The Police: Systemic Crookedness and Systemic Stupidity

In calling for defunding of the police, many Democrats claim—usually without argument—that the police across our country are “systemically racist.”  Instead of trying to convince us of this claim, proponents just condemn or shout-down anyone who dares to question it.  But outside of fantasy land, this claim is a nonstarter.  In other words, there’s virtually no chance of it being true.

First, there are dozens if not many hundreds of police departments in every state, and every department is different.  Therefore, it would be one thing to point to a specific, department-wide practice, and then argue that the particular department employing the practice is systemically racist.  But even if you could make such a case without further evidence, it says absolute nothing about “the police,” i.e., the other 99.99 percent of police departments across the country. 

Second, the individual police departments under fire right now are nearly always under the control of Democratic police chiefs, mayors, and governors—and in many cases these bureaucrats and politicians are themselves black—which makes this Democratic claim of systemic racism even more bizarre.  If the police department in Minneapolis, for example, is systemically racist, then voters should not reelect the Democratic “leadership” that is crying about systemic racism. 

But all of this focus on systemic racism is detracting from a real problem.  Regardless of your race, when it comes to your individual rights the police are systemically crooked.  They are literally trained, often by national consultants and trainers, to lie, cheat, and bully their way to get what they want at your expense.  When it comes to the laws that protect your rights, the cops are literally trained to be lawless.  This is a true systemic problem (in which prosecutors and judges are complicit), and it affects all of us.

I’ve written about how the police use widely-adopted tactics, with an assist from prosecutors and judges in the courtroom, to violate our Fifth Amendment rights (here and here and here) and our Fourth Amendment rights (here).  I’ve also written and entire book about how the police blatantly lie, cheat, and intimidate—without batting an eye—in the interrogation room (here).  And I’ve written other books that expose additional evidence of systemic crookedness (here and here).  Being a liar, cheater, and bully is part of being a cop.  It’s how they’re trained. 

But this systemic crookedness isn’t race-based.  Instead, the police deploy their tactics ruthlessly against everyone.  They are equal opportunity offenders.  This causes widespread harm to all of us.  However, because these tactics are literally run-of-the-mill, i.e., truly systemic, it also makes them far less interesting in today’s identity-politics-driven world where the grievant is always looking to gain something at some other person or group’s expense.  (Further, because these police tactics are far more subtle than a single act of police violence caught on a smart-phone camera, most people don’t have the attention span to understand them.  Unfortunately, books and law review articles can’t be reduced to a “tweet” or a facebook entry.) 

That covers systemic racism and my new phrase that I’m coining here: systemic crookedness.  Now I’ll introduce a third systemic problem.  For years, the cops have been the bullies.  Now, they’re being bullied by the mob, and they look utterly stupid as a profession.

In Seattle, for example, the cops had to essentially beg to come into the CHAZ / CHOP autonomous zone to investigate a shooting that killed two people.  And once inside the zone, they were harassed and bullied before being run out of town.  In Minneapolis, of course, the police were run right out of their own police station, retreating like dutiful little servants of the mob.  And in Washington D.C., the police can only sit by helplessly while the mob tears down historical statutes and our civilization.

Before all of this got rolling, the police literally bowed down on bended knee to show compliance, but that didn’t work, as the mob is never satisfied.  The police have been on the run—figuratively and sometimes literally—ever since.  It’s now reached systemic proportions.  I’m calling it systemic stupidity.