"April 29, '92, White Jury hits the spot, Black Fury loaded, exploded like a gun-shot" - Stuck Between a Rock and a White Face, by One Minute Silence (from the album "Available in all colours")

This week I saw something on the news that I am no longer shocked or surprised at. Officer Nigger Hater, LAPD was using excessive force against a black youth. Video footage shows a 16 year old black kid getting arrested, and then violently slammed against the boot of a car, before being punched in the face. Was he resisting arrest? Hardly. he never even had a chance to try anything on with the police officers. I'm sure that the youth must have committed some offense for the cops to be arresting him anyway. but did he deserve the treatment he recieved? I doubt it.

OK. Skip forward a few more days, and I see another video of some white cops going postal on a black guy. This was not quite the same. The perp this time was being arrested for soliciting a prostitute. He was a big guy. Very big. Yet he made no threatening movements. Granted, he was rather slow to react to the Officers' orders, but nevertheless, the guy got some rough treatment without even reacting to the cops. And you know what he got done for, on top of soliciting a prostitute? Assault and Battery of a Police Officer. WHAT? This guy never even touched the damned cops.

Check out the videos yourself and take a look. Now go on Kazaa, or Grokster, or whatever you use, and do a video search for "police brutality". Check out a few of those vids.

Now then. A quick history lesson. 10 years ago, on the corner of Florence and Normandie, South Central, Los Angeles, rioting began. This riot escalated into a truly epic clash, and ended in the deaths of 58 people. What sparked off this riot? Police men of the LAPD were acquitted of a crime which everyone knew they had committed. There was video evidence of Officer Nigger Hater and a few friends beating the shit out of Rodney King, which was totally unjustifiable. And these officers didn't take the rap for what they'd done. Some people got angry with this, understandably, and the whole thing got way, way out of control very quickly.

Now then. There are no prizes for spotting the similarities between this week's video footage and the Rodney King tape of a decade ago. So what's going to happen? Are we going to have more rioting? More deaths? Or are we going to see these officers suspended and fined? No prizes for guessing the outcome of that one, either.

The American Police Force has a bad reputation in the UK, with the Los Angeles Police Force being the most notorious. Police officers abuse their authority. What these people don't seem to realise is that when they join the police force, they are NOT above the law. They are still bound by the same rules as everyone else. Many people sign up for the force because of some crazed power lust, or so that they have an 'excuse' to exercise their personal prejudices without fear of reprisal. A while ago, somebody joked that all applying LA police officers have to take an IQ test. If they score too highly, they are not accepted. I wonder now exactly how much of that story was fabricated, and how much was based on fact.

Add to the mix the fact that many criminals bribe the cops into letting them off the hook, and the fact that a great many police officers take this one step further, accepting regular payments from criminals to turn a blind eye to their devious machinations, and you are left with a police force that does not do the one thing that it is supposed to do. It does not make people safer. The police in America have become a force of Authority that people do not respect, they fear. The only problem now is the fact that things have probably gone too far already to ever go back to the way they should be.

But then, that's true of most things in this world. And it will remain so until the most despicable parts of human nature are erased forever.

In other words, "never".

If you have information about a corrupt police officer in your area, take it to your local council/governor/congressman. Get these bastards out of the force slowly but surely, and maybe we can at least slow the descent into oblivion.