Tuesday, February 12, 2013

Due process

Question for the police:

Since the LAPD seems to feel that they have the right to murder Christopher Dorner....The fact that they have attempted to do so twice, opening fire wildly on pickups that (sorta, in the fact that they are pickups) resemble Mr Dorner's.....piloted by people who don't resemble him at all demonstrates this.

Does Mr. Dorner have the right to due process? To the assumption of innocence until tried and convicted? Or do the police have the right to presumptively kill him to safeguard themselves? I realize that they think that he killed "one of their own", but does that suspicion give them the right to kill him over that suspicion rather than attempt to arrest him?

Do you and I have that right? Can we preemptively unload the contents of our firearms in the general direction of someone we suspect may do us harm? Do we have the right to kill someone we think may have murdered a family member or friend? Or are we required to let the justice system work and let the State decide the punishment? Have we the right to take the law into our own hands?

Apparently the police do (or at least they THINK they do, and no one is stopping them). While it appears that Mr. Dorner has done some bad things, do the police have the right to gun him down without attempting to arrest him first? For all we know, he is innocent of the charges. (probably not, but until tried, do they have the right to execute him?). They act as if they DO have the right, if only to protect themselves. I disagree. If they are that afraid, the perhaps they are in the wrong line of work. If they cannot accept that the job has a certain amount of risk, then perhaps they should choose another profession.

The police DO NOT have the right to preemtively gun down a person suspected of a crime. Period. Be it against the police fraternity or any other citizen. They may (obviously) feel that they do, in order that they go home safe at the end of the day. Or to extract "Justice".  Too bad. They don't have that right.

'Cause if they have that right, then the rest of us do too. And truthfully, I think the police are as much a danger to me as any other people I meet on a daily basis. Which would make them legal targets for me. Which would turn out bad for everybody involved. Luckily, I don't have that right....Neither should the police....nor do they.

I really don't think that the LAPD is any different in attitude than most other police departments. Which should be a lesson for all of us. 


1 comment:

FrankC said...

LAPD or Chicago gangs. And the difference is . . . not a lot.