We should never forget that everything Adolf Hitler did in Germany was “legal” and everything the Hungarian freedom fighters did in Hungary was “illegal.” »» Martin Luther King, Jr., “Letter From Birmingham Jail,” 1963

Help The Police - Get Assaulted and Go To Jail

Posted on August 9, 2007
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When I was young I was taught that the police were my friends. My ex-wife works with the Highway Patrol and my daughter actually has several adult friends who are police officers. However, I refuse to teach her that police officers, as a rule, are her friends. Instead I have to keep pointing out stories like this:

Roselle Park, NJ - Monica Montoya left work early on June 20th to pick up her 6 year old daughter from her first day at summer school. On her way she saw came across an accident scene where a woman had been hit by a vehicle and was lying on the ground, bleeding. The police asked Ms. Montoya if she spoke Spanish and could help communicate with the victim. Being a kind soul, she stayed to help. Police video shows Ms. Montoya interacting with several police officers on the scene and using one of their cell phones to call the victims family. After several minutes she asked to use the phone again in order to call someone else to pick up her daughter from school. For some reason the police refused, so she walked over to the crowd to find an available phone.

At this point one of the officers apparently tackled her to the ground, causing scratches to her arms as well as a bruise on her face, handcuffed her and put her in the back of his police car. His reasoning? “Because she was out of control, and I felt that she may be a danger to herself and me, I forcefully took her to the ground to control her and then handcuffed her.” According to him, she was trying to leave the scene of an accident (to which she was neither a party nor a witness) and refusing to give her name and telephone number. Only once she is handcuffed in the back of a police car does the officer use his cell phone to call someone to pick up her daughter from school. At no point is there anything resembling a “chase” nor evidence of her trying to “flee”.

Remember, she was merely a passerby, asked by the police to help them. As a result of being honest and helpful she has now been charged with obstructing justice and resisting arrest and is due back in court on August 23rd. Further evidence that the police exist on to serve themselves. If we had private police agencies under a free market system, then concern for their clients (citizens) would be at the forefront, instead of the worship of “procedure”. When a police department is funded through coercive taxes it, ultimately has no fiscal responsibility and thus no accountability to eh people it ostensibly serves.

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