Francie Munoz
Last December, two Toronto cops pulled over Pamela Munoz for allegedly running a red light. Munoz had her two daughters in the car, one of whom is Francie Munoz, who has Down syndrome.
Pamela insisted that she did not run the light and that it was yellow when she went through it. The officer wrote her a ticket anyway and then told her she could fight the ticket in court as he had the alleged proof of the infraction on his dashcam.
Munoz did fight the ticket and she was subsequently given the dashcam video of it. When police gave her the video, it was marked as having no audio — but they forgot to erase it.
The dashcam video did have audio and when Pamela Munoz heard what was on it, she was appalled. The cops recorded themselves making fun of Pamela's daughter Francie. Their actions were nothing short of disgusting — especially considering the fact that they are public servants and on duty.
As CBC reports, one officer can be heard saying there are "two-and-a-half women" in the car instead of three and then goes on to describe Francie as "disfigured ...or different," with the other officer laughing and agreeing.
"Artistic....That's going to be my new code word for ... different," says the officer.
Pamela told CBC that she thinks the cops were unaware that their comments were being recorded.
The officers then went on to further degrade the family, who had pizza with them in the car, saying, "They're [probably] nibbling on it right as we speak."
Pamela explained that she was initially upset about the ticket but after hearing the audio, she became furious.
"I was enraged," said the mother after hearing the police officers degrade her daughter because of Down syndrome.
"Obviously I was extremely upset. My blood was boiling. I'm still very upset, but at that moment I was enraged," she said. "These are the people we've told Francie to trust, to go to when she needs help."
After hearing these cops act in such an unprofessional manner, Pamela explained that Francie asked them to apologize and undergo training to make sure they don't publicly lambast those with special needs for the mere act of being different.
"I can't believe two officers would conduct themselves in this manner ... that they'd be this inhumane in their comments," said Pamela. "They don't respect, obviously, people with disabilities or people that are different than them."
As for the police department and the Toronto Police Association, they say they spoke with the officers who said they know their comments were inappropriate.
"They say their comments were totally inappropriate and [they] will do everything they need to do, including an apology and sensitivity training ... to make it right," said Mike McCormack, president of the police association.
According to CBC, Francie would like to see police officers receive better training for dealing with people with disabilities, something she advocates for herself through the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH).
She appears in several campaign videos for CAMH, helping to educate people on what it's like living with Down syndrome, reports the news outlet.
"It's a teachable moment. Here is something we can all learn from ... how it feels for a person to be spoken about in a certain way," said Yona Lunsky, a clinician-scientist at CAMH. "When we're thinking about diversity, we think about certain types of diversity. Disability is another kind of diversity that we all need to be better sensitized to."
Sadly, police officers showing callous disregard to those with Down syndrome is not isolated. As the Free Thought Project has reported on multiple occasions, police have been caught beating and even killing those with Down syndrome.
A man with Down syndrome was killed by police, his death ruled a homicide, and no charges were brought against the officers involved.
The victim, Robert Saylor, was at a movie theater with a health aide in Frederick on the night of the incident. He had just watched Zero Dark Thirty and refused to leave the theater after the film ended.
Three off-duty deputies who were moonlighting as security at the theater were called to handle the situation. The situation turned violent and Saylor ended up face down on the ground.
The cause of death, according to the autopsy, was asphyxiation. The autopsy also said Saylor's larynx had been damaged. A witness said an officer had put his knee on Saylor's lower back while Saylor was on his stomach being handcuffed, according to The Associated Press.
Aside from size, what was their other most common attribute.... though politically incorrect, the answer is 'a low IQ'.*
This is what they dream to become, (brutes, cops, killers), and what they do as 'adults', for this fits perfectly with our dumbed down society (BTW, I would NOT be surprised to learn that Downs' syndrome, like cancer, and autism, has increased significantly due to some effort of mankind, whether as a result intenional and malevolent, or simply a true and unanticipated "side" effect.).
And likewise, this is why 'our' Supreme Court hasTWICE ruled that folks who are too smart on IQ tests results, are properly dismiissed from consideration as becoming police officers and that such is (somehow) a logical approach by police departments to do their jobs.
From those inane rulings we already have examples like this:
We all well know the term that 'ignorance of the law is no excuse.' Well, in any logical society, that would and should require that Law Enforcement officers even better know the law - especially given their overblown powers of destruction combined with their nigh impenetrable immunity.. However, the USC recently held that a N.C. cop, who didn't know that it required, by law, a car to have both tail lights out in order to use it as a cause to pull over the car; and where the driver knew the law, the cop didn't. However, the stop was rulled perfectly legal. The Cop and the power of his ignorance each and both won. That is all part of the plan.
R.C.
* The entire common sense concept of some folks being smarter than others, and the tests devised, and re devised to get rid of societal biases, (I swear I've seen supposed IQ tests which asked U.S. Sports trivia!, etc., which are now mostly erased.) But bring up IQ, well, just see next paragraph.
I grant there are exceptions but I am speaking scientifically here about a large statistical group (in Sadistics - Oops - 'Statistics' same was called the "subject population") and I'm sure there are plenty of anecdotal exceptions, but that doesn't change the fact that almost everyone I've known or met or ever happened to discuss such a matter with had, ready at hand, the the name or names of such bullies.) This indicates a commonality that is undeniable. However, as the point is politically incorrect, and as the concept of the word, 'bully' has been reduced to the inane concept of 'microagression", do not expect any research on the point any time soon for the second the correlative and likely co-causative factor of IQ comes into the realm of possibility - out the window goes any and all sources of funding.
This has been the way that Foundations like The Rockefeller and/or Ford Foundations have managed to 'dumb down' and 'divide and conquer, this once far, far, better America, into AmeriKa. (Research the sole congressional efforts - in the 1950's - to investigate such malevlolent plans of those foundations.)
Thinking of the intentional dumbing down of Americans schoolkids in the last ~2.5 generations caused me to think of an old and excellent commentary from 2003 and updated in 2006, I only recently first read called "Why I left America" by Scott Bidstrup and I strongly refer it to all. It begins...
Why I Left America The Rise Of Elitist Fascism And The Death Of American Democracy
An essay in hypertext by Scott Bidstrup
"The really dangerous American fascist... is the man who wants to do in the United States in an American way what Hitler did in Germany in a Prussian way. The American fascist would prefer not to use violence. His method is to poison the channels of public information. With a fascist the problem is never how best to present the truth to the public but how best to use the news to deceive the public into giving the fascist and his group more money or more power... The American fascists are most easily recognized by their deliberate perversion of truth and fact. Their newspapers and propaganda carefully cultivate every fissure of disunity, every crack in the common front against fascism... But always and everywhere they can be identified by their appeal to prejudice and by the desire to play upon the fears and vanities of different groups in order to gain power. They claim to be super-patriots, but they would destroy every liberty guaranteed by the Constitution. They demand free enterprise, but are the spokesmen for monopoly and vested interest. Their final objective, toward which all their deceit is directed, is to capture political power so that, using the power of the state and the power of the market simultaneously, they may keep the common man in eternal subjection."
-- U.S. Vice President Henry A. Wallace, quoted in the New York Times, April 9, 1944
Why This Essay
On the ninth of August of 2003, I cast the only vote that really changes anything. I voted with my feet. I got on an airplane and left the United States, hopefully to never return. My family and many of my friends, with varying degrees of puzzlement, even astonishment, have inquired as to why. This essay was written, in part, to explain to them. But it was also written as an open letter to my fellow Americans, to warn them once again, as I have tried so many times in the past, as to the perils that await them.
[Link]
RC