This Is Why Police Don’t Want Body Cams

It’s because of videos like this one, showing a police officer in Florida arresting and handcuffing a 6-year-old girl after she threw a tantrum in school. The officer was later fired, but it demonstrates the folly of stationing police officers in schools so that every disruption can be criminalized.

It’s also because of videos like the one from Allentown, Pa., that shows an officer shoving an unarmed citizen, John Perez, to the ground before other officers beat him, kicked him and charged him with resisting arrest. Footage of the beating wasn’t released, but it so infuriated the judge that after Perez’ acquittal she condemned the arrest as “shameful” and officers as “hostile bullies.”

Comparisons of Trump’s America to Hitler’s Germany are in vogue, so maybe we should note that the Gestapo was formed when the police forces of the various German states were combined into a national force. There are more than 600,000 police officers in this country, and Trump has proclaimed himself the nation’s chief law enforcement officer. It’s no secret that many police forces around the country are riddles with white nationalists, and that communities of black and brown people get service quite different from those of whites.