ktla
On a sticky August afternoon in 2011, as rioters looted and fires burned in the streets outside, police officers gathered in a room in North London. Projected on the wall was the blurry silhouette of a man with a black woolen hat pulled deep over his forehead and a red bandanna covering all but his eyes. Security cameras had tracked the man setting fire to cars, stealing from shops, beating up passersby, and even hurling bombs. But he was always masked. “We need to identify this fellow,” the sergeant said. “He’s one of the worst.”
At that moment, Gary Collins, a constable from the local gang unit, walked in. He took one look and said, “That’s Stephen Prince.”
Friends call Collins Rain Man, Yoda, or simply the Oracle. But to Scotland Yard, London’s metropolitan police force, he is known as a super recognizer. He has a special gift of facial recall powers that enables him to match even low-quality and partial imagery to a face he has seen before, on the street or in a database, possibly years earlier. The last time he had come face-to-face with Prince was during a fleeting encounter in 2005. ...
It has almost become kabuki theater. We now have the tragicomic worst of all possible worlds. Mobs are allowed to riot, burn, pull innocent drivers out of their cars and beat them, do their back-to-school shopping cart filling, jump up and down upon and vandalize and burn cop cars--with always the possibility of deaths in the maylay--during which time the police are mostly ordered to stand down.
Then, many hours or a day or two later law enforcement makes a big show of force, parading and positioning and repositioning themselves and their heavy armament hither and yon, which allows rioters and their allies to scream 'Militarization!'
All supported by our ever helpful Mainstream Media who scour every possible image so they can feature, say, a heavily armed National Guard Humvee facing off against an African American grandma wearing a pretty pink sunbonnet while sitting in a wheelchair knitting.
You may well ask, what about innocent bystanders and business property? You silly. The not too subtle message in all this from our corrupt and cowardly politicians to average law-abiding taxpaying citizens? Get lost!
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