<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN">
<HTML><HEAD>
<META content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1" http-equiv=Content-Type>
<META name=GENERATOR content="MSHTML 8.00.6001.18904">
<STYLE></STYLE>
</HEAD>
<BODY bgColor=#ffffff>
<DIV><FONT size=2 face=Arial>Yeah,but they wore blue suits in Chicago in
'68, not the Darth Vader outfits.</FONT></DIV>
<BLOCKQUOTE
style="BORDER-LEFT: #000000 2px solid; PADDING-LEFT: 5px; PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px"
dir=ltr>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial">----- Original Message ----- </DIV>
<DIV
style="FONT: 10pt arial; BACKGROUND: #e4e4e4; font-color: black"><B>From:</B>
<A title=jbw292002@gmail.com href="mailto:jbw292002@gmail.com">John W.</A>
</DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>To:</B> <A title=lynn.stuckey@hotmail.com
href="mailto:lynn.stuckey@hotmail.com">Lynn Stuckey</A> </DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>Cc:</B> <A title=ewj@pigs.ag
href="mailto:ewj@pigs.ag">ewj@pigs.ag</A> ; <A
title=peace-discuss@lists.chambana.net
href="mailto:peace-discuss@lists.chambana.net">peace-discuss@lists.chambana.net</A>
; <A title=discuss@communitycourtwatch.org
href="mailto:discuss@communitycourtwatch.org">discuss list</A> </DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>Sent:</B> Thursday, July 22, 2010 10:36
AM</DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>Subject:</B> Re: [Discuss] [Peace-discuss]
Non-interaction with Champaign police</DIV>
<DIV><BR></DIV><BR>
<DIV class=gmail_quote>On Wed, Jul 21, 2010 at 9:02 PM, Lynn Stuckey <SPAN
dir=ltr><<A
href="mailto:lynn.stuckey@hotmail.com">lynn.stuckey@hotmail.com</A>></SPAN>
wrote:</DIV>
<DIV class=gmail_quote><BR> </DIV>
<BLOCKQUOTE
style="BORDER-LEFT: #ccc 1px solid; MARGIN: 0px 0px 0px 0.8ex; PADDING-LEFT: 1ex"
class=gmail_quote>
<DIV>
<DIV class=im> John W. wrote:<BR><BR>Policing has changed dramatically
over the past 50 years, and I don't think it's been for the
best.<BR> <BR></DIV>Don't know if you've ever met Doug West, a
gentlemen who used to attend a lot of the Champaign School Board meetings,
but he says something very similar. He talks often of how militarized
the police (in general, not just in Champaign) have become in his lifetime
(roughly 70-some years).</DIV></BLOCKQUOTE>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>You mean Rev. Robert West? If so, I know him, yes.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>A great deal of the militarization is due to the Supreme Court's
increasingly expansive rulings on asset forfeiture. Local police
departments get most of the money derived from the property (cars, boats,
cash, even houses) which they seize from people who are arrested
(mostly but not exclusively for drug crimes), so there is actually a financial
incentive for cops to make arrests and seize property. They then spend
the money on higher tech weapons for their SWAT teams, etc. This sort of
drives the policing philosophy. </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Of course there are a number of other factors. One is the fact that
we've become more of a car culture. Cops now patrol more or less
exclusively in cars, whereas in the old days some of them used to walk a beat
and get to know the people on their beat.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>America simply isn't the same kind of country it was in the 1950s.
Just as the country doctor has given way to high-stakes medicine, so Officer
Friendly of yore has given way to the SWAT team and the riot squad. Even
the method of responding to peaceful protest has changed quite a bit since the
1960s, the 1968 Democratic convention in Chicago to the contrary
notwithstanding. </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>African-Americans might counter, however, that things haven't
changed all that much for them.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>I don't know what the police are like now in England, but in 1968 the
vast majority of the bobbies in London didn't carry firearms of any
kind. Of course far fewer criminals have access to guns in the countries
that have banned them (which is just about all of the industrialized world
except America). America is the most gun-crazy place on earth, I'd
say.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<BLOCKQUOTE
style="BORDER-LEFT: #ccc 1px solid; MARGIN: 0px 0px 0px 0.8ex; PADDING-LEFT: 1ex"
class=gmail_quote>
<DIV>If you think of how many police departments operate, and how
poorly the "wars" ('invasions" is a much better descriptor) in Iraq and
Afghanistan are going, you probably won't be surprised to see that a
large number of cops have prior military service.</DIV></BLOCKQUOTE>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>No, not at all surprised. And of course before Afghanistan and the
two Iraqs, there was the invasion of Viet Nam.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<BLOCKQUOTE
style="BORDER-LEFT: #ccc 1px solid; MARGIN: 0px 0px 0px 0.8ex; PADDING-LEFT: 1ex"
class=gmail_quote>
<DIV>Lynn <BR>
<HR>
Date: Mon, 19 Jul 2010 02:40:27 -0500<BR>From: <A
href="mailto:jbw292002@gmail.com"
target=_blank>jbw292002@gmail.com</A><BR>To: <A href="mailto:ewj@pigs.ag"
target=_blank>ewj@pigs.ag</A><BR>CC: <A
href="mailto:peace-discuss@lists.chambana.net"
target=_blank>peace-discuss@lists.chambana.net</A>; <A
href="mailto:discuss@communitycourtwatch.org"
target=_blank>discuss@communitycourtwatch.org</A><BR>Subject: Re: [Discuss]
[Peace-discuss] Non-interaction with Champaign police
<DIV>
<DIV></DIV>
<DIV class=h5><BR><BR><BR>
<DIV>On Mon, Jul 19, 2010 at 12:27 AM, E. Wayne Johnson <SPAN dir=ltr><<A
href="mailto:ewj@pigs.ag" target=_blank>ewj@pigs.ag</A>></SPAN>
wrote:</DIV>
<DIV><BR> </DIV>
<BLOCKQUOTE style="BORDER-LEFT: #ccc 1px solid; PADDING-LEFT: 1ex">There
would not be much reason to go with a gun.<BR><BR>Actually it is the lack
of a participative social model that precipitated the Kiwane C.
thing.<BR><BR>Simply asking the kids what they were up to could have taken
care of the whole matter.<BR><BR>I think that city-fied folk like the rush
of power they get by calling the cops on someone.<BR><BR>Sort of like the
little girls who used to run for the office to tattle every time there was
a skirmish on the playground.<BR><BR>Saying that they are afraid to
intervene directly seems pretty flimsy to me.<BR></BLOCKQUOTE>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>If we leave violence out of the equation, I quite agree. There
are certainly situations in which it's most appropriate to simply talk to
one's neighbors first. I've done that several times in my apartment
building with regard to loud music. No need to involve the cops unless
the neighbor is uncooperative or belligerent.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>But it does take a modicum of courage. And in the scenario I
posited, where your neighbor's house is being burglarized by people you
don't know (and who might be presumed to be armed), you call the cops.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>In the case of Kiwane, I have often wondered why the two police
officers didn't simply walk up to the two boys and say, "Hey, what are you
guys up to?" Fifty years ago, and in a situation where race wasn't a
factor, I think that's what probably would have happened. Policing has
changed dramatically over the past 50 years, and I don't think it's been for
the best.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<BLOCKQUOTE style="BORDER-LEFT: #ccc 1px solid; PADDING-LEFT: 1ex">On
7/19/2010 1:11 PM, John W. wrote:<BR>
<BLOCKQUOTE style="BORDER-LEFT: #ccc 1px solid; PADDING-LEFT: 1ex">
<DIV>
<DIV></DIV>
<DIV><BR>On Sun, Jul 18, 2010 at 11:41 PM, E. Wayne Johnson <<A
href="mailto:ewj@pigs.ag" target=_blank>ewj@pigs.ag</A> <mailto:<A
href="mailto:ewj@pigs.ag" target=_blank>ewj@pigs.ag</A>>>
wrote:<BR><BR> The whole Society-by-Proxy thing rubs me the
wrong way.<BR><BR> Doesn't it occur to anyone that it's
pretty damn strange that the<BR> police power<BR>
is invoked rather than the people in the society
communicating<BR> with each other?<BR><BR> That
there is this knee-jerk response to call the cops rather than<BR>
manage the problem<BR> directly and locally is
incredibly strange to me.<BR><BR> But then again...uh...
<BR></DIV></DIV></BLOCKQUOTE></BLOCKQUOTE>
<DIV> </DIV>
<BLOCKQUOTE style="BORDER-LEFT: #ccc 1px solid; PADDING-LEFT: 1ex">
<BLOCKQUOTE style="BORDER-LEFT: #ccc 1px solid; PADDING-LEFT: 1ex">
<DIV>
<DIV>Right you are, Wayne. If we think our neighbor's house is
being broken into, we should all just run over there with our Glocks and
start blastin'
away!</DIV></DIV></BLOCKQUOTE></BLOCKQUOTE></DIV></DIV></DIV></BLOCKQUOTE></BLOCKQUOTE></BODY></HTML>