Standard Operating Procedure and Police Accountability

During the Nuremberg Trials for Nazi War Criminals, the victorious allies brushed aside the defense protestations that orders were simply being followed with the rejoinder, that certain orders are beyond the pale.

So why is that same dynamic alive and well in police departments across the nation. People are being killed and brutally beaten by police officers across the nation and after every incident, a police spokesperson is paraded across national jumbotrons uttering Standard Operating Procedure was used by the Siegfried in Question.

If Lessons learnt from all these episodes of the human condition are not to be seen simply within the dicta, organized violence makes the rules and human aspirations, redeemed from environmental- antagonisms affirms the dialectic of accountability, then accountability should not be relative.

Police officers have their responsibilities and summary-executions and assaults upon suspects isn't a part of it.

By Apropos