I was reading this article over on The Consumerist and I really have to wonder, are all of the members of the Seattle police force this dumb? Granted the article on the blog only presents one side of the story, but in this day and age I wouldn’t put it past them to be that poorly educated on people’s rights. Perhaps I was naive, but I was under the impression that part of police training was at least some rudimentary introduction to the laws that the police are likely to be enforcing. No one expects the police to be experts on every single law on the books, but some common acquaintance with citizen’s rights, particuarly in a city that is a tourism draw, is to be expected. Instead, they should be brought up on unlawful restraint charges.
I can see it from the Loomis perspective, ‘why is this person taking their picture?’, ‘is he planning to rob the machine?’, but frankly this is why they have guns, in case someone tries to jump them. The Loomis guards were out in public and are fair game for photos. The police argument about 9/11 terrorists is ridiculous. I’m sure there’s some magical plot to photograph the ATMs in REIs across the nation. Oooh, scary.
But it’s not even this little incident. Look at the mess in 1999 with the WTO riots. Granted the crowd got out of control, but I’m sure there were plenty of police thugs that also went outside the established protocols for taking down rioters.
Or how about the 15 year old girl IN POLICE CUSTODY that was beaten by the police. These police officers are so low in intelligence that they beat up the suspect on camera.
Maybe the Seattle PD has lowered it’s standards to get people onto their force. There used to be a requirement for logic, IQ, physical fitness, heck, even morality. But I get the feeling that all of that has been put to the side just to justify staffing budgets and harass people in the mall.
Even in the police forces in my area I see plenty of police men and woman I’m pretty sure I could outrun or distract with a Twinkie.
That’s not to say that ALL police personnel are corrupt, out of shape, mouth breathers. There are some that are actually committed to and good at their jobs. But as the ridiculous war on terror winds on it seems there are more and more p0lice out there willing to violate someone’s civil rights ‘just in case’.