William J. Bratton Quotes
Stop-and-frisk is not something that you can stop. It is an absolutely basic tool of American policing. It would be like asking a doctor to give an examination to you without using his stethoscope.
Bratton, William J. Interview. Face the Nation, CBS, 18 Aug. 2013.
In many cases of police brutality, the police arrest the victim and the prosecutor agrees to drop the criminal charges if the victim agrees not to file a police brutality complaint. In Rangel’s youth there were no police review boards and if police beat young men, they were usually able to get away with it, unless the victims happened to be from rich, powerful families. In modern times, the police still get away with brutality but more and more are caught and prosecuted. However, the less police brutality is in large part due to the increased professionalism among police officers brought about by higher qualifications and much better training.
The NRA has not only become extremely right wing organization from its early non-partisan posture, but a few of the officers have demonstrated an anti-government paranoia that most extremists would think extreme such as this quotation. Here he is on political company with the Black Panthers, the KKK, the Aryan Nation and the most extreme of the “lunatic fringe”
This statement by the police commissioner was very controversial as a major form of police brutality at the time was clubbing citizens with their nightsticks which were much larger and heavier than those used today. However the effect on the police officers was to green light heavy use of the nightstick and soon there was a major incident where the police badly beat many innocent citizens in their quest to control and punish alleged leftists. Whalen was forced to resign. See {626664} and {626663}.
The judge found that Blacks and Hispanics were stopped and frisked at a much higher rate than whites despite the fact that whites, when they were stopped and searched had a higher rate of carrying an illegal gun or illegal substances.
The police knew she was a leftist but most didn’t really understand what that meant. In those days, police were not very well educated and many had no more than a few grades of elementary school. They were assigned to keep order at her public speeches (where there were sometimes protestors threatening violence), but the police would often erroneously assume that something she would say was illegal—freedom of speech was not what it is today. She was quite used to the harassment. Most police at the beginning of the 21st century are still generally undereducated with only a small minority being college graduates.
William Joseph Bratton CBE is an American law enforcement officer and businessman who served two terms as the New York City Police Commissioner (1994–1996 and 2014–2016). He previously served as the Commissioner of the Boston Police Department (BPD) (1993–1994) and Chief of the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) (2002–2009). He is the only person to have led the police departments of the United States' two largest cities – New York and Los Angeles.
