Its important to start with some context. For a long time I had hoped we could avoid having people potentially go to jail (Not knowing the full scope of participation and behaviors). The officers involved didn't stop for 4+ years (I will have to look up the exact date.) and the people who started this didn't just mature overnight and do the right thing. Another person was hurt. Thus, it becomes a moral duty to stand up to such people and their aggressive approaches so as to ensure the local justice system understands their role in society and that they learn to hold people to account at the beginning. For those who started these problems and enriched on these issues, I think there should be some accounting as well.
There is a lot to this story and I'm not sure all the different actors involved know all the other behaviors by other people who became involved (They still engaged so its a problem. That is important to understand to improve in other locations). Either way, I avoided direct challenge because I cared (Yep I'm an empath so I have a caring strain. Interesting study on ProSocial Reasoning in this small demographic. Its sort of true I think. Sometimes people do things that while I understand why they do them, I cannot understand why they are so unaware of where those thoughts and choices come from. Its like they don't know much about themselves and proclaim to know about others.). I recognize sometimes people can be bigots and they can be destructive so I had encouraged them to get help before they hurt more people. However, because they know a few police officers and they are seen as locals ( ethnically, religiously, cultural, socially similar) they were given a free pass (I'm local too but because I have a Muslim sounding name and black kids so I will be targeted. It opens up a can of worms on the local system. I am familiar with how these corrupted systems work when challenged so let us see what the next tool might be. In one incidents they tried to set people up on Good Friday as a sign their religious beliefs will be enforced through local systems. It would be nice if they just fixed their problems but so far over this time I haven't seen it.).
If it was a single incident we might be in a different place. "Fine, no problem a one time event of ignorance". The problem was, it wasn't just a one time event of ignorance. It seemed to morph into a larger more coordinated targeting among a lot of people. It was a "We don't want people like you in town" issue (More of why I say that with the rumor spreading, ostracizing, intimidating, attempted gaslighting and much more. Beyond Steven King creepy and I bet most of these people feel they didn't do anything wrong. That is how hate works, it provides its own justifications for things through the hate narrative. Narratives like this have created atrocities in history by minimizing the immorality of harm on others unrelated to anything they may or may not have done. Remember the Tulsa Massacre where mob mentality ended in a dangerous and destructive path. Wise people de-esculate as much as they can but they are not obligated to sugar coat dangerous behaviors. Its just one of those things we think is in the past but can come back to haunt us over and over without meaningful change.)
The people who started this know the initial officers involved and I would say are more than close friends. As these were more senior leadership in one police department it became quite apparent the culture of the department was toxic (That isn't all, most or any within that department would be influenced by that toxicity.) In my humble opinion that department needs a lot of work to make sure they are not harming the public (I think its possible to poll the culture and make incremental positive change. There are metrics we can use and we can discuss and apply it to them. We are going to explore what some other researchers have done to bust these systems and see if we can sort of apply them to this situation.)
The issues they launched kept spreading to the point I was almost shot once and my kids were pulled over 2X in what appeared to be an attempt to create collective intimidation. (I'm confused as to how these officers goes from A to Z and skip all the steps unless there is a level of extremism, prior bad behavior and justification through rumors. You don't just pick a minority family and go after then like that. BTW the officer that nearly shot me I believe was a descent guy but the rumor mill prompted him to be afraid of us. The rumors started in bias and self gain in what appeared to be an attempt to enrich and deflect prior crimes. In hindsight I'm more than a little sure.)
Their behavior has led to a lot of loss of the community, and I suspect to a lot others. Let us peel back the band aid and see what we find (At least as long as I'm allowed and of course and in context to other intimidation tactics that might get worse. I think those behaviors alone might indicate even bigger problems that I tapped into. Let us see not that we are removing the veal.) If they knew me, took the time to know me, or my kids, none of this would have gone this far. Yet its here and I don't really care what they call me and my kids. This is part of the hate narrative. I call it writing checks they can't actually cash with truth or moral conscious. They are in the wrong on this and likely history and this is a direct challenge to those who I believe violated multiple state, federal, and international laws. It is also challenge to those who would give a free pass for such behaviors and/or not report their fellow officers. (If this is ok, then we are not free. That also doesn't mean I want anyone to go to jail, but some probably should.)
There is a lot to this and there is a lot of work I need to do on this to sort of justify and understand the full breadth of events that have occurred. I'm doing this in honor of two victims those officers and what appears to be extremist leaning friends didn't think about. If they do not have some accounting and reforming it would be dangerous and derelict of duty. As a polite person I will be kind and positive and constructive in my dialogue. We have to fix these dangerous behaviors to ensure we don't hurt more and we respect those who may have been victims in the past (They didn't just invent it this time. It means there are some who are given a free hand to abuse our other fellow citizens.). Its the responsible thing to do (Responsibility is an interesting word. Let us talk about that later as well)
Learning Opportunity
I've learned a lot of lessons in my life and I think I should share some of the things I have learned because they are helpful to others. Furthermore, it is a learning opportunity to understand how corruption might work and how it might not work. If we can find ways to bust corruption using publicly available information that would be interesting. It also helps to ensure that certain values are not well suited to community building. Hate is a destructive force and we should take from that tempest and learn from it. They use this method in other places. Its called Reverse E Learning.
Avoiding Names
At first I'm going to avoid using names because there is always that chance I'm misinterpreting something but also because no one should know what I'm talking about (My opinion is invalid as a extremist group target, a flight of insane fantasy, so there is nothing to respond to, no reasons to park a car outside my house, follow me home, pull over my kids, spread rumors, or all the other stuff. Unless there is much more to this story.). For example, I thought one guy was a participant based upon what I heard in the community but he was not. He still may be guilty of the other things but those are just rumors. For the most part I think it was the other officer that catalyzed the bigotry into what appears to be coordinated ethnic-religious cleansing. I guess if push comes to shove we can use names if necessary but in general its immaterial to what can be learned from this situation for other people, agencies and lower class/caste Americans subject to similar behaviors (The people we often forget about and our politicians often ignore. We call them the 'little people'.).
Let me leave you with a couple of thoughts on third world corruption and first world failures. When these situations happen and they are unable to correct we do need to fix it. It would be immoral on my part to not create the pressures needed for them to solve this problem. Do their duties and protect the entire population and not just their friends or people who they believe are like them (i.e. their clan). While there are many in our country who do not believe in human rights and a unified society there are many I believe still do. Democracy will stumble if we do not stand boldly against hate and their supporters (Be truthful and not reckless. Its about improvement). These are my American principles.
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