Opinion
Unfinished
business
Pinochet s release sends clear
message to all countries
During Augusto Pinochet’s 17-year reign in Chile, which
ended in 1990, more than 3,000 people died or disappeared.
Many in the international community and in Chile have
called for his prosecution.
But after a 503-day detention in England, Pinochet was
released last week because he was determined too ill to be
extradited to Spain for trial.
Now Pinochet is back in Chile in his luxury mansion. His
return to the country was marked by demonstrations both
celebrating Pinochet’s return and demanding he face trial.
There are some in Chile who consider Pinochet a hero for
saving the country from Marxism with his bloody 1973
coup.
Others in Chile and abroad assert that the former dictator
should be imprisoned for human rights violations.
According to CNN, polls show that most Chileans think
Pinochet should be tried but not abroad.
But most in Chile believe Pinochet will
never stand trial because of the tremen
dous influence he still wields.
Pinochet currently serves as a life sen
! ator, which is a post he created for anyone
who is president for at least six years. The
job includes immunity from prosecution,
which in the past has halted inquiries into
his conduct while president.
Before Pinochet could be prosecuted,
the courts would have to decide to strip
him of his immunity.
Though Pinochet was not extradited to Spain, his arrest
and detention send a clear sign to others worldwide such as
Yugoslavian President Slobodan Milosevic, who has been
indicted internationally for his crimes.
In October of 1998, Pinochet was arrested while on vaca
tion in Great Britain after a Spanish judge issued a warrant
alleging gross human rights abuses, including the torture and
murder of thousands.
In the aftermath of World War II, the United Nations’
Universal Declaration of Human Rights was adopted to set a
standard.
But nations must be willing to uphold those standards and
hold leaders of other countries accountable for their actions.
As the UN’s World Court in the Hague continues to gain
power, this kind of arrest and prosecution will become more
common.
Pinochet’s fate is now in the hands of his countrymen, but
the world can learn from this experience. Countries must fol
low through on their commitment to human rights.
Now
Pinochet
is back in
Chile in
his luxury
mansion.
Editorial Board
Josh Funk (editor) • J.J. Harder • Cliff Hicks • Samuel
McKewon • Dane Stickney • Kimberly Sweet • Lindsay
Young
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three.
Obermeyer’s
VIEW
Watching the detectives
Police officers need to be closely monitored
The emblem of this gang was a
grinning skull wearing a cowboy hat,
with poker cards splayed in the fore
ground. The cards? Aces and eights;
the dead man’s hand. Men have
stalked Los Angeles, boldly display
ing this moniker and forcing their
will upon those they encountered
since 1979.
A recent LA Times story
described these rouge outlaws as
“macho, insubordinate and cliquish.”
The chief of the LAPD announced
this gang is soon to be no more.
Who are the dastardly villains on
the receiving end of a death warrant?
The Bloods or the Crips? The Latin
Kings? Nope, the Los Angeles Police
Department special anti-gang outfit:
CRASH (Community Resources
Against Street Hoodlums).
You may have read about the
growing police corruption scandal in
California. On Friday, the Los
Angeles Police Chief issued a state
ment that sealed the fate of L.A.’s
famous CRASH units. Chief Bernard
C. Parks announced a plan for Los
Angeles to “start from scratch” with
regard to its specialized gang task
force.
Hundreds of cases are now being
reviewed and many have already been
overturned because the members of
the CRASH unit abused their police
powers to an alarming extent. The
ACLU has come out and declared
this to be a “positive step”, while the
attorney for several complainants
sees this step as useless, because offi
cers are not being terminated, only
reassigned.
As a society we need to rethink
tne position we have entrusted to the
police. Sure, our gangs in blue are
necessary, but their role needs to be
fundamentally altered. Hopefully
Americans understand social interac
tions well enough to see more ade
quate controls put in place to control
the behavior of police. Not only in the
specialized task forces like CRASH,
but every person we put on the street
to serve and protect us.
While serving my time in the Air
Force, I was given the pain of sitting
in a patrol car and listening to the
high-pitched whine of the radar sys
tem as cars zoomed by. I also wit
nessed first-hand the effects the role
of police officer has on an individual.
As enforcers of regulations we
saw ourselves as morally superior to
“normal” citizens. We stood
straighter and had shinier boots.
There was no question we were a
higher evolution of humanity and
that, my friends, is a dangerous atti
tude. Haughty egotism is rampant in
many police forces and particularly in
these specialized, supposedly elite
units, and this attitude has lead to
unneeded and preventable abuses of
power.
If you have spent too many late
nights watching reruns of “NYPD
Blue” or “Homicide,” you may think
police are white knights out there
protecting your rights. One piece of
evidence against the white knight
hypothesis is a study conducted by
Douglas Smith and Christy Visher
that found all the same human fail
ings in police that exist in each of us.
Their biases were found to disad
vantage minorities and those with
criminal pasts — even when details
of crimes are held constant. It should
be no surprise that police officers are
just as vulnerable to mistakes as any
one else. After all, they are only
human and have a tremendously dif
ficult job. We need to make their job
easier on them.
Preeminent lawyer Walt
Bachman, in his recent book “Law v.
Life: What Lawyers areafraid to say
about the Legal Profession, went so
far as to imply that all police lie, and
everyone in the criminal justice sys
tem knows it. It is their job to get as
many arrests and convictions as pos
sible, so they give accounts of arrests
in the most negative way they can, no
matter if the incident happened that
way or not.
Whether all police lie or abuse
their authority is another matter, but
many do, so we must strive to take the
human factor as far out of crime
detection as we can. Many police cars
now have video — that is a good
thing. America needs to take this a
step farther.
All police cars should have video
on at all times and police should wear
audio recorders while on duty. This
will solve some of the problems with
stereotyping and give us a clearer pic
ture of the life of a police officer. We
will be able to view or listen to the
patrolman’s entire shift. Many may
argue that I want to take police dis
cretion out of policing — they would
be right. Do we really want police out
on the beat playing God? Letting
some people go while systematically
targeting others?
But we must be careful of what
we ask for. Many criminal
researchers believe almost all of us
commit some act that, if observed by
authorities, could result in our arrest.
In America we like to think of our
selves as the good guys, no matter
what we’ve done in our lives, and the
people in courts and prisons as the
bad guys. The picture of a white
knight valiantly serving justice is
more pleasant imagery than fallible
humans shaped by difficult circum
stances, capable of making mistakes.
The reality is we all break the rules
from time to time; some more than ',
others.
Do we really want a fair crime
detection system? Or would we rather
just center our law enforcement
efforts on the poor and minority areas ^
and sleep better at night; because we 1
are the good guys.
Michael Donley is a senior sociology major and a Daily Nebraskan columnist.
