According to the police report, these people committed crimes and showed their intent to risk other people’s lives in the imminent future. That’s pretty good grounds for their arrest. And given that they made their willingness to attack police officers pretty plain and that they were staying in large groups, arresting them with overwhelming force was in all likelihood the only way to prevent someone from dying. Would you have preferred to see a stand-off and eventual shoot-out? Would you have preferred to see one of the protestors violently resist arrest and be beaten?

Also, I don’t know what story you read, but the police did present a warrant. They’re not required to present a warrant before they put the handcuffs on. They’re required, constitutionally, to obtain it before conducting a search or siezure. That’s all the constitution grants you. Other laws say they need to present it before hauling you in, and they did that. If you conspire to commit violent acts and the worst that befalls you is having to wait for 45 minutes before seeing why you’re being lawfully detained, I’d say that’s a pretty good system.

This is, of course, assuming the police’s side of the story is true. If these are trumped-up charges, then yeah, they stepped out of line, but they also will have violated basic operating procedures to do so. And if that’s the case, I don’t so much think the system itself is to blame as much as some corrupt people within it and I hope they’ll be punished for it.

I have sympathy for your run-in with police but you have to realize that by and large the police exist to prevent far worse things. Even the cop that comes by and tells you to keep it down at night is part of a system of laws that ultimately is there because without them, your neighbor would come by with a shotgun and threaten to kill you. Without legal justice, the only solution is vigilante justice which is always always always worse that the incident you’re so upset about.

The problem is that the police have the power of the state behind them. They have the power to act as they see fit and when it is shown that they step out of line, it is the same state supporting them that has to take responsibility to reprimand them.

Yes, they have to keep them in line to a certain extent or people will turn against their own government, but they are still a branch of the same entity. Saying that this case will be “dealt with” is putting the power into their own hands to deal with themselves, letting them choose their own punishment. And what happens next time? They do the same thing and they get the same slap on the wrist because people trust that it will be “dealt with”.

Sadly, I did expect that people would be more concerned about the obvious violation of rights and downright immorality of the way the situation was handled. I did expect people to question the evidence presented further…the cops are criticized for their behavior, they say another cop told them these things would happen, the same cops tell us the people they raided are the same people they heard talking (yes, TALKING) about these things, and people just take it all at face value.

Even if you believe all of that without a third party witness or seeing for yourself, there is still the issue of their failure to present a warrant and the terrorizing treatment of people who up to that point had committed no crime (except perhaps to talk about things they were going to do to cops, as angry people often do).

Of course, most people will not fear or be outraged by this sort of abuse of power until they are faced with it themselves. I hope no one shows up at my house in riot gear because I’m posting a blog implying that the police should not be the only ones responsible for policing themselves.