Privileged Purveyors of State Violence Seek to Ban -- Or Cage --Their Critics

William Norman Grigg
Jun. 18, 2014

Although government-aligned media outlets generally are faithful stenographers for the coercive caste, the same is not true of social media. YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter have fatally undermined the official narrative that law enforcement is a noble calling by offering critics the means to document and publicize the criminal violence and pervasive corruption that characterize the profession. Thus it's not surprising that police are seeking to ban Facebook pages that document police misconduct and demand accountability.

"There are anti-anti-police pages starting whose main purpose isn’t to engage the anti-police pages intellectually, but just to report and get them banned," warns LRC reader Buddhadev Chakraborty. "Examples of these pages are Stop the Cop Haters, and Night of Blue Lights.”



Not surprisingly, given that this is the age of Homeland Security Theater, cops and their fellow travelers often seek to provoke comments that can be construed as "threats" or "incitement" -- and then demand that Facebook shut the supposedly offensive pages.

"FACEBOOK IS ON BOARD WITH US!" exulted a cop in a comment to a page entitled "Evolution of a Police State." Another cop boasted that he had "trolled" Cop Block's Facebook page and expressed the hope that "more people report them and they too get the Facebook ban hammer."

"Let's not delay," urged yet another officer, "we need a new page to destroy."

Some members of the exalted Fraternity of Official Coercion have gone beyond trolling for Facebook bans. Tim Kelemen, Chief of Police in Campbell, Wisconsin, used an office computer to create a fake online identity for local activist Greg Luce, who had filed a lawsuit against the Chief and his department for violating his free speech rights.

Kelemen used that identity to sign up Luce for solicitations from several gay porn sites. The Chief also created a cyber-pseudonym that he used to post demeaning comments on the local newspaper's website. When confronted about those acts by internal affairs, Chief Kelemen lied, of course, until he was forced to admit what he had done.



Although an investigator pointed out to Kelemen that he violated the law, he has not been charged with a crime, nor has he yet been fired, suspended, or otherwise disciplined. In this case, as in so many others, "qualified immunity" might protect a privileged purveyor of violence from the consequences that would be inflicted on a Mundane.

In January of last year, Toledo, Ohio resident Jason Philips took a picture of a police department employee in the hallway of the Municipal Courthouse and posted it to his Facebook page. The individual was a public employee in a public venue where he had no reasonable expectation of privacy. Nevertheless, Philips was threatened with criminal charges because the individual was said to be an undercover police operative -- that is, someone who "trolls" people in the hope of provoking them into an act that is construed as a crime.

Philips warned the public about the officer and his "all-star snitch team." The police complained that by publishing the photo Philips had hampered "that officer in the performance of his duties and creat[ed] a risk of physical harm" to him. This is a problem only for those who think we should countenance the presence of secret police in our midst, and take all necessary measures to guarantee their safety as they prey upon the public.

Everything police officers do is accompanied with the threat -- generally implicit, but often overt -- of lethal violence. Every idle word posted to Facebook can be construed by police as a threat to that holiest of all things, "officer safety." This is why Dominic Ray Aguilar, a 37-year-old cab driver from Roseville, California, was charged with making "terroristic threats" against Police Officer John Moody, who shot 35-year-old Ernesto Duenez 11 times in the driveway of his home in June 2011.

Duenez, who was suspected of violating his parole, wasn’t armed and was exiting his pickup truck when Moody shot him. He tried to comply with Moody's order to get down on the ground, but his foot was caught in a seat belt.

On the Facebook page memorializing Duenez, Aguilar wrote: "50 rounds to your dome Moody." His attorney points out that the comment, while shocking, does not qualify, under the Brandenburg standard, as an "immediate, credible threat" and therefore falls within established guidelines as protected free speech.

While Antavio Johnson of Lakeland, Florida may have done violence to good taste in his rap number (the word "song" doesn't apply) entitled "Kill Me a Cop," it's also true that his outpouring didn't constitute a "true threat." Nevertheless, he was sentenced to two years in prison for the offense of "corruption by threat of a public servant."

Furthermore, it's not necessary to threaten or even to criticize the police in order to find one's self in jail facing charges of "threatening" those poor, cringing little creatures.

Elisha Strom, a 34-year-old blogger from Virginia, spent two weeks in the Albemarle Charlottesville Regional Jail on a charge of seeking to "coerce, intimidate, or harass" police officers by publishing the address of an undercover narcotics agent on her blog, "I HeArTE JADE."

The title of that blog referred to the Jefferson Area Drug Enforcement (JADE) task force, whose personnel and activities have been subjected to whimsical and well-earned mockery therein. (Since I recently blew the cover of Boise DEA undercover agent Dustin Bloxham, I've been reviewing the cases of Jason Philips and Elisha Strom with a great deal of interest.)

In medieval England, it was considered a form of "high treason" to "compass" (or imagine) the death of the king. In proto-totalitarian America, a variation on this principle is used in some jurisdictions to criminalize expressions of hostility toward the costumed dispensers of state-authorized violence.












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