black lives matter

There has been much discussion about the present series of public protests in America and elsewhere over police brutality and in some cases murders committed by police officers.
The internet commentator David Wood has shared his views on the situation and I commend his opinions to your attention.
Mr Wood had in his youth served time in jails and in mental institutions in the United States.
His views have a certain informed immediacy.
He says there are five different types of police officer.

1. Time servers who just want to collect a pay checque and aren't looking for trouble.

2. Mr Nice Guys who want to be everybody's friend.

3. Dedicated ones who believe in doing the best job possible and that the system can be made to work for the good of all. Mr Wood thinks these sorts of police officer are usually Christians.

4. Dedicated ones who believe in doing the best job possible and who attempt to do that by being as strict as possible.

5. Human trash.

I think Mr Wood is correct in his assessment of the situation and that the issues re police brutality are substantially as he presents them.
In the small Irish town of Kilcullen Stephen Kinneavey has harassed me not because it's legal but because he is human trash.
He knows the gangland methodologies for harassment and he knows that a conviction is unlikely since many police officers will not properly investigate a former police officer and judges will not convict a police officer as long as the harassment stays within certain plausibly deniable paratmetres.
Irish judges can barely bring themselves to convict for murder never mind for walking up behind someone and shouting hello.
Human trash.
In 2014 I entered the White Water Cafe in Newbridge.
Stephen Kinneavey (then a serving police officer but shortly to retire) was sitting in the cafe in plain clothes at a table with Sergeant James D O'Mara of the Naas Traffic Division who was also in plain clothes.
Kinneavey roared at me as I entered.
He had been engaging in similar activities for four years up to that time usually roaring at me from the coward's vantage point in the shadows or from behind, sometimes in the street, sometimes in cafes.
His behaviour was of course illegal.
But like I said, try getting a conviction against someone for saying hello to you or waiting by your car when you return to it, or for sitting opposite you in a cafe.
Try getting someone to investigate it.
Human trash.
Stephen Kinneavey was engaging in this behaviour not because it is legal but because he is human trash.
On this day in 2014, I was reluctant to simply turn and leave the cafe. So I walked towards him and his friend and stood near the counter where they were seated, making positive identification of both police officers.
Sgt James D O'Mara's duty at this stage would have been to tell his accomplice to leave me alone and to ask me did I wish to press charges over what was clearly an incident of criminal harassment.
Sgt James D O'Mara remained silent, although he did seem to be trembling for some reason.
Perhaps he's in love.
As I stood there in no particular hurry to go anywhere else, Kinneavey became uneasy and shouted: "Ha, you don't even recognise lads from your own town."
But of course these weren't lads.
These were 50 year old thug police officers from An Garda Siochana, in plain clothes engaging in an harassment activity against a private citizen in plain sight during the Christimas season in a popular cafe, activities Kinneavey had perpetrated many times before against me as noted above at other locations in cafes like this one and on the street.
Strangely in all the years he'd been harassing me, we had never been introduced.
Human trash.
I walked over to the manageress of the cafe at the time, one Nathalie Collins, daughter of a famous horse racing trainer in Ireland.
"Nathalie," I said, "Officer Kinneavey has just engaged in an harassment activity in your cafe."
She said: "Do you want me to do anything about it James?"
I said: "I want you to know about it."
I had recognised Kinneavey's accomplice Sgt James D O'Mara from a traffic stop incident at the side of the road a few years previously where he had stopped my car and forced me to stand in a downpour in a tee shirt while he flung a photograph from my wallet on the ground.
A fat blonde lady cop had come running up out of the rain and retrieved the photograph with the words: "He did that by accident."
I said to her: "You stay right there," as I wanted her to witness whatever happened next.
The fat blonde lady cop had turned and run back to her squad car like a little fawn bounding up the mountain path.
Dereliction of duty, but we'll let that go.
By the way I saw her again just last week.
Six years later.
I went into Nass police station to collect my mobile phone which some kindly person had found and left there for me.
The fat blonde lady cop was behind the counter and passed me my phone.
Her eyes shone with bemused recognition.
She remembered me.
After all these years.
She'd lost a good bit of weight and looked rather svelte in her uniform.
For the record, I'd date her in a second.
No.
In half a second.
But I digress.
There is no direct evidence that Kinneavey is linked to harassment activities undertaken by the clan gang that operates out of the Alke Babish chipper and associated chippers in the town.
Nor is there evidence linking him to harassment activities by the Maloney gang, the drug dealers who live at my gate.
Nor can the decision by the Hutch gang to move to Kilcullen be linked to Kinneavey.
It is probably just a happy coincidence that at the same time as he began his harassment activities against me, these other scum piled on as well.
The question I leave you with is this, gentle travellers of the internet.
If human trash like Kinneavey feels free to harass me in the street and in cafes over a period of ten years, what has he done to other people?