March 29, 2024

Image result for supreme court buildingIn a ruling this afternoon, Tuesday 5/30/2017, the Supreme Court rejected a legal rule that gave victims of police brutality in one part of the country a better chance of holding officers accountable in court over civil rights violations.

Known as the “provocation rule,” it holds that police who use force not deemed excessive may be liable nonetheless because they provoked the victims to respond in a way that makes officers reasonably fear for their safety. It was confined to the nine states covered by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit, which last year upheld a $4 million verdict against a pair of Los Angeles officers who broke into the shack of a homeless couple without a warrant and nearly killed them.

The appeals court in the case agreed with a lower court that found the two sheriff deputies “provoked” one of the victims, Angel Mendez, who was startled by the officers’ sudden entry. Mendez reached for the BB rifle he kept by his bedside to ward off intruders, but the officers pulled the triggers of their own guns first — firing fifteen rounds at Mendez and his then-girlfriend, Jennifer, who was pregnant at the time.

Apparently, this does not sit well with the Supreme Court of the United States which recently seems intent on providing blanket immunity to the police. The ruling to hold the two officers accountable goes against this new charge of the SCOTUS, and they have wasted no time in remedying that.

After illegally forcing their way into this couple’s abode, the officers emptied their guns on them for attempting to defend themselves from people they believed were intruders, and who were actually intruders because they had no warrant.

And, with this latest ruling overturning the “provocation rule,” the Supreme Court has nullified the judgement that gave the couple a $4 million verdict, basically saying that the cops did nothing wrong by barging into their house without warning and almost killing them when they reacted, as they should.

If this was a stand alone ruling, there might have been no cause for alarm, but this ruling follows closely to an earlier one about a month ago that basically affirmed police officers’ rights to shoot you dead for anything ranging from DUI, to walking away from an officer. In that earlier ruling, the Supreme Court denied justice to Mr. Salazar-Limon and ruled in favor of a police officer who shot him in the back for walking away from a drunk driving arrest.

These two rulings in quick succession bring me to the reason for writing this article which is to ask the question as to why the Supreme Court seems dead set on making it impossible for citizens to seek redress for crimes committed against them by police officers.

It has always been nigh impossible for citizens to get any justice for harm done to them by police personnel, but these two new rulings will make it totally impossible and we must ask why that should be.

In a true democracy, the police are supposed to serve and protect the citizens, as their motto boldly claims, and if that is to be the case, and the United States is a true democracy, then there must be a way to hold them accountable when they overreach their powers.

Police officers cannot be above the laws they are charged with keeping, as the Supreme Court seems intent on making them, unless there’s an ulterior motive, and true to what most people already suspect, the United States is no longer a democracy, but a fascist country.

That might be the only explanation which makes any sense out of this rush by the highest court in the land to totally immunize the police against any consequence for killing citizens under any circumstances. This sort of blanket immunity to the police can only happen when the police has become a tool to protect the leaders instead of an entity to serve and protect the people.

It certainly looks and feels like we’re headed in that direction, if we’re not there already, and I think all Americans of every disposition must protest this in anyway they can. The police cannot be above the law, and when the Supreme Court seems intent on making them so. That should worry all of us.

 

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Newshound

I do what I do.