the Supreme Court has immunized deadly insubordination on behalf of every single police officer

[phantom power]

At a time in which our heavily militarized local police, and their heavily militarized tactics, have become a legitimate national issue, on Monday, by a resounding 8-1 margin, the Nine Wise Souls seemed to give permission for the police to turn almost any place in the country into a shooting gallery.​​

By an 8-1 vote, the justices tossed out an excessive force suit against a Texas police officer who ignored his supervisor's warning and took a high-powered rifle to a highway overpass to shoot at an approaching car. The officer said he hoped to stop the car but instead shot and killed the driver. The ruling bolsters previous decisions that give police the benefit of the doubt when they encounter a potentially dangerous situation. The court noted in an unsigned 12-page opinion that it has "never found the use of deadly force in connection with a dangerous car chase to violate the 4th Amendment."

Justice Sonia Sotomayor, the lone dissenting voice in the decision, sharply pointed out that the officer was in no real danger, that the police already had in place a plan to disable the car, and that the officer fired against orders and then gloated about it.

Sotomayor said the court "renders the protections of the 4th Amendment hollow" by sanctioning the officer's "rogue conduct." She noted he had not been trained in shooting at a fleeing car and was told not to shoot before the vehicle encountered the spikes across the highway. "When Mullenix confronted his superior officer after the shooting, his first words were, 'How's that for proactive?'" she wrote. "The glib comment … seems to me revealing of the culture this court's decision supports when it calls it reasonable — or even reasonably reasonable — to use deadly force for no discernible gain and over a supervisor's express order to 'stand by.'"

​In short, the Supreme Court has immunized deadly insubordination on behalf of every single police officer in America. (God only knows how this makes their superiors feel.) Taken to its ultimate conclusion, this pretty much turns every highway in America into the Danziger Bridge. It seems to me to be an invitation to uniformed vigilantism, and it pretty much makes another, deadlier Tulia inevitable.​

http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/news/a39581/supreme-court-texas-police-officer/

[Kelvin Mace]

1. We are a police state.

I have been saying this for years and get screamed at for being irresponsibly hyperbolic.

[ananda]

2. No, that's just everyday reality now..

.. and it's truly horrible and dystopian.

[daleanime]

5. +1

[valerief]

8. There is no denying it now. The only thing higher than SCOTUS is

mass revolution by the 99%.

[jalan48]

9. That's why the police state is being put in place.

[hifiguy]

14. Yup. +!

Agree 100% with every word in your post.

[jtuck004]

3. I can't find any place where it hasn't taken a shooting war to free a people from an armed

occupation.

I don't really see it here, so I doubt this one will get anything but worse.

[Fumesucker]

7. Gandhi in India is the only one I can think of

[jtuck004]

10. From what I read, the Nazis freed them by blowing up Britain, made it impossible to continue

colonizing India, They had already hung a few of his ilk, and most likely would have got him too, had not the war intervened.

Gandhi did some good work, but without all the people dying around him, benefitting that cause while he refused to join in, I think he would have just been another casualty.

But maybe not.

[Fumesucker]

11. The real violence in India came after the Brits left

The British never had the direct armed might to dominate the world, they did it more with divide and conquer techniques by setting one local faction against the other, the locals always hated each other more than they did the British and the Brits exploited that by arming whichever side was weakest until they weren't any more and then arming the other side.

[NutmegYankee]

20. The fall of the Berlin Wall.

The East Germans pulled the rug right out from under the government.

[Locrian]

4. combine that with this thread

about the soldier being honest on what he felt (ie a "stormtrooper&quot
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10027328900

And you have a truly scary situation where we not only live in a police state, but we have become a power mad, authoritarian regime.

[malthaussen]

6. 8-1? That's appalling.

I'd be curious as to what point of law the rational members of the court thought they were supporting.

-- Mal

[Javaman]

12. This is a public service announcement with guitar...

"Know Your Rights" - The Clash


This is a public service announcement
With guitar
Know your rights all three of them

Number 1
You have the right not to be killed
Murder is a CRIME!
Unless it was done by a
Policeman or aristocrat
Know your rights

And Number 2
You have the right to food money
Providing of course you
Don't mind a little
Investigation, humiliation
And if you cross your fingers
Rehabilitation

Know your rights
These are your rights
Wang

Know these rights

Number 3
You have the right to free
Speech as long as you're not
Dumb enough to actually try it.

Know your rights
These are your rights
All three of 'em
It has been suggested
In some quarters that this is not enough!
Well..............................

Get off the streets
Get off the streets
Run
You don't have a home to go to
Smush

Finally then I will read you your rights

You have the right to remain silent
You are warned that anything you say
Can and will be taken down
And used as evidence against you

Listen to this
Run

[fasttense]

13. So now our streets are shooting galleries for scared little cops.

The Supremes have just put bulls eyes on any driver a cop does not like. Maybe one of them will shoot at the Supreme's car.

[hifiguy]

15. One dissenter.

Sotomayor. Where the fck was Ginsburg on this?

[FLPanhandle]

16. There is more to this than the headline

An 8-1 ruling with liberal judges also in the majority, means there is a valid point of law here.

I'd like more details beyond a headline news report.

[Iggo]

17. Then read beyond the headline.

[FLPanhandle]

18. Point to an article with some depth

The supplied link was worthless.

[Wilms]

19. ^