TheAgitator.com
Another Isolated Incident
Friday, September 5th, 2008Last June, police in St. Louis broke in to the home of an 86-year-old woman, deployed a "smoke bomb," and turned her place upside down in what looks to be a mistaken drug raid. A clergyman from the woman’s church has been trying to get an apology and compensation, but thus far has been rebuffed by city officials.
“We’ve been battling since June,” Brown said. “The (police) board is for the birds, when it comes to citizens. I talked to one board member, but he was very insulting. They just closed the door in our face.”
Valentine wants an apology from the department and compensation for the damage done to her psyche and home.
“She’s scared, and when she hears loud noises outside she thinks it’s the police coming in her house,” Brown said.
[...]
“When they realized they’d been had, why didn’t they just get everyone’s information and write a report for a complaint number and take it to the City counselor, who could get the right department to pay for damages?” Broughton said.
Instead, Valentine and Brown said the officers threatened to the take the elderly lady’s house when they left.
Police tore down Valentine’s door, ripped up her walls, sliced open her mattress, and seized a safe containing stationery. They found no drugs, made no arrests, and, three months later, have made no offer to compensate her for the damage done to her home.
Not only is this inhumane and immoral not only does this breed contempt and mistrust between police and the citizens but it’s just outright dumb.
With different lawsuits and settlements in the news, police and cities would be wise to offer this woman an apology and a few thousand dollars as a settlement of any future claims. Maybe also to set aside some city funds for exactly this purpose.
It’s true that sometimes admitting a mistake can work against you if the person later files a suit, but there’s ways to get around that pretty easily. And even if you didn’t want to come out and say that, nothing stops you from making other nice gestures like inviting the woman or her representative to a meeting.
Or like, not being a dick to them after the fact.
I think we’re now at a point where we can’t even expect police to act rationally out of self-interest, but rather out of ego.
Was looking at the St. Louis Board of Police Commissioners page on the St. Lou police site, which is what I assume is the board mentioned in the article. Nothing but political appointees/nominees from the state governor, so I am not surprised they don’t care about the citizenry. Why the governor is appointing people to serve on a city board, I will never know.
I believe the governor appointing the board in st. louis dates back to the civil war- they wanted state control of the board to prevent a confederate mutiny. My memory’s a bit clouded, but I think I’m in the ballpark.
Being in st. louis, this is major news to me, but I cannot recall any of the local news outlets carrying it…
any word on her dog?
When does the civil disobedience start and where does the line form to join up?
After leaving said raid, one of our valiant men in blue decides to make a stop for Red Bull and some twinkies. Here is what ensues:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=paonzAQD0C8
I have a few questions?
1. Why do cops repeatedly make the same mistakes?
2. Why do cities refuse to compensate for the damages?
3. Why are procedures never changed to eliminate likelihood of repeat occurrences.
Essentially, based on the behavior of the cops and the cities in cases like this, the collective answer to these questions seems to go something like this:
“Because we can, you pathetic bunch of whiners. Who’s gonna stop us? You? You best shut yer mouth or we’ll come back and fuck you up good.”
The word isolated, of course, is dripping with irony.
1. Why do cops repeatedly make the same mistakes?
Very simple, really. They’re not mistakes.
Mistakes are actions which have unintended and undesirable consequences. The consequences of an action need not be severe for it to be a mistake–personal unhappiness at the result would suffice–but there must be something. In many cases there are no consequences whatsoever for cops who raid innocents. Until that changes, such attacks on innocents will not be mistakes, but rather a routine part of operations.