"Red lights flashing, time to retire"

In the few times my path has crossed with a lawman over the years, I've never had what you would call a traumatic experience. A few times it was a simple question of who was quicker on his feet, and in high school when such an occasion would arise, I was like a fucking gazelle. See, when you grow up in a small Christian town where the lonely group of sinners is resigned to lashing out against authority with loud music and heavy drinking, running from the police is pretty much a sport. I wouldn't say I'm particularly proud of my antics, but then again my only regret is that I didn't wave both middle fingers.

Of course, the Saturday night derby from authority wasn't always victorious. A few times I found myself cornered, alone, scared, and one time in particular I was left to fend for myself on the sidewalk at 3 a.m. in the middle of nowhere. The cop seemed to enjoy leaving me there -- I think it was secretly payback for all the other times the long arm of the law couldn't beat my sprinting record, what with the hand cannon and nightstick to lug around.

I have realized one thing, however: Cops are really easy to figure out. Many carry the badge because they are compensating for humiliating personal defects, such as the inability to gain respect from their peers without carrying an automatic weapon. The rest just have a fetish for control over situations and people. When they feel that control slipping away, they simply resort to violence, claiming their life was in danger. Hilariously, the burden of proof always seems to be on the person claiming abuse, not the authority figure with a legal mandate to regulate on peons with all God-given necessary force.

Oh yeah, and most cops are also fucking crazy. They have this savage need to reform the world with holier-than-thou beliefs of what is good and lawful. If you don't conform, they will inspire you to change through threats and physical violence. And then they will lie through their teeth -- sometimes to the point of absurdity.

Take the story of Angela Garbarino, a 42-year-old from Louisiana. After being arrested on suspicion of drunken driving (I emphasize suspicion here because, as we all know, we are all innocent until proven guilty), she was taken to the police station for "questioning."

What happened next is a grim reminder of how this society has allowed our police to become the brutal dictators of our justice system, circumventing all established safeguards for a free society. After Garbarino refused to take a Breathalyzer test, which is completely legal as long as you're willing to lose your driver's license, the arresting officer, aptly named Wiley Willis, savagely beat the woman. And just to show his further contempt for the rules, as if he needed to sink any lower, he turned off the camera in the holding cell before he did it. When he switched the camera back on, Garbarino was laying on the floor in a pool of her own blood, with two black eyes and a bruised face. She looked like this:

Then Willis did something amazing. Although he had reached the utter depths of human depravity by assaulting an (allegedly) intoxicated woman, he managed to transcend all known levels of disgusting behavior and betray even the idea of truth. He claimed that she "fell." Fucking fell!

After such a heroic demonstration of his abilities to beat a drunk person to a bloody pulp, this degenerate didn't even have the guts to admit his blatantly obvious actions. And to boot, he apparently thinks the entire world consists of monkeys who can't recognize a falling injury from a ferocious attack.

I've been reading many stories lately with a similar plot line. Here in Eugene, a police officer actually received a medal for shooting a 17-year-old kid who was having a mental breakdown and advancing at officers with a knife. The cop pumped a dozen rounds into him, and the powers-that-be called it heroic (he was fulfilling his duty to protect the innocent under intense pressure, apparently). Never mind that it wasn't exactly a split-second decision for the officer; he had time to fire beanbag rounds at the kid before pulling his sidearm. When the beanbag rounds failed, the cop just executed him. No shots in the leg to disable him. Just a death a sentence.

The funny thing is that anytime we question the antics of law enforcement, hysterical conformists inevitably accuse us of being hypocrites. "You complain about cops," they whine, "but if you were in trouble, you'd expect them to come!"

Wow, what a fucking novel revelation. You're goddamn right I'd expect them to come. Know why? Because my taxes pay for the cops to respond when I call. I'm paying for the service of being protected from criminals, and I'll be damned if I stay silent while my hard-earned tax dollars support what often amounts to criminal negligence. It's not like cops are doing me a fucking favor. They have a job. They get paid for it. They're not forced to go out there every day and risk their lives, but they do it anyway. And you'd have to be completely misguided to think that gives them a free pass to abuse their authority.

I understand that most times a cop will treat you with the same respect he receives. But the bad apples are piling up, and if we're not careful the whole batch might go sour. And then it will really get ugly.