{"id":176027,"date":"2020-09-25T18:51:00","date_gmt":"2020-09-25T23:51:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2020\/09\/25\/support-your-local-police-3\/"},"modified":"2020-09-25T18:51:00","modified_gmt":"2020-09-25T23:51:00","slug":"support-your-local-police-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2020\/09\/25\/support-your-local-police-3\/","title":{"rendered":"Support Your Local Police"},"content":{"rendered":"

Over at Mother Jones<\/i>, they tell the story of  a police officer who resigned rather than act as a mercenary for real estate developers who wanted to expel minorities from a neighborhood<\/a>: <\/p>\n

Three years in, I had basically arrived\u2014I had been transferred to the day shift. It was the premier shift. You wanted to get the day shift because those are the best hours, good days off. <\/p>\n

On my beat, they started telling me: \u201cWe really want you to start policing this section of Boulevard and Ponce de Leon Avenue, basically the Bedford Pines Apartments<\/a>. We think there are dope boys in there. We think there\u2019s a lot of illegal activity happening and we want to really focus there. So we\u2019re gonna put up signs that say you can\u2019t park on the street. I want you to go and write tickets on every single car that\u2019s on the street and I want you to get those cars out of there; if they don\u2019t move, tow \u2019em. I want you to start running checks on everybody standing on the street; if they have got warrants, I want you to lock \u2019em up.\u201d<\/p>\n

It became this very aggressive policing strategy in the Bedford Pines. Which was strange. Because it was extremely rare for them to tell you to do anything. It\u2019s unusual for them to give you very specific directions, and then for them to be very serious about it and follow up\u2014I\u2019d have supervisors show up and say, \u201cHey I drove by, there were some cars parked out there, did you ticket them?\u201d <\/p>\n

It made me very curious. So on my own time\u2014I live in Atlanta, I live in the zone I policed, which is super rare\u2014I drove over there and had a conversation with some people. I was like: \u201cHey, this is what I\u2019m being asked to do. Why do you think that is? What\u2019s going on?\u201d <\/p>\n

A homeowner in the area was very frank with me. He said the guys who own Bedford Pines got their tax bill last year, and their taxes were assessed<\/a> based on all the gentrification<\/a> that\u2019s happening in the area. And so they wanted to move everybody out of these apartments and knock \u2019em down and rebuild these nice expensive apartments and the government said no. And so then they said, \u201cWell, that\u2019s ok, we\u2019ll just increase the rent.\u201d They tried to increase the rent and the Section 8<\/a> guys came back out and said, \u201cNo, you can\u2019t do that either.\u201d <\/p>\n

The only way you can evict or do anything like that is if the person who owns the apartment is convicted of a felony. So the Bedford Pines<\/a> guys just went to the police department and said: \u201cWe want you to police in here, and we\u2019re going to give you a section of Bedford Pines to actually have office space<\/a>. And I want you to lock up as many people as possible so we can make these apartments vacant and we can knock \u2019em down.\u201d<\/p>\n

I go to my supervisors: Is this what the case is? And they looked at me like, what are you, stupid? Of course, why else would we be doing this?<\/a> <\/p>\n

\u2026\u2026\u2026 <\/p>\n

There was something about that that made me think now, when I clock into work, I\u2019m not doing any good. I\u2019m actually doing harm. <\/p>\n

\u2026\u2026\u2026
<\/span>
It dawned on me that the entire system, the entire thing, was just a sh%$ty mafia system. If you tried to do a good job and say, \u201cI\u2019m going to be a good cop, and I\u2019m going to obey commands,\u201d they would abandon you, charge you, leave you behind, and not even think twice. If you didn\u2019t obey the rules, then they were gonna charge you for that. And if you tried to remain quiet and do your job, you are going to be a piece of modern-day redlining that way, too. There was no way that I could exist and feel good about it. And because I didn\u2019t have to\u2014and that\u2019s the privilege part\u2014I just decided not to. <\/p>\n

When I told the department I was quitting, they said, \u201cGood for you. If I could quit, I would quit.\u201d My supervisor literally said: \u201cCan we get together after work and you tell me what else I can do? I don\u2019t know what else to do and I cannot stomach being here.\u201d<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The rest of the story is that when he quit, someone in the department swore out false allegations of child and pet abuse to harass him.<\/p>\n

It is all, “Just a sh%$ty mafia system.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Over at Mother Jones, they tell the story of  a police officer who resigned rather than act as a mercenary for real estate developers who wanted to expel minorities from a neighborhood: Three years in, I had basically arrived\u2014I had been transferred to the day shift. It was the premier shift. You wanted to get …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[368,364,526,393],"class_list":["post-176027","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tag-corruption","tag-evil","tag-law-enforcement-misconduct","tag-real-estate"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/176027"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=176027"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/176027\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=176027"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=176027"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=176027"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}