Later On

If torture is seen as acceptable in some circumstances, the circumstances tend to expand so that in time you have local police indulging in abuse because it is now, somehow, okay. Read Steven D’s report about what the San Jose Police are up to these days.

Read his entire report. The conclusion:

The common denominator in each of these incidents? The person beaten and/or tased was a member of a minority group. None of them were armed at the time police used this high level of force against them. And the fact that five six people have died after San Jose police used their tasers in the four year period 2004-2008 since 2004 suggests a fondness by the San Jose officers for using this so-called "non-lethal" weapon much too often. I live in a metropolitan area not much smaller than San Jose, yet we’ve had no one die as a result of being tasered to death to my knowledge.

My advice to you if you are a person of color and living in San Jose? Move. ASAP. The police there apparently do not see you as a person to whom the owe a duty to "serve and protect." You can be an upstanding, law abiding citizen living there and apparently that will not matter to the SJPD in the least. Instead, they apparently see you as their enemy, an enemy who deserves whatever punishment they choose to dish out. All in the interest of Public Safety, of course.