Not a day goes by in the U.S. where you can’t read about some new outrage committed by the police:
Police Invade Texas Woman’s Home At 3 AM For Warrantless “Welfare Check”
Police Barge Into Man’s Home With Guns Drawn Because They Thought He Might Be A Squatter
Deputy Handcuffs 8-Year-Old Student and Watches As He Sobs In Agony
Those are all real headlines from the U.S.
Well it looks like the police thugs in Australia are eager to step up their game and see if they can hang with the big boys on the police terror block.
Up to six police cars responded to a call from security when a group of tourists at the beer garden at the world-famous Bondi Hotel wouldn’t stop singing DJ Otzi’s “Hey Baby.”
A patron who witnessed the melee reported that after one patron commented that he wanted to go to a karaoke bar, someone suggested they just sing there in the beer garden. Reportedly nearly the entire patio broke into song, starting with Ben E. King’s “Stand By Me.” But the scene hardly seems like the kind of thing requiring a massive show of force from the state.
Said patron Joshua Duffy, “…everyone was singing. People were hugging each other. I’ve never seen the Bondi Hotel like that. It was amazing.”
Amazing or not, when security staff tried to quiet the group and was ignored, they decided to call in Australia’s finest. Six or so police cars rolled up, and the Keystone (Koala?) Kops rolled up on the patrons–brandishing batons. According to Duffy, one woman was pushed to the ground and hit her head, and at least two men were handcuffed on the ground.
All for singing DJ Otzi.
Maybe if they had sung Adele instead?
In all seriousness, the problem of police overreaction is global and it has reached proportions that would be laughable were the results of their behavior not so uniformly bloody and violent. There was a time when–at least in theory–cops and everyone else understood what the notion of “protect and serve” really meant. Police knew they existed at our request and served at our pleasure.
They knew they were here for us, not against us.
And sure, there have always been people drawn to positions of authority because they are bullies and thugs. There has always been some percentage of people in those types of jobs who like to hurt people.
But these days it is becoming ever more apparent that the ranks of police forces around the world are not just garnished with a light dusting of fascist thugs–they are littered with them.
And as even the most astute, disinterested observer has to finally sit up and take notice: this is a trend that has gone on for some time and it continues.
And if we can agree that the problems of over-control and over-reaction by police is trending upward, the logical question to follow is what is it trending toward? Where are we going? What are we being conditioned to accept?
There was a time when people who spoke of the threat of a police state were relegated to the proverbial dustbin and ignored as wild-eyed cranks. But you’d have to be blind not to sense that the power of the state is massing, flexing its muscles. They are going somewhere with this. To pretend otherwise is to hide your head in the sand.
www.vice.com/en_au/read/cops-raided-the-bondi-hotel-because-backpackers-kept-singing-hey-baby