Ugly story from my home state of Oklahoma. Tulsa cops arrested Army vet Elliot Williams at a hotel in 2011, breaking his neck in the process, which paralyzed him. Medical staff and police at the jail that held Williams believed he was faking paralysis right up until the moment he died, even while he was screaming for help while face down during an hour-long forced shower. While he died, staff were caught on video taunting him, throwing him in a shower stall, and apparently never thinking to transport him to a hospital. It’s almost too much of a stretch to believe that the entire medical staff, the cops, and even the jail psychiatrist thought he was faking paralysis. It seems like more of a clear-cut case of pure sadism. The entire staff enjoyed watching him suffer. And, of course, they knew they could get away with it, which signals to other latent sadists that the profession most likely to give an outlet for their perverse desires. Daily Beast
Consequences of police militarization include the selection of the morally depraved for employment. Not to say that all cops are like this, but when one is revealed to be sadistic scum, the entire police establishment rushes to protect that person, no matter how egregious the crime. This, indeed, is a signal to the other morally depraved, violent, rage-filled, that they can find comfortable employment by unleashing those very characteristics that have so far prevented him or her from finding honest work in the private sector. That process leads to incidents like Williams’ slow death from a broken neck. Or the continuous stories of cops shooting family pets, or cops rushing into family homes guns a-blazing.
So putting a badge on those who should, in a normal society, be forever barred from employment in law enforcement is a consequence of a rapidly expanding police state. What’s the police state a consequence of? Prohibition. The Drug War has generated the black market crimewave that is used as the excuse for all the surveillance power, all the war goodies, and all the unaccountable excessive force that is dished out by people who, absent the Drug War, would never be allowed near a badge and gun. End the War on Drugs, or, to be even clearer, end all activity by government that has as its unintended effect the creation of black markets. Meaning, legalize all voluntary behavior. Only that will wither the bloated, artificial police state that has warped local police departments and has given rise to rampant criminal activity on the blue side of the law.
