By: Aithne
Within the labyrinthine bureaucracy of the HPD and tales of unchecked power and brutal enforcement, it can be difficult to have sympathy for the seemingly perilously few people within who actually do try to be a positive influence on our community. This can sometimes manifest in the worst ways.
Let me be clear: I will not, cannot, and do not condone the HPD’s systemic abuses. The stench of corruption hangs heavy, a miasma that chokes any burgeoning sympathy. Yet, even within this tainted institution, there are those who become unwilling martyrs, their suffering a grotesque counterpoint to the department’s transgressions.
Just as I was composing this, a fresh absurdity unfolded. Officer Empty Nest, a woman whose personal struggles with infertility seemed to have metastasized into a pathological disdain for my existence, slapped me with a ‘child endangerment‘ citation. Why? Because apparently I am the reason she can not conceive. The fine? A cool $1300, a sum ludicrously disproportionate to the non-existent child involved. Dipping into my well of empathy, I even offered her a generous contribution of my own eggs, a gesture of perverse charity designed to expedite her departure from the streets to maternity leave. The funds from that donation, I imagined, might barely cover the fine.
But beyond such petty tyrannies, a chilling event has emerged, one that transcended my personal grievances. Officer Cavanaugh, a woman known for her harmless, albeit persistent, flirtations, found herself the victim of an unspeakable horror. Leaving home to find an off-duty dinner, she encountered something…other. Her fragmented drug induced recollections spoke of living masks and disembodied voices, a surreal prelude to a nightmare. She awoke in a hospital bed, her leg amputated above the knee, her future irrevocably altered. The image of her, forever bound to this new life of therapy and painkillers, of loss most of us shudder to think of, gave me chills. There are depths of cruelty no one deserves.
Then there was Corporal Gausman, my own personal nemesis, the camera and tablet hating zealot whose penchant for scaring or embarrassing me had earned him my enduring enmity. He became the target of a brutal attack himself. A known gang member, denied visitation to an inmate, retaliated with a dose of an unknown substance, injected directly into his leg. This, to a man who had already sacrificed an eye in the line of duty. The HGH labs are still working to identify the substance, but the effects were immediate. Gausman, a hardened veteran, descended into a maelstrom of violent hallucinations, screaming wildly of demonic apparitions, until he was subdued and strapped into a straight-jacket, his mind a battlefield. Thankfully the effects waned after some time and he has since returned to duty.
It’s tempting, in the face of egregious corruption, to dismiss these incidents as karmic retribution. To rationalize the violence as a natural consequence of systemic abuse. But to do so would be to betray my own humanity. I refuse to condone the horrors inflicted upon these officers, just as I refuse to condone the department’s transgressions. I would rather endure the petty tyranny of a thousand unjust citations than see another human being maimed or driven to madness. Some have greater grievances, I know.
The truth is though, we are all bound together, a fractured family struggling to coexist in a world that often feels designed to tear us apart. The civil rights anthems of the past, the resonant echoes of “We Shall Overcome,” were not merely rallying cries for a specific cause, but a testament to the universal struggle against the darkness within us all.
Dr. King’s words, “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice,” remain a beacon, a fragile hope in the face of often, overwhelming despair. But I would add a crucial caveat: true justice is not merely about retribution. It’s about recognizing our shared humanity, even in the face of profound inhumanity. It’s about choosing compassion over vengeance, even when every fiber of our being screams for retribution. And it’s about acknowledging the pain, even when it comes from the very hands that have inflicted it.
