Part I: Law Enforcement
I have had one good encounter with a police officer and I have had a lot of encounters with police officers. After my most recent surgery, I had an encounter with two police men. If you ever need to vent your frustrations towards two large, strapped, intimidating members of law enforcement, I suggest doing so immediately after waking from anesthesia. Odds are they will awkwardly laugh you off as they are ignorantly reminded of the last time they watched "David After the Dentist". That is the best case scenario.
Here is the more common scenario:
I went to jail in Austin Texas last year for petting a police horse without the riding officer's permission. I was severely unaware of the gravity of this action. I was placed under arrest for assaulting a police officer. While incarcerated, I experienced the level of intelligence that was required to become a member of the Austin County Law Enforcement. That requirement is very low. Actually, intelligence and common sense appeared to be attributes they screened for. You can't have people upholding the law who can think for themselves! I ate the bologna and cheese on white bread but traded my apple for a seat in the corner so I could try and get comfortable.
I had to piss.
This required my pants to be pulled down with the aid of a late teenaged guard. Next, an instruction that began with "do ya see that drain in the floor over there?". The downside to having someone else control the amount of time your flaccid member hangs out for a room full of criminals is that the guard must return to help you put it all away. This can take up to twenty minutes. I moved from one cell to another for eight hours before being put in a large, cement blocked bus station. Well, it resembled a bus station. The 70 blue foamed seats all faced the 13 inch color TV mounted shoddily above the pay-phones. The pay-phones sit chest level with a six inch leash connecting phone to receiver. If the user is under seven feet tall, they are forced to spread their legs very far apart and duck their head down low in their chest in order to listen to their mother bombard them with insults and disapproval of life choices. If you are over seven feet tall, you could probably just kneel. We were only allowed to face forward. No talking. No thinking. The most intelligent person in that facility was a meth addict named Brent. We bonded.
I never handled the concept of authority well. Maybe it was from my Dad's lone wolf mentality that rebelled against wearing his seatbelt. Or maybe it was my Mom's strong will power and encouragement to question things in life that I didn't fully understand. Someone pointing a loaded 9 millimeter at my face with the safety off screaming to put my hands up and face down was something I could never fully understand.
I digress. The role and duty of being a member of law enforcement is an honorable one which should hold high respect. That is when said member is enforcing laws that are just. That is when said member is aiming their weapon at our true enemy. That is when said member is using their God given, personal moral compass to decide just who who is truly acting with criminal intent.
Police brutality is real. It only takes a few google searches to witness the disharmony felt between our country's citizens and it's police. Yet this is not new. The amount of corruption, deceit and manipulation throughout our country's law enforcement was there from the beginning, but times have started to change.
With the ability to capture these asinine examples of excessive power, share these despicable displays of delusional entitlement and rally behind the idea of truth, equality and translucency, the people have started to reclaim what is theirs. The momentum of our past is coming to a grinding, screeching, overdue pause. I encourage anyone in the law enforcement profession to perfect their personal beliefs and use that moral compass to call out bull shit when it arises, and it WILL arise. I encourage any civilian to educate themselves on the true actions and motivations of those we trust to defend and police us from the wrong and unjust. There is scum in this world that I wish to be defended from. Sadly, it appears to be running the show.
