Thursday, June 26, 2008

The Rockland Arrest brouhaha and the painful subject of self governance

By now everybody heard the story of a Jewish woman from Monsey who was arrested during the sweep on welfare fraud in the Rockland county, and who was mistreated during booking by the Ramapo PD officer - they forced her to remove her wig and she was forcefully fingerprinted by a male officer; the first part being excruciatingly humiliating (especially given the fact that she probably shaves her head), and the second one is a major no-no both halachically (some but not me would argue yeherog ve'al yaavor) and socially, since any cross-gender body contact with strangers is a big taboo and under the circumstances probably caused a severe psychological trauma. Christopher St. Lawrence proceeded to apologize to the community and promised to look into the actions of the PD; the apology itself cause an outroar about the usual "special treatment" for "those people", the selfless professionalism of Ramapo police and how "they" bought everything and St. Lawrence is just a puppet.

Some in the blogosphere jumped on the subject and predictably tried and convicted her on all charges. The usual lectures about how rampantly corrupt "they" are and how dare "they" steal and more so , to the extent where "they" should be licking the ground of the goldene medine and be following every comma and apostrophe of every code of law ever written by man.

What was left completely unattended, both in the media and by the bloggers, are the relevant facts. First of all, some minimum wage journalist upgraded her charges to "welfare fraud in the 1-st degree" and others, not bothering to verify, propagated the word. 1st degree fraud, of course, had to exceed $1 million. This made an excellent cover story for anyone willing to bring an example of "them" bilking the system out of millions. Not to mention all those self-conscious moralizers preaching about how all criminals are criminals and should be shot on the spot or something to that tune. And the usual juicy stories about "them" picking up dope/hookers/weapons/you name it.

In reality, of course, this 24 year old woman was arrested along with her husband (9 years older then her) probably for having her signature on some forms they submitted to get Medicaid or welfare or who knows what. The amount involved ? USD $8,485.79. Staggering. Do you or the people convicting her even know what constitutes welfare fraud ? I strongly doubt that. Because the fact is that pretty much anybody applying for welfare probably can be charged with fraud, for the pettiest things on their application. Just like most homeowners can be convicted for mortgage fraud, as for past 10 years it was next to impossible to get a mortgage without fudging the numbers somewhat. This couple just got in the way and got railroaded. Out of 43 arrested, only three couples are identifiably frum and all three are charged with welfare fraud in rather modest amounts, all under $12,000. For comparison, others on the list allegedly took the State for anything from $100k and less.

So while this woman's crime is rather ephemeral and charges will probably be dismissed or reduced greatly, she and her family did undergo a very real, very harsh and long lasting punishment. She was physically assaulted, harassed, publicly humiliated and slandered for life with allegations of a crime she or her husband never committed and were never charged with - allegations that will remain with her forever, thank Google.

Was this cop doing his job ? I am sure he was. They always do. Even Eppolito and Caracappa were doing their jobs, and were excellent police officers. That's the idea actually - members of the law enforcement can do with you pretty much as they please, and if they are experienced enough they can get away with almost anything. They live in the system, have a vested interest in it and know every hook and nook of it, including every possible way of going after someone they simply don't like. It is unfortunate, but such is the way of it. I guess it's the lesser evil, and I'm sure that most of the time most of the cops are doing great things for which they should be very respected. But when they don't - it takes a real uproar to get anything looked at.

The keywords here are the same as elsewhere in this country : Selective Enforcement.

But getting back to the subject, consider how all these people, many of whom pretend to be observant Jews, treated this. They showed more eagerness to convict and stomp into earth, more vigor in accepting and embellishing every negativity there was then a police department and all the prosecutors combined. What follows is the old, often repeated, yet very hard to accept, truth : the last person you want to be judged by is such a yidele. You have more chances at getting justice with Al Sharpton and Muhammed Ali amongst your jurors, than you do with a panel of 12 mentchelech with shiny leather yarmulkes. Most convictors-in-absentia identify themselves as "MO", for what it's worth. And nobody ever, ever even considers anything remotely resembling "limud zechus". It probably is the most downtrodden mitzva ever ...

What follows is that other, farther away and more abstract, truth : given the current mindsets of American Judentum - all of them - the worst possible nightmare would be letting them anywhere near self-governance, under almost any circumstances. If that was to happen, the place would look like a cross between Buzescu, New Utrecht on a Sunday night and Pyongyang. "Developers" would fill every square inch with carton anthill housing, homeowners would "improve" their homes with five floors of recycled cement accented with faux-Louis XVII furniture and Thermador bidets; and "Chassidish With It" shomrim along with modern orthodox attorneys would form Mobile Justice Squadrons (a/k/a troykas) to go around, arrest and convict every breathing being for tax fraud. Evidence - they breathe, and that requires some ...

Bear that in mind next time you pick a jury ...

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