What If Derek Chauvin Was Masked?

 

According to Professor Google, there is no federal law requiring police to identify themselves.

Now, syntax is important here. Try googling, "Do police officers have to identify themselves as police officers?"
Mad Dog has tried and failed.  It may well be police officers do not have to flash a badge or a photo ID in many of these United States. Police "in uniform" may be required to show a badge or an ID but plainclothes police apparently do not. That is a separate question from: does a police officer wearing a uniform, impersonating an officer, have to go the next step, to identify himself not just as a police officer, a sworn officer, but to then identify himself as a particular officer with a name and a badge number?

Go try to find that for your own state and town.

One thing which is clear, if a policeman in Hampton asks you to produce identification, you are by law required to do THAT. But it is not at all clear the same obligation weighs on the policeman. He may legally remain anonymous.

How's that for the home of the free and the land of the brave?

The attorney general and every bimbo on FOXNEWS have insisted ICE agents and police everywhere are being stalked and doxxed by "cartels" and masks are necessary for police and agents of every stripe. Of course, nobody has actually thought it necessary to offer evidence this is a real problem and not just some convenient excuse dreamed up to cover nasty behavior.

This means any sadist may impersonate a policeman easily enough, even though claiming to be police when you are not is often illegal--that would only play out later, after you've been stuffed into a van or raped.

In New Hampshire, local sheriff's department and town police have entered into obscure agreements with ICE to apprehend "illegal immigrants." If those police wear masks, baklavas in this open carry state, things may get interesting.

One can well imagine a gaggle of masked agents wearing bullet proof vests, invading the local Indian or Mexican restaurants in Hampton, and sitting there are gun toting citizens who happen to really like the Patek Paneer or the enchiladas, when the storm troopers burst through the door.  Shoot out at the OK corral hardly begins to describe the possibilities.

And what, as a citizen, even unarmed, should Mad Dog do if two men in baclava's jump out of a van and tackle some guy walking his chihuahua on the sidewalk in front of him? Should he act as a Good Samaritan and rush to the rescue? Whose side should he be on? The guys who scream "ICE" ?  Should Mad Dog respond "FBI" and flash his wallet ID obtained for $14 from Amazon?

Wouldn't that be fun? The "ICE agents" in their hoodies and baclava's now facing Mad Dog in his Hawaiian shirt flashing his pocket FBI badge? 

Then we call the Hampton police, who arrive in their N95 masks and try to sort things out.

What's a citizen to do?

Or suppose Mad Dog sees a baklava masked man with is knee on the neck of a man by the road? Who should Mad Dog hit? 

Outside of the COVID pandemic, Mad Dog would have thought the safest thing to assume would be the masked guy is the bad guy, and you should go to the aide of the guy the mask guy is beating.

It's like coming upon a man beating a dog he is holding by a leash with a stick or a club. You may not have much information, but the scene itself asserts itself--ipse race loquitor: The fact speaks for itself. It doesn't matter whether the dog is a local stray or belongs to the man. That dog may be a bad boy. But you don't like seeing a beating.

We hate cruelty to animals.

We reserve judgment about cruelty to people, especially if they happen to be "illegals."

But if Derek Chauvin had been masked, and people in the crowd gathering around him, watching him crush in with his knee on George Floyd's neck, if that milling crowd become unsure if Chauvin was a cop, would George Floyd be alive today?