Cops and crackheads…

I was watching a reality TV show the other day called ‘Cops’ where they trail various ‘law enforcement operatives’ tackling crime in the drug and gun ridden hinterlands. I was struck by how brutal they were. They were basically entrapping drug dealers by setting up a fake deal then they would spring on the dealer. I saw one guy literally rugby tackle a frail looking female crack head and then they all jump on her and put her in cuffs. Now I know she’d broken the law but the force they used seemed to really outweight the situation. The waif like ‘tweaker’ (drug abuser, normally crystal meth) would have had problems wrestling a mouse, let alone a gang of 200 pound burly policemen.

Time and time again they showed different dealers being jumped and then cuffed and bungled into the back of a van. I get the sense out here that the police are over forceful and that this is endemic in a culture that is basically quite macho. It’s the same culture that leads to the gung ho attitude in Iraq, over bearing and brutal.

It seems like its easy to break the law here. I feel like the law are sniffing over your shoulder whatever you do, it’s like a police state. You can’t do this. You can’t do that. You’re not allowed to drink in public. It’s illegal to smoke on the beach. I sometimes sneak a crafty fag on the beach and all the time I get paranoid that a police helicopter will come to the scene and shout at me with a loud speaker:

‘PUT THE CIGARETTE DOWN. SMOKING IS A FEDERAL CRIME. PUT THE SMOKE DOWN AND PUT YOUR HANDS WHERE WE CAN SEE THEM’

and while I’m looking up with my hands down I’m knocked off my feet with a force I haven’t felt since playing rugby at school eons ago.