Police are the Absolute Enemy

Jan. 28, 2011 Puget Sound Anarchists

The following is the text from a leaflet distributed at the East Precinct Crime Prevention Coalition's recent meeting featuring Chief Diaz of the SPD. More details here

The demand seems to come from all directions: “We must work together!" Tracing this demand to its source, however, it becomes clear that it is the police who are begging us to work with them, that is to say for them. The message of cooperation and progress only gains its fictive everywhereness through the yapping mouths of the cops’ lapdogs—-the politicians, the media outlets, and the well-to-do—-everyone, that is, who is infected with dreary normality and possesses a seat at the table which means more to him than his own pathetic life.

They fall to their knees at every act of rebellion. In the face of hot anger, the con artists deftly gesture towards the open doors of the democratic system through which a better world is promised [1]—-an unreachable world that lies always on the other side of a daily grind of work, submission, and self-sacrifice. They don’t care to admit that the only promise this system has ever kept is that anyone who does not submit to the grinder will be cast into a cage.

The lies they offer up to calm our rage have all but run out. The coldness with which the cops carry out their duty chills one’s nerves and, one by one, people snap. The deceivers busily bellow out a smokescreen thick
enough to hide a war. But where there is smoke, flames can be found, and even in these times there burns an uncontrollable inferno.

The duty of every cop is social control. And not every cop wears a badge. [2] The most insidious aspect of the SPD’s effort to clean the blood from their hands is the attempt to find 'solutions' to what they are calling a ‘disconnection with the community.’ We hear them loud and clear: what they
seek are more minions who will assist them in their job by becoming citizen-cops. [3]

It happens every time an uncontrollable fire breaks out. The cowardly people who will talk with the police and work with the police come out into the light. Some snitch to the cops, some call them for protection, some lead us toward meetings where we can ‘talk it out.' Full of vain dreams that cops can be good, they bow their heads, take the side of the
police. They, like all cops, live in fear and are ruled by fear. They, like all cops, are the absolute enemy.

They are afraid because they know that they are hated and reviled. They see that people are shooting back, [4] and they watch with bated breath for a speeding bullet to take off their heads. They cannot sleep at night because they hate their wretched lives which grow more nightmarish with
each passing day. They somehow manage to pass out on sleeping pills and wake up in cold sweats. They console themselves, “At least I have a job,” and then-—a whispery thought-—“and if I ever wanted to kill somebody… I wouldn’t go to prison for it…” [5]

But what they fear, what haunts their dreams and waking hours, is a fate far worse than death or prison, suffered at the hands of neither the state nor the devil, but an endless torment in which their bloodcurdling shrieks for mercy fall upon the deaf ears of the living.

They are at once pitiful and wholly undeserving of pity. Not one can be redeemed as long as the police force as a whole continues its miserable existence.

On their side lie cowardice, misery, and control. On ours is a fearless and uncontrollable joy. The rest remains to be decided.

Notes:
1. On January 12th, local youth, in partnership with the SPD, hosted a forum called “Building Bridges” to discuss relations between youth and police. On January 27th, a similar event is planned to take place at
Seattle University, put on by the East Precinct Crime Prevention Coalition, where police chief John Diaz will field questions limited to 60 seconds. Meanwhile, on February 3rd the 'alternative' newspaper The Stranger is hosting a police accountability forum at City Hall with the SPD. We must ask ourselves, when the police are busy murdering and putting-under-control, are there really any questions of ours they can answer? And why are they talking so much all of a sudden? What is it they
are afraid of?

2. If there was any question as to the intention of the SPD, they make it clear on the SPD blog with an open invitation to members of the community to join the Community Police Academy by enrolling in a ten week class. You can ride along and learn about patrol operations and procedures, the Office of Professional Accountability (the office within the Seattle Police Department that receives and investigates complaints about police misconduct), and the “criminal justice process.” There are more and more ways to be a cop, and the SPD classifies this as “increased accessibility.” The public is now encouraged to file police reports immediately and conveniently over the internet.

3. Aside from the obvious intention to foster community policing, the public relations campaign is an attempt to stitch shut the wound in the SPD’s reputation. The police department is under federal investigation for police misconduct and as of last week two former US attorneys—-representing a 19 year old man who was threatened with a gun by an off-duty officer in 2009—-joined the investigation into the SPD and,according to former US Attorney Mike McKay, Police Chief John Diaz engaged in a “full-blown coverup” by preventing the release of documents requested through state public records back in April.

4. MSNBC reported that the increasing number of shootings of police has led some authorities to believe that we are amidst a ‘war on cops’. It would seem that the media are getting it right for once as they wring their hands about the growing number of people taking their revenge upon the police. Christopher Monfort, Maurice Clemmons, and 14 cops killed in 2011 already.

5. It was in 2008 that a King County cop brutally beat a 15-year-old girl in the SeaTac detention center while another cop stood by watching. The cop, Paul Schene, had already shot two people, killing one of them, and the legal system he worked for found these shootings “justified.” Except this time, he was caught on tape. But the police live up to the promise of exception that comes with membership: Schene got off free and clear in 2010. The police always have the legal right to murder.