THE GENESIS OF INCREASING INCIDENTS OF POLICE BRUTALITY: THE
WAR ON DRUGS
By BILL TRINE
What is the cause of the spiraling increase in police assaults on people
whom they should help to protect --- not brutalize or kill? In just the month of
March, 2015, American police killed 111 people -- more people than the police in
the United Kingdom have killed since the year 1900. 1 This article will present the
view that the war on drugs has created the new Jim Crow, filling our prisons with
black citizens 2; and the view that the federal government, aided by the United
States Supreme Court, has transformed the police of this nation into a military
force, financed and trained to use excessive force against anyone suspected of
using drugs. Abusive conduct by police has spread like a plague since initiation of
the War on Drugs, resulting in an “us versus them” police culture in which certain
citizen groups and communities are targeted as the enemy. These groups have
developed a justifiable distrust and total lack of respect for what they have come
to see as authoritarian tormentors.
The suspected users of drugs, real or imagined, are too often innocent
victims of law enforcement personnel who violate the constitutional rights of
suspects, without fear of reprisal or punishment. 3 The United States Supreme
Court has essentially created a “drug exception” to the Bill of Rights by
eviscerating Fourth Amendment protections against unreasonable searches and
seizures by the police where narcotics are involved. In short, the Supreme Court
has seized every opportunity to facilitate the drug war, and “has made the
roundup of millions of Americans for nonviolent drug offenses relatively easy.” 4
And who are the Americans’ being rounded up and how are they being
treated? Since 1982, the war on drugs has become a more generalized war
against citizens who are poor, black or brown. As a result, these citizens are too
often the innocent victims of unrestrained police brutality.

This article will also provide the resources and information that TLC trial
lawyers may find useful in more fully exploring and discovering the client’s story,
the motivations underlying police misconduct, and the political process and
policies that form the foundation for the use of excessive force. In short, the story
that jurors should hear in order to motivate them to render a verdict that they
believe will help to protect them and their community from police discrimination
and brutality.
So, how did the war on drugs spawn the increase in the use of excessive
force and police brutality that exists today? How did the war on drugs result in a
well-financed, militarized, police state consisting of law enforcement officers
trained to make war on a civilian population primarily consisting of black and
brown citizens? How did law enforcement training help create a police mentality
that supports the use of excessive force? To help answer these questions, we
must start with the advent of the war on drugs and the escalating events that
followed.

President Reagan’s War on Drugs
The events giving rise to President Reagan’s official announcement in
October, 1982, of his administration’s War on Drugs is best summarized with
supporting authoritative sources by Michelle Alexander. In his campaign for the
presidency, Reagan’s major themes were crime and welfare, accompanied by
vehement promises to be tougher on crime and on those he described as
“welfare queens.” Once he was elected, the Justice Department immediately
announced its intention to cut in half the number of specialists assigned to
prosecute white-collar criminals and to shift its attention to street crime,
especially drug enforcement. This in turn was followed by now-President
Reagan’s official announcement in October 1982 of his administration’s War on
Drugs. 5
However, Reagan’s promise made during his election campaign to enhance
the federal government’s role in fighting crime, created significant problems for
his administration. The sale and use of drugs involved street crimes that had

traditionally been the responsibility of state and local law enforcement, not the
FBI, and Reagan had no control over local law enforcement. Nor did local law
enforcement have the manpower or resources to engage in a widespread war on
the use of drugs. In addition, the media and the public did not consider the use of
drugs to be a major law enforcement problem. In fact, less than 2 percent of the
American public considered drugs as the most important issue facing the nation. 6
So, facing these hurdles, what did Reagan do to implement his declared
war? As a start, he pushed to increase FBI’s antidrug funding between 1980 and
1984 from $8 million to $95 million. 7 He successfully increased Department of
Defense antidrug spending from $33 million in 1981 to $1,042 million in 1991, and
during that same period he approved increasing the Drug Enforcement
Administration (DEA)’s antidrug spending from $86 million to $181 million. 8
That did not solve the problems that Reagan faced in creating a national
war on drugs at the state and local level. So the Reagan administration launched a
media offensive to justify a nationwide War on Drugs. The media campaign
focused on sensationalizing the emergence of crack cocaine in inner-city
neighborhoods which had been devastated by deindustrialization and
skyrocketing unemployment. 9

Cash and Military Equipment as a Bribe
Even the media blitz was not sufficient to persuade state and local law
enforcement officials that drug enforcement should now be a top priority. Most
communities still did not regard drug use as a pressing concern. So, to make
Reagan’s drug war a top priority at the state and local level, huge cash grants
were offered to any law enforcement agencies that were willing to make drug-law
enforcement a top priority.10 Those not willing would not receive federal aid, so
most state and local law enforcement agencies welcomed this additional funding
conditioned on joining the war on drugs. Ninety percent of this funding was then
used to organize and train specialized narcotic task forces nationwide. 11 It was
this training (by the DEA) and the competition for continued federal funding that
led to a culture of violating constitutional rights and the use of excessive force.

In addition to providing local law enforcement with huge cash grants as a
bribe to join the war on drugs, in 1997 the Pentagon provided more than 1.2
million pieces of military equipment to local police departments. 12 Between
January 1997 and October 1999, 3.4 million orders of Pentagon military
equipment were placed by over 11,000 domestic police agencies in all 50 states.
This included “253 aircraft (including six- and seven-passenger airplanes, UH-60
Blackhawk and UH-1 Huey helicopters), 7,856 M-16 rifles, 181 grenade launchers,
8,132 bulletproof helmets, and 1.161 pairs of night-vision goggles.”13 Providing
military equipment transformed state and local law enforcement from
“community policing” to “military policing.” The paramilitary units that were then
formed could more easily frighten and intimidate the citizens who became
casualties and victims of the War On Drugs.

Training to Violate Constitutional Rights
Not only did state and local law enforcement agencies have the cash and
military equipment to join the war on drugs, but it was apparent that police
would now have to be trained to round up and arrest drug offenders. So, in 1994
DEA launched Operation Pipeline to train state and local law enforcement officers
how to use minor traffic stops as a pretext to search vehicles for drugs, and how
to obtain consent to a search from a reluctant motorist. 14 By 2000, DEA had
trained more than 25,000 officers in 48 states in Pipeline tactics and in a profile
that was developed that would allow each officer to use his or her limited
experience and biases to detect suspicious behavior. The profile was so expansive
“that it potentially justifies stopping anybody and everybody.” 15
The United States Supreme Court then empowered the police making these
traffic stops to stop, interrogate, and search anyone, without reason to believe
criminal activity is involved. The only contingency the Supreme Court required
was that police must obtain “consent,” though the Court invited law enforcement
to imply consent from the circumstances. 16 The Supreme Court essentially
created an exception for the War on Drugs to the search and seizure protections
of the Fourth Amendment.

Police departments and officers quickly learned that they could “legally”
violate the constitutional rights of Americans, and were encouraged to do so in
the popular war on drugs. With police departments suddenly flush with cash and
military equipment earmarked for the drug war, paramilitary units (called Special
Weapons and Tactics, or SWAT teams) were quickly formed in virtually every
major city to fight the drug war. 17 SWAT teams were used to serve narcotic
warrants with forced, unannounced entry into homes. These are generally
unnecessary violent encounters to arrest someone or conduct a search in the
middle of the night, throwing flash grenades, shouting, and pointing guns at
anyone inside, including children and grandchildren. Many innocent people have
been killed in botched raids. 18 Innocent victims have been severely traumatized.
In the early 1980s, there were 3000 annual SWAT deployments. By 1996
there were 30,000; and by 2001 SWAT teams had been deployed 40,000 times. 19
At least 780 cases of flawed SWAT raids reached the appellate level between
1989 and 2001. By way of comparison, in the 1980s such cases were rare; before
the 1980s, they were non-existent.20
This massive change from “community policing” to “military policing”
began in 1981 when President Reagan persuaded Congress to pass the Military
Cooperation with Law Enforcement Act, which encouraged the military to give
local, state, and federal police access to military bases, intelligence, research,
weaponry, and other equipment for drug interdiction. This was followed by
Reagan’s National Security Decision Directive, which declared drugs a threat to
U.S. national security, and provided for even more cooperation between local,
state, and federal law enforcement. In the years that followed, Presidents Bush
and Clinton enthusiastically embraced the drug war and increased the transfer of
military equipment contingent on local agencies prioritizing drug-law
enforcement and concentrating on arrests for illegal drugs. 21

President Clinton Jumps on the Bandwagon
The drug war was further accelerated when, in 1992, presidential candidate
Bill Clinton vowed that he would never allow a Republican to be perceived as

tougher on crime than he. To demonstrate this, just weeks before the New
Hampshire primary, he flew to Arkansas to observe the execution of Ricky Ray
Rector, a mentally impaired black man. After the execution, Clinton said, “I can be
nicked a lot, but no one can say I’m soft on crime.” 22
Once elected, Clinton endorsed a federal “three strikes and you’re out” law
in 1994, and approved the $30 billion crime bill that year. 23 The bill created
dozens of new federal capital crimes, mandated life sentences for some threetime offenders, and authorized more than $16 billion for state prison grants and
expansion of state and local police forces. Michelle Alexander states that, “Clinton
escalated the drug war beyond what conservatives had imagined possible a
decade earlier.” 24 As the Justice Policy Institute observed, “the Clinton
Administration’s ‘tough on crime’ policies resulted in the largest increases in
federal and state prison inmates of any president in American history.” 25

Excessive Police Force Becomes the Norm
The combination of huge cash grants and military weapons to law
enforcement agencies with those agencies’ willingness to make drug-law
enforcement a top priority succeeded beyond all expectations. Drug arrests
skyrocketed as highway patrol units organized drug profile interdiction on the
highways, SWAT teams swept through housing projects. Stop-and-frisk programs
were initiated on the streets.
There were profits to be made by state and local police agencies that were
permitted, and encouraged to keep for their own use, the vast majority of cash
and assets that they seize when waging the war on drugs. Allowing state and
local agencies to keep up to 80% of all proceeds from asset seizures, authorized
by Congress in 1984, provided further incentive to blink at constitutional rights
violations. As stated by Michelle Alexander, “Property or cash could be seized
based on mere suspicion of illegal drug activity, and seizure could occur without
notice or hearing, upon an ex parte showing of mere probable cause to believe
that the property had somehow been ‘involved’ in a crime.” 26

Archetypical examples of how cash grants and military weapons in
combination with cash seizures has resulted in police corruption and violence
toward innocent citizens is found in United States v. Reese, 27 The 9th Circuit court
describes the outrageous and criminal conduct of SWAT teams who were under
tremendous pressure from commanders to increase their drug related arrest
records in order to continue to receive federal grants. Team members were told
that it would be OK for officers to keep some of the drug money for their personal
use. A task force would be sent out on a shift with comments by the commander
like, “Let’s go out and kick ass,” and “Everybody goes to jail tonight for everything,
right?” 28 The Court then describes the several incidents of brutality inflicted on
innocent victims by members of the task force who were on a rampage to find
drugs and satisfy their commanders. 29
Journalists and investigators have documented other evidence of the
widespread corruption and use of excessive force. Reporters in Florida reviewed
nearly 1000 videotapes of highway traffic stops and discovered that police were
using alleged traffic violations as a pretext to confiscate “tens of thousands of
dollars from motorists, against whom there was no evidence of wrongdoing,
frequently taking the money without filing any criminal charge.” 30 In similar
fashion, Louisiana journalists reported that police were engaged in massive
pretextual stops of motorists in an effort to seize cash, with the money diverted
to police department ski trips and other unauthorized uses. 31 In yet another
example, an employee in the Los Angeles Sheriff’s office reported that deputies
routinely planted drugs and falsified police reports to establish probable cause for
cash seizures. 32

The Drug War Becomes a Racial War
There is overwhelming evidence that black and brown citizens have been
targeted in the drug war. Studies have shown that far more white citizens use
and sell drugs than do black and brown citizens 33; yet 80 to 90 percent of all drug
offenders sent to prison in seven states are black. In at least 15 states, AfricanAmericans are sent to prison on drug charges at a rate of 20 to 57 times greater

than white people. 34 So, no wonder that of the 2.3 million people now
incarcerated in our prisons and jails, 50% are black and 16% brown. 35
Of the increase in our prison/jail populations from 300,000 in 1980 to the
present 2.3 million, drug offenses alone account for 2/3rds of the federal inmate
population and more than ½ of the states’ population. 36 Drug arrests have tripled
since 1980 resulting in 31 million people being arrested for drug offenses since
the war began. 37 Eighty percent of the arrests in the 1990s were for marijuana
possession, and not dangerous drugs. 38
Statistics, studies, and all reliable available information show that black
citizens have been the most targeted group of American citizens in the war on
drugs – a war that has degenerated into a racial war with accelerating violence
and brutality directed primarily toward black citizens. As stated by Michelle
Alexander in her well documented book, 39 “In every state across our nation,
African Americans --- particularly in the poorest neighborhoods --- are subjected
to tactics and practices that would result in public outrage and scandal if
committed in middle-class white neighborhoods. In the drug war, the enemy is
racially defined.”40

Excessive Police Force is Now Common-Place and Engrained in the
Police Culture
Excessive force, if not outright brutality, has become the norm in enforcing
the war on drugs. Once that culture developed in specially trained groups of law
enforcement personnel, it spread like a plague through law enforcement
generally. So now we see videotapes of excessive force being used almost weekly
on the internet, and the media is full of stories of deaths resulting from police
shooting unarmed men and boys, mostly black.
The war on drugs became an excuse to wage war on African-Americans. So
the Justice Department investigation results of the police department in
Ferguson, Missouri, should have come as no surprise. The Justice Department
report found a pattern or practice of the Ferguson police using “unreasonable
force” against its citizens, with 88% of the unreasonable force incidents involving

African-Americans. 41 Further, the Justice Department concluded that 85% of all
people stopped by Ferguson police officers were black, and that AfricanAmericans received 90% of all citations issued. Black citizens were also targeted
for petty offenses and from 2011 to 2013 they accounted for 95% of all “manner
of walking in roadway charges”, 94% of all “failure to comply” charges, and 92 %
of all “peace disturbance” charges. 42
Some might argue that Ferguson, Missouri is the exception and is not
emblematic of a national problem that has infested law enforcement. But the
media in nearly every state have reported multiple incidents of abusive law
enforcement tactics and the use of excessive force, often resulting in death. A
recent example is the expose of the Oxnard, California police department by Daily
Kos staff writer, Shaun King, who describes the March 2015 death of “a 26-year
old African-American mother of three, shot and killed by an Oxnard police officer
after he arrived at her home to check out a reported domestic dispute.” This
death, reports Shaun King, must “be viewed in context of the sordid history of”
this police department. 43 The history includes the shooting of an innocent man,
Alfonso Limon, who was shot 16 to 21 times when walking home from a high
school gym. The police said he was mistakenly thought to be a suspect in another
crime. The City paid $6.7 million for the “mistake” less than a year ago. 44 In 2001,
the Los Angeles Times detailed how police in Oxnard, a city of just 170,000
people, had killed more citizens that year than cities 22 times its size, including
the depressed son of a mother who thought her son might harm himself and
called the police. The son was found cowering in a closet when the police shot
and killed him. The city later paid the family $1.5 million for the “mistake.”45
But perhaps the most shocking Oxnard police revelation comes from a
former Oxnard police officer who recently revealed the sick practice of officers
who proudly display tattoos that are “earned” every time they shoot someone
while on duty. The tattoo is a gun and if smoke is added to the tattoo coming out
of the barrel, the shooting was fatal. The former Oxnard officer who recently left
the department names seven Oxnard officers and two retired officers who had
the tattoos. King states that “the nine names also included two officers who are
currently commanders at the department”, and “one is a watch commander.” 46

Numerous studies demonstrate that excessive force has become engrained
in the police culture. 47 Once engrained it became acceptable to “sometimes use
more force than permitted by the laws that govern” police conduct, and the
“Code of Silence” prevents fellow-officers from reporting police brutality or
testifying against a fellow officer. 48 In a nationwide survey of police officers by
the Justice Department, 25% of responding officers stated that “whistleblowing
on a fellow officer is not worth it, two-thirds reporting that police officers who
report misconduct are likely to receive a ‘cold shoulder’ from fellow officers, and
more than one-half reporting that it is not unusual to turn a ‘blind eye’ to
improper conduct by other officers.”49
So why do so many law enforcement officers now use excessive force,
seemingly without fear of being caught or punished? Perhaps because they have
historically seldom been caught or punished as the use of excessive force became
accepted within the law enforcement community. Time after time, the public has
been informed that an officer “acted in self-defense”, or in “fear for his life”, or
the citizen was “resisting arrest”, or similar excuses placing blame on the citizen.
A recent classic example is the white North Charleston, South Carolina
police officer who, on April 4, 2015, pulled over a 50 year old black man, Walter
Scott, because of a broken taillight. When Scott, who was unarmed, began to run
away, he was shot in the back eight times as he ran. The officer claimed that Scott
grabbed his stun gun and he shot Scott in self defense. However, a witness
videotaped the entire incident which demonstrated the officer running up to the
dying man and dropping his stun gun next to him to support his false claim of self
defense. The officer was charged with murder on April 7 because the video tape
conclusively established that Scott was, in fact, murdered. 50
The widespread availability and use of cell-phone cameras has captured
literally hundreds of incidents of excessive police force or abuse in recent years,
and exposed the false claims of arresting officers. Another recent example
occurred when white Minneapolis police stopped a vehicle with three black
teenagers who had left a food market and made a U-turn in a church parking lot.
With drawn guns the police ordered the youngsters out of the car and while

placing them in handcuffs one officer was caught on tape stating that “I’m gonna
break your leg before you get a chance to run”. The police then spent 45 minutes
searching the car and doing background checks, before releasing the youngsters
with no charges brought. The “officers said they were suspected of grand auto
theft.” 51 Were the police simply adhering to the Operation Pipeline training on
how to use minor traffic stops as a pretense to search for drugs, in combination
with profiling blacks?

Discovering The Story of an Excessive Force Case
Knowing the background and history of the war on drugs, and how that
relates to the arrests of 31 million people since 1980, accompanied by increasing
incidents of law enforcement’s violence toward American citizens, can be helpful
to the trial lawyer who represents one of those citizens --- whether in a civil rights
law suit for damages, or in defending a brutalized client against false criminal
charges. How is it helpful? As we know, it is critically important to discover the
“story of the case”, whether civil or criminal. Discovering what the client
personally experienced is only a piece of the client’s whole story. A client doesn’t
know what training an arresting officer(s) received in the use of force, or the
officer’s subjective motives for using excessive force. He/she doesn’t know
whether the department or agency is under pressure to increase the monthly
arrest record in order to continue to receive federal funds or munitions. A black
citizen doesn’t know if the department has developed a profile that emphasizes
the search and arrests of black citizens, or if there is a history within the
department of profiling young black men for arrest.
So, discovering the “entire” story of the case through depositions,
documents, reenactments with role reversals, surplus reality and the use of
doubling and other TLC techniques, becomes critically important. For example:
• It has become common practice for the police to justify the shooting of
an unarmed person by explaining that he was just reacting in self
defense to a justified fear that the person might be armed, or might

•

•
•
•
•

attack him, and the officer will often be protected by the testimony of
fellow officers adhering to the “code of silence.”
An officer using excessive force might do so just to impress the other
officers who respond or are on “the team”, or to frighten and intimidate
bystanders, or to simply punish an arrestee for “talking back”.
Such force might be used because of racial prejudice.
An officer might be psychotic, intoxicated, or otherwise mentally
impaired.
An officer might have serious personal problems and is just “acting out.”
An officer might have a history of using excessive force that is known by
his superiors who have done nothing to correct the problem.

Whatever the most probable and believable motive might be, that motive must
be discovered by us, and must be supported by competent, admissible evidence.
We can often discover motive via reenactments of the case story with the help of
role reversals and doubling.
Once we recognize that an isolated incident of police brutality is part of a
systemic problem, and being able to demonstrate that to a jury, that realization
increases the probability that the client will receive justice, and that another blow
has been struck for needed change in the police force or department involved. It
will take hundreds, if not thousands, of such courtroom victories to someday
eliminate or substantially reduce unnecessary police violence toward Americans
who are too often victims because they are black, brown or poor. Before the
widespread use of cell-phone cameras and video-tapes, very few lawsuits were
successfully prosecuted and the officers who used excessive force or brutalized
citizens could simply falsify both facts and records without fear of reprisal or
punishment. This is no longer the case, and many Trial Lawyers College graduates
are filing civil rights actions and state tort claims to obtain justice for their clients
and to stem the abusive conduct and brutality taking place. This edition of the
Warrior contains some of their stories.
However, containing police brutality is just a small part of the overall
reforms that are necessary to eventually reform the criminal justice system. There

are prosecutors who exercise discretionary judgment to more severely punish
African-Americans or who excuse the conduct of police ---this must change. There
are judges who discriminate against the black, brown and poor, and protect the
white and wealthy ---this must change. There are criminal laws that fill our prisons
to capacity, primarily with drug related offenses and with poor blacks ---this must
change. The use of for-profit prisons and the prison industrial complex must be
eliminated. There is an ongoing failure to rehabilitate and treat prisoners to
reduce or eliminate recidivism ---this must change.
But trial lawyers can get involved in all of these reform movements which
are finally taking place, and you are invited and encouraged to do so!
<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<

Shaun King, American Police Killed More People in March (111) than the entire UK Police have killed since 1900,
Daily Kos, April 1, 2015; http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/04/01/1374908/-American-police-killed-morepeople .
1

See Michelle Alexander, “The New Jim Crow – Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness”, the New Press
(2011). Much of the material in this article was obtained from this excellent book which is well documented with
authoritative sources.
2

3

Id at pgs. 63-72.

4

Id at p. 61.

5

Id at pgs 46-49.

See, Julian Roberts, “Public Opinion, Crime and Criminal Justice,” in Crime and Justice: A Review of Research, Vol.
16, ed. Michael Tonry (University of Chicago Press, 1992)..

6

7

Beckett, Making Crime Pay, 47.

8

Id, citing U.S. Office of the National Drug Control Policy, National Drug Control Strategy (1992).

9

Id. at 56.

10

Id note 1 at pgs. 72-3.

U.S. Department of Justice, Department of Justice Drug Demand Reduction Activities, Report No. 3-12
(Washington, DC:Office of the Inspector General, Feb. 2003) 35, www.usdoj.gov/oigreports/plus/a0312. Also see,

11

Id note 8. In 1988 Congress revised the program that provided federal grant money to law enforcement called the
Byrne program.
12

Radley Balko, Overkill: The Rise of Paramilitary Police Raids in America (Washington DC: Cato Institute, 7/17/06).

13

Megan Twohey, “SWATs Under Fire”, National Journal, Jan. 1, 2000, and see note 10, Balko, Overkill, 8.

See, U.S. Department of Justice, Drug Enforcement Administration, Operation Pipeline and Convoy (Washington
D.C., n.d.), www.usdoj.gov/dea/programs/pipeline.htm..
14

David Cole, No Equal Justice: Race and Class in thee American Criminal Justice System (New York: The New York
Press, 1999, 47, and see, Michelle Alexander at note 1, pgs. 70-1.
15

See generally United States v. Lewis, 921 F.2d 1294, 1296 (1990); United States v. Flowers, 912 F.2d 707, 708 (4th
Cir. 1990) and Florida v. Bostick, 501 U.S. 429, 441 (1991).

16

Timothy Egan, “Soldiers of the Drug War Remain on Duty”, The New York Times, Mar1, 1999; and see Alexander,
note 1, at p. 74.
17

18

Id note 1 at p. 75, and see, ie, “Not All Marijuana Law Victims Are Arrested: Police Officer Who Fatally Shot
Suspected Marijuana User Cleared of Criminal Charges”, NORML News, July 13, 1995,
druglibrary.org/olsen/NOTML/WEEKLY/95-07-13.html; Timothy Lynch, After Prohibition (Washington DC: Cato
Institute, 2000), 82; and “Dodge County Detective Can’s Remember Fatal Shot; Unarmed Man Killed in Drug Raid at
His Home”, Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, Apr. 29, 1995, AI, and “The Week”, National Review, June 12, 1995, 14.
Balko, Overkill., note 11 at p.11, citing Peter Kraska, “Researching the Police-Military Blur: Lessons Learned”,
Police Forum 14, no 3 (2005).
19

20

Id at 43 (citing Kraska research).

21

See, Michelle Alexander, note 2, at page 77.

22

Michael Kramer, “Frying them is Not the Answer”, Time, March 14,1994, 32.

David Masci, “$30 Billion Anti-Crime Bill Heads to Clinton’s Desk, Congressional Quarterly, Aug 27, 1994, 248893; and Beckett, Making Crime Pay: Law & Order in Contemporary American Politics (K. Beckett, 2000) at 61.
23

24

,Michelle Alexander, note 2, page 56.

25

Justice Policy Institute, “Clinton Crime Agenda Ignores Proven Methods for Reducing Crime,” Apr. 14,2008,
available online at www.justicepolicy.org/content-hmID=1817&ssmID=71.htm.
26

Id note 1, at p. 79.

27

2 F.3d 870 (9th Cir.) July 27, 1993.

28

Id at 7.

29

Id. at 7-8.

See, Eric Blumenson and Eva Nilsen, “Policing for Profit: The Drug War’s Hidden Economic Agenda,” University of
Chicago Law Review 65 (1998); 83.

30

31

Id at 83.

32

Id. at 83.

33

See, Michelle Alexander, note 2, at pages 98-99 and the many studies referenced in footnotes.

See, Human Rights Watch, Punishment and Prejudice: Racial Disparities in the War on Drugs, HRW Reports, vol.
12, no 2 (May 2000).
34

35

See, Prison Nation, The Warehousing of America’s Poor, (Tara Herival & Paul Wright, eds., 2003), note5 at intro
and p.63.
36

See Marc Mauer, Race to Incarcerate, rev. ed. (New York: The New Press, 2006), p.33.

Marc Mauer and Ryan King, A 25 Year Quagmire: The ‘War on Drugs’ and Its Impact on American Society
(Washington, DC: Sentencing Project, 2007), p.2.

37

Id: and see Ryan King and Marc Mauer, The War on Marijuana: The Transformation of the war on drugs in the
1990s (New York Sentencing Project, 2005), documenting the dramatic increase in marijuana arrests,
38

39
40

See note 1.
Id. at p. 98.

Sarl Horwitz, Justice Report Finds Bias: Investigation Uncovers Routine Discrimination in Police Department, Jails
and Courts. The Washington Post, published in the Denver Post, March 4, 2015.

41

42

Id.

43

Shaun King, “Whistleblower cop: Oxnard, Calif., police get gun and skull tattoos every time they shoot
someone”, Daily Kos (March 31, 2015); http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/03/31/1374603/-Whistleblower-copOxnard-California.
44

Id.

45

Id.

46

Id.

47
See Bonnie Kristian, Seven Reasons Police Brutality is Systemic, Not Anecdotal; The American Conservative (July
2, 2014), http://www.the americanconservative.com/seven-reasons-police-brutality-is-systemic-not-anecdotal.;
and David Weisburg, et al; Police Attitudes Toward Abuse of Authority: Findings From a National Study, National
Institute of Justice (May 2000); U.S. Department of Justice, Julie E. Samuels, Acting Director.
48

Id, National Institute of Justice, page 11.

49

Id

.

See, Article by NBC News: Michael Slager, S.C. Cop, Charged With Murder of Black Man Walter Scott-NBC News
(April 7, 2015).

50

51

Shaun King, Minneapolis Cop Threatens to Break Leg of Teens Before Letting Them Go”. Daily Kos, April 7, 2015.