash. The innocent man, who was originally being hassled for trespassing in a park, was forced to sit handcuffed as his dog died.
4/29 ~ An off-duty Baltimore police officer shot a man at least 3 times after getting into a verbal dispute with him outside of his apartment complex. He is being charged with attempted murder.
4/30 ~ Dash cam footage showed a Nevada police officer illegally extorting $50,000 from an innocent driver coming home from Las Vegas.
From my quick research there’s anywhere between 800,000 and 1.2 million members of law enforcement in this country, depending on your definition of law enforcement. By contrast, there’s between 75 and 80 million dogs in this country, many millions of which are Pit Bull-types (and then many millions more which are subjectively and ambiguously referred to as being Pit Bulls with no evidence).
Yet dogs are killing about 30 people per year (even as their population rises), while I don’t think it’s in any way a stretch to say that the police probably kill at least 1 person per day in the United States. For example, In Los Angeles County alone the police department shot and killed 54 people in 2011. At least 12 of the 54 were allegedly unarmed. This, as the overall number of homicides in that area had “fallen to historic lows.” Also equally worth note, many of the police departments across the U.S. don’t release any information on the “use of force” by their police, and the federal government makes no serious effort to collect such data. I state this only to imply that whatever number I put out there is in actuality probably higher.
Using some quick math and the low end of the dog population as well as the high end of the law enforcement population renders out these numbers: 30 / 75,000,000 = 0.0000004% of all dogs have killed someone at any given time within that calendar year. 365 / 1,200,000 = 0.0003% of all law enforcement have likely killed someone at any given time within that calendar year.
I state all of this simply to drive home what the DogsBite tactic looks like in another realm. You can do this over and over again if your focus is simply on scapegoating huge groups of anything for the actions of the select few. Be as it may, it remains a never-ending activity of erroneousness and ignorance.
(Not that it needs to be stated, but I do not believe this sweeping negative connotation of police officers. I do not believe them to be a collective reflection of the incidents that I highlighted. I know that there are hundreds of thousands of good police officers and members of law enforcement from all across the country. At the end of the day they are each individual people, with families, and their own stories and track records.)
But this type of shit and chicanery is the DogsBite.org philosophy and ideology. Make absolutely no mistake about it!