Everyday Erinyes #85

Experts in autocracies have pointed out that it is, unfortunately, easy to slip into normalizing the tyrant, hence it is important to hang on to outrage.  These incidents which seem to call for the efforts of the Greek Furies (Erinyes) to come and deal with them will, I hope, help with that.  Even though there are many more which I can’t include.  As a reminder, though no one really knows how many there were supposed to be, the three names we have are Alecto, Megaera, and Tisiphone. These roughly translate as “unceasing,” “grudging,” and “vengeful destruction.”

Before I start this week, I want to reemphasize that for many of us, maintaining outrage is a way to stay energized.  But there are other ways.  I realize not everyone who reads this is Christian, but I think we can agree both that many activists are Christian, and that Christan activists are a big part of the solution.  Besides that, techniques for hanging on to mental health are often non-religion-specific, and even if they are presented as such, they are almost always adaptable.  Sojourners this week had an article which referenced two older articles on staying strong which don’t require outrage.:  The Activist’s Guide to Contemplation and Sustaining the Daily Grind of Activism.  Might be worth a look.

I almost didn’t bother with this story.  The report of a teenager (or any age, really) receiving law enforcement attention while doing something that would not receive such attention if done by a white has become so daily now.  But the more I read, even as it became seemingly LESS conclusive, the more troubling I found it.

So it starts, from the officer’s viewpoint (and apparently he is an officer, although he looks more to many viewers like a retiree working part time security), with a call to the station that someone is knocking on doors in the neighborhood, and then targeting homes whose doors were knocked on for burglary.

From the teen’s viewpoint, it starts while he and a crew of mostly family were working on a yard from a customer they had solicited door to door.

So the officer asks him what he’s doing.  He says he and his crew are mowing the lawn.  The officer says he’d seen him going door to door.  He says, yes, he was looking for more yard work, and shows the officer his business cards from a stack from which he was handing them out.  The officer asks him for ID.  He says he doesn’t have any on him.  The officer says something to the effect of “When an officer asks you for ID, you show ID.”

Um, no.  There is no legal requirement for anyone to carry ID on his or her person.  If you are driving, a driver’s license, yes, but that may be not on your person but somewhere in the vehicle.  He had shown the officer, as I said, a business card.  A business card needs to pretty well accurate if your customers are going to be able to find you.  You may use a business name, but you still have to be findable.

So the teen asks the officer for identification.  Well, that went over like crepitation in church.  The order of events after that is not quite clear to me (I’m bad with videos), but handcuffs may have been brought out, the teen’s crew defended him (including words to the effect “you can’t do this just because he’s black,” and at one point he left and went home.

Later that day, the officer showed up at the teen’s home (which he apparently had no trouble finding, although he complained the teen had lied to him), and not alone (there were police cruisers up and down the street).  There was also a K-9 four-legged officer, and a taser.  The teen has said that both were used.  The article in Rare has a photo of injuries which could have been caused by a K-9.

The police are defending their officer 100%.  After all, the teen had LIED to him!  About the spelling of his name!  And about his age!  Clutch them pearls!  The thing is, as we have all been saying since Michael Brown or even earlier, none of the offenses they are alleging carries a death sentence, or a taser sentence, or a dog-bite sentence.  And, had this teen been white, it’s hard to believe that the tasering or dog-bite would have occurred.  Megaera, if you learn any new definitive details here, please keep us up to date.  Otherwise, I’d have to go with @JayT584 who tweeted the photo of injuries and added “white cop wants to play ‘slave catcher'”

This next story might be good news were it not too little, too late.

On April 20, 2012, seven heavily armed Johnson County sheriff’s officers conducted an early morning raid on the house of Adlynn and Robert Harte based on vegetative samples found in the couple’s trash. It turns out those samples were tea leaves, and officers found a hydroponic tomato garden instead of marijuana.

The Hartes sued the county for $7 million on unlawful search-and-seizure claims, which a federal judge tossed after finding the officers were entitled to qualified immunity.

On Tuesday, however, a three-judge 10th Circuit panel disagreed – and Circuit Judge Carlos Lucero offered a sarcastic summary in the ruling of the mistakes made by the officers.

“Law-abiding tea drinkers and gardeners beware: One visit to a garden store and some loose tea leaves in your trash may subject you to an early morning, SWAT-style raid, complete with battering ram, bulletproof vests, and assault rifles,” Lucero wrote. “Perhaps the officers will intentionally conduct the terrifying raid while your children are home, and keep the entire family under armed guard for 2 ½ hours while concerned residents of your quiet, family-oriented neighborhood wonder what nefarious crime you have committed. This is neither hyperbole nor metaphor – it is precisely what happened to the Harte family in the case before us on appeal.”

I am tickled to be able to say I know this judge – I knew him when he was a lawyer (That’s him above, with his wife Dottie).  He always did have this kind of sense of humor, but he seems to have refined it putting decisions into writing.  Had I known he would get to the point of being this smart – and this witty – I would have backed him when he was running for Senate.  But maybe Federal Circuit Court judge is even better.  It’s non-political and has lifetime tenure.

But, Tisiphone, you really must do something about the Johnson County Sheriff’s Department.
And stop laughing.  It really is serious.

As sad as this next story is, I think it is not only a good idea, but should be emulated by all fifty states and seven (I think it is) territories, including the District, and I am asking Alecto to work on that.

Arizona Driver’s Manual Now Includes How to Avoid Being Shot by Police

The “Reader’s Digest version” here is that state leaders surveyed a cross section of drivers about what they would do if stopped by a traffic officers, then surveyed Arizona Police Departments about what a driver should do if stopped.  Neither the drivers nor the officers had consistent answers, even among their own group.

Realizing that confusion exists on both sides about appropriate behavior during a traffic stop, [Democratic State Rep. Reginald] Bolding and his colleagues believed it was time to update the state’s driver manual.

The new guidelines are in the article, but there is a lot more about the facts that (1) even following the guidelines perfectly would not prevent all fatalities.  Philando Castile did so, and we all know how that turned out.  And, (2) isn’t it sad that we need to teach motorists to “bend over backwards” in order not to be killed in error by an officer of the law.  To that, I say, it’s good to have consistent guidelines, which, even if they don’t save every life, will put survivors who can demonstrate compliance by their loved one in a better position to claim abuse and press their cases.

While Law Enforcement Officers have been far from perfect, and there are major issues with their hiring and training, as well as with the propensity of Law Enforcement to protect their own even when wrong, nevertheless, as long as we have our insane gun laws, to that a police officer can literally have NO idea whether someone they are approaching is armed or not, it’s not unreasonable for them to be jumpy.

The Furies and I will be back.

Cross posted to Care2 here.