“[H]ow many people get struck by lightning? Several hundred every year. And how many get caught on tape? I’ve never seen one, though they may be out there. Cameras aren’t always running in all places, so if something does get caught on tape, especially more than once, it’s a safe bet that it happens a lot when tape isn’t rolling. To think that police abuse is rare, and that by blind luck the bad apples happen to get caught on tape, is naive, in addition to being statistically clueless. If it happens once on tape, it most likely happened a hundred times not on tape. (Thankfully, the advent of handheld cameras is starting to prove that, by giving us a seemingly endless supply of evidence of police abuse and brutality.) So, are you infuriated enough? Well, try this. The sentences of the five fascists caught torturing, and threatening to kill someone, in order to coerce him into surrendering his constitutional rights, ranged from just over four years to six years. What do you think you would get if you tortured a cop? You’d get dead. That’s what you’d get.” (08/26/08)