Community Policing Done So, So Wrong

To protect, serve and set new standards of counter-productiveness.

Digby, on the firefighter who was almost tazed because he waved at local police officers:

Such "disrespect" can cost you your life on the mean streets of many inner cities. But the police are supposed to be different. Nowadays, a whole lot of them have adopted this gangster ethos of demanding instant "respect" and total compliance. They just use a taser to do it instead of a gun. Homicide requires a whole lot more paperwork.

This isn't confined to police officers either. My husband was in a TSA security line at LAX earlier this week and got into a conversation with a women who told him she'd been harassed at a Canadian airport recently. He said to her that she should always comply with the TSA because they have a lot of power over individual citizens and it makes no sense to fight it. He was yanked out of the line by TSA agents and taken to a secure corner where they quizzed him about what he meant by saying that TSA has "power" over people. They went through every item in his carry on bags and he almost missed his plane. He tried to explain that he was only telling the woman that she should comply with their orders, but they were apparently upset at being characterized as people who might abuse their power. So they abused their power and harassed a citizen for saying something completely obvious.

This is creeping authoritarianism. We've got millions of people in America wearing uniforms and carrying some kind of government authority and we're all going to have to learn that they will not be disrespected, even if they are delusional idiots. No, it's not the end of the world and we're not being rounded up and sent to the gulag. But it's not exactly freedom and liberty either.

And fifty years later it's still the hippies with their organic gardens that really piss them off.

While the Seattle PD is showing remarkable common sense during Hempfest, down in Texas they're sending in paramilitary SWAT teams to put a stop to unauthorized okra:

A small organic farm in Arlington, Texas, was the target of a massive police action last week that included aerial surveillance, a SWAT raid and a 10-hour search.

Members of the local police raiding party had a search warrant for marijuana plants, which they failed to find at the Garden of Eden farm. But farm owners and residents who live on the property told a Dallas-Ft. Worth NBC station that the real reason for the law enforcement exercise appears to have been code enforcement. The police seized "17 blackberry bushes, 15 okra plants, 14 tomatillo plants ... native grasses and sunflowers," after holding residents inside at gunpoint for at least a half-hour, property owner Shellie Smith said in a statement. The raid lasted about 10 hours, she said.

Local authorities had cited the Garden of Eden in recent weeks for code violations, including "grass that was too tall, bushes growing too close to the street, a couch and piano in the yard, chopped wood that was not properly stacked, a piece of siding that was missing from the side of the house, and generally unclean premises," Smith's statement said. She said the police didn't produce a warrant until two hours after the raid began, and officers shielded their name tags so they couldn't be identified. According to ABC affiliate WFAA, resident Quinn Eaker was the only person arrested -- for outstanding traffic violations.

The city of Arlington said in a statement that the code citations were issued to the farm following complaints by neighbors, who were "concerned that the conditions" at the farm "interfere with the useful enjoyment of their properties and are detrimental to property values and community appearance." The police SWAT raid came after "the Arlington Police Department received a number of complaints that the same property owner was cultivating marijuana plants on the premises," the city's statement said. "No cultivated marijuana plants were located on the premises," the statement acknowledged.

Hey, these police agencies all have enough military gear to fight a small war. Do you think they aren't going to find reasons to use it?

This story about an ex marine officer testifying before his town council made the rounds this week and well... it's not exactly wrong:

"What we're doing here, and let's not kid about it, is we're building a domestic army and shrinking the military because the government is afraid of its own citizens ... "

"The last time more than 10 terrorists were in the same place at the same time was September 11th, and all these [armored] vehicles wouldn't have prevented it, nor would they have helped anybody."

"We're building an Army over here and I can't believe people aren't seeing it, is everybody blind?"

But what about the scourge of narco-terrorists growing illegal okra and blackberries, huh? What are we going to do about that?

This is how you do it right: 

See what happens when you legalize? Common sense, community and good humor.

by digby

Check out the bags of Doritos the Seattle Police Department is handing out to the Hempfest revelers:

That's called common sense community policing.

I can't go along with the Dark Side of the Moon thing though. It really must be heard at the highest volume possible.

H/T@GrahamKIRO7