143. Homer, Louisiana police chief Russell Mills, after one of his officers shot and killed a 73-year-old mute black man:
“If I see three or four young black men walking down the street, I have to stop them and check their names,” said Mills, who is white. “I want them to be afraid every time they see the police that they might get arrested.
“We’re not out there trying to abuse and harass people — we’re trying to protect the law-abiding citizens locked behind their doors in fear.”
Oh, but abusing and harassing black people—that’s just good police work. I guess we should at least thank Mills for the tacit admission that cops engage in racial profiling.
144. Another drug raid gone wrong, this time resulting in an unarmed Michigan college student getting shot by a cop. For what? The police are tight-lipped so far. But apparently the victim’s Facebook page is filled with drug references, so he must have been a dope-dealing punk, right?
145. President Barack Obama didn’t immediately make good on his campaign promise to end DEA raids on medical marijuana facilities, but eventually Attorney General Eric Holder directed Justice to call off the dogs. At one point the U. S. Attorney for Los Angeles got the memo—then he didn’t.
146. Jacob Sullum on John Yoo’s disturbing post-9/11 Justice Department memos, which laid out justifications for wholesale curtailments of civil liberties, including suppression of the press:
Yet civil liberties do not mean much if they are abandoned whenever the government thinks it has a good reason to violate them. It is precisely in times of crisis, when politicians are most tempted to take legal shortcuts and the public is most inclined to go along, that constitutional protections are most needed. Although Attorney General Eric Holder claims to understand this, his embrace of Yoo-like rhetoric and reasoning suggests his differences with the former Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) lawyer may be a matter more of circumstance than of principle.
147. Comic relief: “Take a number, wait your fucking turn” (uh, NSFW).
Tags: civil liberties, drug raids, excessive force, funny, media, police