Two stories of Police Brutality

Let me tell you a story about ´Boston´s finest.´
Geez there are so many...the ones who frisked people
for drugs...for themselves, and cash too. That goes back
to the early to mid 1980´s.

Then there´s the ones on my old street who operated a towing
scam. Back then, if your car got towed it cost $35 to get it back.
Certain cops went through our and other streets in blocks and
would have between ten and fifteen cars towed on our street in
winter.

So, if it was 10 cars they got a kickback of $15 apiece. If one cop
was on our street that meant $150 for the day. Not a bad days work.
But, these guys were eager. They would go through six or eight
streets in a day. You´re talking close to $1,000.

I figured that out after they got arrested.

There were many, many more dirty cops that I knew...not
always by name. But, this story is about your first amendment
rights.

I am a Marine Corps Vietnam veteran. I was a grunt and volunteered
twice. I wasn´t there long, and was lucky to survive where I was.

Before I went to Vietnam I was pro-war; I had eaten up all the propaganda
our government fed us on what was called the news, but was really nothing
more than propaganda. I came back against the war and joined Vietnam Veterans
Against the War, and later Veterans For Peace.

In 1967 or 1968 I skipped school to go to an anti-war protest at Post Office
Square outside the Post Office and government buildings. I went to beat up
anti-war protesters. I went by myself, but I wasn´t the only pro-war person there
for that reason.

At a certain point, and after yelling between our crowd against the protesters-who
were protesting peacefully some of us ran in to smack a few. That´s a criminal
offense assault and battery. As we did, the Boston Police moved right in with
their German Shepard police dogs.

I was worried about being bitten or grabbed by one of those dogs, but I later realized
that the police dogs were only to be used against the anti-war protesters. You see
what happened was after I hit someone(s) and started to run away I was grabbed by
one of ´Boston´s Finest.´

I thought ´Oh shit, my old man will kill me, and the school will know that I left the
building, and I´ll get suspended for that. But, none of that happened. I was put in the
back seat of the cruiser; there was a man in blue at the wheel.

I sat quietly, and after several minutes the other cop came in, and the car took off.
I wasn´t feeling to good at that point. But, it was just then that the guy in front of me
on the passenger side turned around to me and with a big smile on his face said
"wasn´t that great?" I really didn´t know what to say until he patted me knee, then I
nodded.

They went up the street a couple of blocks turned and stopped, the man in front of me
again said how good it was, and that I could go but not to go back to that area, so I
promised him I wouldn´t. I took the train home and went to work that afternoon like it
was anyday. But, I did notice on TV that the police had arrested some of the anti-war
protesters!

Almost three years later, after Vietnam my friend, Jimmy and I were hitchhiking
on the New Jersey pike. It was about 3am, (I´m not positive of the time); we were
going to his house on a New Years leave. Some got Christmas, and others like us
got New Years. We were walking and saw several police vehicles and I think an
ambulance on the other side of the highway. Then, we noticed a police cruiser
come over to us, and I said to Jimmy ´Let me do the talking.´ It was illegal to hitchhike.


The State Police officer rolled down the window on our side, and said smiling ´Are
you boys in the army?´and I said ´No, we´re Marines.´He said ´come on in.´ He
had been in the Marines too. He told me he cracked some hippies heads; he said
´they were hitchhiking.´ He told us how much he liked that part of his job.

He was enthused, and showed me his ´Billy club´; it was red from the blood he´d
just spilled. He drove us to a place; dropped us off and wished us well.

So, remember; the police are not neutral. Don´t let them push you around anymore
than the revolutionaries of 1776 would let the British push them around.

Yours in Struggle
Paul Meuse