Published:  September 01, 2017

Preamble

In my 57 years of life on this planet, there was, until Sunday, August 27, 2017, one experience that I, the gentle and loving philosopher, never had, nor would--brutalization by a police officer. The officer in question, from my local P.D., is a man with apparently more testosterone than temperance. I'll refer to him, for now, as Officer "RM." I am aware, of course, especially these days, that any number of other citizens, including the poor and many of our beautiful brown-hued brothers and sisters, have and continue to experience shabby treatment, and far worse, at the hands of police. Relatively, then, my experience was nowhere near the worst possible, but this observation is fundamentally a testament to just how extreme some police incidents are, to the gross trauma they visit upon their victims, not to any lack of trauma in my incident.

brutal, adj., harsh; ferocious.

Basic Narrative

For about nine years a young married couple living next door, I'll refer to them for now as "The J's," has failed to get the memo suggesting that meaningful cooperation with neighbors living together on a tightly-packed street, especially those living right next door, is desirable, and in some good measure required. Thus has this couple committed action after action over the course of this period that has caused pain, often great pain, and in one instance--so far--existential pain for my family, which has been myself and my aging parents. One of the several continuing streams of transgression of this couple concerns the problem of noise, which is the #1 complaint among residents and the #1 reason that people move. Noise in America is a plague, causing great pain for many people, yet it is almost completely unregulated. Thus does the suffering go on, dismissed and unabated.

I am the former resident Leafblower & Community Relations Expert with Noise Free America, and the author of NOISE:  Nowhere to Run, Nowhere to Hide, the anti-Noise, anti-Leafblower Handbook.

These neighbors have an SUV that they use constantly, and many (though not all) times that they close its doors or hatch, an intrusive and irritating sound, often with resonant vibration, is produced. One of the very first times it occurred, about nine years ago, it appeared to cause my aging Father to fall down--one of the first times, but not the last, that these people would cause significant injury to my Father. Characteristically, as I recall, my neighbor refused to even acknowledge the possibility of a relationship between his car door closing, and my Father falling just several seconds later.

The sound produced is often that of a kind of very loud and resonant sonic BOOM, perhaps because it often occurs while their vehicle is parked between our two houses, acting as an amplification chamber. Sometimes I'm startled, sometimes roused from sleep, and sometimes jump out of my skin, and this goes on intermittently all day and evening, including some late nights, for six out of seven days, year-round. I was in conversation--again--with the husband very recently about this problem when it recurred about one day later, on Sunday, August 27, 2017. The level of irritation and thus intolerability varies from instance to instance, but that morning the sound, which occurred twice, was absolutely unbearable--I jumped out of my skin both times, my heart pounding. Accordingly, I went downstairs to again speak to these neighbors, but the husband, a young man, summarily refused to speak to me, arrogantly, stupidly, and above all counterproductively stating "We're not gonna do this." With no choice, I firmly, perhaps sternly, responded that, yes, we would talk. I employed no screaming, yelling, or errant language, whether sarcasm or profanity.

Understand that this is precisely the pattern of behavior exhibited by this couple since they moved in: cause injury, then categorically refuse to talk, or talk meaningfully about it. I can't tell you how many times I've tried to speak to this young man over the years about this or that injurious action he's committed, only to hear: "You've got one minute." With this stilted form of interaction forced upon the relationship, emotion can never be expressed and solutions to problems can never be found or forged. If it's occurring to you about now that his behavior represents the height of disrespect--you're right. I can tell you after nine years that disrespect and gross insensitivity is this couple's stock-in-trade. Remember--this account is only one of the worst; there are many others involving this couple. Their behavior and deportment is exasperating and counterproductive, explicitly exemplifying the very lack of community in the United States rightly decried by political and social leaders and thinkers across the country.

By the way, in an incongruity sad, confounding, and counterproductive, though perhaps further serving to generate productive dialogue about the utility of religion, these neighbors are orthodox Jewish and thus represent themselves to the community, of which I am a member, as extremely "religious."

The young man then resorted to calling our local police department, an action comprising the first refuge not of scoundrels, but persons too young or otherwise socially inept to extricate themselves with moral and practical competence from a conflict with another human being, even when they, themselves, generated the conflict by selfish or narcissistic behavior. And even when the injured is gracious, respectful, sincere, patient, and seeks everyone's interest in determining a solution. The police arrived, with Officer RM coming right out of the starting gate (his car) targeting me, meaning angry or annoyed and blaming me, thus now exhibiting a pattern of bias against me. I tangled with this officer about a month earlier and he was equally biased against me, but since it was my first interaction with him I could not, nor even thought to, establish a pattern of bias. However, now I could.

He stated that if this couple ever calls the P.D. again claiming harassment, he'll arrest me--merely claiming harassment, mind you. This irrational, inappropriate, and likely illegal threat essentially means that, though a 54-year resident of this town (they've been here nine years), this couple now has complete control of my destiny as a resident:  they have carte blanche to interpret anything that I do or say--no matter innocent--as "harassment," call the P.D., and I will be summarily arrested. Our houses are mere feet from each other, so if I happen to flatulate while walking near or past them, will they in their stupidity somehow interpret the sound incorrectly, as if I'm trying to harass them--and have me arrested? This is the impossible situation that they, and this misguided police officer, have created.

I also wonder:  what if I engage with a different neighbor and that neighbor inappropriately calls the police for any reason? Or what if Officer RM happens to be driving by at that moment while I'm trying to work something out with a neighbor--will his apparent predilection for emotion, caprice, and premature judgement get me arrested?

Indeed, Brothers & Sisters, will the very existence of this essay get me arrested?

Don't Assume

Presumably not, as this essay, published at this website, clearly comprises something that, as an American, is my fundamental right:  SPEECH. And since this officer is apparently so patriotic, judging by his social media fingerprint, we'll provisionally presume that he would not illegally or immorally tamper with a vaunted American institution. Of course, such a presumption is, itself, presumptuous, since people tend to arbitrarily, and sometimes capriciously, draw their lines anywhere they please. They do what they want and attempt to justify it later, often in a half-hearted or insincere fashion, if at all. And I get the impression that, while this officer likely has a gun, taser, baton, and handcuffs in his personal arsenal, he may not, as most people do not, have any special allocation of principle or intellect. Judging by the overreach in the way he's treated me, thus far, this is my conclusion.

What you are presently reading (or listening to, in audiobook form) is a journalistic essay, not any sort of direct personal interaction with my neighbors for which they could cry "harassment." Yet, the power of the police department and its officers is broad, so even were I arrested and the arrest or case thrown out, there isn't anything categorical from preventing a hostile and capricious officer from making such an arrest in the first place. Obstacles to such specious arrest would presumably include suit for false arrest, including such factors as pain and suffering, and harm to reputation. In such a case, I would utilize every possible resource, and since arrest for publishing this essay would clearly comprise a free-speech violation, I would solicit, and presumably receive, the assistance of the American Civil Liberties Union.

This man might try to arrest or otherwise injure me, physically or psychologically, but I'd be released, or otherwise recover, from said action or aggression soon enough, and all he'd have ultimately accomplished is the branding of his own personal and professional reputation with an indelible mark, that is, one that will never go away--as a journalist, philosopher, musician, and citizen, I'll peacefully and lawfully see to that. This is precisely what the dimwitted Mr. & Mrs. J. have, and continue to, do in proffering injury-after-injury to me and my family, through their reprehensible behavior. My work in social science is good, getting better, and simply not going away. The fact of the New York Times having quoted my original writing is the tip of a massive iceberg of original work in social science that is going to change the world. Every injury visited upon me or my family, from large-scale and overt to subtle micro-aggression, or for that matter to our larger human family, is instant fodder for the work I've undertaken:  saving the world based on promulgation of a new and powerful theory of man and society.

Regarding his law enforcement resume, I don't care how extensive it appears, this open-ended threat by Officer RM is highly problematic. It marks him as utterly unprofessional as a police officer, and not a very nice human being, either.

"One More Word"

Returning to the incident:  the Officer and his partner finally left. I then remarked to the female neighbor that she was instilling fear in her children by vilifying me, as she had apparently been doing for some time. I had actually wanted to tell her this even before her husband called the police on me, as I was listening to a program on National Public Radio earlier that day whose topic was childhood fear and its deleterious impact on children's later lives. However, this seemingly unstable young woman responded poorly to my entreaty, whimpering, causing me to realize that, at least at that moment, there was no fertile ground for progress here, and I quickly retreated back into my house.

"No good deed goes unpunished," however, as Officer RM presumably overheard this momentary exchange, which couldn't have lasted more than about 15 seconds, and he and his female partner returned immediately. I was not aware of this, however, as I had already left the scene, entering my back door and locking it. Apparently very angry, indignant, or sensing his opportunity to injure me psychologically or otherwise, he stepped onto my back porch and actually tried to open my door! God only knows what he would have done had it been unlocked. Finding it locked, however, he ordered me to open it, which I did. Thus did the moments of egoistic domination begin.

The brutality of this "officer" toward me was psychological and in a sense physical, as he ordered me to egress my back hall and "STAND HERE" on my own back porch, pointing with his straightened arm, then positioned himself point-blank right in front of me, staring directly into my eyes. What would he do next--kiss me? Truthfully, in a slightly different context the way he positioned himself would have certainly been interpreted as an aggressive homosexual advance. From this very uncomfortable intimate position the officer barked his further order in my face, staring right into my eyes while he shoved his words down my throat. He must have momentarily mistaken himself for a marine drill sergeant and me a green young recruit, he a resolute parent and me a willful child, or perhaps himself for God and me, a mere mortal.

He imperiously declared that if I uttered "ONE MORE WORD" he'd arrest me, commanding whether I understood his order. I responded by vigorously nodding my head up-and-down so there'd be no doubt that I was answering his order, yet I did so without speaking the word "Yes," unwilling to trigger some kind of police trick whereby my single word of assent would be used to justify arresting me, since technically it would constitute a violation of his command against uttering "ONE MORE WORD."

Brothers and Sisters, never in my life have I experienced anything like this.

Indeed, the phenomenon of police deporting themselves as military, is described in the New York Times article of December 03, 2011 called "When the Police Go Military":

And Officer RM did indeed "face me down" much as military personnel would toward a subordinate. This is one reason that I consider him immature and ill-trained. Our new national appreciation for the reality of police abuse has led to the crisis in confidence in the police that America now suffers, and on this basis alone you'd think this officer who demeaned me would have been more judicious in his application of threat, intimidation, and humiliation. If not on this basis, then his behavior could have and obviously should have been tempered given that, as he knew: 1.) I have been a law-abiding resident of my town for 54 years (my Father 84 years; my Mother 83 years), 2.) have no criminal record whatsoever, nor was I ever charged with any crime or even arrested, and indeed 3.) obviously committed no crime in this instance.

In fact, I and my family were and remain the victims of a continuing pattern of serious transgression by this married couple next-door, begun almost immediately after they moved in nine years ago (my family has been at this location for just under 24 years). While their individual transgressive actions apparently constitute no violation of any established legal ordinance or code, they do without question constitute a flagrant immorality--a violation of our most evolved, desirable, fruitful, and as my body work argues, moral code. And the pattern itself, which is to say their set of transgressions taken together, constitutes a vehicle for injury. Moreover, this pattern includes one unredressed grave and grievous act, of which the officer in question is also aware. However, he ignored my assertion of this act with a dismissive wave of his hand, stating: "I don't want to hear it." I can understand this response, since were he to take my assertion seriously, he'd have to drop his obvious bias against me, actually begin thinking, and likely revise his narrative regarding the dynamic of my relationship with this neighbor.

What Officer RM should have done, had he heard and found concern in Mrs. J's emotional and maudlin outburst, was gather information, ask her, and then me, what had just occurred, and then proceeded accordingly in a civil way. For example, he could have instructed me to please remain in my house for the time being. This, however, was not his approach. If this officer, who ran for County Sheriff and lost, possessed the investigatory talent and skill that he thinks he has, he would have sniffed out some of what I've described in this narrative--something--and, accordingly, not behaved in such an explictly and prematurely biased, traumatizing, and unprofessional way.

Police Deportment

deportment, n., one's way of behaving or conducting themselves.

You'd think that my profile, factual as described, would generate more respectful, measured, informational, and courteous, which is simply to say, appropriate, behavior on the part of this police officer, but unfortunately for all of us--you'd be wrong. I get the impression that he just doesn't want to get that involved.

Even when one commits a crime, the last time that I looked America still adhered to the judicial principle "Innocent until proven guilty," and you'd think that reverence for this hallowed American and indeed existential principal would guide officers in their behavior. Presumably it does, but it didn't seem to, this time.

I've always had a positive relationship with all police, everywhere, which I'm going to document later. I've felt a basic respect, and, in recent years as I've grown older, even a particular affinity, for the police. This seems no longer true. The actions of this officer have disabused me of such a sanguine view, at least for now.

One of his principal flaws during these events and those of my last encounter with him, was that he acted without gathering sufficient information. Had he, not only would his perspective, apparently forged in little but emotion, have changed and thus events likely turned out differently, but he would have learned that I am not a person who will tolerate such naked abuse, and as a journalist, moreover, I explore and develop relevant and important events for productive public consumption--just like this one. I have much more to say on this matter from a pragmatic and philosophical perspective. Thus will there be a final, complete version of this account distributed across all my work, including but not limited to prose, poetry, music, and broadcast, and said material may see real names used for this police officer, and my "neighbors" who called him. This account is abbreviated, as there are several other relevant aspects of this narrative and its participants that I'm electing to temporarily withhold.

I'll also be taking the other peaceful and civilized steps you'd expect taken after such appalling treatment.

One would hope for reflection and contrition, even an apology, or at least a conversation and explanation, by an officer in this circumstance, and I'll certainly hope for that. In some cases, however, ego may remain in control and no such conciliatory action might occur on the part of an offending officer. Some might remain obdurate and argue that as far as they were concerned, they were "just doing their job." In such a case I suppose I'd be compelled to argue in kind, asserting:

"Alright. And since you, particularly, understand that people must "do their job," you will understand that I must now do my job. And as a political philosopher and writer, quoted by the New York Times, journalist, poet, and musician, my job is to critique your job, especially since I have experienced how you do your job, firsthand, and I can tell you that your behavior during the execution of your job is of likely interest to the public, especially now that policing in America and worldwide is garnering such attention. And of course, direct personal experience, such as I had with you, makes for the best kind of journalism.

It is obviously also my job to promulgate said critique for the mutual benefit of the public, and in the best of cases the subjects of the critique, themselves, using every modern method and technology, and form of art, which are numerous, especially today, and in which I am versed."

Noise

Let's further amplify (pun intended) the critical role of noise in this injustice.

Much of my life has revolved around "the fight for quiet," that is, the effort to persuade recalcitrant persons generating noise to reduce or eliminate it, thereby creating a normally comfortable psycho-social environment. I've surprised myself by recently noting that, though I've been forced into this endeavor, I have yet to pen an essay on noise at this website. I've been thusly forced, draining away so many of the irreplaceable moments of my life, because without said endeavor, people, left to their varying moralities, the overwhelming group of which tend to fall on the retrograde end of the spectrum, will generally produce noise of unlimited occurrence, duration, volume, resonance, and variety, with nary a thought to how said noise and its concomitant, vibration or resonance, will affect persons living in the area--sometimes right next-door or across the street. Such noisemakers are often parents who self-righteously feel, or at least assert and claim, that their children "must play." Other categories of noisemakers include commercial or governmental entities such as PSE&G, the DPW, or this or that building contractor whose profit interests and ego inclinations coalesce, to inhibit any latent impulse toward decency in considering how their activity will affect the well-being of nearby residents.

In other words, people and organizations tend to make as much noise as they feel serves their interests, no matter how it affects others, unless someone stops them. In America, the chief legislative mechanism serving this possible modulating function was the Noise Abatement & Control Act of 1972, but the ruling class, acting in the person of President Ronald Reagan, gutted and banished this law, and neither it nor any replacement legislation has been seen since. It's been run outta Dodge and that's been that.

And so, for many of us: pain. If you haven't felt the sting of the absence of this or similar legislation, you, or someone you care about or otherwise know, eventually will, especially as you or they age. Younger persons tend to produce, and stand immune to, noise. Telling and corroborating this assertion is that while I am 57 years old, the neighbors in question, cited in this account, are in their mid-30s. Once my age, they just might sing a different tune.

Indeed, much of the conflict that I've had over the last nine years with this couple has been because they, too, wish the freedom to produce any kind and amount of noise they desire with impunity, while I, living right next-door and suffering the physical and psychological effects of this profligate behavior, have consistently tried, always in a civil and indeed gracious manner, to persuade them to cooperate in the amelioration of such noise, or to refrain from its production in the first place. The intersection of these unnecessarily competing impulses, theirs and mine, has sometimes produced clashes, with which these neighbors in their wisdom have too-often seen fit to respond to not with loving neighbor dialogue and communication, but police action--hence, the incident recounted, here.

More of the troubling character of this basic dynamic is reasonably captured in the following brief remarks, penned recently by me to a former colleague in the anti-noise movement:

Get it?

Perhaps a more clear picture of the fact and import of these events is forming for the reader.

System of Policing

Having written all this, I remain faithful to my larger social analysis and underscore that in this and similar instances it's the system of policing (SOP) and the larger culture in which it was created and is occasionally incrementally recreated (i.e. improved or reformed), that is ultimately and fundamentally the problem, not any individual officer. This is not to completely exonerate transgressive officers or other police personnel, but merely to wisely follow their behavior to its root, much as, for example, smart policing, itself, seeks to track drug dealers operating on the street to the distributors that supply them, and indeed to the wholesalers that supply them.

The problem, then, is not the police themselves, the people; paradoxically, social problems are never really social in terms of individual behavior. They are social in terms of the larger socio-economic system in which people's values and behavior is learned. We are what we are in overwhelming measure because of the socio-economic environment in which we develop and live. This, of course, includes police officers, and I might add that this view may be more expansive than the view of the average police officer, or apparently the officer who brutalized me several days ago.

A "sop" is a casual term referring to something given, either offered or imposed, instead of that thing or process, object or action, which is actually required or desired to solve a problem, or satisfy a need or want. The conventional System of Policing is, indeed, a "sop" thrown to society. What is this sop being given instead of? The engineer, construction, and operation of a society based on Love, of course.

Alternatively, we might refer to the System of American Policing, or S.O.A.P. American society does, indeed, need to wash its mouth out--but not with SOAP, in accord with the common expression, but with a permanent commitment to Brotherly Love, i.e. "Love, the most powerful force available to humankind" [(c)Copyright 2017 Vincent Frank De Benedetto].

Police officers such as Officer RM who are rebuked for what they might consider routine actions, such as aggressively threatening someone with arrest, must understand that even aside from the question of whether such actions are actually proper and should thus be considered "routine," such actions, though nowhere near the worst committed by police officers, are still a part of the general body of police behavior that is often problematic for people and society, and that does include the very worst police abuses that occur. In other words, there is a continuum of police behavior ranging from the most benign to the most odious, and while the most benign is usually considered completely acceptable and the most odious is considered completely unacceptable, both sets of actions are actually part of the same system (the policing system), and system of behavior and thus it often becomes, or perhaps is always, difficult to differentiate them.

As a practical matter, if you are a police officer you are going to have to work unusually hard and smart to avoid being painted with the brush that your less moral brother officers are painted with. Officer RM must surely learn this lesson.

One might argue, "Well, Vince, regarding Officer RM's threat to arrest you...that's what police *do*!" And I'd argue back that if scaring and intimidating people for a living, especially law-abiding citizens with zero criminal record who have never even been arrested, using psychological and physical intimidation, accompanied by actual physical violence when deemed necessary, with full state sanction and assistance, is what police "do," then the conclusion of this essay is correct:  we must conceive and adopt a new policing paradigm, or better yet a new social paradigm altogether such that we don't really need much of a policing paradigm, at all. One might recall the early days of policing when officers carried no weapon but simply blew a whistle. Policing only became more extensive, comprehensive, and deadly, many would argue, because the problems of society worsened and persons within society became more dangerous. Yes, that's it exactly it, I'd respond. Which teaches us that the police are nothing but a reflection, and now a symptom, of that failed society, so to address the problem of zealous or deadly police, go to the root and address the problem of a deadly society.

What is Policing

One must understand what policing actually is:  a certain indicator of a failed or retrograde society. Policing as it exists today actually represents one of the most pernicious arms of a morally dead and economically untenable socio-economic system:  liberal capitalism ("Liberal" in its classical definition, i.e. characterized by widespread formal freedoms enjoyed by a population that democratically elects its representatives.) One of the reasons, and barometers that policing is a symptom of a failed or retrograde society is that policing carries the value system of the larger culture of that failed society, which is to say that of nonlove and separation--not the banner philosophy that we're all brothers and sisters in one human family. When police break up a dispute between neighbors, for example, the presumption, belief, or predicate of the officers, and likely the department, itself, implicitly or explicitly, is that each neighbor has the "right to be left alone," the practical dynamic of which for the neighbor is along the lines of:  "I want to do whatever I want no matter how it impacts you or your family. And if you make any attempt, or any concerted attempt, to stop or even dissuade me, I'm going to call the police on you, and you will be tagged the criminal or transgressor for trying to dissuade me from action that is hurting you. Unless there is a specific ordinance against it, it's my right to do as I please whether it hurts you or not." And unfortunately, the policing philosophy will likely support his position.

The philosophical camp arguing for continuing peaceful engagement with a neighbor to solve a problem, even when they resist it, is not generally represented in the policeman's ideological or conceptual toolkit. Were it, Officer RM would not have reacted so strongly to my overture to Mrs. J, whimpering or not, nor to my attempt to simply talk to her husband when he wished not to talk, especially given the reason that I had to talk to him in the first place--he was (again) committing actions that were explicitly injurious to me, and my family. This is a distinct flaw in the modern policing paradigm.

As things stand, then, over time, globally, millions of people are physically or psychologically injured, or even killed, by what I consider errant police behavior, though the modern policing paradigm does not consider much of this behavior errant, as just discussed. Thus do I reasonably term this phenomenon, especially understood globally, as a holocaust, defined by me thusly:

holocaust, n., event or series of related events characterized by large-scale suffering of some kind.

Hence forth, my work--prose, poetry, music, broadcast, and more--will begin reflecting a continuing hard look at the System of Policing in America, and around the world, as well as the incident that I, personally, just experienced. The issue of policing is actually one that I've thought about before, and about which I've begun formulating some thoughts. I can tell you right now that the American policing paradigm and those similar must shift completely, lest this holocaust of police victims, both the dead and the physically and psychologically injured, continue. The demeaning, traumatizing, aggressive, yet completely unnecessary abuse visited upon me by Officer RM resides simply at the uppermost reaches of the tip of this iceberg.

Righteous Anger

The neighbor called the Police simply because I sought, justifiably, to talk to him about his continuing unacceptable production of noise, an attempt that caused a cascade of events resulting in my inability to talk to he or his wife ever again, and an apparently standing threat by Officer RM to arrest me if these individuals so much as uttered the word "Harassment." Both of which consequences render me and my family functionally impotent as residents and neighbors, unable to engage in normal neighbor relations, and indeed walking on eggshells forever in and around our own home lest we inadvertently do something that these imbeciles elect to call "Harassment."

Mr. Dimwitz has thus unwittingly engineered something that, were he a more aware man, he might have realized he actually did not want: accelerated development of my book NEIGHBORS OF DEATH, by forcing a shift in my locus of activity regarding his transgressions and their narrative from that of communicating to him with 1.) an eye toward reducing the pain that he continually causes us, 2.) to maintain good neighborly relations, and 3.) to assist he, his wife, and family, which I've managed to do through these troubled years, to communicating about him, for the sake of good neighborly relations, and to keep our lot yonuger. him in the form of generation of new book content. Thus has the section of my book treating my experiences with he and his wife grown by leaps and bounds since August 27, 2017.

Regarding anything injurious these individiuals may do in the future, or are doing now, I will communicate through an intermediary such as an attorney. I don't think that would engender another official Complaint, although, who knows? The axiomatic "Stupid people behave stupidly" always applies. Regarding the anger obviously threaded through this essay and exposition:  the two socio-philosophical touchstones, Wisdom and Love, underpinning and informing my series of essays at this website, including this one, do not preclude righteous anger. If you doubt this--simply examine the life of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Agape

Agape [ugg op' ay] is "Brotherly Love," in the language of Greek philosophy. I'll again make clear, especially as the Founder of The Agape Order, as I have in regard to every major antagonist that I've had the displeasure to deal with over the last 20 years of my life, that every individual mentioned in the narrative on this page is a brother or sister in our one human family, and as such--I love them. Which doesn't mean that I like them. At least I certainly don't like their behavior. Of course, the operative socio-existential question is:  where does their behavior end, and they, begin?

Recommended Resources

Article, The Atlantic:  Innocence is Irrelevant

Article, Rolling Stone:  6 Ideas for a Cop-Free World

Article, The Atlantic:  A Major Victory for the Right to Record the Police