There’s Trouble in Virginia City!

By Patrick Flanagan

(Note: This was written a number of years ago.  Today we have a new Sheriff, a new police force and life is much better today than it was in the past.  I just don't want to forget Bob McKinney and his symbol.) 

 

The Symbol of Bob McKinney

            The recent death of Bob McKenny, shot twice in the chest by a local policeman, has caused rise to a great many emotions.  From Bob’s friends, sorrow, grief and anger are all welling up together as we recover from the shock.  From Bob’s enemies, gratitude that he is now gone and undying blinded support to somehow justify the police murder of a man right in the center of our town.

            Obviously, I was one of Bob’s friends.  Once in a while, he would come to my house, shower, shampoo his long hair, as I washed his clothes, and gave him a warm place to sleep the night.  Not once was I afraid of Bob.  In the morning, he would always be up before me, sitting on the couch, gently petting my cat.  It would take me a week to clean up the dirt that Bob dropped all over the place before he took his bath.  I never feared for my life, and Bob had a kind and peaceful air about him during those nights and the next mornings as I drove him back to his mountaintop.

            On the other hand, I also saw a Bob, drinking alcohol, who could go berserk, crazy and almost “possessed” by a demonic spirit that lies all around us in Virginia City.  He could be violent and intractable.  There was no reasoning with him, and, at those times, I had the wisdom to just leave him alone in his own inner torture.  Yes, Bob would defecate in front of merchant’s stores, and that was inexcusable.  However, Bob was banned by a lot of local stores, forbidden to come in, and often refused toilet facilities by these very same people.  Was Bob wrong?  Certainly.  Were those merchants wrong?   Just as certainly.  Was Bob a blight on our community?  Yes.  Was Bob also a man who deserved our love and concern?  Emphatically, yes.  I often wonder why during all these years of being in trouble with the police, why, why did they not once help get him psychiatric help and make him an asset to us all, rather than allow him to head onto a road of self destruction.  A road that all of us could foresee and did nothing about.  We all carry some responsibility for Bob’s death.

            But the current outrage of Virginia City is not really about Bob.  Like us all, Bob had his moments of kindness, his generosity to his friends given in his own style, and then there were the “dark” moments and parts of Bob’s personality.  For his good, he did not deserve to be shot on our streets dead.  For the dark side of him, perhaps he got what was necessary at the time.  But, this sorrow and anger is not really about Bob; it is about the state of our community police force.  Bob is a symbol and a culmination of a worsening trend in our police force heading toward dictatorial power and creating a police state in our own town, instead of being the public servants that is their governmental mandate of our republic.

 The Vocation of a Policeman

            During the early years of my life, I looked up to the police and fireman of my community.  I was convinced that they were my friends.  They protected me from burglaries, and violent crimes.  I could work with them.  Most of all, they were my friends.  I remember one day in San Francisco, seeing one of the police trying to single handedly subdue a man hyped up on PCP.  The man in question had systematically smashed the car windows in one whole block of San Francisco before being stopped by the policeman.  Obviously, the poor cop was in trouble.  I immediately called for the police on my cell phone, and then got out of the car to help restrain the drugged vandal.  Eventually, we got backup, and the man had to be literally wrapped in heavy rope, like a mummy, so that he could finally be loaded into the police van.  I will never forget how, even then, he fought, as the van door was slammed against his leg by mistake.  I can still hear the crack of his leg breaking.  He deserved it, but he wasn’t in his right mind.  He needed help from someone to get him to stop taking drugs and regain his humanity.

            That day, I felt respect for the police, but I also felt sorrow for the pain of the man who had lost his mind from drugs.  In the midst of all his “bad”, I always thought that there must be some good in him also.  After that, many times that same policeman would stop by, have a drink with me in his off-duty hours, and we would talk about the problems of our community and what could be done to make it better.  It was years later, that my friend accidentally shot his revolver and killed an innocent bystander.  He was devastated, quit the force and lived with his guilt for years until he finally died.  My sorrow went out to him, but he went on to create the “Little People’s Fishing Program” in San Francisco to help develop good citizens out of our children.  Until he died, he lived with the sorrow and guilt of taking another’s life whether it was justified or not.  He always believed in the value of life.

            It was in those same days, that the descriptive term “Pig” became synonymous with the police.  I couldn’t understand it in those days and thought how unkind and vicious that people would label our friends in such a derogatory manner.  I couldn’t understand it, but sadly to say, I am now beginning to.

            In those days, a man took on the vocation of being a policeman because he wanted to help people, help keep the community safe, and knew from the start that he was placing his life in jeopardy.  His mission was to protect and save lives, to keep the peace, even if it meant his own life.  It was an admirable mission, and a respected profession.  The value of life was held sacred.  We looked up to the man who wore a blue uniform.  He was willing to sacrifice his own life for our community.  He trusted in God to protect him.  In return, we entrusted him with the privilege to carry a firearm within our community as a symbol of respect and responsibility for the safety of all.

            Then something went wrong.  After years of being called a “pig” the motivation and high ideals of men who chose to become policemen changed.  I can’t blame them in a way.  I myself was slow to give up my idealized image of the “man in blue” and still didn’t understand why people demeaned the people who might one day save our lives.

            Today, the job of a policeman has changed.  If your house is burglarized, they dismiss it, don’t really make an effort to find the criminal, and let the insurance companies replace the damage.  Just in our own county, they couldn’t even stop people from killing innocent horses because they were too lazy to develop the appropriate and incriminating evidence necessary.  I have heard other stories where women, calling the police to stop their boyfriend from beating them, instead ended up in jail because the police found marijuana on the table as they responded.  Great, the victim ends up in jail.  What Bob’s death has caused is a multitude of such stories being told within our community.  “Where there is smoke, there must be a fire!”  No longer do the police protect, but now find it easier to arrest the victim than for prosecuting the criminal.  It is hard to convict today; and a lot of money can be made by just arresting locals.  Today, the police are more rewarded by the fines that they can place upon us all, for speeding, for driving while drinking, instead of warning us and advising us of the dangers to ourselves and others for such acts.  The list can go on and on in Virginia City.  No longer is the vocation of a policeman to protect our lives, but rather to threaten and incarcerate to collect more money for the county.  Something has gone wrong, and, I think, we all bear some of the responsibility, both citizens and police.

            Instead of a model in our community, the policeman has become the tyrant, the bully, and now uses the revolver that we entrusted to him as a tool to justify an elite group of citizens who are now “above the law”.  It is now all right and accepted for a policeman to lie to gain a conviction.  It is now all right for a policeman to “break the law” in order to protect his own life at the expense of the people he was sworn to protect.  Something has gone wrong and there is trouble in Virginia City.

Actions of Virginia City Police

            Let us remember that days before Bob was shot, the same policeman who killed him took Bob’s bicycle away from him under the pretense that Bob couldn’t ever have bought one, and that it must be stolen.  Literally, the man who is supposed to stop theft, committed theft himself under the power of the badge that protects him.  Let us also remember that, just prior to the shooting, the same policeman used pepper spray on Bob.  I don’t know about you, but pepper spray makes me mad. 

Just months before, another couple of residents were pepper sprayed because they refused to get out of their car.  They were not threatening the officer.  The police maced them and what ensued was both a 70-year-old man and his wife being beaten to the ground and then jailed.  Interesting that all charges were eventually dropped against these citizens in exchange for a promise not to sue the police, the county and not to talk about this incident with any of their friends.  Sounds like now extortion is also part of the sheriff’s tools for keeping the peace. 

I can also personally relate my own incident with the police of Virginia City.  I was stopped one night for drinking and driving.  I don’t argue that I was wrong.  However, once in the jail, I agreed to take the urine or breath test, not once trying to hit or attack the officer.  In fact, during the incident, I prayed for them.  I did, however, refuse to take the blood test because of collapsed veins and also the fear of AIDS.  Nevertheless, the police were intent upon taking blood.  I continued to refuse, and then was strapped into a restraining chair, all the time complying with the instructions of the officers.   Once constrained, one officer then beat me as the other officer conveniently stood in front of the closed circuit TV. in the jail.  After a time, I finally succumbed to the pain of torture, and begged the other officer to stop the beating and that I would comply with the blood taking.  Even at the instructions to stop beating me, the other officer seemed to enjoy getting in a few last licks.  By this time, there was blood all over the cell floor.  Throughout, I prayed for their souls and their own inhumanity toward a fellow citizen who they are sworn to protect.

The end result is even more disturbing.  Because I have the resources to hire good legal counsel, we retested all the samples taken from me that night, both blood and urine.  Somehow all the results were different from the results originally turned in by the police.  Both blood and urine tested by a third party ended up being lower than what the results were that the police were trying to use to convict me.  One officer was caught committing perjury in the case.  In the end, charges were substantially reduced along with the fines, and I never lost my license.

To make matters worse, I have since been stopped at night under the pretense of again drinking and driving.  I don’t do that anymore.  Once they realized that, then I was threatened with speeding.  It was the same officer who beat me.  Only after commenting on their harassment, did they finally leave me alone.  I am still afraid of them and their vendetta, so I stay in my home now and avoid being in town.  I have a lot of anger toward this man who seemed to enjoy beating up people, and pray that God gives me the grace to forgive him and end my anger.  I pray for his soul and to destroy the “dark force” within him.

Sadly to say, these stories abound in Virginia City, and are increasing in frequency.  And now, it has culminated in a murder that our government is trying to justify as a policeman just trying to save his own life at the expense of a person whose life he has taken an oath to protect.  Ironic, but true. 

The Consequences to Us All

            Bob is dead, but our memories of him will continue on symbolically as a sign of the sickness that is destroying our community.  There is no doubt that the current trend of excessive force by the local police against its own citizens will have an adverse impact on tourism, and on the local residents whose property values will decrease under the current police state that we live in.  Word is quickly getting out into the rest of the United States that Virginia City, once ruled by the Mafia, is now being ruled by dictators of a different sort with a badge.  Anyone here can be harassed, intimidated and now killed by the police at will if they do not comply with the demands of the police, reasonable or not.

            With me, it was just being beaten up.  Now it has ended in murder.  I wonder who will be next, and how much more will this cost us all.  If the police are allowed to continue unabated in threatening the locals, intimidating them and even killing them, how can tourist even begin to feel safe in just driving through town, as the graves of locals begin to line our main street.  The threat of this activity continuing has now led to a pattern of behavior that justifies murder of the very people who have elected a sheriff sworn to protect us all.  Bob was a local and he deserved protection, whether homeless or not.  For years, under Mafia rule, Bob was protected.  Now under the guise of elected authority, we are all in danger.  We have replaced one group of hoodlums with another, only this time they have a license to torture, beat, and now kill, all while under the guise of justice.  Justice for whom?

            Sadly to say, the “good guys” have now forsaken their vocation and ideals, and now are dragging our community into the mud, just like “Pigs”.   I now understand how such an epithet could have evolved, and my heroes of past are now gone because they have lowered themselves down to the most lowest of common denominators in our society.  Instead of our models in the community, they have become the mediocrity of all that is possibly worst in all of us.

What Can We Do

              All of this can be stopped.  We can return to those old days of “peace and justice for all” as we were promised.  Bob’s death is a call to action and symbol of all that can be good within our society.  We must realize that within us all are the “dark forces” of inhumanity along with the “good”.  We are all faced with the inner conflicts within our souls as the good battles with the bad.  I make just as many mistakes and hurt my fellowman just as much as the police.  I also do a lot of good in my life for others in the community.  No one is above the law, not you, not me, and certainly not our police, our district attorney or our judges.

            Under the current environment of Virginia City, why would anyone choose to live here, let alone visit as a tourist?  Excesses under the guise of a badge or justice cannot be allowed to continue and encourage harassment or intimidation, even murder of locals, let alone tourists.  (Note: one youngster who witnessed Bob being gunned down by the police went back to his home traumatized by the violence.)  The thought going across this nation now is who will be next in Virginia City, and we should ask ourselves how much more will we be asked to pay for the cost of acts of inhumanity against our fellow man. 

There are steps to be taken:

1.      Eliminate Mace and Pepper Spray as a weapon of the police.  It only angers the victim or criminal into an escalation of violence.  Other means of containing a person can be used in its place.

2.      All police revolvers should stay firmly in their holsters unless there is a threat of being fired upon by another.  Force can only be met with equal force, not excessive force, and human life must be respected as the utmost ideal and priority in our community.  Being civil to our fellow man should be our goal and a person is innocent until proven guilty.  How many times have I been profiled by Virginia City police, just by driving through town late at night, profiled as a drunk driver, and stopped with the attitude that I am guilty even before they talk to me.    If this means that a policeman loses his life, then his sacrifice will be revered in our community in upholding the high ground and he will regain our respect and trust.  He is our model and should be held to a higher accountability.

3.      All officers should be made to undergo “Community Training” and psychological testing before being put onto our streets.  We now are trying to prevent bullies from terrorizing our schools; isn’t it time that we should send a message to those “bullies” who happen to wear a badge?  They must reassess and re-prioritize their mission to protect rather than to kill members of our community.

4.      The Sheriff must be called to accountability.  He bears full responsibility for the deterioration of peace in our community and must bear the accountability of the actions within and by his department.

5.      Finally, a Citizens Oversight Board must be created to review and take actions in response to citizen’s complaints about police actions.  Our country is based upon “checks and balances”.  It is time to make our police force also subject to reasonable “checks and balances”.  This Board would have the ability to suspend, fire and to prosecute police depending upon the seriousness of their actions in not responding correctly to the oath that they swore to uphold.

The consequences of us all in not taking action now, in either adopting the above suggestions or developing some new answers to this threat are impelling.  Inaction will only allow the past pattern to continue and worsen like a festering sore upon all of our souls.  There is trouble in Virginia City, but Bob’s death is now a call for action to regain control of our lives again and bring peace to our community once more.  If we do not act now, YOU COULD BE NEXT!