Via Reason, I found a fascinating slice of what passes for life in the modern Kafkaesque world — from the point of view of a naive leftist who got thrown into the slammer by San Francisco’s finest for being a good Samaritan.
The title is “Good Samaritan Backfire or How I Ended Up in Solitary After Calling 911 for Help.” Even in “progressive” cities, police are out of control, and do pretty much what they want.
I live in a new gilded age in a golden city. But sometimes the cracks show, even here. The façade crumbles and you find yourself naked, in solitary confinement, in a wretched, feces-stained prison.
How? As a result of my efforts to help injured bicyclists by calling 911, I was, in short order: separated from my friend, violently tackled, arrested, taken to county jail, stripped and left in a solitary cell. I am writing this story because, if it could happen to me, it could happen to you, and I feel the need to do something to help prevent this brutality from propagating.
I moved to San Francisco 9 years ago for graduate school at UCSF and currently run a company that brings transparency to the food industry and employs 12 people. It may appear to be self-serving for me to say so, but I am a rational and peaceful person whom no reasonable being would deem a threat.
Threat? Apparently (mainly because he seems to be a bit too chatty), he was seen as a threat to the egos of a couple of young diversity-based female cops who were trying to make a name for themselves.
Get a load of this:
…they asked me what I do for a living. I said that I write software that helps restaurants source food and indicated that the restaurant behind me uses our product.
What they said brought to light a fundamental rift between the residents of San Francisco and the police:
“Ah, you’re one of those billionaire wannabees in this neighborhood.”
What we’ve got here is a failure to communicate
Rich SOMA, poor SOMA. My instinct was to make this distinction go away, to show them I know our neighborhood is more complicated than that. To connect on human terms. I told them that it was an early stage startup; I’m doing this because I feel it’s a way to make the world around me better, to bring people joy through better food. I live here, right on this block, in a loving home with 16 roommates. I love this community. I asked them where they lived. And they responded in unison: “Far away! We can’t afford to live here.”
They exposed a growing tear in our city’s social fabric. A class conflict brought on by rising housing prices and economic disparity, resulting in a commuter policing class that resents the residents they’re meant to protect and serve.
You would almost think that the author considers class relevant to police policies. (A scary thought in itself.) Read it all, if you can get through it.
As usual, there is no accountability. Police do whatever they want.
Naturally, the clueless liberals vote mindlessly for the people who preside over the system of unaccountability and enable the cops to do whatever they want (in this case, imprisoning a well-meaning do-gooder who made the mistake of calling 911 to help an accident victim).
What? You’re expecting them to vote for “conservatives” who would enable the same rogue cops in the name of the War on Drugs?
Comments
4 responses to “We are ruled”
And that’s why I avoid the police as much as possible.
Whenever you deal with them, you’re screwed.
Who’s the judge going to believe? This fine upstanding officer or the perp he had to beat up?
This was especially chilling
The filing party is not allowed to know the outcome due to the Public Safety Officers Procedural Bill of Rights
Sure those cops overreacted and acted with unnecessary and probably criminal force, but you proles don’t get to find out if there are any repercussions.
“One must lie low, no matter how much it went against the grain, and try to understand that this great organization remained, so to speak, in a state of delicate balance, and that if someone took it upon himself to alter the dispositions of things around him, he ran the risk of losing his footing and falling to destruction, while the organization would simply right itself by some compensating reaction in another part of its machinery – since everything interlocked – and remain unchanged, unless, indeed, which was very probable, it became still more rigid, more vigilant, severer, and more ruthless.”
Look across the bay at oakland where the people have a health skeptism of police. The cops are always complaining how the people won’t support their war on the oakland’s minority population
Oh the irony! Now, I don’t know this gentleman but I can’t help but wonder how many causes/issues he has supported that has enabled law enforcement to treat others in the exact same way. Not that that justifies any brutality by the police. I guess “be careful what you wish for”, and “no good deed goes unpunished” still rings true.