Police abuse citizens regularly

I am a former mayor of a small city outside of El Paso, Texas. Our own police department abuses our citizens on a regular basis, especially young people. I wrote and tried to institute a Citizen's Review Committee (and yes there have been successful citizen review committees) but the city council went out of their way to believe the chief of police's flimsy excuse for his officers' behavior and did not approve the ordinance. Subsequently, the same council had to fire an officer for physical abuse of a suspect caught on police video.

I think most law-abiding people, like myself, have always been taught to respect the law. The problem is our police departments as a whole have gone the way of the rest of society – corrupt and bankrupt of knowledge of our system of government under the Constitution.

TRENDING: Ben Carson stands for Trump, blasts impeachment, censorship, swamp-creature GOP in bold interview

Because of my former position, I am well aware of the corruption of other small cities and El Paso's police departments. The stories I could tell would make you sick. They – as a matter of routine – enter property and houses without invite, just cause or warrant. The most appalling story, because it included the judiciary, was four young men who had officers enter their premises without invite, cause or warrant and had their property searched and were arrested for possession of marijuana. When they went to court, the judge told the officers that there wasn't enough marijuana to charge four men with and that the police officers should up the amount of marijuana they took in the arrest. The four young men are now securing attorneys that will cost a minimum of $1,500 apiece that they cannot well afford.

Like you, it isn't support of a particular behavior, but the abuse of law by officers and judges that makes me so furious. Unfortunately, law-abiding citizens who have yet to have a run-in with officers will pooh-pooh [Joseph Farah's] story and stop new laws that would curb these abuses ...

Do not forget the equation of money. For a lot of cities, it isn't police protection and enforcement of the law, but a huge amount of revenue enhancement to city budgets.

Diane Whity