Disneyland: Police State (Anaheim)

Ashley Wells, Pfc. Sandoval, Pat Macpherson, CC Liu, Wisdom Quarterly; The Secret Store

 

DISNEYLAND LAND, California ­­- The happiest place on Earth is within the city limits of a police state, the City of Anaheim. Disneyland itself, as a wealthy and influential private corporation, has always been run by its own authoritarian rules. It's a small and Orwellian world after all, and business is business. But that fantasy used to end at the gate.
   
Now it extends onto the streets. The Tragic Kingdom is located in a city divided between One Percenters catering to a vacationers from all over the world in pricey hotel chains and everyone else (the 99%). Many of the hotel workers are holed up in substandard but overpriced dwellings. Underpaid and overworked, the common person ekes out a living to serve the corporations. And the police keep them in line. Welcome to Orange County.

Mini, Mike, and Walt welcome you. Bring money.

 

In a rising trend all across America, police state tactics are becoming the norm: stop and frisk, "shoot-to-kill first, ask questions later," SWAT teams, mass arrests, crowd control tactics that treat every gathering as a "riot," secret police, the mass incarceration of Hispanic and African-American citizens by design...

• PHOTOS: What approved police abuse looks like (shooting at girls, children, moms, etc.)
• VIDEO: Anaheim shootings and their aftermath

Anaheim unleashes "riot" tactics (LA Times)

Now news outlets repeat the Newspeak: "officer-involved shootings" (police murdering innocent "suspects"). "There will be an internal investigation" (some police will look into what other police, often their friends, have done and say they find it within department policy, necessitating a federal investigation and civil lawsuits).
  
This time it's personal. Family members are outraged and are demonstrating in front of the police. You murdered our sons in cold blood with the flimsiest of excuse:

• "He was running away, so I had to shoot him in the head!"
• "He was guilty of being dark skinned, so I felt threatened."
• "I thought I recognized him as a bad guy, naturally I had to kill him."
• "We didn't get our sensitivity training, so you know this is like 'standard operating procedure' among the guys in the locker room down at the station."

Welcome to Anaheim; now get on your knees!

Do Anaheim residents have a right to complain about gross police misconduct? If they don't like how the police treat them, why don't they move to nearby Fullerton (where a police gang beat a homeless man to death  for the fun of beating a helpless victim they didn't think anyone would care or complain about)?
  
Or why not head west to Los Angeles County where an understaffed LAPD -- with only 10,000 officers -- shows the rest of the nation how aggressive policing is done with impunity?
  
Police executed a man for having the audacity to run away from undercover thug with badges. It wasn't enough to shoot him in the buttocks, for the crime of running away, they took it to a whole new level by shooting him through the head after he was subdued. Why? Why not? Shooting is fun. Extrajudicial executions are fun, and you get a paid vacation while an "investigation" (wink-wink) is being conducted.

The community rose up, and police reacted like a totalitarian force in defense of their comrade's gross misconduct. That wasn't enough. Shooting less-than-lethal munitions at families, siccing a marauding K-9 officer on innocent bystanders (he got away by "accident," they explain), declaring an unlawful assembly (as the video above shows) and repeatedly firing into the crowd -- but it's okay because they're Hispanic.
  
Then the next night the same department executed another suspect, no questions asked. These are fatal, officer-initiated shootings. This one was different because it had the excuse that the suspect shot first ensuring his demise. Did he shoot first? Who knows. An officer only needs to claim that that's what happened and no one will disagree. In fact, they'll come to his defense in every way they can. Mickey Mouse would be proud.
  
Anaheim police department out of control

Do what the corporation says...or else.

Sunday's shooting came the same weekend that Manuel Angel Diaz, 25, was shot to death by an officer in an East Anaheim neighborhood.
  
Authorities said Diaz was shot in the 700 block of North Anna Drive after running from police, but they did not reveal what led to the shooting. The incident prompted protests from residents, who [allegedly] threw [empty water] bottles and [pebbles in the general direction of] police [necessitating a draconian reaction of gunfire, riot tactics, arrests, and an all out show of force with a helicopter and additional deputized Sheriff back up]. A makeshift memorial marks the site where Diaz was shot, with dozens of candles, flowers, and signs -- most of which are critical of police. One read: "There's blood on their badges." Said another: "Stop killing, start protecting." More

• OccupyLA
• Occupy (Anaheim) Together