11 Feb 21
“There are two sides to every issue: one side is right and the other is wrong, but the middle is always evil!
The man who is wrong still retains some respect for truth, if only by accepting the responsibility of choice. But the man in the middle is the knave who blanks out the truth in order to pretend that no choice, nor values, exist, who is willing to sit out the course of any battle, willing to cash in on the blood of the innocent, or to crawl on his belly to the guilty, who dispenses justice by condemning both the robber and the robbed to jail, who solves conflicts by ordering the thinker and the fool to meet each other halfway.
In any compromise between food and poison, it is only death that can win. In any compromise between good and evil, it is only evil that can profit.
In that transfusion of blood, which drains the good to feed the evil, the compromise is the transmitting rubber tube.”
Ayn Rand
CO’s “Law Enforcement Integrity Act” was strong-armed through during the final weeks of the 2020 legislative session. It was, of course, signed into law by our Democrat governor.
The bill, backed by ANTIFA and BLM, is cynically designed to cripple local police, rendering them fearful of doing anything that resembles law enforcement.
The bill mandates body-cameras, but adds, “presumed that… missing footage would have reflected misconduct by the peace officer.”
So, when body-cameras aren’t working, or go down, for any reason, affected officers must immediately stop working and go home, as subsequent investigation will “presume” misconduct by police!
Officers are now required to fill-out detailed reports on “every contact… for the purpose of enforcing the law or investigating possible violations of the law.”
So officers, instead of patrolling, answering calls, and protecting the community, now must spend most of their shift sitting in front of a keyboard back at headquarters, composing their own indictment. As stated, the only purpose for those endlessly voluminous reports is to provide a vehicle for finding fault with the officer!
Officer must now somehow divine the “perceived race, ethnicity, sex, and age” of all persons contacted.
Most onerous. Officers may now “use physical force only if nonviolent means would be ineffective in effecting an arrest, preventing an escape, or preventing an imminent threat of serious bodily injury or death to the peace officer or another person.”
So, absent a “deadly threat,” officers may not use any degree of force. Officer apparently may not defend themselves, in any way, from kicks, punches, etc!
The law holds officers personally liable and removes all caps and limits on liability of municipalities.
ACLU, ANTIFA, BLM, et al now have the power to impoverish/bankrupt any small town or rural county, and any individual police officer!
Democrats, and other lovers of violent crime and violent criminals, have had their wish granted!
Local police have been put into an untenable position. This legislation, in essence, tells them that the state is out to get them. Good and honorable officers will be casually sued, personally impoverished, maybe thrown in prison for no other purpose than to “make an example.”
Accordingly, don’t be astonished when police don’t answer calls, when SWAT teams are disbanded, when all pro-active policing is forbidden, when officers refuse to confront dangerous suspects, when riots, looting, personal attacks upon the innocent rage-on interminably, with no police interference
Democrat/Marxists said this is what they were going to do!
Why is anyone surprised?
“Reality is an absolute. Existence is an absolute. A speck of dust is an absolute, and so is a human life. Whether you live or die is an absolute. Whether you have a piece of bread or not, is an absolute. Whether you eat your bread or see it vanish into a looter’s stomach, is an absolute!”
Ayn Rand, again!
/John