Today is the 40th anniversary of the arrest of David Berkowitz, the “Son of Sam” murderer (link). Mr. Berkowitz was arrested after a year plus long rampage where he shot people, usually in parked cars late at night, at random. Allegedly, he was commanded by a 1000 year old man talking through a Labrador Retriever owned by a neighbor whose first name was Sam.
He was caught when his vehicle received a parking ticket near the scene of a July 31, 1977 murder. He was arrested as he strolled towards the car which had the murder weapon, in plain view, in the back seat.
Similarly, Charles Manson and his minions were, in 1969, caught virtually red-handed and arrested.
Mr. Manson has now spent over 48 years as a government charge. Mr. Berkowitz has been in New York State prison for exactly 40 years. Neither Mr. Manson and his followers, or Mr. Berkowitz have any hope of release. They will not contribute to society.
I know we can’t officially allow police officers to serve as judge, jury and executioners. The question I have is why more of these people don’t perish during a struggle during arrest. Failing that why aren’t they mixed with the general prison population or die during an escape attempt? I am not amused by the lengthy imprisonments or, in the case of Manson, the wild, theatrical trials that make a mockery of the court system.
So, just to be clear, you are saying you are OK with extrajudicial killings, right?
For my part, I have no problem with lengthy imprisonment and do not believe an excessive amount of the taxes I pay support these inmates), nor do I care that a trial is wild and theatrical trial if the appropriate verdict eventually is rendered.
I’m pretty sure David Berkowitz wasn’t the first person they arrested for the Son of Sam murders. Should the cops have shot all the other suspects when they were arresting them, too?
I’ll bet the dog lied about the 1000 year old man and just said that to further manipulate Berkowitz. I can’t believe he got off Scotty free. Too bad the police didn’t kill him in a struggle, but he wasn’t even arrested!
I don’t think we want individual police making hasty decisions on the likely guilt or innocence of murder suspects - just not infallible enough.
Some years ago, the Washington Post ran a series of profiles of people convicted of murder in Prince George’s County who were later exonerated. All it took for some homicide detectives to coerce a confession out of them was a sincere belief in their guilt, plus a few days of not allowing them any sleep.
As Joe Friday once said, “We have one big problem in selecting police officers. We have to recruit from the human race.”
Others are addressing the more important points (like why laws are good and why the police killing whoever they want is bad) so I’d like focus on one detail of what you said. You wrote “Charles Manson and his minions were, in 1969, caught virtually red-handed and arrested”. How do you figure that?
Nobody was arrested at the crime scenes. Manson was arrested a couple of months later on unrelated charges (auto theft and vandalism). While he was in jail for those charges, the ongoing investigations of the murders (which were regarded as unconnected crimes) began pointing towards Manson. But the main body of evidence was testimony from other people who were themselves being investigated by the police.
So when do you think the police should have killed Manson? When he was arrested for vandalizing a National Park? When somebody else who had been arrested offered to testify against Manson in exchange for immunity? When the second or third person ID’ed Manson? At what point exactly do you feel the police should have been allowed to decide Manson was guilty and shot him in his jail cell?
Well, empowering one person with the ability to arrest and execute seems a bit extreme in most circumstances. Of course people can defend themselves. But we don’t want agents of the state just murdering/killing suspects.
And we do actually want that. In the case I am mistaken for some dangerous, wanted person, I would like it to be the case that I don’t accidentally-on-purpose come to harm.
mmmmmm, no. I think we have about the right number of them dying during capture now. And there are clearly too many people being killed during arrest, who turn out to be not guilty of anything significant at all.
My recollection is that the murder weapon was carried to the car by Berkowitz at the time he was arrested. The gun that was already in the car in plain sight was a rifle.
The OP’s profile says he is a ‘radical leftist’. But from what he’s saying he sounds more like ‘radical rightist’. Perhaps there isn’t much difference.
However, there is such a thing as the Rule of Law.
Once you dispense with the Rule of Law, you soon end up with a police state where people get shot arbitrarily because someone in authority doesn’t like them, or they ‘disappear’ into prisons and torture chambers and are never seen again.
This is not about individual murderers like Berkowitz or Manson, it’s about what kind of society we all want to live in.
“We are all servants of the laws in order that we may be free.” - Cicero
