Gene Burmington | Gabe Suarez: Blaming the Victim is Old-Fashioned

The following is a guest post by Gene Burmington in response to this item in yesterday’s Daily Blend.

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Gabe Suarez

I read this article by former SWAT officer and militant fuckhead Gabe Suarez, who's worried about the effects of the Indiana defense against the police bill. For the post part, concerns about that law are sound. Only problem is, he didn't address them:

When I was on SWAT our view is that "We will always win....even if we have to burn down your entire house by bombing it....we will win". Period.

Yeah. SWAT always has to win. Even if it means breaking into the wrong house and vandalizing the fuck out of it just because you can when someone has a justifiable complaint and anger towards the intrusion. Not to mention all those dogs that SWAT teams kill just for (what I assume) entertainment purposes.

A SWAT team is like a military unit. You can moan all you want about the militarization of the police and all of that but your tears will not change a thing.

Which is really too bad. Aren't people aware that when you militarize something, there always has to be an enemy to fight? It isn't a police officer's duty to condemn people as enemies; our system is supposed to catch, rehabilitate, and release like a fancy sports-fishing league. Once we begin to demonize these people who are considered criminals, we strip away their rights as human beings and their ability to change their ways. We also condone the opportunities that our police take to abuse such individuals.

Notice that I have not even gotten into the "right or wrong" discussion. Why not? Because it is not relevant.

You fuckhead. You're a police officer; right and wrong is your job. To call ethical choices and distinctions "not relevant" is to say that you don't care if an intrusion is justified or not, you just want to support your own agenda that police forces are always right no matter what brutalities they engage in. Well, let me remind you of your duty, former officer Suarez: It is to protect the innocent and defend the peace. As long as you justify false break-ins by SWAT units, you are saying that in the long run of your power and corrupted authority, that the safety of the innocent does not matter.

If economic events require you to live there, work as much as you can (you can get by on 4 hours of sleep) and make enough money that you can go live in a normal neighborhood […]

So, you are telling people it's their responsibility to avoid false invasions by SWAT teams by living in a different neighborhood. Yeah, I guess it would be easy work for someone who has a steady job. But what about the rest of Americans who are being undercut by a vile corporate engine? How can you say that working two or more jobs and living on four hours of sleep is preferable to living in a bad neighborhood and getting accidentally raided? There's violence in these neighborhoods and lots of proliferation of crime. To basically insinuate that if people stopped being "lazy", they could easily move out of such a problematic place, is just so much vitriol towards their suffering. These people can handle the drugs, the meth labs, and the gang violence. What they can't handle is their protectors also victimizing them.

Yes, go get a motherfreaking job! Work your ass off. Watch what happens then. When you get a good paying job, you don't have to live with rats. When you don't have to live with rats, you have a nice home in a nice 'hood. When you have a nice home in a nice 'hood, your wife will love you more, and you won't care about Indiana laws, or SWAT, or any of that Concord Bridge Tin Foliery.

People who live in the "hood" don't make much money, Gabe, but you know who does? Drug dealers. Yeah, drug dealers can affords to stay in those nicer places you described.

You will be too busy enjoying your life to care. Get the picture?

Yeah, I DO get the picture. You enjoy your life too much to care about how other people will rise out of their situation.

Finally and perhaps most importantly, don't be a criminal that gets you on the SWAT radar in the first place.

Well yeah, except for the many different examples where SWAT teams fuck up. "Read between the lines and then consider the source as well". Is that the way you justify the malicious actions of wrongful SWAT and police officers? You can't just admit that police authorities are fallible human beings that get angry and do nasty things when pushed too far? They have to be perfect gods that can do no wrong and the only time there is suspicion that they've done evil is "Anyone from a war hero to a Pastor of a church can be involved in criminal actions that get them noticed by the right people....or the wrong people." So, you just provide the assumption that police officers always act in accordance with the statutes of the law. I call bullshit.

So there it is. The formula for defending against a SWAT entry into your crib at 0300 HRS.

1. Get a job
2. Make money
3. Get a nice home where police activity is not needed
4. Make more money
5. Find a nice girl
6. Marry her and have lots of cool kids that will also make money

Or...one can sit around and watch their blood pressure rise because the wrong ghetto crib got hit by the cops and, "by golly", the possibility of SWAT coming and hitting theirs - right next to T-dog's Illicit Den of Recreational Pharmaceuticals, because they have no money, because they do not work, because they are too busy lining their walls with tin foil and going to militia meetings.

Which life do you want?

Thank you for the checklist. I can now see where all the crazy is coming from and address it. To borrow a page from your handbook, pretty much all of those points you just outlined are "not relevant", especially not in a nice suburban neighborhood where a SWAT team breaks in for a little 1oz bag of marijuana or for even worse more inane reasons (like accidents). So in conclusion, how about this: the life I want is where police do their job with limitations on their authority, and to focus their assaults where they are justified to be.

Tags: Gabe Suarez • SWAT • Special Weapons And Tactics • police raids • no-knock warrants • victim-blaming