
In many respects, America has two sets of de facto laws: one set for regular people, another for police officers. Police officers routinely and seriously violate people’s rights—as by invading their homes without good reason, killing their pets, and assaulting them—and at most, rarely, they get fired from their jobs. Of course most cops are very good people and good at their jobs, but obviously not all of them are. If regular people acted violently the way some police officers act, they’d quickly face criminal prosecution. Not only do police officers hardly ever face criminal prosecution for their crimes, they hardly ever face any penalty of consequence. The Denver Post discusses a recent example. In court, a Denver sheriff’s deputy slammed an inmate “face-first into a metal window frame”—possibly a criminal act as defined by law. If you or I did that to someone, we’d be sitting behind bars. The deputy got a thirty-day suspension. When will district attorneys get serious about their jobs and prosecute abusive cops for the crimes they commit?