scaredyclassic — I hope the Santa Monica “hero” gets hit by a bus and ends up a quadriplegic, sucking his supper through a straw. One less violent asshole on the streets, telling people what to do. And hope the victim ends up owning part of the city of Santa Monica, so to speak.

What likely happened was that he saw a Black guy (yep, victim was Black, big surprise) and ass-u-me-d that he was likely up to no good. The park closing in 5 min was just an excuse to check his papers and run him for warrants. If this is appropriate behavior, why don’t they just stop everyone and run them for warrants? That would get the violent felons off the street, per CAr’s line of thinking, so it must be a good idea. Right? Right.

Thing is, cop brutality is dependent on compliance of the public. If everyone refused to show ID to every truffle-sniffer who asked, they couldn’t beat everyone up. Fundamentally, what we need is a less law-abiding society who doesn’t see cops as post-9/11 heroes, just as government functionaries. No better or worse than armed DMV employees. The problem is that 95% of the public has been conditioned to see them as heroes, so they’ve become uppity. Spoiled and used to obsequious respect from the “law abiding” public.