Brian Martinez (![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} cluebyfour) wrote,@ 2008-05-07 12:50:00 |
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| Entry tags: | police, tyranny |
The latest dispatch from the United Police States.
All these stories do is fill me with impotent rage, but I can't stop reading or writing about them:
Interviewing the people in Tracy Ingle's life — his sisters, his foster brother, his friends — you hear one line often enough that it soon becomes a refrain: Tracy is no angel.
Though all express their love and admiration for him — a kind man; a man who can fix anything, they say — they tend to tell you the bad things about him first. A recovering alcoholic, Ingle had a couple of DWIs several years back. When the Arkansas Times spoke to him, he was on house arrest for a 5-year-old failure-to-appear warrant. A car accident in Maryland in 2002 left him with degenerative disk disease in his back and what his sisters said is an addiction to pain killers — though all of his pills are legally prescribed. Up until Christmas 2007, he had several roommates, many of whom had had recent run-ins with the law. Last year, he agreed to fix a stereo in a friend's Mustang — a car that turned out to be hot — and got arrested for receiving stolen merchandise. That case still hasn't shaken out.
No matter what Ingle or those he gave a temporary home to may have done, however, it's hard to imagine he deserved what he got Jan. 7. That night, the North Little Rock SWAT team stormed Ingle's house on a high-risk, “no-knock” search warrant. By the time all was said and done, Ingle had been shot five times — including one bullet that pulverized his femur and left his leg dangling from his body, connected only by a bloody mess of meat, skin and tendon.
According to an evidence list left at Ingle's house after the shooting, no suspected drugs or drug residue were recovered from the residence — only a digital scale, a notebook and a few plastic baggies, all of which Ingle's family members have identified as part of the junk they had collectively stored at the house.
It might seem strange, then, that Ingle currently stands accused of several serious felonies — including two counts of aggravated assault. While the North Little Rock police insist they got a dangerous criminal off the streets, Ingle and his family say the charges are all about appearances — and covering the police.
Here's a guy who is, at most, guilty of poor judgment, and for his trouble he's nearly shot to death, removed from the hospital by the cops (who provide him with substandard medical care, leading to infections in his wounds), and charged with "running a drug enterprise", even though no drugs were found in Ingle's home, and the equipment they seized belonged to his sister, who says she used the scale and baggies for a jewelry-making hobby.
Do these sound like the actions of a government intended to protect rights? Whose rights are they protecting here? Does anyone think for a moment this will somehow make our streets safer, will prevent even one person from obtaining illegal drugs?
Radley Balko has more here. As is becoming typical for these cases, the police have clammed up—and even the judge in the case has slapped a gag order on the prosecutor, Ingle and whatever lawyer he ends up with (he currently can't afford to hire one).
And there's nothing you can do. Spare me the false bravado: we are truly fucked when it comes to dealing with the unjust actions of the police. Submit and you can still face jail time for whatever crimes the cops and DA can come up with, not to mention the damage to your home and trauma to yourself and your family.
But fighting back—to actually defend yourself and your loved ones from these power-mad thugs—will earn you a toe tag or possibly a trip to death row.
When private citizens are unable to defend themselves against the criminal actions of the police, and the cops themselves cannot be held accountable, how can anyone deny that this country has become a de facto police state?
