Police whistle

“ The directors are a weak reed; they dread a strike. Municipal ordinance would be vainly sought: workingmen have a union and votes. The police, even the finest, are not open to bribery: they are at home in a brawl, and noise is their normal condition of repose. The profession must interfere. Henceforth let the cry be “boycott the whistle.” If it must exist, let the instruction be boldly posted at the starter’s office: “Conductors must aim their whistles at the curbstones and not in the ears of the passengers.” ”

“ The police, who were feeble and timid when danger threatened, and who could never be trusted to quell the most insignificant riot, grew bold on occasions, when, without risk to themselves, they could pounce upon some weak or unpopular individual. Although whipping could be legally inflicted only by order of the magistrate, it was no unusual occurrence for a constable to take a man to the nearest whipping post, and there have him thrashed without reference to any superior authority whatever. ”

“ And the more the young men laughed, the more they played tricks upon the police, reading the Sermon on the Mount to provoke arrest, reading the Constitution of the United States to invite repression, even reading the riot act by way of diversion for the police, the more did the wooden head of Market Street throb with rage and the more did the people imagine a vain thing. ”

“ The police force is held up to persistent ridicule, and claptrap appeals to the gallery against the police are made in every scene. The gratification with which these are received, stimulates the clown to fresh exertions, and the changes are persistently rung on the muzzle rules, on the hoop regulations, and on the supposed general incompetency of the force. The police have just now a difficult task to perform, and it would be just and politic to ensure them fair play. ”

“ The policeman, like any civilian, fights for his skin; he gets a drubbing and returns it with interest. But since his weapon does not give him so manifest an advantage as a sword would, the public consider the fracas a fair fight. And after all, the combatants must appear before a magistrate; in the police-court they are on equal terms, and witnesses are heard on either side. There is no prejudice in favour of the policeman. ”

“ Suppose, now, that all these brass bands of unemployed ex-soldiers that blow so mournfully at all the street corners were suddenly to play nothing but a series of senseless and devilish discords—why, the first policeman would move them on, and the second would put them under arrest, and the passers-by would try to lynch them on their way to the police station. ”

“ The momentary excitement caused by this altercation was swallowed up by the advent of a squad of police, which wheeled into the avenue from 43d Street, and checked the pursuit of the bleeding remnants of the invalid corps. Those immediately around the young man pressed forward to see what took place, he following, but edging towards the sidewalk, with the eager purpose to see the first fight between the mob and the police. ”

“ The people flocked in crowds about the streets, shouting and whistling, greatly excited, while the police kept dispersing them. To disperse a big crowd a dozen policemen are sufficient here. The police make a combined attack, and the crowd runs like mad. In one of these attacks the honour was vouchsafed to me—a policeman caught hold of me under my shoulder, and pushed me in front of him. ”

“ To constitute a breach of the peace there must be blows or weapons drawn, or menaces or cries that show the beginning of an affray. Mere singing, laughter, and noises of like character are not offences, and do not justify police interference either by threats or the use of force. No counter-threat of resistance to the officer, if he without cause threatens to use force, will amount to an affray which will justify an arrest, for the offence must arise before he threatens or offers force, and he cannot, by his own menace of illegal violence, provoke an affray to justify arrest ”

“ I am a general housecleaner, and work in all parts of the city. As I was walking home on 7th Avenue, about four o'clock in the afternoon, between 14th and 15th Streets, I saw a man run up to a police officer and say something to him. The officer then came up to me and said, "You've got a pistol; you give it up. I will arrest you." I handed him the pistol, and he arrested me. I said as I handed it to him, "I bought this pistol to protect my family at home. I heard of this rioting, and I bought this pistol to protect my home." He said, "Why don't you call to the officers for protection?" ”

“ The soldier hates the policeman, and the policeman fears the soldier. If the policeman detects the soldier in any little peccadillo, he without more ado arrests him, if he be alone, and there is no prospect of falling in with any of his captive’s comrades; but, woe betide him! if in an unguarded moment he has counted without his host—they flock around him with wondrous alacrity, take off their belts, and with these effective weapons soon beat off the police with their staves, and decamp in triumph. ”

“ Officers expect and demand compliance even when they lack legal authority. They are inclined to interpret the exercise of free-speech rights as unlawful disobedience, innocent movements as physical threats, indications of mental or physical illness as belligerence. Police supervisors and leadership do too little to ensure that officers act in accordance with law and policy, and rarely respond meaningfully to civilian complaints of officer misconduct. The result is a pattern of stops without reasonable suspicion and arrests without probable cause in violation of the Fourth Amendment ”

“ We left the consecrated ground in a strange intoxication after a tiring struggle with the densely packed crowd that would move neither forward nor backward. "It is not the business of the police to maintain order, but only to keep people under surveillance." ”

“ Upon suspicion that the person may be armed, the police should have the power to 'frisk' him for weapons. If the 'stop' and the 'frisk' give rise to probable cause to believe that the suspect has committed a crime, then the police should be empowered to make a formal 'arrest,' and a full incident 'search' of the person. This scheme is justified in part upon the notion that a 'stop' and a 'frisk' amount to a mere 'minor inconvenience and petty indignity,' [4] which can properly be imposed upon the citizen in the interest of effective law enforcement on the basis of a police officer's suspicion. ”

“ But when actually surrounded by these howling, screaming, outraged citizens, with their teams and motor cars banked in the roadway, he tasted the peculiar astonishment of the man who has always been liked when assailed by a storm of hatred. While the three or four police who by this time had appeared did their best to defend him, men fought with one another to get at him. A well-dressed girl of not more than eighteen reached over the shoulder of one of the police and struck him on the head with her sunshade. An elderly woman squeezed herself near him and spat in his face. ”

“ Add to this that the police do not attack in order to disperse a crowd, but to kill. In a public square where a crowd has gathered to hear a labor speech, the police assemble on four sides and, upon a given signal, rush to the center, pushing even innocent passers-by into the midst of the crowd that, on the instant, has become a mob. ”

“ Frequently, officers arrest people for conduct that plainly does not meet the elements of the cited offense. For example, in November 2013, an officer approached five African-American young people listening to music in a car. ”

“ I was then taken to the 37th Street station house, and while there I was kicked by the officers in the section room, and by the doorman, and when I protested I was told to shut up. I was locked in cell No. 13, and in the morning I was brought to the 54th Street police court, where the judge turned me loose. While in my cell I got into conversation with a colored man who is a porter for the N. Y. C. & H. R. R., and he said that he was dragged from a street car and clubbed by police officers. ”

“ This phase of the hysteria takes an entirely different turn. It seems now that these otherwise entirely reliable citizens are seeing other citizens explode and vanish into thin air. The police and the newspapers have been deluged with frantic telephone calls. ”

“ Under the Constitution, what a person says generally should not determine whether he or she is jailed. Police officers cannot constitutionally make arrest decisions based on individuals' verbal expressions of disrespect for law enforcement, including use of foul language. ”

“ There is, however, nothing for the police to do, for the sternly worded announcement that disturbers of the peace would be court-martialed had the instant effect of putting a stop to any noisy demonstrations, let alone any attempts at pillage. Policemen can be seen sitting about on doorsteps or leaning against trees. ”

“ Hence the organisation of some force taking its mandate from the many to compel good conduct in the few; some special institution whose functions are to watch over the common weal, and act for the public both in preventing evil and preparing or securing good. From this the police deduces its claim to such interference with every citizen as{192} is necessary to maintain order and ensure obedience to the law. ”

“ Other guests crowd in on him very closely so that the whistle can be reached easily and can be blown by any one of the onlookers without the victim’s feeling the tug.
When the leader says that all is ready, someone back of him blows an earsplitting blast on the whistle. Immediately everyone puts his hands behind him. Mr. Victim turns around at once and accuses the guiltiest looking one of holding the whistle. The guilty looking party holds up his hands and shows that he has no whistle and vows that he did not pass it to anyone else. ”

“ I got on the car and reached home without any further interference. Deponent declares it to be his belief that if he had not been stopped by the police, and struck by them, he would have reached his home without any serious injury; not mentioning the fact that the police made no attempt whatever to interfere with the mob. Deponent further declares that he would prefer to have taken his chances with the mob than to have met the said police officers. ”

“ It seems to me that they often interfere—especially in the case of poor women—when there is no occasion to do so; and no one, when it is requisite, can be more stolidly blind and deaf and dumb than your ordinary policeman. Police surveillance must mean more or less police bribery. ”

“ Do you mean to tell me that I should be expected to arrest a man of infinitely superior physique to my own with no other weapons than one armlet, one whistle, one truncheon and one note-book? Surely I should be allowed to run for the Mayor and get him to read the Riot Act? If not, I can only say a policeman's lot is——"
"Not a happy one?" put in the Inspector.
"I was going to say a policeman's lot is a lot too much. ”

“ A cursory glance at the conditions prevailing in Trafalgar Square reveals in a moment the reasons for the defeat of the police; it is at once apparent that their failure must not be attributed to any physical cause whatever. The police force on duty was quite large enough, and the units of which it was composed were sufficiently well endowed with muscle, nerve and morale, to have kept in order a crowd twice as violent and many times more numerous than the one actually opposed to it; the collapse of authority was due to defects of organization, to bad strategy, and to tactical blundering. ”

“ About two o'clock A. M. I heard shooting in the street, and in a short while after I saw two police officers dragging a colored man from 341 West 36th Street, who had on no clothing except a gauze undershirt. The officers were clubbing the colored man, and the man was begging them not to club him, as he had done nothing. The only answer he got was more blows and a reply from one of the officers as follows: "Shut up, you black son of a b——, or I'll kill you." ”

“ Arrests for trivial causes, without warrant, not only tend to create breaches of the peace, but render the law and its ministers the subject of public contempt. Citizens must prompt to resent the unlawful attacks of officers, and should pursue offenders by complaints to the appointing powers, by criminal prosecutions and civil suits for damages. ”

“ All London meets on Tuesday. Come Armed. We assure you from ocular demonstration that 6000 cutlasses have been removed from the Tower, for the use of Peel's Bloody Gang. Remember the cursed Speech from the Throne!! These damned Police are now to be armed. Englishmen, will you put up with this?" [187] The authors of this precious appeal must have had a pathetic belief in the efficacy of strong language, if they thought that the prospect of a collision with six thousand policemen armed with cutlasses would be a sufficient inducement to bring together an armed mob to oppose them ”

“ Now, you may say that the police force can be inspired with proper respect for the law even if the head of the police ordains that a certain law, impunity for the violation of which had formerly been one of the main sources of police corruption, shall be enforced only apparently, or a little, or not at all. ”

“ If passengers on a bus passing through the Capital of this great nation cannot be free from police interference where there is absolutely no basis for the police officers to stop and question them, then the police will be free to accost people on our streets without any reason or cause. ”

“ One of the greatest sources of social unrest and bitterness has been the attitude of the police toward public speaking. On numerous occasions in every part of the country the police of cities and towns have, either arbitrarily or under the cloak of a traffic ordinance, interfered with or prohibited public speaking, both in the open and in halls, by persons connected with organizations of which the police or those from whom they receive their orders did not approve. ”