Whoever we are, no matter our media source, we need not go far to find a praise story in the press about police. A cop pulls a man from a burning car; a cop helps an old lady across the street. These are staples upon which the media machine feeds. Yet, when the Associated Press Media Wire Service released its recent exclusive on police across the country engaging in hundreds of acts of sexual oppression, rape, sodomy and targeted sexual molestation of children, the silence has been deafening. Almost 1000 cops, from sheriff deputies to so-called school resource officers, raping, sodomizing, forcing women, children and men, into sexually-compromised positions, is, to say the least, deeply shocking. The article, which filled a whole page of the Sunday Times of Scranton, Pennsylvania featured a chilling account of a woman in her 50s returning home from a game of dominoes with friends. Suddenly, a police car signaled her to stop, and she did so. For the cops ‘safety’, she was pat-searched, then her blouse was pulled up and her pants were pulled down. Another search. Clearly unarmed, the woman was forced to give the cop oral sex in the patrol car of the Oklahoma City Police Department. The cop barked out, “Come on, I don’t have all night.”
The AP [Associated Press] researched hundreds of cases such as these from all over the country, covering some 44 states. Journalists Matt Sedensky and Nomaan Merchant found cases covering children in school suffering molestation from so called ‘school resource officers.’ The teenaged members of police internship programs — chased, harassed, and raped by their adult police trainers. As shocking as it is repellent, this is a story of police gone wild, where they serve and protect themselves and treat those who pay them as so much rubbish. If you haven’t read this in your local paper, or heard it on radio, or seen it covered in the news of your local or national news programs, you have been woefully misinformed about the true nature of American police. This ain’t law and order. These are the actions of outlaws and disorder masquerading as peace officers. This is America’s rape culture: silent, hidden violence against the weak, the unarmed, the young, and the helpless. This is America, at the beginning of a new century, in the grip of police madness. From imprisoned nation, this is Mumia Abu-Jamal.
These commentaries are recorded by Noel Hanrahan of Prison Radio.
