Tuesday 28 June 2011

Who Watches the Watchmen?*


Apparently, we do.

This ayem from my Twitter feed, three stories about police corruption/incompetence.

First up: Toronto cop avoids punishment for frisky taser use, using a Reverse Twinkie Defense.

Next, a story about the lying liars who constitute the Peel Regional Police.

And third, an older story from June 20 about the totally dysfunctional RCMP.
The RCMP is cutting back on investigations into mobsters, drug gangs and white-collar criminals, while putting off core duties so routinely that it is taking the force years to update simple records in its crime databases.

A stark contrast between the law-and-order agenda of the Conservative government and the dysfunctional day-to-day realities of Canada’s national police force was laid bare in a review released Thursday by Canada’s Auditor-General.

These in addition to my post yesterday about Toronto's Bill (The Liar) Blair and many others.

What's a blogger to do?

Well, of course we don't have the resources to initiate such investigations, but we can amplify the work of media outlets. And bloggers and non-bloggers can encourage such reporting by commenting on the stories, both at the news sites and at blogs by exemplary -- and dare we say 'dogged'? -- cop-watchers like Dr. Dawg.

And we should support and promote sites like Torontonamo, G20Justice, and G20 Inquiry that continue to document the abuses.

ADDED: From Anonymous in comments, another group to support CopWatch.

* Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

4 comments:

doconnor said...

The officer in the Taser case successfully pulled off the reverse Twinkie defense. He said that his lack of eating combined with his diabetes caused hypoglycemic episode.

Anonymous said...

Who is watching? Copwatch is watching, and they are having a conference in July in Winnipeg, if you are interested. Here is a link to the details:
http://conference.winnipegcopwatch.org/
SM

Zorpheous said...

It is so easy to be a conservative, just ignore all the injustices and violations of our rights and then pretend that police are always the good guys and they would never do anything to violate my rights.

And even if the cops violate the rights of a person,... well that person was most likely breaking the law anyways so it is justified,...

Stick fingers in ears and chant "lalalalalala,..."

doconnor said...

The Toronto Star interviewed people as they let out of the G20 lockup. Most where angry at that their rights where violated. However, one who was a bystander that was arrested during the Novotel mass arrest didn't seem to mind and felt the police where justified.

Even when their own rights are violated many authoritarian followers just accept it as justified.

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