LAPD Shoots First, Questions Later

After the L.A. cops started eating their own yesterday, inevtiably, innocent bystanders were caught up in the frenzied search for Christopher Dorner. Police employees from the Los Angeles area wrecklessly targeted as many as three people in two incidents, as LAist reported:

The first officer-involved shooting happened at about 5:20 a.m. in the 19500 block of Redbeam Avenue in Torrance, according to the L.A. Times. Two women delivering newspapers in a truck were struck by gunfire by L.A. police detectives from the Hollywood division. One woman was shot in the hand and the other in the back, Jesse Escochea, who captured video of the victims being treated, told the Times. Both victims were transported to a hospital.

The Times describes the crime scene: “After the shooting, the blue pickup was riddled with bullet holes and what appeared to be newspapers lay in the street alongside.”

The second incident occurred at Flagler Lane and Beryl Street about 5:45 a.m. and involved Torrance police. No injuries were reported.

Here’s a picture of the first shooting. Note that as many as two dozen rounds were fired into the vehicle, and were aimed at the head and torsos of the two occupants.

Reason Magazine’s Scott Shackford  wrote “We’ll see if any disciplinary actions follow. That should be interesting, given a huge chunk of Dorner’s diatribe was about how the police abuse the citizens they’re supposed to protect.”

All of this is happening when people across the country are engaged in a roaring debate over gun control. One of the major points made by gun controllers is that individual citizens lack the proper training or discipline required of gun ownership, and that we should all be satisfied to let the police agencies protect us.

Such incidents as this one, along with last summer’s episode of nine bystanders being peppered with bullets from New York City police employees, should raise doubts that monopolized protection agencies are the best possible system. It also throws water on the idea that only the government’s bureaucrats are responsible enough to be licensed gun carriers.

Monopoly vs. Market

Despite being several years old, this video has been making its way around the Internet over the last few weeks. In it we hear the story of a 17-year-old girl who was arrested after swearing at an incompetent and belligerent 911 operator. The girl’s father had recently undergone brain surgery and was experiencing a seizure.

She dials 911 and at first no one answers; during the second call she has a verbal confrontation with the officer, who hangs up. The situation goes from bad to worse, as she leaves her brother in charge, and runs over to the nearby police station, where she is arrested on false pretenses.

Now, juxtapose this scenario, in which a so-called public servant is both derelict in his duties and entirely disrespectful to a freightened girl, with another recent story of immature behavior.

On Monday the L.A. Times reported that a group of three girls were referred to as “fat girls” by their server at a sports bar in Stockton, California. They discovered the disrespectful moniker when one checked their receipt and saw it printed near the top. One of the offended customers posted a picture on her Facebook account and the server was fired immediately, as public outrage grew in response to the prank.

This is the difference between government-monopolized services and those subject to market forces. As the video above explains, Sergeant Robert McFarland was eventually given a two-week suspension, but only after a local TV news station did an investigation exposing his misconduct. After being party to kidnapping a minor he resumed collecting his $62,000 salary, while the restaurant server is now looking for work, and it only took one picture and two days to make it happen.

How Freedom Works

Chick-fil-A has been catching flak from a number of people who are upset over comments made by its CEO regarding marriage. In response to the CEO’s opposition to gay marriage, several politicians, at least in Chicago and Boston, have said, more or less, that they will not allow the restaurant chain to open any new locations in their cities. This is of course morally repugnant, that one man has the power, or at least claims the power, to prevent individuals and businesses from engaging in voluntary trade, as Laurence Vance noted on the LRC blog yesterday.

Interestingly enough, the L.A. Times and the Boston Globe published editorials defending Chick-fil-A, arguing that only if there were restaurant locations refusing service to gays would there be any cause for legal sanctions. While this is legally true, since we live in a time and place where there is no such thing as genuine rights to private property, it’s certainly not morally right. Chick-fil-A, and any other business, should be free to refuse service to anyone for any reason. Of course they’d be in the position of alienating a large segment of the market, thereby limiting the pool of potential customers and likely sending them to competing restaurants, but that’s how freedom works.