Quotes about police
page 8

“Regarding international affairs, Putin pursues polices that he believes serve Russia’s national interests, with little attention paid to American interests.”

Майкл Энтони Макфол (1963)

“The two men were greedily hunched over the table, like two wolves disputing a carcass, but their muttered speech in the echoing hall resembled more the grunting of pigs. One was less than a wolf: he was a public prosecutor. The other was more than a pig, he was a chief commissioner of police.”

Jan Neruda (1834–1891) Czech poet, theater reviewer, publicist and writer

Men, Wolf

“Where I grew up - I grew up on the north side of Akron, lived in the projects. So those scared and lonely nights - that's every night. You hear a lot of police sirens, you hear a lot of gunfire. Things that you don't want your kids to hear growing up.”

LeBron James (1984) American basketball player

Night

“Owners are the shareholders, living outside the process of production, idling in distant countryhouse and maybe gambling at the exchange. A shareholder has no direct connection with the work. His property does not consist in tools of him to work; with his property consists simply in pieces of paper, in shares of enterprises of which he does not even know the hereabouts. His function in society is that of a parasite. His ownership does not mean that he commands and directs the machines; this is the sole right of the director. It means only that he may claim a certain amount of money without having to work for it. The property in hand, his shares, are certificates showing his right - guaranteed by law and government, by courts and police - to participate in the profits; titles of companionship in that large Society for Exploitation of the World, that is capitalism.”

Antonie Pannekoek (1873–1960) Dutch astronomer and Marxist theorist

Source: Workers Councils (1947), Chapter One, The Task, Section 1.2

Money, World, Law, Distant

“After meeting Mr Modi, I was moved by his sincerity. I found him to be fair and sincere in terms of his intention to end the riots. He seemed worried and sad because his police had failed him in ending this violence; he wanted me to take whatever steps I deemed fit to end this violence and assured me whole-hearted support... I realised that people of all political parties, who were anti-Modi and anti-BJP, were taking advantage of this mayhem and making all efforts to defame Modi one way or the other.”

Kanwar Pal Singh Gill (1934–2017) Indian police officer

K.P.S. Gill, Central Government appointed special advisor to Gujarat CM, May 2002 in Madhu Purnima Kishwar: Modi, Muslims and Media. Voices from Narendra Modi’s Gujarat, Manushi Publications, Delhi 2014.

People, Sadness, Making love, Way

“In the midst of increasing mechanization and technological organization, propaganda is simply the means used to prevent these things from being felt as too oppressive and to persuade man to submit with good grace. When man will be fully adapted to this technological society, when he will end by obeying with enthusiasm, convinced of the excellence of what he is forced to do, the constraint of the organization will no longer be felt by him; the truth is, it will no longer be a constraint, and the police will have nothing to do. The civic and technological good will and the enthusiasm for the right social myths — both created by propaganda — will finally have solved the problem of man.”

Jacques Ellul book Propaganda: The Formation of Men's Attitudes

Vintage, p. xviii
Propaganda: The Formation of Men's Attitudes (1962)

Truth, Problem

“Very few crooks perform with a police audience.”

Robert LeFevre (1911–1986) American libertarian businessman

Source: Good Government: Hope or Illusion? (1978), p. 14

“All the police are going to get me for is running a funeral parlor without a license.”

John Wayne Gacy (1942–1994) American serial killer and torturer

Quoted in Wolcott, Martin Gilman The Evil 100 https://books.google.com/books?id=AqAtjVMGnLIC&pg=PA150&lpg=PA150&dq=john+gacy+funeral+parlor+license&source=bl&ots=koZRMY2U1t&sig=ACfU3U0Xvi5XTOq4hbVXOKgS5ZCkpW977A&hl=en&ppis=_e&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiHzZC_ntfmAhWGKs0KHbNBCQAQ6AEwDXoECAoQAQ#v=onepage&q=john%20gacy%20funeral%20parlor%20license&f=false Citadel Press 2004 p. 150.

“The persecution of Julian Assange is the conquest of us all: of our independence, our self respect, our intellect, our compassion, our politics, our culture. So stop scrolling. Organise. Occupy. Insist. Persist. Make a noise. Take direct action. Be brave and stay brave. Defy the thought police. War is not peace, freedom is not slavery, ignorance is not strength. If Julian can stand up, so can you: so can all of us.”

John Pilger (1939) Australian journalist

The Prisoner Says No to Big Brother, CounterPunch, https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/03/04/the-prisoner-says-no-to-big-brother/ (4 March 2019)

War, Making love, Peace, Freedom

“The writer Arundhati Roy asserted that a pregnant Muslim woman had been murdered and then her foetus ripped from her womb by rioters. When it became clear that nobody knew of the incident and Roy was asked to come and help the police inquiry to find the unfortunate victim, she replied through her lawyers that there was no power which could compel her to attend. She claimed in addition that Ehsan Jafri’s daughters had been murdered alongside him at Gulbarg Society. This prompted Jafri’s son to write from the United States that there was only one daughter and she was in the US with him.”

Arundhati Roy (1961) Indian novelist, essayist

Marino, Andy (2014). Narendra Modi: A political biography. Ch. 7.

Help, Daughters

“In a situation like the one that prevails in Gujarat, when the police are reluctant to register firs, when the administration is openly hostile to those trying to gather facts, and when the killings go on unabated—then panic, fear and rumour play a pivotal role. People who have disappeared are presumed dead, people who have been dismembered and burnt cannot be identified, and people who are distraught and traumatised are incoherent…. This and other genuine errors in recounting the details of the violence in Gujarat in no way alters the substance of what journalists, fact-finding missions, or writers like myself are saying.”

Arundhati Roy (1961) Indian novelist, essayist

Arundhati Roy, To the Jaffri Family, An Apology . May 27, 2002 . Quoted from The God of false things : How Arundhati Roy creates fake news and gets away with it https://www.opindia.com/2017/05/the-god-of-false-things-how-arundhati-roy-creates-fake-news-and-gets-away-with-it/

Hostility, People, Fear, Way

“The whole notion of loyalty inquisitions is a national characteristic of the police state, not of democracy. The history of Soviet Russia is a modern example of this ancient practice. I must, in good conscience, protest against any unnecessary suppression of our rights as free men. We must not burn down the house to kill the rats.”

Adlai Stevenson (1900–1965) mid-20th-century Governor of Illinois and Ambassador to the UN

Voicing opposition to the McCarran Internal Security Act of 1950

Men, Democracy, History, Housing

“Like a good doctor, an intelligent machine is not something we should be afraid of. At best, AI will provide us the smartest teachers, advisers, personal assistants, doctors, police officers, judges, peacekeeping forces, and first responders for search and rescue operations. It may even help us to colonize other planets. At worst, it will put us on a leash to prevent ourselves from hurting one another and destroying the planet.”

Newton Lee American computer scientist

The Transhumanism Handbook, 2019

Search, Intelligence, Teachers, Help

“The real heroes are scientists who are protecting humans from deadly bacteria and viruses, astronomers and planetary defense teams who are watching the sky for Near-Earth Objects (NEOs), police and firefighters who risk their lives to protect people, teachers who toil to educate their students, parents who make sacrifices for their children, and volunteers who devote their time and energy to serve others.”

Newton Lee American computer scientist

The Transhumanism Handbook, 2019

Children, People, Education, Making love

“I’m disappointed in you, Mo: How could you imagine that the militarization of the police might be seen as a huge potential growth market by defense contractors?”

Charles Stross The Laundry Files

“How indeed.”
Source: The Laundry Files, The Annihilation Score (2015), Chapter 14, “Infected” (p. 284)

Disappointment, Imagination

“Since the rape, it has felt like I’ve faced an unimaginable battering – first in going to the police, being in front of officers who don’t understand you. Then when you say it publicly, there are people who don’t believe you, who mock you. Or there are people who believe it but say it’s your own fault. Before this, I had heard a lot of women talking about the fact they weren’t believed. And when History of Violence was published, I realised the full extent of what those women had gone through.”

Édouard Louis (1992) French writer

On the aftermath of being sexual assaulted and his book History of Violence in “Édouard Louis: 'I want to be a writer of violence. The more you talk about it, the more you can undo it'” https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/jun/09/edouard-louis-i-want-to-be-a-writer-of-violence-the-more-you-talk-about-it-the-more-you-can-undo-it in The Guardian (2018 Jun 9)

Women, People, History, Understanding

“On Monday, as looting and violence spread across several cities, Ms. Añez at first appeared rattled, sobbing as she called for calm. But by the evening, she was projecting strength, and demanding that the army accept the national police’s call to jointly patrol the streets of La Paz to restore order.”

Jeanine Áñez (1967) President of Bolivia

Clifford Krauss https://www.nytimes.com/by/clifford-krauss, in ‘I Assume the Presidency’: Bolivia Lawmaker Declares Herself Leader https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/12/world/americas/evo-morales-mexico-bolivia.html, The New York Times, (12 November 2019) About

Appearance

“Hours after the swearing-in ceremony, a New York Times reporter watched about 20 motorbike-riding civilians armed with metal pipes and chains travel out of Cochabamba’s main police station, as police officers saluted them and gave thumbs up on the way out. The riders did not carry any political affiliation, but Cochabamba’s Police Headquarters had flipped its allegiance to the opposition last Saturday, triggering a national wave of police mutiny that brought Ms. Añez to power.”

Jeanine Áñez (1967) President of Bolivia

Way, Travel, Time

“Only the news concerning Black people made any impact at all on me. And it seemed that each year the news got worse. The first of the really bad news that i remember was Montgomery, Alabama. That was when i first heard of Martin Luther King. Rosa Parks had been arrested for refusing to give her seat to a white woman. The Black people boycotted the buses. It was a nasty struggle. Black people were harassed and attacked and, if i remember correctly, Martin Luther King’s house was bombed. Then came Little Rock. I can still remember those ugly, terrifying white mobs attacking those little children who were close to my own age. When the news about Little Rock came on, you could hear a pin drop at my house. We would all sit there horrified. Sometimes, afterward, somebody would say something, but usually we would just sit there lost in our own thoughts. I guess there was nothing to say. And each year i would sit in front of that box, watching my people being attacked by white mobs, being bitten by dogs, beaten and water-hosed by police, arrested and murdered. Then the news seemed too real.”

Assata Shakur (1947) American activist who was a member of the Black Panther Party and Black Liberation Army

Source: Assata: In Her Own Words, p. 73

Bad luck, Children, People, Age

“The police confront dangers and social miseries of a kind most of us can only imagine. They deal with the waste products of a competitive corporate society: the ill-fed, the ill-housed, the desperate, and the defeated. The slums are not the problem, they are the solution; they are the way capitalism deals with the surplus people of a market economy. And for all they cost the taxpayer in crime, police and welfare, the slums remain a source of profit for certain speculators, arsonists, realtors, big merchants, and others.”

Michael Parenti (1933) American academic

Source: Democracy for the Few (2010 [1974]), sixth edition, Chapter 8

People, Way, Imagination, Problem

“Humanity many times has had sad experience of superpowerful police forces…As soon as (the police) slip out from under the firm thumb of a suspicious local tribune, they become arbitrary, merciless, a law unto themselves. They think no more of justice, but only of establishing themselves as a privileged and envied elite. They mistake the attitude of natural caution and uncertainty of the civilian population as admiration and respect, and presently they start to swagger back and forth, jingling their weapons in megalomaniac euphoria. People thereupon become not masters, but servants. Such a police force becomes merely an aggregate of uniformed criminals, the more baneful in that their position is unchallenged and sanctioned by law. The police mentality cannot regard a human being in terms other than as an item or object to be processed as expeditiously as possible. Public convenience or dignity means nothing; police prerogatives assume the status of divine law. Submissiveness is demanded. If a police officer kills a civilian, it is a regrettable circumstance: the officer was possibly overzealous. If a civilian kills a police officer all hell breaks loose. The police foam at the mouth. All other business comes to a standstill until the perpetrator of this most dastardly act is found out. Inevitably, when apprehended, he is beaten or otherwise tortured for his intolerable presumption. The police complain that they cannot function efficiently, that criminals escape them. Better a hundred unchecked criminals than the despotism of one unbridled police force.”

Jack Vance Demon Princes

Source: Demon Princes (1964-1981), The Star King (1964), Chapter 3 (pp. 32-33)

People, Sadness, Justice, Law

“The police department and the armed forces are the two arms of the power structure, the muscles of control and enforcement. They have deadly weapons with which to inflict pain on the human body. They know how to bring about hirrble deaths. They have clubs with which to beat the body and the head. They have bullets and guns with which to tear holes in the flesh, to smash bones, to disable and kill. They use force, to make you do what the deciders have decided you must do.”

Eldridge Cleaver (1935–1998) American activist

"Domestic Law and International Order"
1960s, Soul on Ice (1968)

Death, Pain, Making love, Tear

“Accustomed as we are by hereditary prejudices an absolutely unsound education and training to see Government, legislation and magistracy everywhere around, we have come to believe that man would tear his fellow man to pieces like a wild beast the day the police took his eye off him; that chaos would come about if authority were overthrown during a revolution. And with out eyes shut we pass by thousands and thousands of human groupings which form themselves freely, without any intervention of the law, and attain results infinitely superior to those achieved under government tutelage.”

Peter Kropotkin book The Conquest of Bread

Ch 11 : Free Agreement
The Conquest of Bread (1892)

Education, Law, Tear, Training

“The dictator does not consider his power firmly established until he has reached the point where there is no man under him who is of any worth. … This method tyrants use of stultifying their subjects cannot be more clearly observed than in what Cyrus did with the Lydians after he had taken Sardis, their chief city, and had at his mercy the captured Croesus, their fabulously rich king. When news was brought to him that the people of Sardis had rebelled, it would have been easy for him to reduce them by force; but being unwilling either to sack such a fine city or to maintain an army there to police it, he thought of an unusual expedient for reducing it. He established in it brothels, taverns, and public games, and issued the proclamation that the inhabitants were to enjoy them. He found this type of garrison so effective that he never again had to draw the sword against the Lydians. These wretched people enjoyed themselves inventing all kinds of games, so that the Latins have derived the word from them, and what we call pastimes they call ludi, as if they meant to say Lydi. Not all tyrants have manifested so clearly their intention to effeminize their victims; but in fact, what the aforementioned despot publicly proclaimed and put into effect, most of the others have pursued secretly as an end.”

Étienne de La Boétie book Discourse on Voluntary Servitude

Part 2
Discourse on Voluntary Servitude (1548)

People, Game, Drawing

“I was informed by the Federal Police and the Justice Ministry that my cell phones were invaded by the gang arrested on Tuesday, 23. A serious attempt against Brazil and its institutions. May they be harshly punished! Brazil is no longer land without law.”

Jair Bolsonaro (1955) Brazilian president elect

On Twitter on 25 July 2019. Brazil: Bolsonaro says his phones were hacked amid fallout over leaked chats https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jul/25/brazil-bolsonaro-phone-hack-report. The Guardian (25 July 2019).

Justice, Law

“Extinction Rebellion are carrying a message we all need to hear. They won’t be silenced by a police crackdown, nor should they be in a free democratic society.”

Caroline Lucas (1960) British politician, MP of the Green Party for Brighton Pavilion and former MEP for South-East England

Cited in "Extinction Rebellion begins legal challenge against protest ban" https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2019/oct/24/extinction-rebellion-begin-legal-challenge-against-protest-ban, The Guardian, 24 October 2019. 2019

Silence

“More than two million people in the United States are behind bars, a higher rate of incarceration than any other country in the world, constituting a new Jim Crow. The total population in prison is nearly equal to the number of people in Houston, Texas, the fourth largest U. S. city. African Americans and Latinos make up 56 percent of those incarcerated, while constituting only about 32 percent of the U. S. population. Nearly 50 percent of American adults, and a much higher percentage among African Americans and Native Americans, have an immediate family member who has spent or is currently spending time behind bars. Both black men and Native American men in the United States are nearly three times, Hispanic men nearly two times, more likely to die of police shootings than white men. Racial divides are now widening across the entire planet.”

John Bellamy Foster (1953) Sociology professor and Marxist writer

Capitalism Has Failed—What Next?, 2019

Men, People, World, Making love

“They use their media to assassinate real news. They use their schools to teach children that their president is another Hitler. They use their movie stars and singers and comedy shows and award shows to repeat their narrative over and over again. And then they use their ex-president to endorse the resistance. All to make them march, make them protest, make them scream racism and sexism and xenophobia and homophobia. To smash windows, burn cars, shut down interstates and airports, bully and terrorize the law-abiding until the only option left is for the police to do their jobs and stop the madness. And when that happens, they’ll use it as an excuse for their outrage. The only way we stop this, the only we save our country and our freedom, is to fight this violence of lies with the clenched fist of truth. I’m the National Rifle Association of America, and I’m freedom’s safest place.”

Dana Loesch (1978) American conservative political commentator

April, 2017 in season 2 episode 2 of the NRATV series Freedom's Safest Place and June, 2017 excerpted as a video advertisement for the NRA ([Dana, Loesch, The Violence of Lies, NRATV, Freedom's Safest Place, April 2017, May 20, 2019, https://www.nratv.com/episodes/freedoms-safest-place-season-2-episode-2-the-violence-of-lies]; [N.R.A. Ad Condemning Protests Against Trump Raises Partisan Anger, Jonah, Engel Bromwich, June 29, 2017, The New York Times, https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/29/us/nra-ad-trump-protests.html]; [Secrecy, Self-Dealing, and Greed at the N.R.A., Mike, Spies, April 17, 2019, The New Yorker, https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/secrecy-self-dealing-and-greed-at-the-nra]; [NRA advert calling on Americans to 'fight lies' called 'an open call to violence', Emily, Shugerman, June 29, 2017, The Independent, https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/nra-advert-video-watch-guns-trump-fight-lies-violence-fist-truth-a7815231.html]; [NRA video declares war on liberals, critics say, William, Cummings, USA Today, June 29, 2017, https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/onpolitics/2017/06/30/controversial-nra-video/441506001/]; Live-Streaming the Apocalypse With NRATV, Parker, James, June 2018, The Atlantic https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2018/06/nratv-live-streaming-the-apocalypse/559139/,; [N.R.A. Ad Condemning Protests Against Trump Raises Partisan Anger, Bromwich, Jonah Engel, June 29, 2017, The New York Times, May 20, 2019, en-US, 0362-4331, https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/29/us/nra-ad-trump-protests.html]; [The NRA recruitment video that is even upsetting gun owners, Peter, Holley, June 29, 2017, May 20, 2019, The Washington Post, https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2017/06/29/the-nra-recruitment-video-that-is-even-upsetting-gun-owners/]; [A Chilling National Rifle Association Ad Gaining Traction Online Appears to Be 'An Open Call to Violence', Business Insider, May 20, 2019, Natasha, Bertrand, June 29, 2017, http://www.businessinsider.com/national-rifle-association-ad-call-to-violence-2017-6]; [The NRA just released a violent, terrifying ad, Matthew, Rozsa, June 29, 2017, May 24, 2019, Salon, https://www.salon.com/2017/06/29/the-nra-just-released-a-violent-terrifying-ad/]; [How the N.R.A. Manipulates Gun Owners and the Media, Michael, Luo, w:Michael Luo, August 11, 2017, May 23, 2019, The New Yorker, https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/how-the-nra-manipulates-gun-owners-and-the-media]; [The NRA’s New Scare Tactics, Laura, Reston, October 3, 2017, The New Republic, https://newrepublic.com/article/145001/nra-new-scare-tactic-gun-lobby-remaking-itself-arm-alt-right])

Children, Truth, Making love, School

“The disproportionate use of force is clearly discriminatory. This is not a recipe for good police-community relations.”

Diane Abbott (1953) British Labour Party politician

Met Police 'use force more often' against black people https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-44214748 BBC News (24 May 2018) 2010s, 2018

Communication, Relation ships

“We are determined to protect our freedom of speech and the right to speak our minds without fear of the politically correct thought-police knocking on our doors.”

Gerard Batten (1954) British politician

UKIP aiming to be 'radical, populist' party - Gerard Batten https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-45593648 BBC News (21 September 2018) 2018

Fear, Freedom

“It is said a fish as large as a man has a brain no larger than the kernel of an almond. In all fish and reptiles where there is no great brain development, there is also no conscious sexual control. The lower down in the scale of human development we go the less sexual control we find. It is said that the aboriginal Australian, the lowest known species of the human family, just a step higher than the chimpanzee in brain development, has so little sexual control that police authority alone prevents him from obtaining sexual satisfaction on the streets. According to one writer, the rapist has just enough brain development to raise him above the animal, but like the animal, when in heat knows no law except nature which impels him to procreate whatever the result. Every normal man and Woman has the power to control and direct his sexual impulse. Men and women who have it in control and constantly use their brain cells in thinking deeply, are never sensual.”

Margaret Sanger (1879–1966) American birth control activist, educator and nurse

Source: What Every Girl Should Know (1913), Chapter 4, "Sexual Impulses--Part II", p. 47.

Women, Men, Family, Law

“The media are the enemy of the people. The government, police and social services are responsible for sacrificing a generation of our daughters at the hands of the multiculturalism altar.”

Tommy Robinson (1982) English right-wing activist

Tommy Robinson: Contempt case referred to attorney general https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-45951152 BBC News (23 October 2018) 2018

People, Daughters

“Do you know how many times I have gone into Bedford police station, I have gone into Kempston police station, to say here are comments to kill my family but nothing ever gets done. I have three kids, an innocent wife, my family are scared.”

Tommy Robinson (1982) English right-wing activist

Police probe threats made to EDL founder Tommy Robinson https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-beds-bucks-herts-42816348 BBC News (25 January 2018) 2018

Family, Time

“Let us show the people how it is swindled out of its labor force by country and city capitalists; how it is euchered out of its meagre wages by the house, store, and other lords; how priests of pulpit, press, and party seek to destroy its intellect; how a brutal police is ever ready to maltreat and tyrannize it, and with a soldiery to spill its blood. Patience, at last must forsake it! The people will rebel and crush its foes.”

Johann Most (1846–1906) German-American anarchist politician, newspaper editor, and orator

The Beast of Property (1884)

People, Housing, Patience, Country

“What’s wrong with empowering government? When you give government new powers and responsibilities, you are also increasing its police power. If we put government in charge of a thing — say, ensuring income equality — we are also handing it the power to police that thing nationwide, to impose penalties for breaches of its new regulations, and ultimately to coerce citizens into compliance. At the limit, we grant the state the power to take our money, imprison us, and even execute us if we violate its laws.”

Paul D. Miller (academic) American academic

Why Socialism Is Bad (2018)

Money, Law, Penalty

“In your day fully nineteen twentieths of the crime, using the word broadly to include all sorts of misdemeanors, resulted from the inequality in the possessions of individuals; want tempted the poor, lust of greater gains, or the desire to preserve former gains, tempted the well-to-do. Directly or indirectly, the desire for money, which then meant every good thing, was the motive of all this crime, the taproot of a vast poison growth, which the machinery of law, courts, and police could barely prevent from choking your civilization outright.”

Edward Bellamy (1850–1898) American author and socialist

Source: Looking Backward, 2000-1887 http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/25439 (1888), Ch. 19

Money, Law, Motivation

“I simulate various future scenarios relating to resistance efforts, confrontations with police, future interrogation scenarios, future court appearances, future media interviews etc.”

Anders Behring Breivik (1979) Norwegian mass murderer

Manifesto 22 July 2011

Effort, Appearance, Relation ships, Future

“Where are we going? Where are we headed? Because believe me, it isn’t always the police. There’s two sides to every story, three if the truth’s told. In the backseat, headed somewhere unknown. All alone, my innocence will soon be seized. No permanent friends, no permanent enemies just permanent interest. Its time to fight the powers that be; let em know, we can’t have peace until niggas get a piece too. We’re taught our only option’s to be deceased. Look, I’ll be what you need me to be just know. Where I’m headed could be a rocky road. Shit, this old world is crumbling fast, a new one coming slow but fsho, you better exercise control before THEY take control, ya dig? Rebel with a cause and THEY hate it…”

Marcus Orelias (1993) American actor, rapper, songwriter, author and entrepreneur

Exercise Control
Rebel of the Underground (2013)

Hate, Truth, World, Peace

“America is a fucking police state.”

Krist Novoselic (1965) Croatian-American rock musician

As quoted in New Musical Express (12 November 1991) http://www.nme.com/blogs/nme-blogs/nme-meets-nirvana-in-1991-archive-feature

“This option the consumer retains of being able to buy security wherever he pleases brings about a constant emulation among all the producers, each producer striving to maintain or augment his clientele with the attraction of cheapness or of faster, more complete and better justice.If, on the contrary, the consumer is not free to buy security wherever he pleases, you forthwith see open up a large profession dedicated to arbitrariness and bad management. Justice becomes slow and costly, the police vexatious, individual liberty is no longer respected, the price of security is abusively inflated and inequitably apportioned, according to the power and influence of this or that class of consumers. The protectors engage in bitter struggles to wrest customers from one another. In a word, all the abuses inherent in monopoly or in communism crop up.”

Gustave de Molinari (1819–1912) Belgian political economist and classical liberal theorist

Source: The Production of Security (1849), p. 57-59

Bad luck, Justice, Communication

“We didn’t know that right before us Hari Kunzru and Amitava Kumar had just read from The Satanic Verses in a separate session. The minute I finished, people were queuing for me to sign copies of Narcopolis. But we were taken to this room where Hari and Amitava were sitting and we weren’t allowed to leave. There was a lawyer, there were police on site and they threatened to close down the festival which made all of us feel like shit. I was full of remorse, because the directors are our friends and we knew how much work they had put into it, but I don’t think we were really in trouble. Even though we were told to make ourselves scarce.”

Jeet Thayil (1959) Indian writer

Jeet Thayil: Confessions of an Indian Opium-Eater

People, Making love, Feeling, Thinking

“Is it the part of the police department to harass me when this city is a flagrant vice capital of the civilized world?”

John Kennedy Toole A Confederacy of Dunces

Ignatius bellowed over the crowd in front of the store. "This city is famous for its gamblers, prostitutes, exhibitionists, anti-Christs, alcoholics, sodomites, drug addicts, fetishists, onanists, pornographers, frauds, jades, litterbugs, and lesbians, all of whom are only too well protected by graft."
Source: A Confederacy of Dunces (1980, posthumous), Ch. 1, p. 21

World, Parting

“The lights are going out all over Europe. Anyone who thinks or speaks individually is at risk. Freedom-loving citizens who criticize Islam, or even merely suggest that there is a relationship between Islam and crime or honour killing, must suffer and are threatened or criminalized. Those who speak the truth are in danger. The lights are going out all over Europe. Everywhere the Orwellian thought police are at work, on the lookout for thought crimes everywhere, casting the populace back within the confines where it is allowed to think.”

Geert Wilders (1963) Dutch politician

Speech https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0pfEJaI2iS4 (7 February 2011) 2010s

Love, Truth, Making love, Thinking

“Frick, the ruthless organizer, helped the party to seize power, supervised the police agencies to insure that it stayed in power, and chained the economy of Bohemia and Moravia to the German war machine.”

Wilhelm Frick (1877–1946) German Nazi official

Robert H. Jackson

War, Help

“Television is to news as a bumper sticker is to Shakespeare. I remember hearing an analogy once that went something like that. Your typical nightly, 35-minute TV news broadcast is a headline service with pictures. Five minutes of police-blotter reporting - fires, murders, car accidents, etc.”

Mike Rosen (1944) American political pundit

five minutes of human-interest stories and small talk, five minutes of weather, five minutes of sports, ten minutes of commercials, and maybe a minute or two for business, science, politics, and affairs of the world.
July 3, 1998 Denver Post column

Cars

“Yes, all right, Landsman understands, so go shit in the ocean, that he made not the right but the only choice. He understands that the necessity of covering up for the dark deeds of the boys in the top drawer is one that nozzes have been making into a virtue since the dawn of police work.”

Michael Chabon (1963) Novelist, short story writer, essayist

Source: The Yiddish Policemen’s Union (2007), Chapter 45

Making love, Boy, Understanding

“I felt everything crashing down and I didn't know what to do. It was such a harrowing experience being with his body. I sat in a room with him all night, his body, dealing with the police. And then I had to go to the border and deal with immigration and have all of his papers…By the time I got back to San Diego, I had forgotten English. It took me a minute to get back into being an American. I had only one way to deal with it, which was writing. I had been writing since high school, and so I wrote about it…”

Luis Alberto Urrea (1955) Mexican-American poet

On how his father’s death propelled him towards writing in “Mexican-American Author Finds Inspiration In Family, Tragedy And Trump” https://www.npr.org/2018/03/05/590839936/mexican-american-author-finds-inspiration-in-family-tragedy-and-trump in NPR (2018 Mar 5)

School, Way, Time, Night

“There is nobody in this country who got rich on his own — nobody. You built a factory out there? Good for you. But I want to be clear. You moved your goods to market on the roads the rest of us paid for. You hired workers the rest of us paid to educate. You were safe in your factory because of police-forces and fire-forces that the rest of us paid for. You didn't have to worry that marauding bands would come and seize everything at your factory — and hire someone to protect against this — because of the work the rest of us did. Now look, you built a factory and it turned into something terrific, or a great idea. God bless — keep a big hunk of it. But part of the underlying social contract is, you take a hunk of that and pay forward for the next kid who comes along.”

Elizabeth Warren (1949) 28th United States Senator from Massachusetts

"Address in Andover, Massachusetts" (August 2011)
2011

God, Education, Idea, Parting

“Under the chilling effects generated by Beijing and Hong Kong governments, we are strongly aware how they arrest activists no matter whether they behave progressively or moderately...All we ask for is just to urge Beijing and Hong Kong governments to withdraw the bill, stop police brutality and respond to our calls for a free election.”

Joshua Wong (1996) Hong Kong activist, Secretary-general of Demosistō

August 30, 2019 Hong Kong activists arrested including Joshua Wong in crackdown on protests https://www.reuters.com/article/us-hongkong-protests/hong-kong-activists-arrested-including-joshua-wong-in-crackdown-on-protests-idUSKCN1VK02X?feedType=RSS&feedName=topNews&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+reuters%2FtopNews+%28News+%2F+US+%2F+Top+News%29

“This evening, we know that at least one police officer was killed, and another injured. This imponderable problem, this menace will be part of our daily lives for the years to come. I express all my support in this regard for our police forces and the forces of law and order. I am thinking of the victim's family.””

Emmanuel Macron (1977) 25th President of the French Republic

20 April 2017 https://www.facebook.com/EmmanuelMacron/posts/1951134895119087/ 2017 Original: (fr) Ce soir, on sait qu'au moins un policier a été tué, qu’un autre a été blessé. Cet impondérable, cette menace fera partie du quotidien des prochaines années. Je témoigne toute ma solidarité à l’égard de nos forces de police, de nos forces de l’ordre. J'ai une pensée pour la famille de la victime.

Family, Law, Support, Problem

“Nor at present, nor in the past, we have ever denied,
That your sense of justice is trumpeted far and wide.
Whatever has been happening, we also accept
Fell within the limits of law, with justice as your guide.
Even when you ordered firing on the helpless multitude,
You didn't even by a hair-breadth the law of land defied.
But this truth too cannot be lightly brushed aside,
Thay your act unleashed a deluge of death in the twinkling of an eye,
The handsome youth when they fell before your deadly fire],
Wondered if it was the doom, or the stars shooting from the [[sky.
The arch and pulpit of the mosque were left riddled with bullets,
But the mosque needs perhaps such patterns on its front and sides.
Fast-fettered did they watch, the convicts and the passers-by,
And the police took the stand: How can we, the servants, the sovereign's fiat defy?
But let's state the fact, you may or may not like,
We are the oppressed folk, you are not the oppressor, right!”

Shibli Nomani (1857–1914) Indian scholar

Masterpieces of Patriotic Urdu Poetry, p. 105
Poetry, Oppression

Death, Truth, Youth, Justice

“We are taking responsibility for Slovakia at a time when confidence in police and courts is minimal, when Slovakia tops corruption rankings.. We'll do anything to ensure that citizens will trust their state again.”

Igor Matovič (1973) Slovak politician

Igor Matovic sworn in as Slovakia's prime minister, By Sommer Brokaw, UPI https://www.upi.com/Top_News/World-News/2020/03/21/Igor-Matovic-sworn-in-as-Slovakias-prime-minister/4591584810212/, 21 March 2020

Confidence, Time, Self-confidence

“Modern policing must of course be visible policing and that means community policing, localised policing and having police visibility that police officers are empowered to do their jobs. For too long we’ve had our police forces, police officers tied up with regulation and bureaucracy. I want them to feel free to get on and do their jobs, I want them to know that we will support them.”

Priti Patel (1972) British politician

Said in an interview with the Braintree and Witham Times. Priti Patel interview on stop and search, knife crime, social spending and terror comments https://www.braintreeandwithamtimes.co.uk/news/17832581.priti-patel-interview-stop-search-knife-crime-social-spending-terror-comments/ (14 August 2019) 2019

Feeling, Communication, Support

“I have a rooted hatred to this police establishment; that I hate it, because it is of foreign growth, and because it is French; that I hate it because it really tears up the government; that good-natured government, that gentle, that confiding, that neighbourly and friendly government, under which I was born, and under which my forefathers lived.”

William Cobbett (1763–1835) English pamphleteer, farmer and journalist

Political Register (17 August 1833), p. 386
1830s

Hate, Confidence, Nature, Tear

“[I]f suffering is bad for animals when we cause it, it is also bad for them when other animals cause it. That suffering is bad for those who experience it is not a human prejudice; nor is an effort to prevent wild animals from suffering a moralistic attempt to police the behavior of other animals. Even if we are not morally required to prevent suffering among animals in the wild for which we are not responsible, we do have a moral reason to prevent it, just as we have a general moral reason to prevent suffering among human beings that is independent both of the cause of the suffering and of our relation to the victims. The main constraint on the permissibility of acting on our reason to prevent suffering is that our action should not cause bad effects that would be worse than those we could prevent.”

Jeff McMahan (philosopher) (1954) American philosopher

" The Meat Eaters http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/09/19/the-meat-eaters/", The New York Times, 19 Sept. 2010

Bad luck, Behavior, Effort, Suffering

“Favelas are areas of intense activity of drug trafficking, which promotes constant conflicts between rival gangs and the police. Drug dealers stipulate curfews and prohibit people from hanging out on the streets at certain times. Socialization in the slum, which takes place in the streets, back alleys and squares, ends up being inhibited. The Internet has been a great ally to reconnect family members and friends around the favela, where physical visits to distant areas are not always easy.”

David Nemer

(p. 90)
Favela Digital- The other side of technology. (2013)

People, Family, Distant, Time

“…You can’t separate race from police shooting cases, but you also can’t say that’s the whole story. There’s something out of whack with the way we’ve structured relationships—not just between police officers and civilians, but between strangers of all kinds.”

Malcolm Gladwell (1963) journalist and science writer

Source: On police shootings in “Oprah Talks to Revisionist History's Malcolm Gladwell” https://www.oprahmag.com/entertainment/a28568751/oprah-talks-to-malcolm-gladwell/ in O Magzzine (2019 Aug 7)

Way

“That’s how they beat the living hell out of us across the country, saying that we’re talking about defunding the police. We’re not. We’re talking about holding them accountable. We’re talking about giving them money to do the right things. We’re talking about putting more psychologists and psychiatrists on the telephones when the 911 calls through. We’re talking about spending money to enable them to do their jobs better, not with more force, with less force and more understanding.”

Joe Biden (1942) 47th Vice President of the United States (in office from 2009 to 2017)

2020, December Source: Biden on a call with Civil Rights leaders. ( December 10, 2020 https://theintercept.com/2020/12/10/biden-audio-meeting-civil-rights-leaders/). https://www.cincinnati.com/story/news/2020/12/23/biden-did-not-say-country-doomed-because-african-americans/4034937001/ Fact check: Biden's 'country is doomed' quote is being taken out of context on social media

Money, Hell, Understanding, Country

“Now, what is meant by the union between Church and State? ... I understand by it that authority is to be not merely political; that Government is to be not merely an affair of force, but is to recognize its responsibility to the Divine Power. Sir, we have discarded the divine right of Kings, and properly discarded it, because the divine right of Kings led to the abuse of supernatural power by individuals; but an intelligent age will never discard the divine right of Government. If Government is not divine, it is nothing. It is a mere affair of the police-office, of the tax-gatherer, of the guard-room.”

Benjamin Disraeli (1804–1881) British Conservative politician, writer, aristocrat and Prime Minister

Speech https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1868/apr/03/adjourned-debate#column_917 in the House of Commons (3 April 1868)

Age, Intelligence, Understanding

“Our laws are being disregarded right and left. The mobs are out. The police are being subjected to violence. Intimidation and violence are contrary to the law of the land. It should be condemned by every responsible citizen. We have the finest police force in the world. It is under the Queen that they defend our laws, and it is under the Queen that we should support them.”

Alfred Denning, Baron Denning (1899–1999) British judge

Speech to Justice, London (28 June 1977), quoted in The Times (29 June 1977), p. 4

World, Law, Support

“Unlike the West, which is already nervous about the arrival of refugees, Moscow alone has taken in more Muslims than the whole of Europe has done by now. And nobody in the world is aware of it. And there is no hysteria, no police, no gas, no physical clashes. Of course, problems do arise sometimes with people who arrive but these problems get solved within the law, and most importantly, the good Orthodox-Muslim relations are creating an atmosphere for Muslims here to live peacefully and for the Orthodox to treat Muslims respectfully, with tolerance, like brothers. You probably felt what remarkable, good relations have developed between the Orthodox people and Muslims in Russia. We are very glad that finally this big mosque has been built in the city of Moscow to become a place of prayer for many Muslims who live in Moscow and visit Moscow.”

Patriarch Kirill of Moscow (1946) primate of the Russian Orthodox Church

24 September 2015 http://www.pravmir.com/west-should-learn-from-russia-to-accept-muslim-refugees-patriarch-kirill/ at a meeting with Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas at his residence in Peredelkino, Moscow Region.

People, World, Law, Problem

“The institutions of democracy will be gradually and, if possible, imperceptibly withdrawn. The Press will become a better and better directed and drilled servant of the capitalist class. All other methods of disseminating information, notably the cinema and the wireless, will be more and more consciously monopolized. Power may be gradually withdrawn from a democratically elected Chamber (cf . Reform of the House of Lords in Britain) or alternatively the franchise may be gradually curtailed (cf. the proposals of the British Conservative party for withholding the franchise from persons in receipt of poor relief). At the same time, the habitual regime of police violence will be increased (cf. the present heavy sentences on working-class militants in Britain passed almost openly, not for any specific offence but because the accused were working-class militants, as notably in the case of Arthur Homer; the increasing use of terror in all American wage disputes ; the police regime in France, etc., etc.). This method applies the principle of " the inevitability of gradualness " to the introduction of an open capitalist dictatorship.”

John Strachey (1901–1963) British politician and writer (1901-1963)

Source: The Coming Struggle for Power (1932), p. 268

Democracy, Time, Housing, Personality

“Somebody once said that a wedding is a funeral where you can smell your own flowers. Well, that's a harsh judgement in my book. I prefer to see it as a sexual relationship that is recognised by the police.”

John Cooper Clarke (1951) English performance poet

Series 1 - Twisted Romance (2 Nov 2016)
BBC Radio 4 - Dr John Cooper Clarke at the BBC (Nov 2016)

Books, Flowers, Wedding

“the coolest thing the police ever did was invent their own flag thats just a desecrated version of the american flag”

Dril Twitter user

[ Link to tweet https://twitter.com/dril/status/1228031674413268997] Tweets by year, 2020

“When the police enforce the law, they do so unevenly, in ways that give disproportionate attention to the activities of poor people, people of color, and others near the bottom of the social pyramid. And when the police violate the law, these same people are their most frequent victims.”

Kristian Williams (1974) American historian

at the bottom. Put differently, we might say that the police act to defend the interests and standing of those with power—those at the top. So long as they serve in this role, they are likely to be given a free hand in pursuing these ends and a great deal of leeway in pursuing other ends that they identify for themselves. The laws may say otherwise, but laws can be ignored.
Rights, riots and police brutality, 2020

People, Law, Color, Way

“We are encouraged to think of acts of police violence more or less in isolation, to consider them as unique, unrelated occurrences. We ask ourselves always, “What went wrong?””

Kristian Williams (1974) American historian

and for answers we look to the seconds, minutes, or hours before the incident. Perhaps this leads us to fault the individual officer, perhaps it leads us to excuse him. Such thinking, derived as it is from legal reasoning, does not take us far beyond the case in question. And thus, such inquiries are rarely very illuminating. The shooting of Oscar Grant, the beating of Rodney King, the arrest of Marquette Frye, the killing of Arthur McDuffie — any of these may be explained in terms of the actions and attitudes of the particular officers at the scene, the events preceding the violence (including the actions of the victims), and the circumstances in which the officers found themselves. Indeed, juries and police administrators have frequently found it possible to excuse police violence with such explanations. The unrest that followed these incidents, however, cannot be explained in such narrow terms. To understand the rioting, one must consider a whole range of related issues, including the conditions of life in the Black community, the role of the police in relation to that community, and the history and pattern of similar abuses. If we are to understand the phenomenon of police brutality, we must get beyond particular cases. We can better understand the actions of individual police officers if we understand the institution of which they are a part. That institution, in turn, can best be examined if we have an understanding of its origins, its social function, and its relation to larger systems like capitalism and white supremacy.
Rights, riots and police brutality, 2020

Thinking

“Riots are communities defining what counts as police brutality and to set the limits of authority. It is here, not in the courts, that our rights are established.”

Kristian Williams (1974) American historian

Rights, riots and police brutality, 2020

Communication

“That’s how a police state works - everyone thinks everyone else is the police.”

Trevor Noah book Born a Crime

page 25
Born a Crime

Thinking

“With police wielding unprecedented powers to invade privacy,tap phones and conduct searches seemingly at random,our civil liberties are in a very precarious condition.”

Walter Cronkite (1916–2009) American broadcast journalist

Free the Airwaves! (2002)

“No tyranny can exist without police powers to enforce the ruler's "laws" and punish rebels or free thinkers. The enforcers are called soldiers when sent to other countries and police when operating inside a country. But their function is the same.”

David Lane (white nationalist) (1938–2007) American white supremacist, convicted felon

Focus Fourteen

Law, Country

“The police... should never go on strike. Theirs was an essential service and they should render that service, irrespective of their pay. There were several other effective and honourable means of getting grievances redressed.”

Mahatma Gandhi (1869–1948) pre-eminent leader of Indian nationalism during British-ruled India

In response to representatives of policemen who met him during a police strike in Gaya on March 24, 1947, https://web.archive.org/web/20210807112446/https://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/no-fundamental-right-to-strike/article35732405.ece Posthumous publications (1950s and later)

“I don't cooperate with grand juries or the police ever. That's just my standard policy.”

Chelsea Manning (1987) United States Army soldier and whistleblower

“When you're sitting at home or living at a slower pace and you see that Black folks in your community are attacked, killed, murdered by vigilantes and by the police, you wake up, you rise to action, and you rise quickly.”

Opal Tometi (1984) Nigerian–American writer, strategist and community organizer

Black Lives Matter Was Always Designed to Be a Global Movement, Vice] (7 July 2020)

Home, Communication

“I was interested in giving folks like black, poor people who’ve been marginalized, brutalized, an opportunity to have more visibility. Before seven years ago, we could barely get the news to talk about police violence, let alone police death.”

Opal Tometi (1984) Nigerian–American writer, strategist and community organizer

How the movement that’s changing America was built and where it goes next, By Jamil Smith, Rolling Stone, (16 June 2020)

Death, People

“Charity is system-affirming. It does nothing about the root causes of poverty, criminalization, and racism. It just treats a few of the symptoms selectively. Social justice work is about making it so that no one is poor, homeless, targeted by police, deportable, or exploited.”

Dean Spade (1977) American activist

“Having a Cause” versus Living in a Life Centered in Radical Transformation

Justice

“Before a revolution can take place, the population must lose faith in both the police and the courts.”

Robert A. Heinlein book Friday

Source: Friday (1982), Chapter 23 (pp. 240-241)
Context: “So far as I have listened, before a revolution can take place, the population must lose faith in both the police and the courts.“ Elementary. Go on. “Well…high taxation is important and so is inflation of the currency and the ratio of the productive to those on the public payroll. But that’s old hat; everybody knows that a country is on the skids when its income and outgo get out of balance and stay that way—even though there are always endless attempts to wish it away by legislation.”

Faith

“If we are going to run on Medicare for All, defund the police, socialized medicine, we’re not going to win.”

Jim Clyburn (1940) American politician

Source: https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2020/11/conor-lamb-aoc-democrats-fighting-socialism/617045/ The Democratic Truce Is Over

(November 10, 2020)

“There isn’t any difference between the totalitarian Russian Government and the Hitler government and the Franco government in Spain. They are all alike. They are police state governments.”

Harry Truman (1884–1972) American politician, 33rd president of the United States (in office from 1945 to 1953)

Source: News Conference at Key West, March 30, 1950

“The police have an opportunity to launder their image through positive representation in film.”

Ego Boyo (1968) Nigerian actress and movie producer

Source: https://www.premiumtimesng.com/entertainment/381261-how-nigeria-police-can-improve-image-through-film-ego-boyo.html Boyo talks about police officers portraying a positive view of life.

“There are no words to convey my shock and sadness regarding the tragic accident that took the life of Halyna Hutchins, a wife, mother and deeply admired colleague of ours. I'm fully cooperating with the police investigation to address how this tragedy occurred”

Halyna Hutchins (1979–2021) Ukrainian-American cinematographer and investigative journalist

Source: 22 October 2021 https://twitter.com/AlecBaldwin/status/1451572461787439106 by Alec Baldwin the day after Alec killed her with a firearm

Life, Sadness

“The police don't normally look back and investigate things that have taken place a year ago.”

Dominic Raab (1974) British politician (born 1974)

2020s, 2021 Source: Interviewed on the BBC https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-59532832, talking about enquiries into alleged Downing Street parties during COVID restrictions (5 December 2021)

“The police can live with looking corrupt, bullying, or tyrannical, but looking stupid is intolerable. It has a tendency to undermine public faith in the forces of Law and is deleterious to public order.”

Ben Aaronovitch book Moon Over Soho

Source: Moon Over Soho (2011), Chapter 4, “One-Tenth of My Ashes” (p. 64)

Stupidity, Faith, Law

“Politicians in the city are terrified of political and media backlash for holding antifa and far-left protesters accountable. The local and national media are staunchly on the side of antifa, regardless of their violence against police and property.”

Andy Ngo (1986) American conservative journalist and social‐media personality

Source: Unmasked: Inside Antifa’s Radical Plan to Destroy Democracy (2021), pp. 60-61

“For a decade, I have referred to people who violently assault police officers as terrorists.”

Ted Cruz (1970) American politician

Source: 6 January 2022 https://www.texastribune.org/2022/01/06/ted-cruz-tucker-carlson-capitol-attack/

People

“The truth is, distributing intimate photos with the intent to publish them is a crime, and the perpetrator should be punished to the full extent of the law. I have notified Capitol Police, who are investigating it, and therefore will have no further comment on the matter.”

Katie Hill (politician) (1987) former U.S. Representative from California

Source: "Rep. Katie Hill threatens legal action after another conservative outlet publishes her nude photo" https://www.salon.com/2019/10/25/rep-katie-hill-threatens-legal-action-after-another-conservative-outlet-publishes-her-nude-photo/, Salon (October 25, 2019)

Truth, Law, Photo

“Freedom of expression is one of the foundations of our society. Everyone is free to express their opinion. But our society will never accept indiscriminate violence, and even less towards our police forces.”

Alexander De Croo (1975) Belgian politician

Source: Alexander De Croo (2022) cited in: " Clashes as tens of thousands protest Covid rules in Belgium https://www.malaymail.com/news/world/2022/01/24/clashes-as-tens-of-thousands-protest-covid-rules-in-belgium/2037074" in Malay Mail, 24 January 2022.

Freedom