Written after Staten Island incident and Published after S. Louis incident

Dennis comments ♦ August 15, 2014 ♦ Leave a comment

WHERE THE SPIRIT DIES,

OPPRESSION REIGNS

Dennis L. Blewitt, JD.

                SOME OF YOU have recently accused me of being anti-police.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  I am anti-corruption and against the flagrant violation of the Constitution, I am for the supreme law of the land.  I have worked with dedicated, wise, and fair cops, who believe in the system and know right from wrong.  They don’t lie, they play fair and are respected by all.  They express the same frustration that I do about the current situation.   They want change, but like me, are too old to do much.  They don’t like what they see and are fearful fur the future.

When I started nearly four decades ago, the atmosphere was cordial.  Prosecutors identified with lawyers, not with the police.  They viewed their role as advisory, not investigatory.  They were real lawyers, not just mouthpieces for administrative policy.  They were schooled in common law, not Napoleonic-like criminal codes.  In my career, I have never met an older policeman or investigator who had ever pulled his gun, yet I see and hear of police murdering citizens all the time on the internet.  Instead of showing any contrition, they arrogantly tell the press that anyone who resists the police will be shot.  Every time there is a police murder, there is usually a cover-up.  They act as though they aren’t part of the human race, but are masters and the citizenry is sub-human.

                I am accused of sounding angry.  I am angry.  Anyone with a modicum of good sense and humanity should be angry.  I am angry because I have experienced tremendous changes in two decades, three decades and four decades.  I remember when some jurisdictions debated having police wear blazer rather than military-type uniforms.  I still remember how it was different, even during the anti-war days.  I know that the police violence is unnecessary.  Plus, it is illegal.  My question is where are the ones responsible for this change?  It didn’t just happen.  There is some cause.  However, as long as petty things remain classified and we let Government shun its duty to the altar of privatization, these dangerous changes are likely to become permanent.        

                I have represented some of the most notorious and dangerous alleged gangsters in the area.  They made headlines and a special unit formed to prosecute them.  However, I never feared them.  I understood them and there was nothing for me to fear.  That obviously didn’t hold true for everyone.  Instead of having the theatrics performed by the police, the parties were actually quite civilized.  I would get a phone call asking me if I represented a particular person.  If I said yes, I was asked by the officer if I would surrender the client.  I asked what bond was set and made arrangements to surrender and bond my client.  There was no danger, fear, or theatrics.  There was also no “collateral damage” with innocents getting shot.  There was mutual respect between the lawyers, officers and judges.  That no longer is the case.

                Now we function in a war environment.  People perceive danger everywhere.  Generally it is imaginary.  Instead of arranging for a peaceful surrender, police, dressed in battle gear kick in doors, through flash grenades, injuring children, killing dogs and beating suspects.  All in the name of justice.  Having been through the War on Poverty, War on Viet Nam, Cold War, War on Drugs, War on Terror, plus brush wars throughout the globe, I have delayed stress syndrome.  After being paralyzed with fatigue and essentially shell shocked with the war against the people and Constitution going un-noticed because of all the attention given the other wars, I have finally thought of a possible way that the citizenry can fight back.

 People like the Kochs and Waltons are afraid.  They are robbing us along with the bankers, corporations and trust-funders.  They know that white America is in denial and still believe in trickle down and other fairy tales and fantasies.  Black people aren’t so delusional.  They know the score and know what to expect from the rulers and their forces of oppression.  So, to con the whites into believing, they lock up minorities.  This allows white hillbillies to feel superior and keeps the blacks paranoid and in line. 

                Police are now trained in military tactics, developed in jungles against dissidents and other trouble makers. Police have set up a Murder Incorporated to strike fear into the hearts and minds of would be insurrectionists and revolutionaries.  Just look at the equipment the police have and are now using.  There were 30,000 swat squad activities last year.  That is in a time when the crime rates are decreasing.  We no longer have a police force, we have an occupying force under a new unit know as Northern Command.  Posse Comitatis was repealed with the passing of the Patriot Act, along with the proscription of a standard army.  The citizens of our country are under siege and don’t realize it.  When the cops stop killing blacks and murder the rest of us, maybe we will wake up.  If it isn’t too late.

                I have been giving some thought to what should be done.  First off, we have to become critical.  We have to analyze and then teach others what we have learned.  Next, we have to quit defining justice as revenge.  After that, we need to regain some type of compassion for people.  Then, it is time for action.

                Examine what keeps this police state operating.  It is fear and lack of supervision by people whom are elected or appointed to supervise.  The drug war has been used to dish out fear, keep money flowing, corrupt cops, and destroy the Constitution.  Who is responsible for oversight?  The district attorney and judges supervise them.  But look how that actually works.  Lawyers used to advise individuals and corporations (including Governments) about the law and write advisory opinions.  Now, lawyers write supercilious opinion letters advising their corporate clients how to rob, cheat, steal, torture and water board like was discovered happened in the Justice Department These lawyers don’t advise, they conspire.  As long as there is an opinion letter by a lawyer, the powerful can run rampant against the people.  Prosecutors used to advise police on the status of the law.  Now they advise on how to circumvent the law.  Have you ever seen a prosecutor tell the public that a policeman used unnecessary force or committed homicide?  No.  They excuse and cover up.  The police officials make declarations the crime committing police did nothing wrong and were just following procedures.  Is lying a procedure?  If procedure allows murder, then the procedure should be examined.  If a group condoned it, then its members should be indicted for conspiracy to commit murder. 

                Next, we have prosecutors donning robes and playing judge.  They don’t judge.  There concept of judging is moving as many cases from one side of their desks to the other in the shortest amount of time and with the least amount of effort.  There used to be constitutionally designed safeguards against police state tactics we are seeing now, such as evidentiary rule against coerced confessions, excessive unreasonable searches, manufacturing or hiding evidence that no longer is the case.  I can’t decide if that is because the judges are so young, so indoctrinated, so dumbed down, or so afraid they can’t do what is right.  If they don’t know right from wrong, we have a bunch of legally insane judges out there.  Many have apocalyptic views that if convictions and large sentences aren’t handed out the world may come to an end.  They think “shock and awe is a great philosophy of governance.

                So, upon reflection, and reading my grandfather, Thoreau, and Gandhi, with some training from Ainsky thrown in I have some ideas.  Current Judges are not going to rule against the police. The last case that I tried in front of a judge ended in a guilty verdict.  He told me that a jury would have reached a different result.  He was fearful of the police lobby and of affronting his pals in the district attorney’s office.  Some of would label that cowardly.  He would say he is just being practical.  Recently, the state forensic chemist was fired for committing perjury and prejudice against defendants and their “scum bag” attorneys.  Even the most ignorant judges had to know this was going on.  Definitely, the prosecutors did.  However, after years of concerted effort by defense attorneys, the truth came out.  Even then, the State Attorney General let cases proceed based upon this person’s evaluations and testimony, and waited until the press got hold of the story to notify defense attorneys.  What happened?  The state abolished the position and contracted it out to private industry which has no oversight at all.  That way a steep conviction rate can continue unchallenged.  A judge in an Eastern Colorado county commented that he had attended seminars given by this perjurous official, essentially bragging on how he was brainwashed.  The scary part is that he is a commissioned reserve naval officer.   Imagine him with a finger on a trigger.

                I don’t expect D.A.s to show any courage or leadership.  Most view the police as their constituency and aspire for higher office.  It is a given in American politics that prosecuting the poor and helpless and gaining publicity as a crime-fighter can lead to higher office.

                Nor do I expect the judges to do what is right.  They have to protect their pensions and don’t want the press to say bad things about them.  Besides, most got to be judges by bending the rules such as what happened in Ft Collins, resulting in an 8 million dollar judgment for wrongful conviction, hiding and manufacturing evidence. The prosecutors that framed an innocent man got promoted to judgeships.  It wasn’t until the County had to pay, did anyone pay attention.  But for any change, there must be a sense of outrage.  That is lacking now.  We see outrage only when a black teen is murdered by a cop and caught on film or a black man is filmed strangled by zealous cops, confident of their immunity and privilege.  The officials then focused on riots which broke out because of the stonewalling and lack of contrition.  As long as officials think we don’t care, the situation will continue.  As long as this corruption is allowed to exist, we are doomed to live eventually in a police state.

                We must do something.  We are told that this is a free country by lying propaganda machines, yet we have to be searched without probable cause to enter a courthouse.  I say, if they want to search everyone, then they should refuse to go into the courthouse.  I also think we should watch the Courts and maybe even protest over the imperial manner displayed.  It is ironic that some Englishmen held a King at sword point to sign an agreement concerning their rights, risking life and limb, and we can’t be inconvenienced with watching what goes on in the courtroom. If the English were as cowardly then as we are now, there would never have been a Magna Carta, or even a Constitution.  We rely on a biased press which has whipped up a frenzy resulting in 60% of the blacks in this country being under supervision or in jail.  We have the longest sentences in the world and let the press scare us into longer sentences.  Our bridges collapse and roads cause accidents, but we buy armored police equipment to be used against us.  It is time to start a dialogue and take action.   Don’t leave it up to others. 8/12/14