1/2/2018 by Lee Camp
I decided to fix some of the awful reporting by the NY Times. What you see below is a random sample. I only looked at one page of the NY Times before I picked an article to correct. It’s high time we started seeing our most respected media outlets for what they really are.
A few days ago police in Kansas were called to a house by a prankster. They shot and killed the man who came to the door. He knew nothing about the prank call. (The term for such pranks is “swatting.”) This New York Times article would have you believe that what really matters in this murder was the fact that the cops were called by a prankster. But in truth, that should be nothing but a side note. 
Police get called to scenes they don’t need to be at all the time. It’s not uncommon. Whether it’s because someone thinks their neighbor’s music is too loud or because a mentally ill man is peeing in a fountain. A lot of what the police are SUPPOSED to do is show up somewhere and NOT shoot whoever they see. In fact, that’s MOST of their job. But what the NY Times won’t tell you about policing in America could drown a small town.
In this article, the NY Times won’t tell you that the police in many states receive less training than hair stylists or electricians or just about any skilled jobs. This is one of the reasons they always seem to be killing, injuring, and maiming innocent people. Another reason – which the NY Times won’t tell you – is that many cops (perhaps as high as 25% in cities) are using steroids. And the side effects of steroid abuse are EXACTLY the traits you DON’T want police to have. “The stunning succession of recent front-page examples of police officers who exhibit rage, aggression and/or poor judgment (all symptoms of possible steroid abuse) in confrontations with citizens should ring alarm bells, experts say.”
Yet the NY Times reporter goes with the government/police line that the REAL problem is the pranksters who call the cops. Sure, we shouldn’t like pranksters calling the cops. BUT the real point is – it SHOULDN’T MATTER. If the cops are called to the wrong place, they should be rational enough to figure out, “Hey, there is no crime going on here. Let’s not kill anybody.”
This is the equivalent of a patient dying on the operating table because the surgeon took an hour lunch break in the middle of the procedure. And then afterwards, the hospital said, “We have to increase the punishment for patients who come in during lunch time.”
Pranks will happen. Police will end up at the wrong location at times. That will never change. In fact, police are now being called to houses BY SMART HOME DEVICES! What needs to change is the willingness and/or eagerness of cops to MURDER people whenever they show up somewhere.
The NY Times also does not mention throughout this article that US police killed over ONE THOUSAND people in 2016 (the most recent year with data). If you want something to compare that to, German police killed TEN people in 2015. Your response may be, “Well, the U.S. has more people than Germany.” This is true, but America has only 4 times as many people. So even if you account for the population difference, U.S. cops should’ve killed 40 people in a year. Instead they kill OVER A THOUSAND. They generally murder more people in a week than German cops kill in a year.
The Times reporter also leaves out that police who kill unarmed innocent people, sometimes even unarmed children like Tamir Rice, generally do not get convicted or go to prison. Our police have been militarized and given a license to be judge, jury, and executioner. Furthermore – also ignored by the Times – when the police are caught doing something illegal, they usually arrest the person filming them.
A recent study – which unfortunately was ALSO missed by the NY Times reporter – shows that there are simple steps the police could take to stop murdering so many innocent people. Also, leaked documents show that police unions help protect bad cops even when they continually commit police brutality. The unions have guarantees from the states that police officers will not be disciplined or will only be disciplined lightly. …I guess the NY Times missed that small detail.
They also “missed” perhaps the biggest point when it comes to “swatting.” These prank calls rest on the knowledge that when cops or SWAT teams come to your home – they wreak havoc on your life. There’s a pretty high likelihood they will break down a door and maybe a window, detain you and your family while they question you, possibly arrest you without cause or tackle you if you talk back to them. And god help you if they smell marijuana or see a bunch of beer cans or find out that someone in your family is undocumented. If we had an adult, functional society, police would ONLY be there to help those in need – not to upend the lives of the citizens they have sworn to protect. The sole reason pranking someone by calling the cops on them even works in the first place is because most of us realize how terrible it is to have the cops thrust into your life – whether you’re a lawful citizen or not. Mainstream media outlets intentionally ignore or paint over all of this context.
We are witnessing a bloodbath on our own streets and hack, context-free reporting, like this example from the NY Times, is why Americans are not informed enough to stand up against it.
Keep fighting,
Lee
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Why has my comment not been published?
I suspect that a major factor is cop culture, including the culture of those who hire and supposedly regulate police. If they are all drenched in cop shows and cop movies in which the cops are always the good guys and the best cops are the ones who ignore the rules, and the bad guys are cartoon characters, not people…then you will not screen applicants for police jobs for authoritarian personalities. I think if you did a study on the percentage of police with authoritarian personalities, versus the general public, you’d find a huge disparity. And I’ll bet UK and EU police departments DO do such screening.
What is not being considered here, is the total infiltration of the American political system by Israel. They have assumed control of Congress through AIPAC where Congressmen and women have to go to secure re-election funding and having to swear allegiance to Israel in return. Zionists and dual Israeli Nationals have control of the mainstream media, the Federal Reserve Treasury, FBI, CIA, NSA, you name it. The United States is occupied by Israel in the same way that Palestine is. Its obvious to anyone that cares to look! It’s the Israeli mentality to treat the Goyim as less than human. This is why unarmed, innocent people are being shot on the streets. Shoot an Israeli and see what happens. You can guarantee that the cop would be arrested and face the full force of the law.
hey Lee, you ever thought of showing your videos on Roku , since youtube seems to censor everything now days ???
Right now German Police although has to make sure, whatever they take from you, is gain from criminal activity. Different from US police, which can take what ever they want and you have to proove the legal status of the taken property. Anyway German police is lobbying to change this. They want to steal cool cars and nice houses as well.
Swatting isn’t really a prank, it’s an attempt to murder someone. Some asshole decides for some reason or other (but videogames are a big one), that he wants to punish someone else by either ruining their life, or taking it. Yes, the cops are at fault as well. The cops seem to be just super pumped any chance they get to roll out in their military gear and shoot the shit out of bad guys.
Too bad the bad guys are just random citizens. There is no reason that cops need lethal weaponry at all.
At least the NYT uses active voice. Wichita Eagle’s headlines and articles on the police executing a random civilian are full of of passive weaseling post-exonerative tense.
As long as police are slave catchers (see the 13th Amendment to the US Constitution) in a capitalist society which views citizens as cash cows (some municipalities make over 75% of their budget from court fees) no one is gonna mind the overseers roughing up their merchandise. The lauded panacea to policing ills didn’t come in neither the dashboard cam of the 80’s nor the body cams of the 2010’s. It didn’t come with the so-styled and oft recycled community policing reforms.
Emboldened by their new toys (grenade launchers, bayonets, tracked armored vehicles i.e. tanks, weaponized aircraft and vehicles, firearms and ammunition of .50-caliber or greater) along with Jeff Sessions’ proclamation against “lawlessness” and his call for the ending of police department improvement plans which quell police aggression, it’s no wonder that police are killing Americans in record numbers. THAT’S the story.
https://www.google.com/amp/www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/politics/ct-trump-police-military-weapons-20170828-story,amp.html
Local police departments claim that they need to be militarized to defend against terrorism but it’s literally more likely that an American will die from a lightning strike than at the hands of a terrorist. Radley Balko, in his book The Rise of the Warrior Cop, shows how these militarized police units generally lack appropriate enforcement activities, so have creeped into new areas such as serving low-level drug warrants and intimidating protesters.
So many people whose lives are forever gone:
https://static1.squarespace.com/static/54ecf211e4b0ed744420c5b6/t/5a4506358165f5bbbf8df444/1514473016982/MPVDataset.xlsx
This video shows the classic, “Put your – BANG – hands up”
https://www.theroot.com/ky-police-release-video-of-cop-shooting-unarmed-black-1792944733
With 100 percent surveillance of all electronic communication and the outfitting of local police departments all across the country with over $5 billion worth of military equipment, it doesn’t smell like Teen Spirit anymore but it certainly reeks of fascism. Now THAT’S the story.
Chris Hedges nails it here: https://www.truthdig.com/articles/ever-deadlier-police-state/
And, if you can get your hands on some fake credentials, according to the GAO you can go down to your local military equipment warehouse and pick up a few toys yourself. In fact the Government Accounting Office, as part of an audit, sent an investigator with fake identification who obtained $1.2 million worth of military grade equipment from the Defense Department under assumed names and made up police departments. https://www.google.com/amp/amp.timeinc.net/fortune/2017/08/29/trump-military-police-equipment-1033-program-obama
Instead of [[mainstream media]] I would suggest saying either [[corporate media]] or [[corporate (“mainstream”) media]] or [[“mainstream” (corporate) media]].
What a crazy world.
Nice breakdown of the missing info on this story. Especially the explanation of why “swatting” is such an attractive “prank”…the cops may kick your ass!
Also the idea of steroid abuse by police is something I’ve never considered. I wondered why they were all so bulked up but I just attributted it to the stupid, macho culture of police departments.
Yes, I haven’t looked up recent numbers but a couple years ago US police killed more people in a year than the British cops killed in the entire 1900’s.
In the UK – which, according to Trump, is a hotbed of terrorism – in 2016 four people were killed by police: three were shot, one died as a result of being tasered. Our population is 65.6m.