Uniting Against California Highway Patrol

Maybe people should recognize that without the efforts of law enforcement officers, there wouldn't be anyone to protect YOU people from the rest of the country - who don't appreciate your attempts to reduce this nation to the 3rd world squalor that resembles your homelands...

naive, or just plain stupid. How is brutalizing a ten year old girl going to protect us? I can tell you from first hand experience that the police are nothing but hacks for the rich. They are a paramilitary org that follows orders even if they know they are wrong. The attack on freedom of expression and assembly on the bridge is not protecting anybody, it's assaulting every free thinking person in this country because it is a fear tactic to domesticate those sheep that feel like calling out a little bit.

FUCK THE POLICE!! CORPORATE WHORES!!

How is arresting somone brutalizing? If you are trying to subdue somone who is resisting you, you are required to use more force than they are - that goes for 11 year old girls and WWF wrestlers.

Even if this arrest was manufactured (not based on any crime) you marginalize yourselves by calling this brutality - it's not, and every sane person knows this.

Rodney King = brutalilty
Normal arrest = not brutality

there was video footage of the arrest on the news last night along with a sympathetic story. i was quite suprised

FYI dumbshit, the courts hold that the police are not here to protect ANYONE. Don't believe me?
Try looking into some of the cases (23 at this time if I remember correctly).

Till then maybe you could try and be informed BEFORE you shove that shoe down your throat.

How fortunate you live in a country where you could parody the name of god (well the god for some, anyway). Try that some other places and you'll get strung up.

What cases are you referring to? Then I'll go eat my shoe.

Through the course of the Critical Mass movement locally and the Bike the Bridge! campaigns for bridge
access, we have seen CHP repeatedly show zero tolerance for not only our first amendment rights but our right to travel.

More information is contained on

http://www.bikethebridge.org/

(particularly on the older pages linked there)

and http://www.bclu.org/

CHP were renamed the "Clog the Highway Petrol" amongst other new meanings for "CHP".

-Jason-

If you believe you have a legitimate case of "Police brutality," then take it to the court -- until then it's only an allegation (like the punch thrown at the CHP officer).

Here's a suggestion-- you want to earn the respect of mainstream America so that they will listen to your message, right?. Now let's think about the GG protest for a moment -- what was the manner of dress? what emotion was being conveyed? how were the police being treated? Next time, rent a DVD on the Civil Rights marches of the 1950's and early 1960's and pay close attention. This is how you want to present yourselves to the world -- calm, solemn, respectful, and proud to be an American.

What's to be proud of?

just wondering--

What is there to be proud of? I guess the better question is, what is my opinion worth to you? I'm guessing not much, so I'm going to ask you to read a biography on Martin Luther King Jr's life and see why he was proud to be an American. But if you'd prefer someone more, you could also read-up on Bobby Seale or Malcolm X f(rom their later years).

So, I take it that you are not proud to be an American. What country (if any) are you proud of?

Answer the question.

What's to be proud of...How about SF-IMC? A forum that (well I guess for the most part) encourages open discussion and an exchange of ideas and views. Even though there are those out there whom don't believe in being "label" or a borderless world (thats for another string), I would consider SF-IMC something to be proud of that is in America.

It always strikes me that people who make such a big deal about being proud of their country or whatever else, and who set up various loyalty oaths and tests for others, actually seem to be insecure in their status, so they have to make a big showy deal of it. god or jesus talked about this in the bible with regards to people praying in public. Really rich people who live in the hills tend to drive relatively expensive yet nonflashy cars that have a utilitarian excuse, such as SUVs or acuras or something, while it is the newly rich or striving middle class who buy a jaguar or miati.
so you all who demand that everyone should proclaim their american pride and pin on a flag before they may pass actually are making it seem like the US is a stinky place that we're trying to cover for.

I'm not avoiding the question -- instead I'm giving you an answer that you are going to be hard-pressed to find fault with. Isn't it better to have an answer from someone you respect, someone outside the "system" yet still important to society? Wouldn't their opinion be much more valuable to you?

So again, I ask you to read (or even some basic internet research) about these fellows and listen to their reasons for pride -- unless, of course, you don't respect their opinion. Do you?

Here is a short article on the subject:

This is an independent work by attorney John Brophy, reproduced in its entirety.


John D. Brophy P.O. Box 245036
Attorney at Law Sacramento, CA 95824-5036
State Bar No. 047520

PUBLIC SAFETY

Fact or Fiction?

"Do you believe that law enforcement officers have a duty to protect you from harm?" Ask yourself that question, and, your answer is . . . . ?

That is a question I have frequently asked. The overwhelming majority of answers have been affirmative; ranging from "Yes." to "That's what they are paid to do!" The next logical question is "How can we be certain we know the correct answer?".

The correct answer is found in appellate court decisions. The following summaries of a few appellate court decisions will provide some insight into this area of the law.

The administrator of the estate of Ruth Bunnell who had been killed by her estranged husband brought a wrongful death action against the city whose police department refused to respond to her call for protection some 45 minutes before her death. Mrs. Bunnell had called the police to report that Mack Bunnell had called saying he was on his way to her home to kill her. She was told to call back when Mack Bunnell arrived. The police had responded 20 times to her calls in the past year, and on one occasion, arrested her estranged husband for assaulting her. The Court of Appeal held that the police department and its employees enjoyed absolute immunity for failure to provide sufficient police protection. The allegations that the police had responded 20 times to her calls did not indicate that the police department had assumed any special relationship or duty toward her such as would remove its immunity.

Hartzler v. City of San Jose (1975) 46 Cal.App.3d 6, 120 Cal.Rptr. 5

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A husband and wife who were assaulted in a laundromat while the assailant was under surveillance by officers, brought legal action against the city and the officers for intentional and negligent infliction of emotional distress and for negligent investigation, failure to protect and failure to warn. The Supreme Court held that: (1) the mere fact that the officers had previously recognized the assailant from a distance as a potential assailant because of his resemblance to a person suspected of perpetrating a prior assault did not establish a "special relationship" between officers and assailant under which a duty would be imposed on officers to control assailant's conduct; (2) factors consisting of officer's prior recognition of assailant as likely perpetrator of previous assault and officer's surveillance of assailant in laundromat in which victim was present did not give rise to special relationship between officers and victim so as to impose duty on officers to protect victim from assailant; and (3) victim could not maintain cause of action for intentional or reckless infliction of emotional distress, in view of fact that it was not alleged that officers failed to act for the purpose of causing emotional injury, and that in the absence of such an intent to injure, officer's inaction was not extreme or outrageous conduct.

Davidson v. City of Westminister (1982) 32 Cal.3d 197, 185 Cal.Rptr. 252

- - - - -

The widow and sons of a motorist who drove into the void where a collapsed bridge had been, brought action against the State, county, and county deputy sheriff. The California Department of Transportation (Cal Trans) was aware that a violent storm with heavy rains had caused a bridge on State route 118 to collapse. A county deputy sheriff had observed the beginning of the collapse, reported it and requested assistance from Cal Trans. A jury award of $1,300,000 was reversed in part by the Court of Appeal which held: (1) the county deputy sheriff had no duty to warn drivers that the state highway bridge had collapsed during the storm, and his efforts to warn drivers did not in any way increase the risk of harm to users of the highway, and therefore the county was not liable to motorist's wife and children; and (2) the judgment was upheld against the state because the Cal Trans was notified at 1:52 a.m. and at 2:35 a.m., but no Cal Trans personnel nor CHP officer appeared at the scene until 5:45 a.m., and that such delay was unreasonable.

Westbrooks v. State (1985) 173 Cal.App.3d 1203, 219 Cal.Rtr. 674

- - - - -

In an action against police officers and city for personal injuries sustained by Kathryne Ne Casek when she was knocked down on a sidewalk by two suspects who had been arrested by the officers, the Court of Appeal held the amount of force or method used by a police officer in attempting to keep an arrested person or persons in custody is a discretionary act for purpose of application of doctrine of immunity of government officials from civil liability for their discretionary acts, and therefore Ms. Ne Casek who was injured by two escaped suspects who had been handcuffed together could not maintain an action against the arresting officers based on the officer's alleged negligence in using insufficient force to keep the prisoners in custody.

Ne Casek v. City of Los Angeles (1965) 233 Cal.App.2d 131, 43 Cal.Rptr. 294

- - - - -

An action was brought by several landowners against the City of Los Angeles and the State pleading eleven separate causes of action for damages arising out of the ‘Watts' Riots' of 1965. The Court of Appeal held that none of the allegations presented was sufficient to show any duty owed by any of the officials named as defendants to act to prevent or avoid the harm suffered by the plaintiffs.

Susman v. City of Los Angeles, et al (1969) 269 Cal.App.2d 803, 75 Cal.Rptr. 240

- - - - -

A silent burglar alarm installed on the premises of the store operated by the plaintiff was, during the course of a robbery by two armed men, activated at 3:32 p.m. and the alert message was relayed to the police department. The dispatch message to the units in the field was at 3:43 p.m., and a police unit arrived at the scene of the robbery at 3:44 p.m. The delay in the transmission of the dispatch enabled the robbers to complete the robbery and escape with jewelry and merchandise in the amount of $49,000. The Court of Appeal held that Govt. Code section 846 provides for immunity if no police protection is provided; or, if police protection is provided, but that protection is not sufficient.. "The statutory scheme makes it clear that failure to provide adequate police protection will not result in governmental liability, nor will a public entity be liable for failure to arrest a person who is violating the law. The statutory scheme shows legislative intent to immunize the police function from tort liability from the inception of its exercise to the point of arrest, regardless of whether the action be labeled ‘discretionary' or ‘ministerial.'"

Antique Arts Corp. v. City of Torrence (1974) 39 Cal.App.3d 588, 114 Cal.Rptr. 332

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I believe that an accurate statement of the law regarding whether or not law enforcement officers have a duty to protect an individual from harm is: Law enforcement officers do not have a duty to protect an individual from harm, unless a special relationship exists between the law enforcement agency and the individual. Most of the cases in which a special relationship was found to exist involved a person suffering an injury while in custody; or, shortly after being released from custody by officers who knew, or should have known, that the person was unable to exercise ordinary care. If a law enforcement officer, or other public employee, does go to the aid of a person in jeopardy or distress, they are performing an act outside the scope of their official duties, and they assume the duty of using reasonable care.

The six cases listed above are only a few of the California cases dealing with this subject. Those cases were chosen as examples because of the differences in the fact patterns on which each case was based. Anyone can go to a law library and ask a librarian to assist them in locating the published opinions of these cases. Each opinion will include citations to the cases and statutes relied upon by the appellate court justices in their reasoning process which was the basis for reaching their opinion.

If you are not already familiar with the way law book publishers print the appellate court opinions, ask the librarian to show you the case summary, and the "head notes", all of which are added by the publisher, and where the court's opinion that was written by the court begins. Only the language in the court's opinion is "official", the case summary and the "head notes" are not. Not all opinions of the courts are unanimous decisions, and some opinions include dissenting opinions.

California is not the only jurisdiction following that general rule of law. Here are some citations to appellate court decisions from other jurisdictions, but the list is by no means complete. Your law librarian can assist you in locating these cases, and the cases and statutes cited in them.

Its hard to believe - there are 28 court cases, all of which showing
" the Police have no obligation to protect any individual person from harm "

DeShaney v. Winnebago County Social Services (1989) 489 US 189
Bower v. DeVito (1982) 686 F.2d 616
Calgorides v. Mobile (1985) 475 So.2d 560
Warren v. District of Columbia (1983) 444 A.2d 1
Morgan v. District of Columbia (1983) 469 A.2d 1306
Sapp v. Tallahassee (1977) 348 So.2d 363, cert.denied 354 So.2d 985
Keane v. Chicago (1968) 98 Ill.App.2d 460, 240 N.E.2d 321
Jamison v. Chicago (1977) 48 Ill.3d 567
Simpson's Food Fair v. Evansville 272 N.E. 2d 871
Silver v. Minneapolis (1969)) 170 N.W.2d 206
Wuetrich v. Delia (1978) 155 N.J.Super. 324, 382 A.2d 929
Chapman v. Philadelphia (1981) 290 Pa.Super. 324, 382 A.2d 753
Morris v. Musser, (1984) 84 Pa.Cmwth. 170, 478 A.2d 937
Weiner v. Metropolitan Authority, and Shernov v. New York Transit Authority (1982)
55 N.Y.2d 175, 948 N.Y.S. 141

Who does have a duty to protect a person from harm? Parents have a duty to protect their children, but other than that, the short answer is no one has that duty. The ultimate responsibility for your protection is self protection, should you care to undertake that responsibility. Is there any legal authority to justify exercising the right of self protection in California? Please consider the following:

Article I, Section 1 of the Constitution of the State of California clearly states that you have that right:

All people are by nature free and independent and have inalienable rights. Among these are enjoying and defending life and liberty, acquiring, possessing, and protecting property, and pursuing safety, happiness, and privacy.

(The present language was adopted November 5, 1974, and changed the original version, which was adopted in 1849, by substituting the word "people" in place of "men", and by adding the word "privacy" at the end of the sentence.)

California Civil Code, section 50 provides:
Any necessary force may be used to protect from wrongful injury the person or property of oneself, or of a wife, husband, child, parent, or other relative, or member of one's family, or of a ward, servant, master, or guest.

(Enacted in 1872. Amended by Code Am. 1873-74, extending the right to use force to protect a relative without reference to degree, a member of one's family, and a guest.)

California Penal Code, section 692 provides:
Lawful resistance to the commission of a public offense may be made:
1. By the party about to be injured;
2. By other parties.
(Enacted in 1872.)

California Penal Code, section 693 provides:
Resistance sufficient to prevent the offense may be made by the party about to be injured:
1. To prevent an offense against his person, or his family, or some member thereof.
2. To prevent an illegal attempt by force to take or injure property in his lawful possession.
(Enacted in 1872.)

California Penal Code, section 694 provides:
Any other person, in aid or defense of the person about to be injured, may make resistance sufficient to prevent that offense.
(Enacted in 1872.)

Civil Code section 50, and Penal Code sections 692, 693 and 694 as quoted above are still in effect. I find those code sections, enacted in the early 1870's, to be straight forward and easy to understand. They recognize the realities of life. Not all people are law abiding; and, law abiding people have the right to protect themselves and their property, and to come to the aid of others in need of assistance and protection from individuals committing the public offenses.

Today, unfortunately, that is not the current state of the law. Thousands of laws have been enacted since 1872 that have effectively denied any truly effective means of exercising the "inalienable rights" recognized in Article I, Section 1 of the Constitution of the State of California, outside of the persons home, with only a few exceptions. The identified "need" for those laws has been "crime control", but we have a much larger percentage of our population in jails and prisons now than ever before. A vastly larger percentage than in 1872, which is evidence that as government makes it more difficult for the law abiding individuals to protect themselves, they become victims of crime.

There are some people who are unwilling to accept the responsibility for protecting themselves from harm or injury, and advocate the philosophy of pacifism. However. pacifism has never been shown to deter crime. Exercise of your inalienable rights in Article I, Section 1, is not mandatory. You may refuse to defend yourself and exercise your right to be a victim.

I believe the correct answer to my original question is: Law enforcement officers do not have a duty to protect an individual from harm. That raises more questions that should be considered. Why is the public so misinformed about such a fundamental issue involving public safety? What can be done to educate the public to the true facts on this issue to enable them to make informed decisions about their personal protection? The writer invites ideas from the readers regarding this article.

Should you have any questions or comments, please send them to the writer's address.

John D. Brophy

"CHP repeatedly show zero tolerance for not only our first amendment rights but our right to travel. "

I bike (bicycle and motorcycle), I like to bike - it's good for me and doesn't pollute and it's easy to park. Gathering with several hundred people with a nebulous agenda and hindering OTHER'S rights to travel doesn't make you the victim, it makes you the instigator.

pride--

Your definition of pride is awfully narrow -- and your condemnation of pride is a bit like condemning the emotion of 'love' as a result of the Jerry Springer Show's singular depiction.

So, you're going to base your argument that in a country of 270+ Million People and probably 100K+ Law enforcement officers, that these 28 or so cases are indicative of law enforcement as a whole?

To me these looked like cases of negligence, in which the people (or relatives of those) injured or killed were entitled to what they were awarded by the courts. There are bad cops out there, like there are bad house painters, janitors, lawyers politicians, etc...

If not to protect, what is YOUR explanation for what the police are for?

Pretty weak argument on your part I think, but I'm still eying my shoe...

<p>Jay Hovah--<br>
Are you a lawyer? Because I think you might be misinterpreting the statutes. Case in point --</p>
<blockquote>Davidson v. City of Westminister (1982) 32 Cal.3d 197, 185 Cal.Rptr. 252</blockquote>
<blockquote>(3) victim could not maintain cause of action for intentional or reckless infliction of emotional distress, <b>in view of fact that it was not alleged that officers failed to act for the purpose of causing emotional injury</b>, and that <b>in the absence of such an intent to injure, officer's inaction was not extreme or outrageous conduct</b>.</blockquote>
<p>I believe the court is saying that the officer was not obliged to protect the victim because at the time no crime had occured, that it was not a reasonable assumption that a crime was going to be committed, and that the officer did not mean to cause injury with his inaction. I'm not a lawyer either, and I think it's best if we were to get an expert opinion on this before we assume too much.</p>

but to be an American? Forget it.

This place was built by slaves on stolen land. In this I'm suppoised to take pride!?! Give me a break. We’re six percent of humanity, but we consume a third of the planet’s resources. We’re a tumor on the world’s economy. Americans routinely bomb the rest of the world, but when somebody bombs us back we’re not only too stupid to understand why, we can’t even retaliate against the right people. Almost all of the (alleged) 9/11 hijackers were Saudi Arabians. America bombed Afghanistan. What’d we do, miss?

Again, read what these men have to say -- they experienced more negative aspects of American society than (probably) you or I ever will. You might be surprised . . .

And as a practical matter, what country would you offer for us to emulate?

none.

We don't live in countries. We live on a planet. Countries are only in our minds.

http://www.counterpunch.org/jensen0530.html

anarchist -- I think you are living on another planet.

Control, dominance, and agression are just as much a part of humanity as cooperation, equality, and helpfulness. And like clock-work, every generation produces a certain percentage of people with just the wrong traits to be driven by these darker impulses. You will find this in every culture and every time throughout history, only the relative effectiveness to deal with such personalities differs from society to society.

Even if we could start with a blank slate, humanity would again organize in competitive socities structured around (a) strong authority figure(s) -- often by force. It's as natural to us as walking or talking and you would be foolish to believe otherwise.

That's exactly why we need to do away with political hierarchy. Political hierarchy is a pond. Scum rises.

>We’re six percent of humanity, but we consume a third of the planet’s resources. We’re a tumor on the world’s economy.

You people have one playbook and one play. Both suck.

We are the world's economy. If more countries emulated us, they wouldn't be living in poverty. In fact, we are the model for the rest of the world. This cannot be rationalized away. Be glad you're here, do what you can to raise others to our level, not lower ourselves to their level. This rationaile that we should all be equally in poverty is bullshit. This notion that if we had less others could have more is futher bullshit. We can all have more. I'm willing to help pull others up, but not at the expense of falling down. This is not a zero sum game.

Back up everyone, just look at this: We held a protest in order to show our disdain for this country's foreign policy and solidarity for the victims the US' has created over seas, be it from bombs, support of various renegade political factions, economic sanctions, destruction of pharmeseutical plants, et cetera. In this process, a little girl got hurt; now we're arguing over what is to happen next, whether we should stand up and fight for an expensive investigation over this matter.

OF COURSE we should! The cops were there to protect the traffic flow along the bridge. When they realized that there would be no such distruption (because we were only around 150 strong), they began creating one, for the purposes of creating a public ANTI-anti-war sentiment, and to squash our movement of opposing America's wars. They did this by arbitrarily arresting people, which in turn caused a massive traffic jam, which made a lot of mundane people sitting in their cars really angry. Oh sure, they acted humanely, in contrast with the cops of other countries, but this is AMerica, where we're supposed to be able to do this sort of thing without a problem.

Why do we always bend over and take it from authority time and time again? We are The People, the entity this country was created for, WE deserve to not live in fear of our leaders, we are supposed to have the power, and yet we have to worry about a little girl being roughed up by three cops because they percieved her as a threat. Now she won't go to protests any more, just like what Uncle Sam wants. How many more protests will we have, with how many more arrests, until we're all too scared to voice our opinion any longer? You see where this is going?

We have to stand up and fight back, IN ADDITION to continuing our protests. We have to assert not only OUR rights, but those we wish to defend, overseas.

geoff--

I think you're missing the big picture here. You believe your view of the events (and your condemnation thereof) are universal. Well I'm sure I'm not the only skeptic who believe's a protester's account of the events is about as unbiased as the CHP's version.

I wasn't there, but I have seen the video -- and I (like many others) just don't see what you see. If instead this forum LISTENED to why the "common" person feels this way, you might actually IMPROVE your ability to communicate your message effectively -- and would the be a bad thing?

(I'm sorry to address you as the personal spokesman for this motley bunch, but you just happen to be on point at the moment)

As an earlier poster pointed out-the U.S. EMPIRE was imposed upon a large percentage of the North American continent with the help of imported FORCED LABOR. Now it wants to impose its white supremacist hegemony on the entire planet as it continues to sink into the abyss of fascism, complete with the sight of so-called "law enforcement" personel ATTACKING 11 year old girls! So what country should the world emulate-I concur with the other poster-NONE!!! In this day and age of weapons of mass destruction, the human race MUST cease its endles cycle of conquest, robbery, enslavement , etc., or it is DOOMED TO EXTINCTION!!! Either we end the hierarchy, or the hierarchy will END US!

Okay Anti-Fascist--

How do you propose to do what you claim needs to be done? I would think most US citizens would regard your last statement to be a bit loony, so how are you going to convinve them? Will you force them to obey your rules even if they don't want them?

Filter said:

"Maybe people should recognize that without the efforts of law enforcement officers, there wouldn't be anyone to protect YOU people from the rest of the country (rest of sentance snipped)"

I responded by saying that "the courts have said that the police aren't here to protect anyone" and posted cases.

Filter responded by asking how I could judge all police based on the actions of a few (WTF?)

Dear Filter (aka clueless),
What I said still stands regardless of your attempts to change the nature of my statement, the police HAVE NO LEGAL OBLIGATION TO PROTECT ANYONE. Anyone saying they do is uninformed, I have informed you, now have a nice day.

P.S. To the person who said I mistated code, hello? I simply posted an article writted by a California attorney....get it?

I am tired of a bunch of people whining about this GREAT country. What would have happened in your country if you had been protesting? If you all do not like this country that much, then just return to where ever you came from. It will only help this country if you GO AWAY! You obviously are not here to help and make things better, so just go back to your native country and start protesting there and see what happens. I would like to see that.

Nessie --
I do not doubt your claims of recent protest killings, but my curiosity about the frequency of such deaths led to a dearth of information.

To date, I have tracked down one incident in the United States during the past five years -- Earth First! member David "Gypsy" Chain killed by a falling tree while trying to block logging on Pacific Lumber Co. land in 1998. Perhaps you can fill us in on what you know.