Calling all “good” cops to start speaking out against police violence
You are not a good cop if you stay silent in the face of your peer’s brutality. You are morally complicit.
Even if being a police officer paid really well, I would never be part of this morally bankrupt profession. I encourage and assume anybody of similar morality would do the same. Every cop made the choice to become a cop and similarly always has the choice to stop being a cop. Strangely, no one is quitting the DC Police Department in protest of recent abuses. That’s because they are all “bad apples” who endanger us all more than they help us all. Every last one of them. You can’t stay on the DC Police force and not be complicit in their abuses.

When a cop kills a Black people in cold blood, they are immediately protected by peers and their police union. They are given the benefit of every doubt, and their account of the situation is assumed as fact by the media. It is believed by the public. Then, they hardly ever are indicted. When they are, it is even less likely for them to be convicted. They almost always walk free, keeping their jobs, and never missing a paycheck.
How could a person of good moral conscience continue to associate with an organization that operates like that? The police specialize in finding every possible way to kill, beat, or put Black people in jail for doing nothing criminal while simultaneously protecting their peers who commit abusive, violent, and homicidal acts.
Even if they once were “good apples” or decent people, they lose any empathy, humanity, or moral credibility they had when joining the force. Any police officer who sticks around and continues to serve after such atrocities are perpetrated within their department becomes complicit in the abuses/brutality/deaths and should be labeled as criminals for accessory in a crime and obstruction of justice.
There’s never been such thing as a “good cop”, just good PR cops. Peter Newsham, aka “the Public Relations Hack” leads this force of all “bad cops”. He has lied on camera just moments after his officers have murdered. Any police officers choosing to stick around to work with morally bankrupt individuals like Peter Newsham lose their claim of innocence and are guilty by association.
Cops assume criminality by association all the time on the streets, like during the mass indiscriminate arrests of legal protesters exercising First Amendment rights on Inauguration Day. However, when we apply that same standard to them, it’s always “yeah, there will always be a few bad apples, but the overwhelming majority of cops do their jobs well.”
So why don’t officers employed by the DC Police Department play by the same rules?
Let’s pause here, and remind ourselves that the original purpose for police was to protect the property of the wealthy and enforce white supremacy. It still is today.
DC Police murder Terrence Sterling
Let’s review what the DC Police Department as a whole did and are still doing to Terrence Sterling and his family. Yes, the entire DC Police Department is guilty as hell, along with Officer Brian Trainer who murdered Terrence Sterling by shooting him in the back. Officer trainer has spent over 9 months (and still counting) at home getting a paycheck while corrupt and abusive Chief of Police Peter Newsham and his crack public relations consultants have lied and covered for Terrence Sterling’s killer.
#DefendJ20 & our disappearing rights to protest
On Inauguration Day, we witnessed an atrocious broad sweeping criminalization of practitioners of the First Amendment by DC Police. Lawful protesters, credentialed journalists, legal observers, medical support, children and the elderly were all “kettled” and arrested, assaulted, pepper sprayed, stinger grenade-ed, rubber bulleted, and tear gassed all while being subjected to horrific arrest conditions which included no access to bathrooms or food for inhumane periods of time.

The unconstitutionally arrested protesters were charged with so many felonies (by design of DC Police and the assistant US Attorney) that they would be risking their entire life as a free human being in standing up to this injustice. Nevertheless many courageously still refuse to take a plea.
Defendants have been charged with 75 years worth of felonies. Others as much as 150 years. Please read their stories below.
Maybe we’re better off without police
Yes it’s the system. AND yes it’s also the morally bankrupt individuals who stick around to aid and abet the cover-up and miscarriage of justice. We must always remember that the status quo of an unjust system can’t continue without consent and complicity. It is all of those who remain on the DC police force who allow and condone the “bad apples” to stay free and let a dangerous fellow cop keep their badge and gun after murdering, assaulting, intimidating, harassing, and/or racially profiling.
There are no “good apples” on the DC police force. That is a myth. The whole barrel has gone bad, and it’s time to throw the whole thing it out.
A Complicit Democratic DC Council
What’s even sadder about this: Washington DC’s Mayor and DC Council are all Democrats, except for one. The Chief of Police, Peter Newsham was appointed by Mayor Muriel Bowser and the DC Council voted almost unanimously to confirm him. The single voice of dissent came from the one independent Council Member, David Grosso.
Note: The mayor is up for reelection next year.
“My greatest fear has always been that I would be afraid — afraid physically or mentally or morally and allow myself to be influenced by fear instead of by my honest convictions.” -Eleanor Roosevelt
