Eureka Deserves the E.P.D.

Feel you’re being protected and served?

 

By Tim Martin, Eureka Times Standard
Saturday, January 16, 2016

Jim Pasco, executive director of the largest U.S. police union, recently offered a shocking statement to the press. He vowed to strike back at Quentin Tarantino for comments the movie director made against police brutality at a New York rally.

Pasco said he had a plan to hurt Tarantino “economically.” The Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association, a union representing New York City Police, the Los Angeles Police Protective League, and the Philadelphia Fraternal Order of Police called for a boycott of Tarantino’s movies, including his latest picture “The Hateful Eight.”

In other words they are blackballing the filmmaker Don Corleone style: “Nice movie you got there, Quentin. It’d be a real shame if somethin’ happened to it, ya know?”

After Pasco called for a boycott of Tarantino’s films, the director appeared on “Real Time with Bill Maher” to clarify his position. “The [police] unions are saying that I am a cop hater, which is slander because I didn’t say that,” he told Maher. “They’re implying that I meant that all cops are murderers, and I wasn’t. But the thing that’s really sad about it is we actually do need to talk to cops about this. We need to bring this to the table.”

What kind of police do you call on the police? Law enforcement has become a predatory culture in America. Cops are morphing into thugs and criminals. They beat, choke, shoot, pepper spray, and Taser unarmed citizens. Police unions have transformed into terrorist groups that threaten any and all critics. Pasco’s plan to financially cripple the “Natural Born Killers” director proves that many police departments are not interested in protecting citizens, but in maintaining their unchecked right to act unlawfully.

Has it ever occurred to cops that their aggressive and violent behavior is the main reason they have such a terrible image problem?

Since when did the police become a crime mob that issues threats and warnings of harassment and intimidation? Pasco’s gang-like threat to Tarantino was a warning so illegal and egregious it boggles the mind. It clearly illustrates the totalitarian idea that any criticism of authority is punishable by law. It also reveals how much some people want our free society to be markedly less so.

This is exactly what black people have been complaining about for decades. Surprise! We are all black now.

The Department of Justice needs to wake up. Law enforcement groups are becoming domestic enemies like the white supremacist groups Ku Klux Klan and Stormfront. There is too much police brutality in this country. Bullying only incites public anger. The public will tolerate unrestrained cop misconduct only so long. If police continue this current trend, they will force violence against themselves.

Cops have killed unarmed people using illegal choke holds and excessive force. The city of Chicago recently fired an investigator who tried to hold two officers accountable for beating a mentally ill man to death. Police need to get over themselves and address the weekly unnecessary murder of people over trivial issues. Many officers do a good job, but unfortunately, they also enforce a code of silence that protects bad cops. Until the cover-ups stop, all law enforcement will be tainted. More transparency and accountability is needed. Police should be working overtime to eradicate criminals from their own ranks instead of finding ways to censor a filmmaker’s freedom of speech. And judges must stop giving officers a free pass of “badge truthfulness” in court.

The Fraternal Order of Police and their over-the-top strawman Jim Pasco offer no help whatsoever. They only increase the problem.

I applaud Quentin Tarantino’s bravery in speaking out against criminal cops and their terroristic grip on society. Protesting injustices peacefully is what makes American great. Many police officers have lost their moral compass and are abusing the badge. Even worse, they are protected and insulated by a system that allows them to continue to do so. Cops who kill unlawfully are murderers, pure and simple. Pasco is merely trying to deflect the issue by claiming Tarantino was referring to every cop as a murderer.

We were once an extraordinary country where people were free to speak their minds and criticize power without fear of retribution. Those days are over. America is no longer extraordinary. With the arrival of our police state we have become just another Iran or Russia. If we continue to turn a blind eye to police violence it will only grow worse. It’s long past the time to do something about this problem. Our entire legal system has gone to the dogs.

Tim Martin resides in Fortuna and writes this column for the Times-Standard. Email him at tmartin@sitestar.net.

URL: http://www.times-standard.com/opinion/20160116/feel-youre-being-protected-and-served

© 2016 Eureka Times-Standard (http://www.times-standard.com)

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I was catching up on my "Times-Standard" news when I came across this article from Tim Martin and just had to post it. I'm sure it took a lot of courage to write. Personally, I've refrained from writing about the lawlessness that plagues our area and the dire consequences they portend. Personally, I believe you "reap what you sow" consequently, the people (most of them anyway) deserve what they got.

"Paranoid and delusional," and scared crapless - every encounter is a time-bomb ready to go off. The people of Eureka must really enjoy playing Russian roulette. See: Eureka Police - When the Police Use Force

--Joe

The Soul of Trevon Resides in Fortuna CA

The local newspaper announced to the general public on Tuesday, April 17, 2012 that Maxwell Soeth and Sgt. Charles Ellebrecht were the Fortuna police officers that shot and killed Jacob Robert Newmaker March 16, 2012. Newmaker had done nothing but try to stop them from beating him with their batons after tracking him down on a nothing accusation. In this case these guys initiated a violent arrest and then justify killing him for trying to stop them from beating him.

What's the difference between what Maxwell Soeth and Sgt. Charles Ellebrecht did and what George Zimmerman did killing Trevon Martin?

The situation is exactly the same, with a couple of minor exceptions. That being, George Zimmerman was supposedly a self-appointed security guard working to protect his neighborhood and these guys were police officers licenced by the city to protect their neighborhood. The killing of Robert Newmaker was justified because he was merely holding a police baton and Trevon Martin was killed for “standing his ground.” Neither one had done anything but ask to be left alone. So, why are they dead?

Personally, the biomorphic people of Fortuna deserve these kinds of police walking their streets protecting their children and property. In fact, I'd say the people in Garberville, or more accurately Southern Humboldt, roundly deserve their demonstrated breed of police as does Eureka and the rest of Humboldt County. When the killing of innocent people is “appropriate” for simply NOT immediately complying with some police officer's command or order I'd say a whole lot of people got their priorities skewed. Apparently, the only thing that is life-threatening are these cops legitimate right to be there in the first place. When they have the right, defacto or not, to put their right to pack a gun and a badge over the individual human lives of their fellow citizens, then I'd say the whole society is morally corrupt and deserve what they get.

--Joe

PS. Notice any local blog discussion on this issue? The District Attorney Paul Gallegos seems to believe there is NO conflict of interest in the police investigating or judging their own. Maybe Humboldt County could use another William Ferroggiaro.