I don't really want this blog to become solely about the police, or even mainly about the police, but I can't resist the urge to disseminate word about the latest incident of police misconduct.
In this case, a Chicago police officer has been hit with a civil suit by 21 plaintiffs who charge that the officer unjustifiably arrested them for Driving Under the Influence. It is charged that he picked his targets by observing them coming out of gay bars. One of the plaintiffs said (in an interview shown on TV news) that the officer said to him, "You've got two strikes: you're black and you're a fag."
What is this officer's motivation, other than his biases and prejudices? He makes money. When he appears in court in these cases, even if the case gets thrown out, the officer is paid time and half.
Mothers Against Drunk Driving has given this officer a reward because of his uncommon number of drunk-driving arrests--300. It's sad that single-issue constituencies like MADD so typically only scratch the surface of an issue and see only what they want to see. I think they deserve a new acronym, maybe IDIOT, standing for Idiotic Dames Inflicting Obnoxious Temperance.
Chicago has a (relatively) new police superintendent who came to his position with great promise of cleaning things up. So far he has shown too much inclination to defend the police officers under him, rather than getting at the truth and doing something about these abuses of police power.
Copyright (c) 2009 by Richard Stein
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