“I was shocked that my face was slammed into the pavement across the road from my school,” Johnson wrote in a statement. “I trust the scars on my face and head will one day heal, but the trauma of what those officers did will stay with me.”
Initial media reports identified Johnson’s alleged crime was the use of a fake I.D. in his attempt to enter a bar near campus. However, his roommate later discredited this claim, saying Johnson does not own a fake I.D. and simply tried entering the bar with his regular I.D. but was turned away (Johnson is 20). Police reports also show no mention about a fake I.D. Instead, Johnson was booked on charges of public drunkenness and obstructing justice. It remains unclear whether the charges against Johnson are true or just trumped-up charges to justify use of force by the police.
The Cornell Daily Sun’s article on the issue still claims the arrest was based on the use of a fake I.D.
Still, few people are talking about the role that big, authoritarian government plays in cases like this.
Reason reports that the officers who subdued and arrested Johnson worked for the Virginia Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control, a state liquor agency, not for UVA. That media outlet is the only one asking a very simple, important question: why is a state regulatory agency employing a police force?
Indeed, why is anyone–regardless of race, age, education status–being slammed to the ground for a minor infraction by a state regulatory agency?
A state regulatory agency is another name for bureaucracy. Is Johnson’s case one of police brutality? No, this is bureaucratic brutality. This is no different from a scenario where the EPA employs a police force that goes around slamming people’s faces to the pavement because they didn’t comply with whatever regulation the EPA enforcers wanted to impose that day.
When liberals and progressives advocate for bigger government, the inevitable, irrefutable byproduct is always more regulation. And regulations must be enforced. And who is going to enforce them? The ivory tower intellectuals trying to direct the country’s populace from their lofty Washington D.C. boardrooms or their specialized police forces who are trained to subdue the transgressors?
You see, the ivory tower administrators, bureaucrats and legislators, in response to cases like Johnson’s, hold emergency meetings and go on the Sunday morning talk shows to express their outrage at the police’s treatment of young black men. They fail to realize the policemen slam these young men to the ground because failing to do so is a violation of the orders they hand down to them.
It’s no different from the Eric Garner case. Everyone focused on “I can’t breathe.” Everyone forgot what Garner was choked to death for–“illegally” selling cigarettes. He wasn’t collecting taxes on those cigarettes, and thus was in violation of some tax law dreamed up by do-gooder liberals in Washington D.C., Albany and New York City. Of course, his death at the hands of a police choke hold is a tragedy, but the fact that police even engaged him in the first place is proof of the over-policing engendered by over-regulation.
All of this is not to say racism didn’t play a role in Johnson’s arrest. But all those who believe “black lives matter” must stand up to and push back against calls for bigger government. It is bigger government that brings people and law-enforcement into greater contact, and if you don’t want that, then don’t let yourself be tricked into advocating for it.
Brilliant. I’m speechless.