When Protectors Become Gangsters

Philadelphia Police Inspector Joseph Bologna Jr., a 30-year veteran, hits Temple University student Evan Gorski in the back of the head with his metal baton.*

How do we protect our  First Amendment rights of assembly and speech when the people we’ve hired to do the protecting are themselves the very bestial, racist thugs who are beating the sh** out of peaceful “protesters"?

The last few weeks have proven that beatings, gassing, and rubber-bulleting will no doubt follow when police confront protesters or, as in Washington D.C., don their blacked-out body armor and face-shielded helmets and take off their name tags, badges, and department identification.

It matters not if the sworn protectors are local police, state police, or federal officers employed by one of a myriad of federal departments, the atrocities committed arise from the opportunity to brutalize unarmed citizens utilizing fists, clubs, or tasers; teargas; mace, pepper spray or an assortment of firearms. It also doesn’t matter to the gangster “law enforcement officers” if the “protesters” are white, black, brown, male, or female, young, or old.

What does appear to matter is the opportunity to beat the sh** out of whoever is at hand. That is the moment we have witnessed our “protectors” have metastasized into Helter-Skelter-like robot gangsters, relishing unleashing violence upon their fellow citizens.

And what of the commanders and politicians who order the sworn police officers into situations in which they can morph into gangsters? Aren’t their hands bloodier than their gangster’s creations pummeling the defenseless?

House Democrats recently passed a police reform bill  - one good effort to protect citizens. But that has already been consigned to Mr. McConnell’s DOA pile, along with hundreds of other urgently need bills.

It seems that if we are to be protected from our “protectors”, well, then, we must create our own Star Trek-like Deflector Shields or an invulnerable Gort* to do the job.

*See CBSPhilly report: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d5NL6UZEIlo

How US police have responded with violence to protests against police brutality -
The Guardian - Jun 12, 2020