Qui custodiet ipsos custodes? Who watches the watchmen? Who polices the police? Who takes the custodians into custody? Night watchmen (custodians) / security guards were sometimes expected to perform some janitorial duties. Janus (the source of the word janitor) was the 2-faced Roman god guarding the gates the gate-keeper, one face welcoming, for us one face hostile, for them & here, now: treating us & them differently unequal just us under law. The division of society into us & them and 2-faced cops keeping them in their place (Ah don lahk you; you dont blong here, boy gonna kick yer a$$ a$$-hole or, from the college-educated: Our job isnt law enforcement; its social control home-owners pay us to patrol the inner-city, & keep them in their place) helps explain why those whose social status is higher than ordinary street cops are usually apathetic or even defensive about their social custodians picking up what they consider sub-human trash concerned (to quote the Durham Civilian Police Complaint Review Board) about bureaucratic details, but not about substantive matters. Whos watching the cops being people who have not had the experience of a cop slashing a knife across their throat to tell them not to report police misconduct or telling someone after a still painful beating reported both BEFORE & after the fact (& not investigated) that Yeah theres cops selling drugs, but its none of your business; keep your nose out of it; next time, you wont just be beaten; well shoot you down like a dog in the street; (& telling others as well as me:) we know where you live. (Cops who operate outside the law are outlaws.) Nor have they the personal experience of a 2-faced cop responding to such a complaint in the privacy of his office by sticking out his tongue, sticking his thumbs in his ears, wiggling his fingers, rolling his eyes, & saying: Oooh! Theres a conspiracy against you! & and then ushering me of his office, and then, (with witnesses present), opening the door to the lobby of the police department and saying sir Nor have they the experience of a desk officer in the lobby say you should take yer complaint to the CIA (as if civil rights violations are in the same category as X-files.) Nor have they heard cops (Durhams finest) call people n!ggers and sp!cs and animals (sic, sic, sic) Nor have they had cops call them a$$-hole bubba or cracker Nor have they been dragged out backwards and slugged by a cop for attempting to submit a complaint to the police chief (who refused to accept the typewritten complaint, signed by witnesses) after an internal affairs captain officer (who destroyed other complaint documents) had also refused to accept that same complaint, and had the department then refuse to even acknowledge a formal complaint about that bizarre incident, involving the police chief. Even this chief is willfully ignorant. As the indy pointed out, institutional amnesia includes both the department & its tepid civilian overseers. Those charged with watching the police are selected from strata of society unfamiliar with contempt & hostility from cops who take drugs & money from drug-dealers in their neighborhoods, or criminal cops who tell drug-dealers in their neighborhoods: Theres a secret Grand-Jury indictment against you; theres gonna be a raid on your apartment tomorrow. Felony misconduct, followed by a sham raid. The responses at headquarters to THAT complaint including refusal to give me a complaint form and refusal to allow me up to Internal Affairs, but saying: Yeah, well, we know we got leaks. Shrug it off. The response I got from the Durham Civilian Police Complaint Review Board to a complaint about a cop silencing another complainant (my boss, who paid me, one of many outraged witnesses, I having had similar but FAR more vicious responses to my complaints, to write the letter) by physically preventing her free-speech rights to petition for redress of grievances concerning misappropriation of fund$, was that they were concerned about a witness writing the complaint, but not concerned about how complaints are silenced this from those charged with reviewing a defective complaint process! willful ignorance & apathy from those not personally affected by police misconduct ranging from insults to death threats. (Complaining can be dangerous in other ways, too; they also go to landlords & employers.)