talking to a cop

The question is not so much why did no cop try to stop Van Dyke, as it is why afterwards all the cops and their superiors who weren't there covered up for him.  He had just murdered a guy in cold blood, this was the sort of thing that gave cops a bad name, made them hated by many in the ghetto, so that their job there became more difficult, and will cost the citizens, who pay their wages, a lot of money.

One answer that pops up is they thought they could get away with it.  They have done this plenty of times before.  They have all these rules that make it hard for them to be investigated, the boards that are supposed to oversee them are loaded with ex-cops and have almost never come out against an accused cop.  They almost got away with this one.  Getting the tape that showed what happened occurred only after a long and difficult battle.

The lesson of Laquan McDonald is not so much that somebody snapped and shot him.  It is that so many cops, paid by the citizens, and sworn to obey the law connived to let him skate on it.

But as has often been pointed out cops have a tough job, they do indeed see humanity at its worst.  Their job is dangerous and they don't get that much respect. Likely no non-cop can't understand their job.  Of course many vets claimed that nobody who hadn't been to Vietnam could understand what it was like.  Black people often complain that nobody who isn't black can understand what it is like to be black.  Does this mean non vets can't talk about Vietnam, that whites cannot speak about blacks, and that non cops can't discuss things with cops?

But it's tough.  I have known that cop neighbor of mine for some time and have never discussed cop stuff with him until this time when I was going to meet him and his girlfriend for pizza but she couldn't make it so it was just me and him, and peripheral matters led to the Laquan case.  

I was only able to broach the matter with him because I have known him sometime.  There was a cop who used to come into the Ten Cat, who I knew a little, but just a little, and I can't imagine asking him, hey what about that LaQuan shooting?

The truth is I'm afraid of cops.  Between the ages of twenty and twenty-two I was arrested five times.  Two of those were for drunk and disorderly, no problem there, I was guilty, they were just doing their jobs.

One of the others was for writing with chalk on a sidewalk,  This was because I was hanging out at a house where they thought we were smoking marijuana.  We weren't, it would be a couple years before our group ever saw marijuana.  They just wanted an excuse to get into the house and look for it, and of course they never found any.  I had to pay a fine of like ten bucks, which isn't much, but still it's for doing nothing.

The other two were more serious.  One was a couple years later when I was sitting in an apartment where by this time we were smoking marijuana, but not at this particular time and I had none on me.  Still I was arrested, had to spend a night or two in jail before I was bailed out and ended up having to pay a lawyer a considerable fee.

The other was for assault with a deadly weapon.  What me?  I think I have discussed this one before.  The gist of it was there were riots in Berkeley and my friend and I were passersby examining the remains when the cops plucked us off the street and arrested us both.  Again a night or two in jail before being bailed out, but charges against me were dropped soon.  My friend, on the other hand, was only a hung jury from doing ten to twenty.

When I was in the Oakland Hall of Justice, talking to my lawyer in that case, a cop suddenly appeared in the vestibule chasing somebody but not sure which way the guy went.  There were maybe ten civilians in the vestibule, blacks, hippies, and some lawyers.  Suddenly somebody came up behind the cop, kicked him hard in the ass and the cop went ass over tea kettle down a flight of stairs, and the kicker, split the scene.  The cop was backup from the flight of stairs in ten seconds, and scanned the area for the kicker but didn't see him. Then he looked up at the bystanders and was just about to ask which way did the kicker go, but he realized that all the bystanders were black or hippies or their lawyers and none of them were going to tell him anything, and he took off.  

This was all long ago, but still I have reason to fear the police.  But it's not just that that keeps me from asking an actual cop in flesh and blood, what was the deal with Laquan.  I also respect them.  More on that in the next post.