The post below was shared by Jeremy via CopBlock.org/Submit
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The problem with police brutality and overreaction is appalling and ever growing.
What if I told you that there was a place where martial law was declared, a whole city was shut down, and the police detained anyone on the street and broke into countless peoples houses on the premise of protecting them? Thinking it must be China or Russia or Nazi Germany? No this tale happened here. In Boston after the marathon bombing.
Our rights as Americans are slowly being taken away under the guise of public safety. Did shutting down the city save anyone? No, but it set an extremely dangerous precedent for police trampling on the rights of the American people.
These brutal incidents are exactly the reason why the United States of America were formed in the first place. The revolutionary war was the American people standing up and saying we will no longer tolerate the oppression of the those appointed to protect us. It starts at the bottom with the individual police force and will rapidly grow from there.
How do we make a difference? Here are five things that we the people can do to cause change.
1. Require that all officers of the law wear cameras at all times they are performing their duties. This alone in forces that adopt them have had a enormous impact in the number of incidents of police brutality. And as they are public servants, the public has a right to know what they are doing.
2. Immediately stop all transfers of military equipment to police forces and confiscate or destroy all equipment previously transferred. Why? Because they are the police, not the military. The job of the military is to protect us from foreign threats and they are equipped to do so. The job of the police is to enforce the law not protect the nation. Why exactly do they need tanks and machine guns to enforce the law?
3. Immediately enact strict physical fitness standards. Did you know that over 80% of cops are overweight? Did you ever think that if the officer involved in the Ferguson shooting was not overweight he may have been capable of arresting the young man without resorting to killing him? Too many police have only the resort of deadly force to use against a suspect because they are incapable of holding their own due to their obesity.
4. In any incident where police brutality is suspected, make it a requirement that an independent authority review the incident and recommend charges. A company who defrauds consumers doesnt get to investigate itself to find if it did anything wrong, so why do the police get to?
5. Prosecute. My mind goes back to a particular incident where a officer shot a man laying on the ground handcuffed in cold blood and was videotaped doing it, and received a year in jail. If you or I did that we would either be jailed for life or given the death penalty for murder.
This is just the beginning. Will this fix everything? No, but it will serve to stop the march of the United States to a police state.
If we do not act now, we will wake up one day to find that we have no rights left, and the only way to right the ship at that point will be armed revolution.
The Solution to the Police State is a post from Cop Block - Badges Don't Grant Extra Rights