Finally, the [LA Police] department had a history of racism, which made policing a city where 106 languages were spoken and 20 percent of all residents were foreign born a formidable challenge. Even black police officers were afraid; one, Cannon tells us, testified at a public hearing after the King incident that he worried about driving home in civilian clothes late at night, because fellow officers needed no reason to stop him other than the fact that he was black.
The King cases and the riots of 1992 have been followed by reform and signs of rapprochement: since 1993, Los Angeles has had two successive African-American police chiefs, both ardent advocates of ''community policing,'' in which law enforcement officials become partners with citizens -- building what Cannon describes as a ''police force that would be a servant of the people rather than their master.'' That alone is a hopeful departure from the philosophy and practices of the Los Angeles Police Department, which was put on trial -- and indeed is still on trial -- because of a citizen's videotape.
William K. Marimow, the managing editor of The Baltimore Sun, won Pulitzer Prizes in 1978 and 1985 for his articles about police misconduct.
Excerpted from:
cspc.org
I read that R. King was eventually awarded $3.8 million.... Now, you ask me what would have resulted if it had all happened in Belgium? Well.... I guess "Mustafa King" (to adapt the name to our new context) would just have got a kick in the ass....
Except for the infamous death penalty that's still enforced in 38(?) states, Europe has no lesson to teach the US when it comes to racial abuses by police officers. Take the Semira Adamu case for instance: this young Ghanean girl (20-something) was suffocated to death by two gendarmes while waiting for the SABENA aircraft to bring her back home... The whole procedure was videotaped by a third gendarme as required by law. Now, do you think the Belgian coach-potatoes --not even to speak of the world over-- have been allowed to watch that video??? NOT ON YOUR LIFE! The video was reviewed by a "select committee" including Interior Minister Louis Tobback, the Gendarmerie's chief of staff, and other top bananas.
Eventually, the Catholic priest appointed to the Illegal Immigrants Detention Centre told the press that Semira merely was a would-be whore and that she lied about her background (...) Qui sine peccato est...
Here's another bavure (=police blunder) that involved street videosurveillance:
Belgian police yesterday discovered some serious weaponry in the hand of local youth gangs. This search fuels speculation about connections between GIA and gangs of dissaffected Belgian youths, possibly involved in the recent string of attacks on armored cars transporting funds.
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Explosives and heavy arms seized in Brussels
LeSoir March 27, 1998
A large police operation executed Thursday in six communes of greater Brussels resulted in the discovery of a stock of arms including explosives, assault weapons and anti-tank missiles. Some twenty searches were conducted by the Gendarmerie and the Communal Police of Brussels. They questioned thirty suspects. Yesterday evening, four of them had been placed under arrest, while interrogations of others continued through the night.
The ring could be related to GIA sympathisers arrested March 5 on Rue Wery in Ixelles, based on the materials found. Explosives found yesterday appear to be of the same type seized from militants of the Algerian terrorist movement. False papers found in yesterdays search also are similar to those found in the Rue Wery search.
If a link between terrorist cells and local delinquent circles is confirmed, it will confirm the connections between "grand banditisme" and Algerian activities already in evidence in connection with the bloody attack in Roubaix, France, in March of 1996. There also, local criminals had assisted GIA militants, who paid their helpers by supplying men for use in attacks.
The investigation behind yesterday's spectacular operation began last November in the wake of riots in Anderlecht after the death of a young drug dealer who was shot by Gendarmes. Police and Gendarme surveillance detected the presence, among the youth in the Cureghem neighborhood, of several suspects implicated in judicial investigations. They moved with ease among the rioters, as well as within certain gangs active in dangerous Brussels' neighborhoods.
These undercover surveillances led to the discovery of a ring of delinquants active in drug trafficking and to identify another group implicated in arms trafficking.
For the Gendarmes, the hypothesis of an alliance between petty criminals in the neighborhood and major delinquance was already a certainty. It was certainly bolsterred by yesterdays operation.
The investigators found narcotics (cocaine) and cutting equipment (including a precision scale) used in the resale of drugs.
The arms cache was more disturbing. Other than handguns, a Kalashnikov, an Uzi machine pistol, 3.75 kilos of explosives, the Gendarmes also seized a light anti-tank weapon, probably destined for use in attacks on armored
cars. A uniform used by armored car drivers was also found.
"That is a very practical sort of disguise," commented an investigator. "It opens certain doors..."
The collection of arms was taken to a military laboratory which hopes, by balistic and chemical analyses to determine if the weapons were used in connection with any of the recent bloody attacks against money transporters.
ORIGINAL ARTICLE BY CHRISTIAN DU BRILLE
SEE IT IN "LE SOIR EN LIGNE" AT lesoir.be
Translation by:
Benjamin Cox
Student of Law
St. Mary's University School of Law
San Antonio, TEXAS
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The shoot-out by the gendarmes that led to the death of a 20-year-old Moroccan youth (with 14 bullets) allegedly occured in front of one of the city's CCTV-cameras. But guess what --the video recorder was turned off and no police officer watched the "movie" at the CCTV station in the police HQ.... Again, the bottom line is, NO VIDEO AVAILABLE!
Come to think of it, the funny thing about this armored-truck robbergang is that, 2 days ago (August 3, 2000), the Brussels Judicial Police chief publicly announced the dismissal of a high-ranking police inspector. The reason: the police inspector was the mole who tipped the gansters about armored trucks' itineraries.... I'll spare you the debunking about the GIA bullshit since the Belgian police, together with their French counterpart, are working hand in hand with the Algerian government to crack down on every Islamist sympathizer.
Six or seven years ago, there was a shoot-out between gangsters and a police squad on a Belgian highway. During it, one of the police bullets went stray and hit a third car passing by --inside were a mother and her teenage daughter. The bullet hit the girl in her back: since then she lives in a wheelchair, paralysed for the rest of her life. Do you think that her mother got anything from the Justice? All the Belgian government granted her was a miserable BEF 2 million ($50,000), barely enough to pay for the girl's medical expenditures....
In the US, the little guy --Joe-Six-Pack-- is not pushed around by a classist justice apparatus. Contrariwise, in Europe, lawsuits against big tobacco companies, against a McDonald's outfit that harms its customers with overboiled coffee, against police abuses, against any bigwig interest you might think of, NEVER results in a fair settlement for the little guy. You Yankees can visit Disneyland as it fits you, but we Europeans must live in the Middle Ages round the clock.... |
