The ACLU just filed a lawsuit against everybody in the Baton Rouge Police Department

[babylonsister]

http://www.dailykos.com/stories/2016/7/13/1547991/-The-ACLU-just-filed-a-lawsuit-against-everybody-in-the-Baton-Rouge-Police-Department?_=2016-07-13T14%3A02%3A34.507-07%3A00%3Fdetail%3Dfacebook


The ACLU just filed a lawsuit against everybody in the Baton Rouge Police Department
By Walter Einenkel
Wednesday Jul 13, 2016 · 5:02 PM EST


BATON ROUGE, LA -JULY 09: Baton Rouge police rush the crowd of protesters and start making arrest on July 9, 2016 in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Alton Sterling was shot by a police officer in front of the Triple S Food Mart in Baton Rouge on July 5th, leading the Department of Justice to open a civil rights investigation. (Photo by Mark Wallheiser/Getty Images)


A lot of people who support the Second Amendment in our country have a hard time reconciling the First Amendment of our Bill of Rights. When Alton Sterling was murdered, on camera, it reignited the traditional media’s attention towards the serious life and death circumstances that many citizens in our country have been toiling under for hundreds of years. Activists and the community around Baton Rouge, Louisiana, where Alton Sterling lived and died, organized and began to stage peaceful protests throughout Baton Rouge. The Baton Rouge Police Department isn’t racist as shit for nothing, and they have been responding in totalitarian-like ways to these protests. Enough is enough, say activists and the ACLU—we have a right to be angry and loud and demanding of our government and our government’s agencies.

So in our grand American tradition, residents sought to make their voices heard, to speak truth to power about police use of force, to object to the death of Black men in police custody, and to say that Black lives matter. To do this, they spilled out onto the city’s streets and sidewalks — the very places which the Supreme Court has described as having “immemorially been held in trust for the use of the public” as the place to exercise our constitutional liberties.

But it doesn’t appear that the law enforcement agencies in Baton Rouge care much for our Constitution, or for the liberties of its own citizens. Instead officers have shown naked hostility to the constitutional rights of the citizens they have a duty to serve. That’s why today the ACLU of Louisiana is going to court on behalf of community organizations like Black Youth Power 100 New Orleans, New Orleans Workers’ Center for Racial Justice, and Louisiana Chapter of the National Lawyers’ Guild to seek an emergency order to ensure that the police in Baton Rouge obey the Constitution. It’s not the first time an ACLU affiliate has stepped up to challenge the cops reacting to protests over police accountability — and while I hope it’s the last, it won’t be.

The Baton Rouge Police Department must stop trampling over the rights of the citizens of the United States. That’s not an opinion, that’s a fact of their sworn oath.

[guillaumeb]

1. Recommended. Excellent post and opinion

I especially liked:

The Baton Rouge Police Department must stop trampling over the rights of the citizens of the United States. That’s not an opinion, that’s a fact of their sworn oath.

And they receive training in how to both keep order and respect the rights of citizens. If rights can be ignored whenever they are exercised they are not rights.

from Ferguson, to Chicago, to Baton Rouge, the conduct of the police makes it quite clear that separate but unequal is still in effect. Could the very racism exhibited by the police in these instances (and countless other s) have planted the seeds of Dallas?

[bjobotts]

4. "Planted"? More like cultivated the seeds of Dallas

[Cali_Democrat]

2. Why are those cops dressed like stormtroopers? Do they even realize how foolish they look?

[bjobotts]

3. That's the military, combat ready. Not police.The police are supposed to be peace officers.

These guys are dressed for war.

[Angry Dragon]

5. They look like a bunch of guys playing war games

[bench scientist]

7. yes, so much this ^^^

[uponit7771]

6. BRPD seems to be the total opposite of Dallas PD. I would hate to live with such oppression

[reign88]

8. This is going to get so much worse

I just hope that in the end, it's better, and not just a hell hole for all of us.

Crazy times, first daughter on the way into the world and I wonder what I am bringing her into.

[Silver_Witch]

9. It will be okay Reign88!

Change looks scary.. The 60s were terrifying but it changed much! I am hopeful we will get it right this time! Hugs to your wee lassie!

[reign88]

10. Hah!

Thanks for the pep talk

I'm sure it will be fine, but some days it just seems like people are so far apart. It's hard to see the way to come together.

Appreciate the hugs, and am sure she will get plenty more from everyone around her once she gets here!

[Jeffersons Ghost]

11. K&R, aww, what a shame...