LadyKate wrote:
Wow I forgot about that guy...I remember watching a documentary about him a looooong time ago. He still has supporters?
Yes, because while half of the population of the country has been trained from a young age that police officers are beyond reproach (like you profess about your own upbringing), the other half has had dealings with the police wherein the police were, to put it bluntly, stereotypical pigs. This does not cause us to believe that all police are evil, vicious thugs, but we are certainly not willing to rule it out. Most police don't find themselves shooting someone's dog on a camera. This is sort of like how most black people who receive poor service at Burger King manage not to riot and destroy the store, and how most pop singers manage not to piss on fifteen year-old girls.
I digress. Much of Mumia's support stems not from a sincere belief that he's innocent, but rather a sincere belief that the country needs fewer police officers like Daniel Faulkner. I don't know what sort of police officer he was, but also bear in mind that I'm not out marching to free Mumia, either.
Police are funny that way. It's not immediately apparent which are more concerned with upholding their own authority rather than the law, and you can't rely on other police officers for hints, either. A pig will most certainly rush to the defense of another pig out of solidarity for their porcine brethren, but a police officer who is otherwise a paragon of the badge will also rush to the defense of a pig out of a misguided belief that the pig is as upstanding as himself. Police are aware of the existence of pigs, but tend to favor the notion that pigs exist in
other precincts.
Getting back to the subject of Mumia, you must realize that happened during the early 80s. At this time, police brutality, which was not widely publicized, was a fairly typical interaction between police officers and anyone who wasn't white. NWA's classic,
**** Tha Police, was not original subject matter. You can find funk, soul, and reggae classics from the 60s and 70s that make mention of police brutality as well. Rodney King's treatment at the hands of the LAPD was a fact of life for them, and had been for decades. He was just the first time someone actually caught it on camera and could prove that it happened. As a matter of fact, it's still a reality for non-whites to this day.
Much like the conflict between Israel and Palestine, this doesn't mean that we are necessarily talking about upright citizens. However, just because someone might be guilty, and probably is guilty, does not make it acceptable for the police to behave in the manner that we see in that infamous video footage. That's why their acquittal sparked riots. The outcome of that trial taught a very valuable lesson to everyone involved. You, raised to believe that police officers were beyond reproach, had your perception validated. They surely would not have been acquitted if they hadn't been acting appropriately in response to something that was conveniently left out of the video, now would they? Others took a very different lesson from the trial - the lesson that there is no justice achieved through the United States legal system. The very system that is supposed to ensure justice is instead actively protecting thugs with badges.
So, when a police officer like Daniel Faulkner is killed, it represents that very justice that they would be denied ten years later during the original proceedings over the Rodney King beating. That is why Mumia still has supporters. If he's innocent, then he's wrongfully incarcerated. If he did, in fact, kill Daniel Faulkner, then he delivered that real and tangible justice. Daniel Faulkner's reputation as a police officer is somewhat immaterial, because all of his supporters' experience with the police tells them that they're the biggest street gang in L.A. (Or whatever city they happen to reside in).
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I didn't even say anything else.
