The United States is on the verge of a constitutional crisis, one that enlivens the nationalist fervor of Trump America and that centers on a violent, racist closed-border policy.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (NBC, 1/14/24): “The only thing we are not doing is we’re not shooting people who come across the border, because, of course, the Biden administration would charge us with murder.”
In January, the Supreme Court, with a five-vote majority that included both Republican and Democratic appointees, ruled that federal agents can “remove the razor wire that Texas state officials have set up along some sections of the US/Mexico border” to make immigration more dangerous (CBS, 1/23/24). The state’s extreme border policy is not merely immoral as an idea, but has proven to be deadly and torturous in practice (USA Today, 8/3/23; NBC, 1/14/24; Texas Observer, 1/17/24).
In a statement (1/22/24), Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton decried the decision, saying that it “allows Biden to continue his illegal effort to aid the foreign invasion of America.” Paxton, a Republican, vowed that the “fight is not over, and I look forward to defending our state’s sovereignty.”
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, also a Republican, “is doubling down, blocking the agents from entering the area,” the PBS NewsHour (1/25/24) reported. PBS quoted Abbott declaring that the state’s constitutional authority is “the supreme law of the land and supersedes any federal statutes to the contrary.”
‘Dangerous misreading’
University of Texas law professor Stephen Vladeck (Houston Chronicle, 1/26/24) observed that Abbott’s position “has eerie parallels to arguments advanced by Southerners during the Antebellum era.”
For a great many people, a Southern state invoking its “sovereignty” over the federal government in defense of violent and inhumane policing of non-white people sounds eerily familiar to the foundation of the nation’s first civil war. And 25 other states are supporting Texas in defying the Supreme Court (USA Today, 1/26/24), although none of them are states that border Mexico.
Texas media are sounding the alarm about this conflict. The Texas Tribune (1/25/24):
From the Texas House to former President Donald Trump, Republicans across the country are rallying behind Gov. Greg Abbott’s legal standoff with the federal government at the southern border, intensifying concerns about a constitutional crisis amid an ongoing dispute with the Biden administration.
Houston public media KUHF (1/24/24) said this “could be the beginning of a constitutional crisis.” University of Texas law professor Stephen Vladeck said in an op-ed in the Houston Chronicle (1/26/24) that Abbott’s position is a “dangerous misreading” of the Constitution.
Other legal scholars are watching with concern. Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of the law school of the University of California at Berkeley, told FAIR, “I think that this is reminiscent of Southern governors disobeying the Supreme Court’s desegregation decisions.” He added, “I agree that it is a constitutional crisis in the sense that this is a challenge to a basic element of the Constitution: the supremacy of federal law over state law.”
But the New York Times has not covered the issue since the Supreme Court decision came down (1/21/24). The AP (1/27/24) framed the story around Donald Trump, saying the former president “lavished praise” on the governor “for not allowing the Biden administration entry to remove razor wire in a popular corridor for migrants illegally entering the US.” The Washington Post (1/26/24) did show right-wing politicians and pundits were using the standoff to grandstand about a new civil war. NPR (1/22/24) covered the Supreme Court case, but has fallen behind on the aftermath.
‘MVP of border hawks’
The “legal expert” quoted in Fox News‘ headline (1/25/24) works for America First Legal, a group founded by white nationalist Stephen Miller to “oppose the radical left’s anti-jobs, anti-freedom, anti-faith, anti-borders, anti-police, and anti-American crusade.”
Meanwhile, Fox News (1/25/24, 1/25/24, 1/27/24) has given Texas extensive and favorable coverage of its feud with the White House, citing its own legal sources (from America First Legal and the Edwin Meese III Center—1/25/24) saying that Texas was in the right and the high court was in the wrong.
Breitbart celebrated Abbott’s defiance as a states’ rights revolution, with a series of articles labeled “border showdown” (1/24/24, 1/24/24, 1/24/24, 1/25/24, 1/28/24) and several others about Republican governors standing with Texas in solidarity (1/26/24, 1/28/24).
The white nationalist publication American Renaissance (1/25/24) stood with Abbott but lowered the temperature, saying that it is “unclear whether this could cause a constitutional crisis, but the optics are not great for the White House in an election year.” “This will not be a ‘Civil War’ or anything close to it unless someone on the ground wildly miscalculates by firing on the Texas National Guard,” the openly racist outlet asserted. Rather, the publication saw Abbott as recentering the immigration debate as a way to weaken President Joe Biden’s reelection chances. “We couldn’t hope for a better start to the election-year campaign,” it said.
The National Review (1/28/24) admitted that Abbott is probably wrong on the constitutional question. Nevertheless, it called him the “MVP of border hawks” for orchestrating a public relations coup by forcing the federal government’s hand:
Abbott has managed to get the federal government in the position of actually removing physical barriers to illegal immigration at the border and insisting that it is imperative that it be permitted to continue doing so. This alone is a PR debacle for the administration, but it comes in a controversy—with its fraught legal and constitutional implications—that will garner massive attention out of proportion to its practical importance.
This is impressive by any measure.
The support of Republican states for Abbott elevates the matter further, but this also is a relatively small thing. The backing for Abbott is entirely rhetorical at this point and perhaps not very serious on the part of some Republican governors. It nonetheless serves to elevate a conflict over security on a small part of the border into what feels like a larger confrontation between all of Red America and the federal government.
Underplayed significance
Donald Trump defended his use of the Hitlerian formulation “Illegal immigration is poisoning the blood of our nation,” saying, “He didn’t say it the way I said it” (NBC, 12/22/23).
As noted, AP and the Washington Post haven’t completely ignored the story—although the Times, as of this writing, has more or less looked the other way. But as the right celebrates Abbott’s defiance and legal scholars worry about a constitutional crisis, the two big papers and the major wire service have clearly underplayed the standoff’s significance.
Given that former President Donald Trump is now the likely Republican presidential nominee, with his neo-fascist ideas (ABC, 12/20/23; NBC, 12/22/23) about immigration the centerpiece of his campaign, one would think centrist news outlets would give this story more attention.
Even if American Renaissance and the National Review are right that this standoff is more rhetorical than a pre-staging of the next civil war, given that nearly half the states are backing a state’s defiance of the Supreme Court in an election, the major news outlets should be a part of that conversation.
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Robert and Julie Clark were just leaving a Goodwill when they were pulled over allegedly for failing to signal before 100 feet. Although this encounter could have been a simple warning, Dennison, TX police inexplicably escalated situation to a resisting arrest charge, damaging Robert’s arm in the process and leaving him unable to work in construction for several days. The Clarks’ ordeal demonstrates just how consequential a single arrest can be on a family’s budget, as they were forced to deal with bail, loss of time from work, recovering the police report and body camera footage, and the legal costs to defend Robert from the serious charges. Taya Graham and Stephen Janis of the Police Accountability Report break down the impact of an arrest, the strange world of municipal courts and if the scales of justice are truly blind.
Production: Stephen Janis, Taya Graham Post-Production: Stephen Janis, Adam Coley
Transcript
The following is a rushed transcript and may contain errors. A proofread version will be made available as soon as possible.
Taya Graham:
Hello, my name is Taya Graham and welcome to the Police Accountability Report. As I always make clear, this show has a single purpose: holding the politically powerful institution of policing accountable. And to do so, we don’t just focus on the bad behavior of individual cops. Instead, we examine the system that makes bad policing possible. And today we will achieve that goal by showing you this video of a man who was dragged from his car for, I’m not kidding, failing to signal 100 feet before turning, but it’s what the police and the town have done to him since this arrest that we will unpack for you today. A revealing example of how law enforcement can sow chaos in the lives of people who can least afford it and in doing so, take control of all the levers of power that make it nearly impossible to fight back.
But before we get started, I want you watching to know that if you have video evidence of police misconduct, please email it to us privately at par@therealnews.com or reach out to me on Facebook or Twitter @tayasbaltimore and we might be able to investigate for you. And please like, share, and comment on our videos. It helps us get the word out and it can even help our guests. And of course, you know I read your comments and appreciate them. You see those little hearts I give out down there, and I’ve even started doing a comment of the week to show you how much I appreciate your thoughts and to show what a great community we have. And we also have a Patreon called Accountability Reports. So if you feel inspired to donate, please do. We don’t run ads or take corporate dollars, so anything you can spare is truly appreciated.
All right, we’ve gotten that out of the way. Now, one thing we try to do on this show is go beyond a simple critique of policing. We often try to delve into the details of a case to show, not tell you, how the entire law enforcement system in this country can often be misguided, and in some cases, destructive and no example of police overreach could be more indicative of this troubling trend than the video I am showing you now.
It depicts a traffic stop in Denison, Texas that quickly turned chaotic and led to such a questionable series of events that we need to scrutinize it in detail. Story starts in Denison, Texas when Julie Clark and her husband, Robert, were just pulling out of a parking lot of a Goodwill store. The pair had visited the store to drop off some donations and were on their way back to the property of a relative where they had been living in their RV. But before they could drive a single block, a Denison, Texas officer pulled them over allegedly for not turning on their blinkers soon enough and almost immediately became confrontational. Let’s watch.
Speaker 2:
Get out of the car.
Robert Clark:
What did I do?
Julie Clark:
Well, he’s not going to have to get out the car.
Speaker 2:
Get out of the car.
Robert Clark:
Tell me what I did.
Julie Clark:
Why?
Speaker 2:
He does have to get out of the car.
Julie Clark:
Why?
Robert Clark:
What did I do?
Speaker 2:
Get out of the car.
Julie Clark:
Why?
Speaker 2:
Get out of the car.
Julie Clark:
You touch him. Do not touch him!
Robert Clark:
Get off of me.
Speaker 2:
Get out of the car.
Taya Graham:
As you can see, this officer is ordering Robert out of the car, but at the same time, he’s not offering any justification as to why. This leads to Robert, as is his right, refusing. Take a look.
Julie Clark:
Get off of him.
Robert Clark:
I didn’t do anything.
Speaker 2:
Get out of the car. Get out of the car!
Robert Clark:
Let go of me!
Julie Clark:
Get off of him!
Robert Clark:
Let go!
Julie Clark:
Stop it! You’re going to hurt him.
Robert Clark:
I didn’t do nothing!
Speaker 2:
Get out of the car!
Julie Clark:
Get off of him!
Robert Clark:
I did not do anything!
Speaker 2:
Get out of the car!
Julie Clark:
I’m calling 911. You are not of-
Robert Clark:
Let go of me!
Julie Clark:
Let go of him.
Robert Clark:
I didn’t do anything.
Speaker 2:
Get out of the car!
Julie Clark:
He doesn’t have to get out.
Speaker 2:
Get out of the car!
Robert Clark:
He called me a liar.
Taya Graham:
Finally, the officer decides that he does not have to articulate why Robert has to exit his vehicle. Instead, he simply forces him out, violently injuring Robert’s arm in the process. Just watch.
Robert Clark:
Stop! Now!
Speaker 2:
Get out of the car!
Julie Clark:
Quit pulling on him!
Robert Clark:
Ow!
Julie Clark:
Stop! You’re going to break his arm.
Speaker 2:
Get out of the car!
Robert Clark:
Let go of me!
Julie Clark:
You are going to break his arm.
Robert Clark:
If you let go of me, I’m [inaudible 00:04:04].
Speaker 2:
Get out!
Julie Clark:
You are going to break his arm.
Speaker 2:
Get out of the car!
Julie Clark:
Stop it.
Speaker 2:
Get out of the car!
Julie Clark:
Let go! Let go of him!
Robert Clark:
I didn’t do a damn thing!
Speaker 2:
Get out of the car!
Robert Clark:
Stop!
Julie Clark:
Let go of him!
Robert Clark:
Stop it!
Julie Clark:
He is old, your dammit!
Speaker 2:
Get out of the car!
Julie Clark:
You are going to break his arm.
Robert Clark:
What did I do?
Speaker 2:
I told you what you did. Get out of the car!
Julie Clark:
What did he do?
Robert Clark:
No, you didn’t.
Julie Clark:
You didn’t say nothing what he did.
Robert Clark:
You did not tell me what I did.
Speaker 2:
You’re getting tased if you don’t get out.
Robert Clark:
Tell me what I did!
Julie Clark:
You didn’t say he did anything.
Speaker 2:
You’re going to get tazed if you don’t get out.
Robert Clark:
[inaudible 00:04:09].
Julie Clark:
I want a supervisor!
Robert Clark:
There’s nothing I did.
Julie Clark:
No! Cut it out.
Speaker 2:
[inaudible 00:04:15].
Robert Clark:
You better stop.
Taya Graham:
Now, as you’ll learn later, after placing him in handcuffs and forcing him into the back of a patrol car, the officer informed Robert he was under arrest solely for resisting arrest, a legally questionable basis for detaining someone that we will unpack later. In the meantime, though, the officer turned his attention to Robert’s wife, Julie, and her camera. Take a look.
Julie Clark:
No! Cut it out!
Robert Clark:
You better stop.
Julie Clark:
Quit being rough, you little bastard!
Speaker 2:
Let go.
Julie Clark:
Stop it! He didn’t do anything.
Robert Clark:
I did nothing to you.
Julie Clark:
He didn’t do anything.
Robert Clark:
[inaudible 00:04:51] do it.
Julie Clark:
It’s him. I have it all on video.
Robert Clark:
I didn’t do nothing.
Julie Clark:
I have it all on video! Stop!
Robert Clark:
I didn’t do anything.
Julie Clark:
I have it on video! You called him a liar.
Speaker 2:
Ma’am, come step over here. Come step over here. Let’s go in front of my car.
Julie Clark:
No! Uh-uh, you’re not getting the phone.
Speaker 2:
Sit down right there.
Julie Clark:
Yeah, you know what you did.
Taya Graham:
But the questionable arrest you just witnessed was just the start of the ordeal for the Texas couple because what has happened to them since is a textbook example of what we talk about continually on the show, the system, and I really mean the system that makes bad policing possible. And we will be talking to them shortly. But before we do, I’m joined by my reporting partner, Stephen Janis, who’s been reaching out to the police and delving into some more of the troubling aspects of the Denison, Texas law enforcement and their institutions. Stephen, thank you so much for joining us.
Stephen Janis:
Taya, thanks for having me. I appreciate it.
Taya Graham:
So Stephen, what are the charges against Robert and what are they saying about the justification for his arrest, and what is going on with Texas and this 100 feet turn signal law?
Stephen Janis:
Okay, Taya, this is a very unusual and odd arrest. The first thing is that the only charges against him right now are resisting arrests, but of course, there was no initial crime. So it’s very difficult to understand how they can justify those charges. It’s like putting the horse before the cart. The 100 feet law is like everyone’s a lawbreaker. It’s part of the American experiment to make everyone a criminal. I don’t understand that. I don’t know how a cop could even figure that out. It’s one of those absurd traffic laws, I think, that’s just a big money generator.
Taya Graham:
Now, Denison Court is a municipal court or city court. What does that mean and why is it important?
Stephen Janis:
Okay, we all know about the separation of powers, right? The judiciary is actually separate from the executive branch because why? Because when you have those powers working together, it is inherently corrupt. That’s the problem with municipal courts. They actually have the government running the court system. And as you could see, in this situation, it creates a whole lot of problems. It again becomes a big revenue generator for the city. The city has no reason to have a fair and equitable process, legal process. So really, it’s just in and itself inherently corrupt.
Taya Graham:
Now, we have been in touch with Julie as she’s been trying to obtain the body camera and the police report. What has happened to her and why is it so problematic?
Stephen Janis:
Well, they denied her access to watching the body camera, recording the body camera. They didn’t give her a police report, all the things that she or especially her husband is entitled to because of the rules of discovery and the process for prosecution. But I think this speaks and goes back to the municipal court problem. The court and the city are one and the same. The rules of evidence don’t apply. They gave her a card for a law firm that actually is employed by the city that’s supposed to handle public information act requests. It’s just a real rigged, rigged game and it’s wrong and really, I think very problematic. It shows why you shouldn’t have municipal courts, why the government shouldn’t be in the business of both writing tickets and adjudicating them.
Taya Graham:
And now, for more in the arrest and the fallout because of it and how this encounter has sowed chaos in their lives, I’m joined by Robert Clark and his wife, Julie. Thank you both so much for joining me. So first, can you tell me what you were doing when this incident began?
Julie Clark:
We actually had just taken some stuff to donate to Goodwill and that’s all we did. And as we’re pulling in to the store to drop the stuff off, the officer is sitting over there on the right and we seen him pull out. So then we pulled out after donating and he got in behind us again. And so we’re just driving because we weren’t doing anything. And this takes place, it goes all the way to the other side of town, to the other highway. And so as soon as we get to the other highway, we’re at the stoplight and then we turn, and then he immediately turns the lights on us. We’re like, “What did we do?” Because we hadn’t done anything. He comes up to conduct the traffic stop on the passenger side.
Taya Graham:
So how did this begin? You were being pulled out of the car. What triggered this?
Julie Clark:
He got butt hurt because my husband told him not to call him a liar.
Taya Graham:
So you’re saying this all started because he had your address wrong and called you a liar when you corrected him?
Julie Clark:
Adam, we’re intimidated by him already. He didn’t want to get out the car reason being we don’t know… There was no reason, absolutely no reason for him to get out of the car because he’s already done, going to write us a warning. Why did he go over there and promote violence?
Robert Clark:
He told us we’re getting a warning for not signaling 100 feet. And then he looks at my license and he said, “Are you still in the Oklahoma address?” And I said, “No.” I said, “You know where we’re at? We’re over here on Center Street.” And he said, “Oh, yeah.” He said, “I’ve been over there a couple of times.” And I said, “Yeah.” I said, “You were over there that one time.” He’s like, “You’ve been there longer than that. It’s been like two years you’ve lived there.” I said, “No, I haven’t. I’ve only been there since a couple of months.” And he’s like, “You’re lying to me. Why are you lying to me?” And I said, “You’re calling me a liar?” I said, “I can prove that I’m not.” I said, “Because we just had an eviction and that eviction was on the May 19th.”
And before I could tell him exactly the date and everything, he comes walking around with an attitude to my side of the truck and opens my door without even saying anything and says that we’re going to conduct this arrest [inaudible 00:10:28] this stop on the outside of the truck. And I said, “Why? What did I do?” And he said, “Get out of the vehicle.” I said, “No, what did I do?” And that’s when he grabbed me and I held onto the steering wheel because it startled me that he did it. I wasn’t expecting that and I still had my seatbelt on and he just kept yanking on me. Then he finally reaches over there and I undid my seatbelt, kept yelling at me, and I just kept asking him, “What did I do? What did I do? I didn’t do anything.” That’s when he told me, he said, “If you don’t get out, I’m going to tase you.” And I didn’t want to get tased, so I let go of the steering wheel and stepped out.
Taya Graham:
What happened next when you got out of the truck? What were you thinking as he started to pull you out of the car?
Robert Clark:
When I got out, I just threw my hands down. He had to hold my arm and I threw my right hand down to my side and he just spun me around real quick and pushed me up against my truck and I caught myself with my hands because they were in front of me and then he handcuffs me and then the other officer comes running, he’s going to tackle me. And I said, “Don’t you do it,” and he just bumps me real hard and they both grabbed my arm, one on each side and grabbed my arms and the officer that had my right arm just pulled it up as far as he could towards my shoulder. And I’m like, “Let go. It hurts. It hurts.” And they get me over to the car and they throw me over towards the car and I hit my head on the top of the car there.
And I guess that’s when they patted me down. And then they threw me into the car headfirst the seat. And their seats are plastic, they’re hard plastic, and they’ve got a little thing that sticks out in the middle there between the two seats, and I hit my head real hard on that and it was bleeding a little bit and I had a big, red bump. And then one of them went around to the other side, grabbed me by my shoulders, and the other one had me by my legs and they’re shoving me in and pulling me and I’m like, “Quit it!’ And that was kind of the end of it.
Taya Graham:
When you’re in the backseat of the officer’s car and the officer finally tells you what you’re being arrested for, what did he say?
Robert Clark:
When I finally asked him, I said, “What am I being arrested for?” And he told me I was being arrested for resisting arrest.
Taya Graham:
But he never told you what the initial charge was that you were resisting arrest for? I mean, isn’t there supposed to be an original arrest to resist?
Robert Clark:
[inaudible 00:13:07] arrest for anything. That’s why I didn’t see why I needed to get out of the vehicle. He just told me I was getting a warning and I’d be on my way. It’s like he got mad because I called him on calling me a liar. My left arm from him when he was dragging me out, he was beating my left arm with it twisted up against the side of my truck, and then bending it just as hard as he could. It felt like he was trying to break my arm. That’s what it felt like. And when I asked him about I wanted to go to the hospital, have it treated, have it looked at, he said, “No, you can have it looked at when we get to the jail.”
And when I finally got to the jail, they did all the paperwork first and then they called the nurse in and the nurse came in and looked at it and looked at my other elbow and said, “Looks fine to me. They look alike.” And that was all they said. And I said, “Well, can I get something? It hurts real bad.” And they’re like, “Well, if you want to get something, we’ll have to order it later. Whenever they get you put in, we can get you something.” Well, I never got anything.
Taya Graham:
How much was the bail for you and what was the final charge?
Robert Clark:
They charged me with resisting arrest, search, and transport.
Taya Graham:
How did this affect you, Robert, and how did it change the way you see police?
Robert Clark:
I used to have a lot of respect for them because my dad was a cop and now I don’t have any. I’m scared of them and I’m afraid to go anywhere because every time I see one, I’m afraid they’re going to pull me over for something and then this is going to happen. Or what if it’s the same officer and he’s going to feel like what happened then is going to make it worse on that one, on that stop. And then physically, my arm still hurts and I know it’s only been, what, two weeks or three weeks since this happened, but it still bothers me because I do construction. And then with me having a mental problem anyway, it makes me feel scared of things more than I used to be. I think that nowadays, the cops, they feel like they carry a gun and a badge, that they can get away with whatever.
Taya Graham:
I know you mentioned that you were just evicted, so I know you’re on hard times right now. How has this arrest impacted you?
Robert Clark:
It really has because financially, it’s hurt us because I missed two days of work, plus it cost us money to get out that we didn’t have. On top of that, we’re going through the eviction and just the stress level, oh, my God, has been enough already. And then with that and now having to figure out about court and everything, I don’t know what they’re going to do.
Taya Graham:
You’re supposed to have a court appointed lawyer. Have you gotten one yet?
Robert Clark:
I haven’t heard anything since I got out of jail. They haven’t given me a court date. They haven’t told me who my attorney is going to be or nothing.
Taya Graham:
What do you hope happens in the future?
Robert Clark:
I hope the two officers that did this are de-certified where they can’t be a cop anymore because that was totally wrong. We don’t need people like that trying to protect us because that’s not protecting. That’s beating and brutal is what they did to me.
Taya Graham:
Julie, how has this affected you seeing this happen to your husband?
Julie Clark:
After everything else we’ve been through, it’s been bad. It’s bad. I don’t even want to go anywhere because they portray a picture of them that I don’t want to see. They can stop you, pull you over for whatever reason, and then yank you out of your vehicle, which is your safe zone nowadays. That’s your only safe zone between you and that officer that you don’t know what he is going to do to you, and they get away with it. They can hurt you or they do whatever they want basically. And I just don’t think it’s right.
I know I actually called Denison PD that night, asked for a supervisor because I wasn’t happy. We had done absolutely nothing for him to be yanked out of the car like that and them twist his arm like that. It was swelled up three times the size of his elbow where he bent it. You could see it where he was bending it on the truck on the outside and I was telling him to just let go. And I will admit, in the video, I did tell him, “Let go of him, you little bastard.” And I did. I did say that, but I didn’t know what else to do.
Taya Graham:
I know you’ve been trying to get body camera footage or even just a police report or any documentation. How is that going?
Julie Clark:
I called and asked for a supervisor. I did not get a name that night. I wish I did because the supervisor called me back, said, “We’ll review the body cam footage and I’ll get back to you.” Did they get back to me? No. So I put in a request for body cam footage, a police report, which I’ve not neither gotten none of those yet. We’re going to go probably tomorrow to view them and I’m going to record them when I view them. I had sent them and I asked for a timeframe on them. “Oh, we have 20 days to dah, dah, dah, dah, dah,” and they’re acting like they don’t want to give them up. And the email I sent back to them, I said, “Look, it’s not that I don’t trust you won’t do anything to them, but I don’t trust that you won’t after what just happened.”
Taya Graham:
Now, as promised at the beginning of the show, the law enforcement initiator ordeal we just showed you has broader implications than the two lives it has impacted already. It’s really a much more tangible, troublesome story writ large about what happens when punishment becomes a profit center and law enforcement turns into law invention. What do I mean? Well, let’s just liken the criminal justice system to its most pervasive symbol: the ubiquitous scales of justice. Let’s consider how this iconography that we’re used to needs an updated interpretation. The image I’m talking about and then I’m showing up on the screen, it’s pretty much as iconic as any other American symbol, especially when it comes to the administration of justice.
It’s meant to show or perhaps convince us that justice is blind, impartial, and well, just. But let me for a second try to enhance a new definition of what those two balanced scales actually mean, and more importantly, how they’re being abused. To me, besides the idea that they connote in impartiality, they also point out a necessary balance, that is a balance between the need to enforce the law against the price we pay to protect the innocent. What I mean is that turning up the volume, so to speak, on law enforcement comes with a cost; that is the more cops, the more aggressive they are, and the more arrests they make that might, and I say, might prevent a crime comes with a cost on the other side of the scales; that is unleashing the power of a gun and a badge has an effect on just how balanced those scales really are and how it can lead to an imbalance that produces arrest just like the one we showed you earlier in this show.
This, of course, may depart from the traditional symbolism the scales represent, but we have to remember that administering justice is complex, tricky, and never simple. And when you introduce fear and start extolling the virtue of more cops and more aggressive enforcement, that delicate balance becomes distorted. And perhaps that’s what these same scales should make us remember because we often forget that every incremental increase in police power weakens the foundation of liberty that is our fundamental right. Every bad arrest rewrites the bill of rights in favor of the government, not the people. And every time we look the other way when an officer sows havoc in the lives of innocent people, we become blinded to the psychic toll that same act of bad faith inflicts upon our entire society.
And how do I know? Well, consider this story in the New York Times about what happened with money paid by drug companies in the wake of a settlement over their role in America’s horrific opioid crisis. As we’ve talked about many times on this show, the toll of big pharma companies showering legally prescribed opioid pills on the American public has been incomprehensible. Hundreds of thousands of dead and countless families torn asunder. But what is perhaps most unsettling about this crisis is that it was all perfectly legal. Pharmaceutical companies used false science to label opioid painkillers non-addictive, and thus, started an epidemic that was, to say the least, shockingly profitable and devastatingly destructive. And to make matters worse, the federal government and the DEA, which has in the past had no problem pursuing petty street dealers by any means necessary, could not win more than a handful of convictions against the well-paid executives who made this entire human tragedy possible.
That’s right. The same law enforcement industrial complex that will arrest a person for having an empty CBD pipe or the odor of marijuana in their car could not hold the real drug dealers to account. The reason I bring this up is because the New York Times article noted a troubling trend: money from settlements from lawsuits filed against those same companies to make them pay for the havoc they caused is not just going into treatment and healing. Instead, it is being used in part to buy more police cars and pay more overtime to cops. That’s right. The cash has been clawed back from the bank accounts of the companies that were, in fact, the biggest drug dealers in the history of civilization and has been diverted into the coffers of the institution that couldn’t solve the problem in the first place.
I’m not kidding, I wish I was. And the money is not just going to new cruisers and overtime. According to the article, cash from the payouts has been spent on body scanners to detect drugs, phone hacking equipment, and restraint devices. That’s right, the system that could not prevent and or stop the tsunami of opioids from being pumped into the veins of working class communities across the country is actually benefiting from their own incompetence; that is the soldiers of the so-called war drugs have become the beneficiary of their inability to fight it effectively or even win it. And that’s why I proffered a new interpretation of the scales of justice, why I said we need to think about the balance between law enforcement and creating and maintaining a just society because every unjust arrest like the one we just watched, every overreach by law enforcement and every pharmaceutical company that gets away with profiting off misery is another bad outcome placing its thumb on those scales.
Every time we see an overly aggressive cop escorting a couple who are struggling to survive into the fine furnished and punishment prone criminal justice system, the scales are bent towards communal submission. I mean, how much do the elites who decide what the police can and cannot do think the working class can take? How many arrests, how much bail, and how much money can we spend on court costs and lawyers before we simply have nothing left to give? I ask this question because it is so central to the problems with law enforcement that we highlight on this show in the first place, a truism that is exemplified by the aforementioned diversion of funds meant to heal that are instead being used to ratchet up punishment.
Here it is: law enforcement simply cannot fail, i.e., cops and courts and prosecutors cannot be viewed with any sort of rational analysis. We cannot say this system we created to enforce a law has lost its way, needs to be rethought or reformed in a way that preserves our rights and builds a stronger community. We cannot question the underlying premise of the system itself because, wait for it, it’s inherently not balanced. Those infamous scales of justice have been crushed by the downward pressure of inequality. They literally have been overwhelmed and warped by the growing mass of cancerous wealth at the top, a downward spiral of too much larges for the select few literally bearing the needs and concerns of the rest of us like a scale bent, warped, and stomped on by the crushing weight of a socially and politically oversized behemoth that is a 1%.
How else can you explain the violent arrest to Mr. Clark? How else can you [inaudible 00:26:05] a city court that literally violates the basic tenant of the constitution, separation of powers? How else can you justify making a man who can barely pay rent pay hundreds for an unwarranted bail over a legally questionable arrest? Well, I can tell you how. You can do it by taking the scales of justice and melting them down and turning it into gold bars for the people who’ve been crushed by this system, a Dickensian reality that shows just how much the individual and justices we witness every day, in fact, are really forged by the cruel imperative of indiscriminate wealth and the politicians who ignore our plight because they are bought and paid for as well.
That’s why we need to flip the scales, so to speak, restore their balance and make them whole. To do so. We need to take back our rights, embrace our agency, and affirm our humanity; an act of defiance I think we should embrace no matter how badly the scales themselves are broken. I want to thank my guest Robert and Julie Clark for sharing their experience. I know it was a scary thing to do and I appreciate you both coming forward. And of course, I have to thank intrepid reporter, Stephen Janis, for his writing, research and editing on this piece. Thank you, Stephen.
Stephen Janis:
Taya, thanks for having me. I appreciate it.
Taya Graham:
And I want to thank mods of the show, Noli D. and Lacey R. for your support. Thank you both very much. And a very special thanks to our accountability reports, Patreons. We appreciate you and I look forward to thanking each and every one of you personally in our next livestream, especially Patreon associate producers, Johnny R., David K., Louis P., and super fans Shane Busta, Pineapple Girl, Chris R., Matter of Rights, and Angela True. And if you like or want to support our work or you just like hearing me say your name at the end, consider joining our Patreon Accountability Reports. There are some extras there for the people who help keep us going because we don’t run ads or take corporate dollars, so anything you can spare is really appreciated. And I want you watching to know that if you have video evidence of police misconduct or brutality, please share it with us and we might be able to investigate.
Reach out to us. You can email us tips privately at par@therealnews.com and share your evidence of police misconduct. You can also message us at Police Accountability Report on Facebook or Instagram or at Eyes on Police on Twitter. And of course, you can always message me directly @tayasbaltimore on Twitter or Facebook. And please like and comment. I have started highlighting a comment of the week. I love showing how engaged and thoughtful you are, and this is one small way I want to show you that I do read your comments and appreciate them. My name is Taya Graham and I’m your host of the Police Accountability Report. Please, be safe out there.
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