Table of Contents
1. Introduction
2. Slavery, Involuntary Servitude, and Amendment XIII
3. Purpose and Goals of This Platform
4. Campaign Zero's Suggested Reforms
5. My Views on Campaign Zero's Suggested Reforms
6. Reforming Police Body Cameras and Vehicles
7. Establishing a Continuum for the Justifiable Use of Police Force
8. Reforming Arrest Procedures and Policies
9. Reforming Sentencing, Detention, and Inmate Transfer
10. Re-Training Police Officers
11. Reforming Policies on Interrogation and Torture [incomplete]
12. Amending Amendment XIII to Work Towards Ending Involuntary Servitude [incomplete]
13. Amending Amendment VIII to End Cruel Punishment and Unusual Punishment [incomplete]
14. President Trump's Police Reforms, and My Views on Those Reforms [incomplete]
15. Miscellaneous Ideas for Reforming Issues Related to Policing [incomplete]
16. Conclusion [incomplete]
Content
1. Introduction
In the wake of the rise
of the Black Lives Matter movement and protests, it behooves activist
organizations and candidates for office to begin proposing solutions
to the types of arrest procedures and policies which led to the
deaths of Breonna Taylor and George Floyd.
In this article, I will
provide my views on topics such as the police procedures which
resulted in Taylor's and Floyd's deaths (namely, no-knock raids and
police chokeholds), as well as other issues related to arrest
procedure and the disproportionate use of force by officers.
I will begin by
discussing three sets of proposals (two offered by the organization
Campaign Zero, and one offered by the president) and providing my
views on each proposal.
I will additionally offer several of my
own original proposals, pertaining to subjects such as how to reduce
incidents of: 1) disproportionate killing of unarmed minority
suspects; 2) false arrests; 3) cruel punishment and unusual
punishment; 4) subjection to involuntary servitude; 5) human
trafficking in the criminal justice and immigration systems; and 6)
forced labor in the criminal justice and immigration systems.
I believe that taking
this comprehensive, integrative approach to policing-related and
involuntary servitude -related issues, will help create as big a tent
as possible in terms of gathering support for police reforms and the
groups supporting it. I think addressing policing, black issues,
immigration, slavery, and all forms of human trafficking at once,
will help draw the maximum amount of attention possible to the plight
of the most underserved, underprotected, and perpetually discredited
people in our society.
New proposals and
positions resulting from this article will be used to develop a new
section of my 2020 platform for U.S. House of Representatives which
will focus exclusively on policing.
That platform is
available at the following link:
2. Slavery, Involuntary Servitude, and Amendment XIII
Some Americans seem to be under the impression that the people
who are protesting racial injustice, are protesting the slavery of
the past.
However, that is not true; they are protesting forms of slavery
which exist in the present day.
Activists concerned about police brutality and the safety of
minority suspects, often say that “Prison labor is modern-day
slavery” or “The prison system is modern-day slavery”. The
reason they say this, is that Amendment XIII (13) to the U.S.
Constitution did not fully abolish slavery, as most people assume it
did.
The text of the 13th Amendment reads, “Neither
slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime
whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within
the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.”
Citing this amendment, Black Lives Matter organizers and speakers
have spent 2020 waking Americans up to the fact that slavery still
exists, in our prison system, in the form of involuntary servitude as
a punishment for a crime.
It may seem, at first glance, that slavery and involuntary
servitude are the same thing, but if they were, then it wouldn't have
been necessary to name them separately (as in the phrase “Neither
slavery nor involuntary servitude”).
That's why it's probably safe to interpret the 13th
Amendment as making a distinction between chattel slavery (the overt,
physical domination, and subjection to labor, for the sake of a
master or masters), and involuntary servitude. If this is a correct
interpretation, then “involuntary servitude” refers to serving
one or more people against one's will.
In the context of the prison system, involuntary servitude refers
to: 1) serving a term in jail
or prison; and/or 2) performing prison labor for the sake of others.
Before going further, it will be necessary to take a brief aside,
to discuss the meanings of “involuntary servitude” which extend
beyond the context of the prison system.
Depending on one's
interpretation of the meaning of “involuntary servitude”, the
phrase could also include being ordered to pay taxes, or being
ordered to render any form of service to the government, or to any
person or organization. That's because, if you think about it, nearly
every law that you
have to obey but don't want to, requires some form of involuntary
servitude to government or to other citizens. It's not that every law
is evil because they all violate our will; the problem is that people
are being punished before, and whether or not, they do something
wrong. This idea is informed by the 5th
Amendment protection against property takings that are unlawful and
lack due process.
In the 1963 Supreme Court case
Heart of Atlanta Motel v. U.S.,
the plaintiffs argued that the desegregation of public accommodations
which the federal government was pursuing (on grounds of regulating
interstate commerce), subjected them to deprivations of freedoms
recognized in the U.S. Constitution.
The plaintiffs in the case were
two owners of segregated businesses, one of whom was Lester Maddox,
then the governor of Georgia. The plaintiffs argued that they were
deprived of their 5th
Amendment freedom from property takings, believing that they were
subjected to takings of property in the form of their rights to
segregate and discriminate on their property. They also argued that
they were deprived of their 13th
Amendment freedom from performing involuntary servitude; that is,
from serving blacks who wished to patronize their businesses.
The Supreme Court ruled against the plaintiffs. The following
year, the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 provided (in Title
II) that all places of public accommodations which substantially
affect interstate commerce, must be integrated.
The decision in Heart
of Atlanta in 1963, and the
Civil Rights Act of 1964, left several very important political
issues unresolved. For example: 1) “Why don't business owners
deserve compensation for having their rights to choose their
customers taken away?”; 2) “If the public government can order a
private business to do something, then is it truly private?”; 3)
“If the government can limit a business's ability to practice
exclusion, then is that business truly private?”; 4) “Considering
questions #2 and #3, is there even a clear distinction between what
is public and what is private anymore?”; and 5) “Exactly how
directly involved in interstate commerce must a business be, in order
to be regarded as substantially affecting it (thus meriting federal
regulation)?”.
Answering these questions is very important, in terms of how we
are to understand the Constitution, and the government's role in
balancing the needs of business owners and customers, going forward.
That is why it is so unfortunate that the subject of race have made
involuntary servitude so difficult to talk about.
Due to the controversial nature of the issue, and the need to
focus on prison reform rather than racial issues in this essay, I
will not go into that topic much further. But eventually, these questions
must be answered, and with a high degree of sensitivity regarding the
issues of slavery and segregation. After all, whites were not the
only race of people who were arguably deprived, by Title II of the
Civil Rights Act of 1964, of their rights to discriminate and
segregate on their own property.
It will also be necessary to
answer the question of whether owners of private businesses should be
free to refuse service to law enforcement officers, or to exclude or
discriminate against them, or even segregate them from other patrons.
This is important because a new respect for the right to exclude
police from service while on commercial property, may help pave the
way for a restoration of our 4th
Amendment freedoms to exclude police officers from searching our
“persons, houses, papers and effects” without warrants
specifically describing what is to be searched. Fighting back against
unlawful police searches and home invasions is essential to
protecting the liberties for which colonists fought in the American
Revolution, because it is essential to ending the practice whereby
F.B.I. agents write their own search warrants to enter our homes, and
essential to reversing the late 2010s Supreme Court decision which
ruled that police officers can enter a home without permission under
certain conditions.
To learn more about the
constitutional and social controversy over property rights takings
compensation for requiring involuntary service of patrons on
commercial business property, please see the following links:
- Barry Goldwater and Malcolm X on the Civil Rights Act of 1964
It is certainly right and wise
to prohibit slavery and involuntary servitude in the cases it does; that is, "as punishment
for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted”. This
helps prevent convicts from being taken as chattel slaves as part of
their restitution and punishment. But does the 13th
Amendment go far enough?
After all, the text reads, “Neither
slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime
whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist...”.
Read the phrases in an order that sounds more like the way we speak
today: it says that “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude”...
“shall exist”... “except as punishment for a crime”... in
which the person is ...“duly convicted”.
This means that, not only is
involuntary servitude
a legal punishment for crime; but also slavery is too. So slavery is legal under certain circumstances.
Are slavery, and involuntary servitude in jail or prison, really different things?
Slavery requires forced labor, prison labor usually requires forced
labor. Slavery and prisons both severely limit your ability to earn
income and acquire possessions.
Slaves were often raped and
sexually humiliated by masters; while jail guards check in people's
rectums. Also, slaves were subjected to extreme heat during work.
Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio (of Arizona) both sexually
humiliated inmates and
subjected them to extreme heat; he forced inmates to wear pink
underwear (to encourage them to rape each other) and made
undocumented immigrants march in the hot sun.
If you think about it, slavery is really just jail or prison,
with safer inmate transfer methods, plus longer hours, regular
whipping, and a forced breeding program.
But is involuntary servitude outside of the prison system slavery too? Perhaps; perhaps not.
The key distinction is the lack of direct physical force used on the subject, to get them to comply. But then again, the government's threats of arrest, for refusing to serve the state, are threats of direct physical force. Threats to initiate acts of violence should be taken seriously, especially when made by an organization capable of wielding sufficient resources to do so.
The only reason the government has to enforce the law (i.e., use threats and force to get us to obey it) is because they can't convince us to obey the law. That's because the current laws aren't helping; they are, in fact, the problem. If government wants us to obey the law, then it should pass some laws that are actually worth obeying.
Perhaps it is best to describe involuntary servitude outside of the prison system as nothing more than the less-violent (as opposed to non-violent) methods which the state uses, before attempting force, to get people to comply with the law. Examples of less-violent methods the state uses to get its way include liens, asset forfeiture, letters of warning to comply with I.R.S. tax guidelines, and arbitrary or unlawful police threats to use unnecessary force.
The fact that these steps are "less violent" than the actual use of force, should not be any consolation; after all, these steps are just the steps that government tries before, inevitably, resorting to the initiation of force against a person who is non-violently resisting or conscientiously objecting.
It is for these reasons that I may sometimes refer to "political slavery" as short-hand for "involuntary servitude". I use this phrase to make "political slavery" distinct from chattel slavery, and the modern-day forms of poverty-induced slavery which are known as wage slavery and debt slavery.
This is why I believe that it is necessary to address the need to
reform police brutality, the prison system, slavery, and involuntary
servitude, in such a comprehensive, detailed, and complete fashion as
I have chosen to do in this essay.
Involuntary servitude, and cruel and unusual punishment, will be discussed in greater detail, in Part 12 of this article.
3. Purpose and Goals of This Platform
The five purposes and objectives which
I have, in creating this platform, are as follows:
1.
Articulate a long list of specific demands, to make it clear that
Black Lives Matter and the movement to reform policing are focused on
peaceful reform through developing policy, not violence.
2. Articulate a vision of sweeping
and radical, but permanent and constitutional, police reform. Do so
not through a series of presidential executive orders, but through a
constitutional amendment. This will help avoid using police reform
as an excuse to increase the power of the office of the
president.
3. Create a platform on policing which will be
acceptable to political leaders, police, and activists in Lake
County, and which may be helpful in informing efforts by Joe Kopsick
for Congress campaign, the Mutualist Party of Illinois, the Green
Party of Illinois, Black Lives Matter Lake County, and other groups,
to further specify their demands on policing going forward.
4.
Approach the issues of police
brutality, African-American arrest and police shooting rates, and the
removal of black fathers from their homes for violating victimless
crime laws such as non-violent drug and weapons possession, as issues
which are all primarily about human trafficking. Solve the problem of
human trafficking once and for all, by developing a comprehensive
platform which fights the trafficking of undocumented immigrants into
concentration camps, opposes the trafficking of sexual abuse victims
and forced laborers, and forbids the incitement of peaceful
protesters in order to justify arrest, as parts of the same issue.
This will help protect Black Lives Matter and pro-B.L.M. protesters
from further arrests, while making use of their freedoms to speak and
to peaceably assemble, and broadening the movement's base of support
to all people who have been targeted by police violence and
government supported forms of human trafficking.
5. In all
cases, demand fair trials and legal counsel for all people suspected,
accused, or detained without being charged, whether they are citizens
or not, and regardless of the severity of the crime for which they're
suspected. [If they're not subject to the protection of the civil
liberties outlined in the Bill of Rights, then how can they be
subject to our laws against undocumented immigration and terrorism?]
Protecting the due process rights of those charged with heinous
crimes, will help avoid killing the suspect on sight, and will help
avoid technical missteps in the criminal charging process, which can
lead to the release of dangerous criminals.
4. Campaign Zero's Suggested Reforms
In 2015, the group Campaign Zero was founded, with the goal of reducing and ending police violence.
The group's website can be viewed at the following link:
http://www.joincampaignzero.org/#vision
Learn more about Campaign Zero on Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Campaign_Zero
Here is a graphic, created by the campaign, which explains the group's goals in regard to reforming police procedures and policies
Learn more about Campaign Zero's stance on each of these 10 issues at the following links:
1. End broken windows policing:
2. Community oversight:
3. Limit use of force:
4. Independently investigate & prosecute:
5. Community representation:
6. Body cams / film the police:
7. Training:
8. End for-profit policing:
9. Demilitarization:
10. Fair police union contracts:
Here is another graphic, created by Campaign Zero, which outlines eight policies regarding what is proportional, judicious, and acceptable use of force by a police officer:
The eight proposals are as follows:
1. Ban chokeholds & strangleholds
2. Require de-escalation
3. Require warning before shooting
4. Exhaust all alternatives before shooting
5. Duty to intervene
6. Ban shooting at moving vehicles
7. Establish use of force continuum
8. Require all force be reported
Before going further, it is necessary to explain several details about these two sets of proposals.
Regarding the first set of proposals:
On August 31st, 2020, Kyle Kulinski, the host of the YouTube political podcast Secular Talk, read the first set of ten proposals on air. He also added an eleventh plank, which he said would help get rid of a major reason why police are disproportionately patrolling and harassing neighborhoods of color; ending the War on Drugs.
Kulinski endorsed ending the War on Drugs in order to avoid the overpolicing of minorities. Kulinski also recommended freeing non-violent drug offenders, and legalizing the recreational use of marijuana. I will provide my views on Kulinski's suggestions in the following section.
Kulinski's listing of police reforms can be heard at the following link, between the 10:00 and 13:00 marks:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kYbfmIKf60E
Additionally, regarding the first set of proposals, Campaign Zero has indicated on its website that #5, #6, and #7 - community training, bodycams, and community representation - probably do nothing to reduce police violence.
The group's website says this on the matter: "Given the range of new research studies on implicit bias training, mental health training, community representation in policing, and body cameras finding little to no evidence of effectiveness at reducing police violence, we have flagged these policy areas with [warning symbol] disclaimer."
Regarding the second set of proposals:
I will explain below how goal #7 - establish a use of force continuum - can be accomplished, by taking the first six proposals of those eight, and developing them.
Next I will provide my views on the 19 (depending on how you count them) proposals listed above.
5. My Views on Campaign Zero's Suggested Reforms
Next
I will provide my stances on the 19 planks listed in the previous
section.
#1-#10 (from Campaign Zero's group of ten
proposals):
1. End broken windows policing: Agree.
2. Establish community oversight boards for police: Agree.
3. Establish limits on the use of force, with clearly defined guidelines. Agree. Specific details to follow.
4.
Independently investigate and prosecute police officers who commit crimes: Agree.
5. Have community representation in the police: Agree, but I also agree with Campaign Zero
that this measure is unlikely to significantly reduce police
violence. I believe that quotas requiring a minimum number or
percentage of police officers to be non-white, or to belong to any
particular race, are examples of discrimination by the public sector.
This is unacceptable, since government is supposed to be an
inclusive, public
institution. I also believe that minority police officer quotas are
merely a cosmetic change to a deeper problem; the fact that a police
officer is not white, does not necessarily mean that he will be any
less brutal or violent than a white police officer. Campaign Zero
takes the position that, instead of emphasizing increasing the
percentage of non-white officers, “cities
should prioritize shifting resources” to “hire more civilian
first responders, conflict de-escalators, and violence interruptors
from underrepresented communities.” I agree with that stance.
Read this article to learn about how Nazis selected Jews to be police officers, to help make the Nazi regime look legitimate, and to help create the illusion of Jewish autonomy in the ghettos:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_Ghetto_Police
6.
Have universal body cameras to film the police: Agree, but disagree with Campaign Zero's
stance that reforms to police bodycams are unlikely to reduce police
violence. I believe that, with enough reforms, and consistent
enforcement of the new policies I am proposing, bodycam reform could
help decrease incidents of police violence, or at the very least help
capture more incidents of police violence on film, and more clearly.
SnoriCams could be used to film the officer and the suspect at the
same time. Make it impossible for officers to switch bodycams off
while on duty, and make it impossible for the bodycam to be switched
off without the permission of superior officers. Also, replace police
vehicle dashcams with cameras mounted on the side view mirrors, to
obtain better angles for video footage, and to avoid the possibility
of an officer popping the hood to obscure the camera. More proposals, and more specifics, follow.
7. Require police to undergo new de-escalation training: Agree, but disagree with Campaign Zero's stance that
training will not reduce police violence. I believe that being
trained, and tested, the right way – and raising standards for
hiring – would result in a more intelligent, conscious,
conscientious respectful police force. Also, consider replacing some police units with private security guards who have certifications in non-violent conflict resolution (and are only allowed to use force against people who are actively threatening or harming others), especially if they pay for their own insurance. Specific training reform
proposals follow.
8.
End for-profit policing: Agree, and prohibit civil asset forfeiture
on 5th
Amendment property takings grounds.
9.
Demilitarize the police: Agree, and getting weapons of war off our streets
and out of the hands of police should apply specifically to tanks,
drones, pepper spray and other chemical weapons, tasers, sound
cannons, flash-bang grenades, etc.
10.
Negotiate fair contracts with police unions: Agree.
#11 (Kyle Kulinski's proposed addition to the above group of ten
proposals):
11. End the War on Drugs to avoid
overpolicing minority communities, free non-violent drug offenders,
and legalize the recreational use of marijuana: Agree, and remove
cannabis from Schedule I.
#12-#19 (from the second set of
proposals)
12.
Ban chokeholds & strangleholds: Agree.
13.
Require de-escalation: Agree, and consider replacing some police
units with private security guards who have certifications in
non-violent conflict resolution.
14.
Require warning before shooting: Agree.
15.
Exhaust all alternatives before shooting: Agree.
16. Imbue the police with the duty to intervene if a fellow officer acts illegally: Agree.
17.
Ban shooting at moving vehicles: Mostly agree; prohibit police from shooting at vehicles without issuing warnings first. Require police to attempt to shoot a
vehicle's tires out, before they can consider shooting the driver.
18.
Establish use of force continuum: Agree; start by building on the six
proposals above.
19.
Require all force be reported: Agree.
Next - over the next seven parts of this article - I will explain
in greater detail, my stances on reforming bodycams and police
vehicles, establishing limits on the use of force, reforming arrest
procedures, reforming sentencing, reforming detention and inmate
transfer, re-training police, reforming torture and interrogation,
eliminating cruel punishment and unusual punishment, and ending
involuntary servitude
6. Reforming Police Body Cameras and Vehicles
My platform on reforming police body cameras is as follows.
1. Being that previous bodycam legislation has seemed ineffective at reducing police violence, aim to reduce incidents of police violence, and increase the likelihood that any such incidents will be filmed, by passing more detailed, comprehensive reform to police body cameras. Increase the chances that such reforms will be successful by consistently enforcing uniform standards across all police stations nationwide, and (if necessary) changing hiring practices or standards to as to more easily find police officers who are comfortable with being filmed constantly while on duty.
2. All police officers who carry arms as part of their ordinary duties, must wear body cameras at all times while they are on duty. The only exceptions should be instances when meetings between civilians and police officers take place in indoor office environments; i.e., police stations, and the conversation is being recorded in a way that a suspect, witness, person of interest, or confessor can easily verify.
3. Prohibit police departments from purchasing any types of body cameras other than those which record in two (or more) directions at once; with one angle filming the police officer and what is behind him, and the other angle filming what is in front of the police officer. SnoriCams could help achieve this effect.
4. Prohibit police departments from purchasing any types of body cameras other than those which cannot be switched off manually and/or unilaterally by officers. Cameras that can be switched off, should be phased out and replaced as soon as possible, to avoid wasting more taxpayer money on cameras that may not clearly record incidents of violence. Impose penalties more severe than fines - such as suspension or firing - for turning off a bodycam while on duty. Ensure regular testing of bodycams and batteries to reduce the chance of malfunction, and to reduce the chance that police will blame intentional switch-offs on malfunction. Program bodycams so to only be able to turn off via remote control, with the permission of at least two of an officer's superiors.
5. Achieve transparency into police bodycam footage. At either the county or city level, communities should be required to choose between either: A) broadcasting all live police body camera footage at all times on a public access channel and/or over the internet; or B) Empowering community police oversight panels to impose random checks on police bodycam footage (whether on randomly selected officers' recorded footage, or on randomly selected officers' live footage).
My stances on police cameras and reforming police vehicles are as follows:
1. Phase-out police vehicle "dash cams" (dashboard-mounted cameras), to eliminate the problem of police officers popping the hood of the vehicle in order to obscure the camera's view of the incident. Replace all dashcams with cameras mounted on the side-view mirrors of the vehicle, which will be less likely to be obscured, whether by accident or by police intention.
2. Prohibit police departments from purchasing vehicles with multi-color flashing lights. Reduce the chances that police vehicles' (and other emergency vehicles') lights will trigger epileptic attacks,
whether in a suspect, witness, bystander, or an officer. Replace any and all multi-color flashing lights on police cars and trucks, police bicycles and motorcycles, fire trucks, and ambulances, with single-color flashing lights (preferably white lights).
7. Establishing a Continuum for the Justifiable Use of Police Force
My platform,
regarding how to establish a continuum for the justifiable use of
police force, follows below.
I have placed
these planks, more or less, in the order in which they would be
relevant; from the first time the officer stops a civilian, to the
consideration of the use of deadly force during arrest.
1. Require police to stop harassing a civilian, if nobody has
filed a Verified Criminal Complaint with the police against the
person, and/or the civilian is calmly explaining why he reasonably
believes that he is not in violation of the law.
2. Reform police rules of engagement. Immediately suspend any
police officer seen unholstering his pistol without intending to use
it, or putting his finger on the trigger without intending to use it.
Claims like “I felt threatened” and “I feared for my life”
should not be taken at face-value, but checked and verified.
3. Ban the use of choke-holds and strangle-holds by police
officers. Impose severe penalties for using restraint and
immobilization techniques which are not legal, taught, or authorized.
Impose severe penalties for using deadly force to “restrain”
suspects, when much less forceful forms of restraint would have
achieved the officer's objective. [George Floyd provision]
4. Prohibit police officers from shooting at moving vehicles,
without issuing warnings first. Require police to attempt to shoot a
vehicle's tires out, before they can consider shooting the driver.
5. Require police to de-escalate situations to prevent further
violence. Train police in non-violent conflict resolution. Require
police officers to issue verbal warnings before opening fire, and
impose severe penalties for failing to do so. Require police to
exhaust all non-violent and less-violent alternatives, such as
non-deadly forms of restraint and immobilization, before considering
the use of deadly or potentially deadly force.
6. Prohibit the police from using the fact that a suspect is a
felon, to justify shooting them in the back for fleeing the scene.
Regard all instances of shooting in the back as potential cases of
intentional homicide and attempted murder. Require police to run
after fleeing suspects and tackle them, before considering resorting
to shooting them. Immediately fire any officer who shoots a fleeing
suspect without attempting less deadly modes of incapacitation first.
[Jacob Blake and Justus Howell provision]
7. Prohibit police officers from giving overly complicated
instructions to a person whom they are trying to disarm and/or
arrest. This will help decrease the likelihood that the officer will
use the excuse that the suspect did not comply, to justify shooting
them when they were posing no threat. [Daniel Shaver provision]
8. Prohibit police from killing small, weak, unarmed, and heavily
outgunned civilians who dare officers to kill them. Police officers
are heavily armed and most of them are not credibly threatened by
small, lightly armed people, even ones who are daring others to kill
them. If someone is small, weak, elderly, disabled, unarmed, or
lightly armed with a non-deadly weapon, and they dare a police
officer to kill them, that should not necessarily be taken as an
invitation for extrajudicial murder. Require officers to instead use
less deadly modes of incapacitation. Immediately fire any officer who
resorts too quickly to forms of deadly force or to disproportionate
force.
9. Punish police officers for requesting, ordering, or attempting
to order E.M.T.s, nurses, and doctors to assist the police in: 1)
drugging suspects with ketamine during arrest; and 2) forcibly
extracting blood from restrained or comatose patients without their
knowledge or consent (a/k/a
“medical rape”). Impose severe penalties for police officers who
show brazen disregard for the rights of the patient and the medical
needs of suspects.
10. Limit
the power of police to subject people to invasive internal searches.
Cavity searches must be prohibited, except in cases in which the
police have obtained a specific warrant from a judge; and/or there is
cause to believe that what is being concealed internally is not just
drugs, but some actually deadly form of contraband such as an
explosive device, and harm to others is imminent. All cavity searches
must take place under full Mirandization, and at a medical facility,
with the assistance of a nurse or doctor of the same gender as the
person receiving the cavity search. The arrestee must also be given
the option to remove the contraband without allowing someone else's
fingers into their body.
11. Charge individual police officers with a duty to intervene, when they see their fellow officers do something unlawful, against procedure, or conscientiously questionable. Protect the individual police officer's right to conscientiously object to what he perceives to be immoral or unconstitutional orders (within reason).
12. Replace modern-day
“beat cops” with the “peace officers” that were common in
mid-20th century
America. Police must always be free to move, and not stuck patrolling
one spot, in case they witness a crime, or someone asks for their
help. Giving officers more freedom to help civilians within their
jurisdiction but off of their beat, will help bring back “peace
officers”. This will be a major step towards making friendly,
helpful police officers the norm, and making quota systems and police
bribery things of the past.
13. Charge police with a real duty to protect and serve the public. Overturn the decision in Warren v. District of Columbia (1981), in which the Supreme Court found that police have no duty to protect and serve the public outside of a private contract. Charge individual police officers with a duty to intervene, when they witness a crime, and/or are asked for help by a person on the scene who says they have just been victimized. This policy will help avoid situations such as: A) active shooter situations in which police officers refuse to go inside to stop the shooting, and then escape legal liability for doing so; and B) police refusing to protect protesters and counter-protesters from each other. Once police have a duty to keep protesters and counter-protesters apart, fewer people will blame one group of armed civilians or the other, and the focus will settle on what the police aren't doing, and aren't required to do, but should be doing, to quell the violence and destruction. Allow officers to help people, without regard as to whether they
have a specific private contract to protect and serve the particular
person or organization that is requesting police assistance. This will become an easier goal to accomplish, once more police officers carry their own private insurance.
14. Require all states to uphold the precedent set in the case of
Bad Elk v. U.S.
(1899/1900), in which the Supreme Court unanimously ruled that
civilians may use deadly force to defend themselves against police
officers who use deadly force in the course of an unlawful arrest.
The fourteen states which are failing to uphold and respect the Bad
Elk precedent
are Wyoming, New Mexico, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia,
South Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia, West Virginia, Maryland,
Pennsylvania, New York, and Michigan. Persuade any one of these
states to start honoring Bad Elk,
and then unite the 38 pro- Bad Elk
states in sponsoring a constitutional amendment which would legalize
the use of deadly force during self-defense against unlawful arrest,
on a nationwide basis.
Reverse the erosion of the pro- self defense precedent set in Bad Elk, by ceasing to honor the Model Penal Code, and by ceasing to treat Mandatory Minimum Sentencing Guidelines as anything other than optional, advisory guidelines.
If efforts to require states to respect Bad Elk fail, then allow civilians to make citizens' arrests of police officers who act unlawfully, in order to hold the police accountable without necessitating the use of deadly force.
You can learn more about Bad Elk v. U.S. at the following links:
8. Reforming Arrest Procedures and Policies
My
platform, regarding how to reform issues of policing and arrests
which are not related to establishing a use-of-force continuum, is as
follows.
1.
De-fund the police. In large cities, divest and re-allocate as much
as half of the funding which is dedicated to armed police units, and
re-invest it in non-forceful activities in which the police are
involved. These include public safety, community support, social
services, and youth services and outreach (including after-school
programs). Domestic safety net expenditures – such as housing,
education, and health care – may receive funds formerly allocated
to police, as well. In towns, villages, and small cities, re-allocate
significant amounts of funding to non-violent policing pursuits.
2. Repeal
the 1994 Crime Control and Prevention Act of 1994 (commonly known as
the Clinton omnibus crime bill, or the Biden bill). This will help
decrease disproportionate incarceration of minority convicts, end
mandatory minimum sentencing, and remove federal penalties for owning
19 types of weapons.
3. Oppose Stop-and-Frisk
-type procedures. Criticize Stop-and-Frisk on 4th,
5th,
and 7th
Amendment grounds, since it violates the freedom from unwarranted
searches and seizures, presents a property takings controversy, and
violates the limitations on police frisking which were set up in the
case of Terry
v. Ohio.
Reasonable suspicion that a person is committing, or has committed, a
crime, is required for a Terry stop, but Stop-and-Frisk does not
respect the need for reasonable suspicion.
4. End
no-knock warrants and raids. Prohibit all police officers nationwide
from carrying out a warrant “until after the officer provides
notice of his or her authority and purpose” [as the language of the
Justice for Breonna Taylor Act, proposed by Kentucky Senator Rand
Paul, reads].
5. Impose severe penalties upon police for failing to identify
themselves as officers, for failing to produce their names and badge
numbers upon request, and for having any less than 3 forms of
identification on their person while on duty. I believe that this
will help: 1) prevent false arrests and police kidnappings, and
reduce incidents of misprison; 2) reduce the risk that police
impersonators will harm others while taking matters into their own
hands; 3) help civilians stay safe from paramilitary groups and
renegade off-duty police officers who act like they're still on the
force but were discharged; and 4) reduce calls for vigilante justice
and volunteer armed defense groups. Make it legal for civilians to
place “officers” under citizens' arrest if they refuse to
identify themselves or are dragging someone into an unmarked vehicle
[pertains to Breonna Taylor, and to activists in Portland, Oregon].
You can learn more about this
issue by reading the following article:
6. Prohibit imposing penalties upon businesses and employees for
excluding, or otherwise refusing to serve, law enforcement officers.
7. Oppose the open display of
the “Blue Lives Matter flag” (or logo), on the grounds that it is
a violation of the U.S. Flag Code. Under “18 U.S. Code, Section
700: Desecration of the flag of the United States; penalties”,
Clause a, Subsection 1, it reads, “Whoever knowingly mutilates,
defaces, physically defiles, burns, maintains on the floor or ground,
or tramples upon any flag of the United States shall be fined under
this title or imprisoned for not more than one year, or both.”
Strictly enforce this law to ensure that no officer wear or display
this defaced version of the American flag.
To learn more about flag code,
please visit the following link:
9. Reforming Sentencing, Detention, and Inmate Transfer
My platform –
regarding reforms to sentencing, inmate transfer, and the care
inmates receive while in custody – is as follows.
1. Nullify,
invalidate, or ignore Mandatory Minimum Sentencing Guidelines for
federal crimes. Treat Mandatory Minimum Sentencing Guidelines as the
optional, advisory guidelines which they are. Stop honoring the Model
Penal Code, to help weaken the influence of Mandatory Minimum
guidelines on sentencing. Empower juries to be fully informed, and to
practice jury nullification. This will help begin establishing the
precedent that no court will enforce the immoral law in question.
This will help make immoral and unconstitutional laws unenforceable,
useless, and unpopular, and could also lead to the repeal of
legislation which is destructive of our liberties.
2. Bring parole boards back in fourteen states, and expand parole
boards in California. Fourteen states currently lack parole boards;
they are Arizona,
Delaware, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Maine, Minnesota, Mississippi,
Ohio, Oregon, New Mexico, North Carolina, Virginia, and Washington.
Urge California to expand parole boards, and urge any two of the
aforementioned states to establish parole boards; then unite the 38
pro-parole states behind a constitutional amendment which would
require each state to set up and maintain a parole board. Bringing
back parole, and parole boards, will help prevent the U.S. prison
population from expanding ever more rapidly.
3. Make lynching a federal hate crime, and require all hangings
and lynchings to be investigated by federal courts. Kentucky Senator
Rand Paul has proposed making lynching a federal hate crime, while
applying “a serious bodily injury standard, which would ensure
crimes resulting in substantial risk of death and extreme physical
pain be prosecuted as a lynching”; but do not adopt this position.
Make lynching a federal hate crime, while applying a general
personal injury
standard that takes into account the toll which reputation damage and
civil asset forfeiture can do to a person. Specifically, those things
can make the accused person look guilty when they aren't, and they
can make it harder for a person to muster the funds necessary to
defend themselves in court.
Reject Rand
Paul's amendment, on the grounds that a person can be publicly
lynched through libel and slander, without being harmed or being
threatened with direct physical harm. Only adopt Paul's amendment on
the condition that it specify that the “bodily injury standard”
be construed so as to include libel and slander, and deprivation of
funds necessary to defend oneself, as federally triable lynchings and attempted lynchings. This policy should be adopted
because such a person is more likely to die in jail or prison, and
suffer a real bodily injury, if non-physical forms of attempted
lynching - such as libel, slander, perpetually discrediting someone,
and gagging them to prevent them from telling their side of the story
– continue to be regarded as legal, or as “not lynching”
[pertains to people like Bill Cosby, Jussie Smollett, Michael
Jackson, and others].
4. Prohibit
police officers from arresting suspected undocumented immigrants for
petty and minor crimes in order to justify finding arbitrary reasons
to deport them. Prohibit the deportation of undocumented immigrants
unless and until they are duly convicted of a violent crime involving
the use or threat of physical force against an individual human
being.
5.
Prohibit the firing of employees who refuse to assist police in the
transportation of arrestees (such as undocumented immigrants).
6. Every time a suspect, detainee, or convict is moved, he must
be informed as to the full name, and mailing and street address, of
the corrections facility to which he is being moved. Penalize jail
and prison guards for failing to inform inmates of their new location
while en
route
to that location. This policy will help eliminate one involuntary
aspect of the prison system that causes it to resemble human
trafficking.
7. Every time a suspect, detainee, or convict is moved, the
belongings which were confiscated from them when they were arrested,
must be moved along with them, to the facility to which they are
being moved. This will help reduce the chances that new releases will
scare people by walking through busy downtown areas in prison
jumpsuits, risk hurting themselves from walking clear across town, or
consider trespassing, in order to recover their possessions after
being released.
8.
Police must be punished for failing to provide suspects and detainees
– and jail and prison guards must be punished for failing to
provide inmates – with medical assistance, and with the adequate
time, resources, and respect necessary to accommodate their
particular medical needs [pertains to providing female detainees with
menstrual pads and tampons, and to allowing detainees to remove
piercings].
10. Re-Training Police Officers
My platform,
regarding the re-training of police officers, is as follows.
1. Require all
police officers to pass a regular test, proving that they understand
that tasers and pepper spray are potentially deadly weapons, and
under what circumstances (for example, pepper spray and other
chemical weapons may be deadly to people diagnosed with asthma or
other breathing difficulties). Prohibit police officers from
resorting to tasing and pepper spray, until after less potentially
deadly forms of incapacitation and restraint have been attempted.
Police should also be required to pass a test proving that they
understand the deadly nature of choke-holds, strangle-holds, and
other forms of harsh restraint that hinder a person's ability to
breathe easily. If these measures are not effective, take pepper
spray bottles and tasers away from police officers, as well as guns,
leaving them with nothing but batons and their own fists.
2. Require all police officers to pass a test, proving that they
understand and value the notion that a person is innocent until
proven guilty, and that they cannot shoot people in the street who
are not actively harming, or credibly threatening to harm, others.
Make the phrase “wanted dead or alive” a thing of the past. The
suspect is always
wanted alive, if he can be taken alive.
To say otherwise is to ignore
the principle that a person is innocent, and entitled to life, until
he has been proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt by a jury of his
peers, and duly convicted. Amendment XIII provides that no person shall be subjected to slavery or involuntary servitude, unless and until they are convicted of a crime. If there has not yet been a conviction, then the suspect or defendant may not be subjected against his will to any type of service.
No taking of life, especially
without due process, should take place on American streets. However dangerous a person is, they might be willing to talk, make a deal, and provide information that could save lives and put other dangerous people behind bars.
Adopting
this policy will help reduce the number of extrajudicial murders by
police, which are always deprivations of the due process right to be
given a fair trial before anything can be taken from you (including
your life). Decreasing the number of victims of extrajudicial police killings, will help increase the number of people who are released on their own recognizance after being caught committing victimless crimes, instead of being shot to death (even if what they did was technically illegal).
3. Require police officers to participate in emotional sensitivity and racial
sensitivity training. This should include meeting with
representatives of organizations such as Black Lives Matter, Campaign
Zero, and V.O.T.E. (Voice Of The Ex-offender), as well as aggrieved
widows and other family members of people believed to have been
killed unjustly and/or unlawfully. Test police officers to make sure that they understand the impact which police and police brutality have upon poor and minority communities.
11. Reforming Policies on Interrogation and Torture
12. Amending Amendment XIII to Work Towards Ending Involuntary Servitude
13. Amending Amendment VIII to End Cruel Punishment and Unusual Punishment
14. President Trump's Police Reforms, and My Views on Those Reforms
15. Miscellaneous Ideas for Reforming Issues Related to Policing
16. Conclusion
Written on September 9th and 10th, 2020
Edited and Expanded on September 10th and 11th, 2020
Published Incomplete on September 10th, 2020
Last Updated on October 20th, 2020
