The American Police - A well deserved Barf Award

I regularly read the news that spills across the pond and I cannot help but thank my lucky stars that I do not live in the United States. I know that the U.K. is not the happiest place on the face of the planet, but the U.S. is one completely screwed up society. And I am not even going to mention their bankrupt political system.

What I do notice is that the actions of the U.S. police are, by any reasonable standards, called into question with unswerving regularity. They so often seem to take the heavy-handed, trigger-happy approach to dealing with the most mundane of incidents - with death or serious injury a regular outcome.

American Police - Issuing a parking ticket

Last week, a primary school pupil was arrested and detained for not clearing up a mess he had made in his school cafeteria. Earlier this week, a man reported to be carrying a rifle in a shopping mall was stopped by police. Even after the 'rifle' had been shown to be an umbrella, he was still searched, frisked, questioned and detained. As many commentators stated at the time - why? You wouldn't do that to a regular person carrying an umbrella, so once the mistake had been detected, why was this man further inconvenienced? Because they can. Because they do. Because they are inclined to do so.

The latest incident involves a man in Florida reported to police as acting 'strangely'. How threatening could this strange behaviour be, I wonder? Well, the report suggested he was 'kind of pacing around, grabbing his beard, grabbing his head and hair'. Wow! Send in the cavalry! We can't have that sort of thing going on. He was approached by five officers, tasered, arrested - and died. Well, that was a fair outcome, wasn't it? All that arm waving deserved nothing less than death.

This wouldn't warrant a mention if it was just an isolated incident. But it is not. The problem with the U.S. is that these incidents fail to register much sympathy with the public - which is why they continue to happen. There is a sense that dealing with the poor, the mentally-ill, and the down-trodden in this manner is generally accepted. There is a dearth of compassion for the most unfortunate members of society which is reflected in their politics at all levels - which often results in them being criminalised for the most pathetic of reasons. Even the idea of state-sponsored welfare or medical care for the poorest regularly receives the harshest of condemnations from 'ordinary' americans.

American Dream - Just don't wake up poor

The questions that I would like answered are...

• Why did five officers dealing with a single unarmed person need to use a taser?
• Why does a confused or mentally-ill individual have to be treated as a criminal?
• Why do these regular stories about taser-related deaths seem to make no impact on their use?

Given that I do not expect an answer, and until the next story like this, it is my solemn duty to award the american police - in recognition of their default, over-zealous approach to even mundane incidents - a Barf Award. American Police (and the system that supports it)... you make me sick.