BANALITY AND TOWN: The incident wasn't worth talking about!

THURSDAY, MAY 6, 2021

The banality suffusing Our Town: In this morning's Washington Post, this news report describes a lawsuit about a local event—a bungled no-knock raid from September 2019, a raid gone badly wrong.

For the record, no one was killed in that bungled no-knock raid. That said, today's news report mentions another local raid gone wrong—an April 2020 no-knock raid in which Duncan Lemp, age 21, actually was shot and killed.

Amazingly, the lengthy Washington Post report doesn't mention the bungled Louisville no-knock raid in which Breonna Taylor, age 26, was shot and killed last March. 

The Louisville raid has been widely discussed on the national level. The bungled raids in the Washington area—one raid fatal, one raid not—won't be discussed at all, except in the Post's Metro section.

Here in our rapidly failing town, this is the "journalism" we and our stars have chosen.

We can possibly chalk this up to "the banality of banality." More specifically, we can attribute this state of affairs to the banality of selective reporting.

A giant banality currently exists in Our Town. The Crazy is in control in many towns where The Others live. A typ of banality now plays a very large role in our fatuous village.

This banality regulates the things we read about in our major newspapers. It regulates the things our favorite multimillionaire "cable news" stars will pretend to discuss and lament. 

This brings us to a violent arrest which occurred in Loveland, Colorado in June 2020. More significantly, it brings us to the banality of the way a group of police officers sat around the station house, chuckling about that remarkably violent arrest.

Across this very large nation, quite a few violent arrests occur in the course of a day. 

In many arrests, the violence is necessary. What made the arrest in Loveland remarkably violent?

For that, we turn to another news report in the Washington Post. We turn to this news report by Andrea Salcedo, which appeared last Tuesday, online only, as part of the "Morning Mix."

Anthropologically, Salcedo's report is highly instructive. The headline offers this:

After violently arresting woman, 73, with dementia, police laughed about it, video shows: ‘We crushed it'

That headline only begins to suggest the dimensions of this situation. Salcedo's astounding report starts like this:

SALCEDO (4/27/21): Last June, Karen Garner sat handcuffed to a bench inside a booking cell weeping and in pain.

No one had come to treat her fractured arm and dislocated shoulder hours after Loveland, Colo., police violently arrested the 73-year-old with dementia, her family said.

Meanwhile, about 10 feet away, three officers sat hunched around a computer as they re-watched body-camera footage of Garner’s arrest, a new video released by the attorney representing Garner’s family shows.

“Ready for the pop? Hear the pop?” the officer who initially handcuffed Garner can be heard saying, referencing the moment he injured her shoulder.

The nearly one-hour booking cell video released Monday shows two Loveland Police Department officers who participated in Garner’s arrest fist-bumping each other while discussing the incident. At one point, they are joined by another officer as they mock and praise the arrest, which they claimed “went great,” while referring to Garner as “ancient,” “senile” and “flexible.” 

“We crushed it,” one of the officers says.

At this point, we've only begun to understand why this particular violent arrest was remarkably violent. Later, Salcedo presents additional facts:

SALCEDO: Police aggressively arrested the 80-pound woman as she was plucking purple wildflowers and strolling back home on June 26. They had been called after she left a Walmart without paying for items worth $13.88, according to her family’s lawsuit. Walmart said employees called the police after Garner allegedly pulled off an employee’s mask during the incident.

Body-camera footage shows [Officer Austin] Hopp grabbing Garner by her arms and wrenching them backward to handcuff her as she repeatedly cried that she was “going home.” At one point, Garner fell to the ground as officers struggled with her before putting her in a cruiser. Prosecutors later dropped all charges against Garner.

In the lawsuit, Garner’s family argues that due to dementia and sensory aphasia, a condition that leaves her unable to understand speech or to communicate easily, she was unable to understand the police officers’ commands. 

The news report doesn't address a fairly obvious question. If Garner was intellectually challenged in the manner described, it isn't clear why she would have been allowed to be out and about on her own.

That said, bodycam video of the arrest suggests that Garner's disability was fairly obvious at the point of her arrest. This leaves us with the basic outline of this remarkably violent arrest, in which a 73-year-old woman who weighed 80 pounds suffered a dislocated shoulder and a fractured arm in the course of a violent arrest over a charge that she (briefly) walked away from a Walmart with goods worth $14.

At this point, we've only begun to describe what made this incident so startling. For that, we must turn to the videotape of the conversation the officers had in the station house.

The Post report links to this edited, 14-minute videotape which intersperses that astonishing conversation with footage of Garner as she sits in a holding cell, having received no treatment for her serious injuries. 

He arms are handcuffed behind her. She shifts uncomfortably on a flat bench as she tries to compensate for her physical pain. Ten feet away, officers are chuckling and fist-bumping.

It's important to understand a fact which many commenters don't. The officers who conducted that  conversation are themselves and nobody else. In particular, they aren't "the police" in some unexplained global sense.

That said, Our Town has been pretending, for roughly ten years, to be involved in a long discussion about police behavior and police attitudes. The videotape of that conversation takes us to a place where no other tape has gone.

Last June, in that very same month, the videotape of George Floyd's death seemed to offer a window into the soul of one Minneapolis police officer, with two first-week cops thrown in. No one died in the course of this second violent arrest, but the subsequent conversation in that station house offers a window into the soul of one aspect of human behavior writ large.

On that videotape, several officers sit around laughing about the arrest as Garner writhes in her holding cell. Surprisingly, though, we would have to say this:

As we watch the officers conduct their astounding conversation, they don't strike us as standard-issue Hollywood sociopaths. As we watch them, we're truck by their overpowering banality—by the atttibute Hannah Arrendt described as "the banality of evil."

Others may see the tape differently. For ourselves, we've never seen such instructive videotape—instructive concerning the wide range of human comprehension and behavior. 

How instructive is that videotape? Consider:

Last Thursday, Slate's Elliott Hannon became one of the very journalists here in Our Town to acknowledge that videotape. 

Hannon posted this very brief report at Slate. Among an array of unintelligent comments which generalized wildly about "the police," one commenter offered this:

COMMENT TO SLATE: In its own way this is worse than the Floyd video. The woman was so clearly not a danger to anyone, and the use of force was so clearly unnecessary, and then the video of them laughing about it—the contempt for the public, the causal sadism, the total and complete lack of empathy.  All the same things were there in the Floyd video, but the Floyd video you could chalk up to racism, and the fact that he was a big, strong guy: it's slightly more explicable. This is just naked awfulness by awful people.

Did they go into the police because they were awful bullying sadists, or did police training/culture make them into awful bullying sadists? Hard to know...

We're inclined to disagree with the reference to "sadism." In the main, that isn't what we thought we saw on that videotape. 

We'd also be slow to attribute Derek Chauvin's bizarre-seeming behavior to racism. In the Loveland arrest, we see several "white" police officers behaving in a remarkably violent way toward a woman who is also "white." This shows that inexplicable, violent behavior can cut across "racial" lines.

We do agree with the commenter when the commenter says that, "in its own way," the Loveland tape is (almost) "worse than the Floyd tape."  We agree with the commenter's reasoning:

Derek Chauvin's behavior on that Minneapolis tape seems very hard to comprehend. That said:

"In its own way," the behavior in Loveland is even more "inexplicable," given the fact that the victim of the violent arrest was 73 years old and weighed just 80 pounds. In our view, the commenters was suitably puzzled by that puzzling pair of facts.

However you assess such matters, we would offer this:

Even if we in Our Town weren't pretending to be involved in a discussion of police behavior, that videotape from Loveland would have been newsworthy—wholly startling.

The conversation in that station house is unlike anything we've ever seen. To our ear, it spills with the fatuous state of mind Arrendt once called "the banality of evil."  In a rational world, that tape would be an anthropological sensation at any point in time.

Tht would be in a rational world. In our world, and in Our Town, that tape has been wholly ignored. The stars who entertain us here in Our Town haven't said one word about it.

The reason for that is obvious. No one was killed in that violent arrest, and the victim in question was "white."

To our ear, a banality suffuses the conversation in that station house. To our ear, a sepatare banality now suffuses reporting here in Our Town.

We discuss no-knock raids if the victim is "black." We discuss fatal shootings if the decedent is "black," and if the decedent was shot and killed by "the police."

The no-knock raids in this morning's Washington Post haven't made in out of the Metro section because of the existence of that potent news filter. So too with the fatal shooting of Bijan Ghaisar, a local event the Post has discussed for the past three or four years.

So too with the fatal shooting of Peyton Ham, age 16. In yet another local event, he was shot and killed by a state trooper as he lay on the ground, already shot, just two weeks ago. This shooting death never made it out of Metro because the decedent was "white."

A banality filled the air as those officers discussed that violent arrest. Ten feet away from the discussants, the target of their violent arrest writhed in a holding cell.

To our ear, a separate banality fills the air when we watch Our Town's  "cable news." Loathsome people appear on the screen, though only if you believe in such beings, which we basically don't.

Tomorrow: The banality of Our Town's banality as seen in the (unmentioned) events at the Grace Church School


32 comments:

  1. "After violently arresting woman, 73, with dementia, police laughed about it, video shows: ‘We crushed it'"

    Let us guess, dear Bob: another city run by liberals?

    ReplyDelete
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  2. Somerby looked at the video and didn't see sadism! Well, that settles it then.

    It would make sense if Somerby were arguing that police abuse happens to white people too and that strengthens the case for police reform. Unfortunately, he seems to argue against police reform for anyone because both white and black people are the targets of abuse.

    And then he attributes the loathsome traits of obvious sadists to humanity as a whole, and to stupidity (banality)! That is just plain wrong.

    And then his beef is not with the slant of the press but the fact that the articles about white people appear only in the Metro section, not in the national news section.

    But why should these reports appear in a national news section if Somerby is unwilling to address police reform? There is no national issue remaining and the deaths are only of interest to family and friends, not a national audience.

    And Somerby once again feel competent to assess Trump's mental illness but won't call those cops sadistic! What is wrong with Somerby?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yes, by making the point that this should have hit every news outlet in country (especially in light of their discussions on police reform), and by using the officers as Exhibit A as to a disquieting banality, Somerby is merely offering up excuses for the evil people and highlighting the wrong issues and has very likely misinterpreted the real and true and correct meaning of the incident and the device that recorded it in the first place.

      Good of you to keep us on track as to what is important to Anonymices here.

      Delete
    2. You never actually answer the question of why this is newsworthy if this is just human behavior writ large.

      Delete
    3. You don’t know much if you don’t know that history is replete with horrifying behavior.

      It’s interesting to me that in order to make controversial everything TDH says (which you are tasked to do) it never occurs to you that had Somerby written anything suggesting that evil is banal, you’d be pulling you’re hair.

      No, you’re able to discern the underlying profundity of that remark. You can ascertain that Arendt wasn’t saying that evil is so much a part of the human condition as to be ho hum, incidental to the person behind it, or...wait for it...nonexistent.

      Spare me your disingenuousness, Anonymouse 8:42pm. Spare this entire blog.

      Delete
  3. "Loathsome people appear on the screen, though only if you believe in such beings, which we basically don't."

    There is some irony in Somerby's statement here because he has managed to convince me that he is a thoroughly loathsome person himself.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. He “managed” this by differing with you.

      Delete
  4. "No one died in the course of this second violent arrest, but the subsequent conversation in that station house offers a window into the soul of one aspect of human behavior writ large."

    Somerby then describes the officers sitting around laughing at video of the arrest of the injured elderly woman.

    Somerby thinks this is an example of normal human behavior. It is not. But it says a whole lot about Somerby that he thinks it is. Someone with a bent moral compass such as Somerby's should be nowhere around children. I'm so glad he reached that conclusion and took himself out of the teaching profession.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. He didn’t say that their actions were “normal”. Far from it. He said this:

      “The conversation in that station house is unlike anything we've ever seen. To our ear, it spills with the fatuous state of mind Arrendt once called "the banality of evil." In a rational world, that tape would be an anthropological sensation at any point in time.”

      Delete
    2. The phrase "one aspect of human behavior" attributes what those cops did to "human behavior" not the warped souls of individual officers. So does "writ large."

      Delete
    3. “If only it were all so simple! If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?”
      Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago

      You should read more of what Solzhenitsyn wrote about the human heart. He learned a great deal in the Soviet camps. Not just about the evil of the guards, the political system, but what he found in himself.

      Corrie ten Boom, a Christian evangelist and author, who was imprisoned In a Nazi camp, along with her father and sister, after they were arrested for hiding Jews in Amsterdam, wrote about that sort of revelation too. In all that she suffered her greatest despair was the compromises that lay on her own conscience. She recounted the way that she had worked to beat other prisoners, in far worse shape than she, to the the warmest place to stand, the biggest portion of food. She mentioned the rage toward those who got in her way,. She mourned what she described as the unplumbed depths of her heart.

      Solzhenitsyn wrote of a friend who had little self awareness that there was nothing so wrong with him that some suffering wouldn’t cure.

      That may be the case for you too.

      Delete
  5. A few days back, Somerby launched his attack on critical race theory (in math?), right in step with the conservative talking points for this week. Us liberals are not the ones attacking CRT, so what does that tell you about whether Somerby is liberal or not? Today we see that famous lack of empathy on display -- excusing sadistic police behavior by pretending that it is part of human nature to do what they did. Hint to Somerby: it wouldn't be a news item if it were normal behavior. Somerby is NOT liberal and he has nothing useful to say about Our Town. No Tucker Carlson aficionado does.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yes, everything "liberals" support is just perfect and shouldn't be critiqued. Get in line or get kicked out of the club.

      Delete
    2. 1:29, I see nothing in 11:52’s comment that suggests that liberals shouldn’t be critiqued. Can you point that out?

      Delete
    3. 1:29,
      Liz Cheney thinks you you're confused about the two parties.

      Delete
  6. “The incident wasn't worth talking about!”

    In the US in 2019, 1,203,808 incidents of violent crime resulted in a conviction. All but a handful are deemed not worth talking about by our billionaire-owned massed media. To them, only the few thousand incidents involving cops trying to restrain these violent people are deemed worthy of discussion. And the solution they have offered to that problem is to eliminate cops, which will never happen. But do they have any answers to the 1,200,000 violent incidents caused by we the people of the USA? Nope. They simply don’t care. They have their own private security in their Richistan bubble life in The Hamptons or wherever.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It would help if cops were to make a greater effort to screen out the sadists.

      John Oliver recently devoted a substantial portion of his HBO show to discussing no-knock warrants and the problems with them. For several weeks, the Rookie, a cop show on ABC, has been discussing racist policing and sources of disrespect toward the public, from a police perspective. They imply that at least part of the problem is the militarization of the police force, including hiring former military to do police work. They are not glossing over the problems in policing, the way Somerby tries to do today -- implying that this is a press problem in coverage, not anything real that our society needs to address.

      Delete
  7. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  8. “This banality regulates the things we read about in our major newspapers.”

    What on earth is Somerby complaining about?

    He read about the things he discusses here in our major newspapers. Perhaps he forgot about or overlooked the following reports on the Colorado incident that appeared in the hated New York Times:

    Arrest of Colorado Woman With Dementia Prompts Investigation
    https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/20/us/karen-garner-loveland-police-dementia.html

    Video Shows Police Laughing at Footage of Arrest of Woman With Dementia
    https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/27/us/loveland-police-video-karen-garner.html

    Three Colorado Officers Resign After Arrest of Woman With Dementia
    https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/30/us/colorado-police-dementia.html

    It was also reported on the major network news broadcasts.

    Now, find out if Their Town reports on any of these incidents at all.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. That's far from the national outcry it deserved, especially given the supposed concern by the press about police brutality. And as far as I know, it hasn't been discussed on any cable news shows. Bizarre.

      Delete
    2. “As far as you know” is good enough for you, apparently.

      And if the “press” didn’t feel these issues were important, why would the Post and Times bother reporting on an ostensibly local incident from Colorado? They are giving it national attention.

      Delete
  9. “In particular, they aren't "the police" in some unexplained global sense.”

    This from a man who starts sentences with “we liberals” and ends them with wild generalizations.

    ReplyDelete
  10. “We're inclined to disagree with the reference to "sadism." In the main, that isn't what we thought we saw on that videotape.”

    Does Somerby think behavior is sadistic only if it resembles some mustache-twirling cartoonish villain from a movie, like The Joker?

    The police behavior here is perfectly described by Arendt’s phrase “the banality of evil.”

    It is precisely the casual, commonplace way those officers behaved here.

    ReplyDelete
  11. The “love ethic” dictates that a true liberal must forgive those officers and not attempt to put them in prison. It may also demand that we view those officers as mentally ill and deserving of sympathy.

    Who cares how that twisted view of the “love ethic” excuses and ultimately normalizes wrongdoing? And who cares about justice for the victims of the police, when it is the police we must always strive to excuse?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Read the book. Your questions are answered with precision.

      Delete
  12. It sometimes seems as though Somerby believes that only the news media has agency in terms of setting the agenda for and carrying on a national discourse.

    Tell that to Black Lives Matter.

    ReplyDelete
  13. “In particular, they aren't "the police" in some unexplained global sense.”

    It’s the difference between saying “some police officers are white nationalists” vs “white nationalism is spreading amongst the police”, or “some cops are bullies” vs “bullying is a systemic problem in the police.”

    If this kind of behavior is all too commonplace, then it is legitimate to talk about a problem with the police, and not just individual officers.

    ReplyDelete
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