Comments Elsewhere

One thing that I think the repeated mistaken-identity overkill police shootings in L.A. have proven beyond a shadow of a doubt is that — in addition to the fact that the LAPD is a menace to innocent people, they also have every intention of summarily gunning Dorner down the very first opportunity that they get, without any attempt at arrest or any chance to surrender or any pretense of due process. (During the first mistaken-identity shooting, they unloaded 30 rounds at a pick-up truck for stopping and starting, with no identification as police and no commands to stop. During the second shooting, they rammed a car and then shot blindly into the car 3 times because their view of the driver in it was obscured by his airbag.) This actually makes me feel a bit uncomfortable over focusing as much as I have on the innocence of the victims that they’ve already shot. Because the LAPD are a menace to virtually everyone right now, and terrorizing people regardless of their connection to this case, and that’s important. But it is also fundamentally evil, and lethally dangerous, for heavily-armed paramilitary police forces to be roaming around assassinating Suspect Individuals at will even if the guy they’re gunning down really is the guy they were looking for. A calculated de facto policy of massive overkill and summary executions by police is the oldest thing in the police book, but it is also a terrifyingly dangerous form of police-state fascism, even if it never affects any bystanders, and it deserves to be called out as such.