Tickle yer ass with a feather, officer?

I was reading this NYT article on "When the Police Go Military" wherein "Occupy" is mentioned a lot.

Yet lately images from Occupy protests streamed on the Internet — often in real time — show just how readily police officers can adopt military-style tactics and equipment, and come off more like soldiers as they face down citizens. Some say this adds up to the emergence of a new, more militaristic breed of civilian police officer. Others disagree.

The cops are probably the ones disagreeing. They lurves them some macho gear to deal with unarmed protesters, the more heavy-handed the better. Nip those kids, nip 'em in the bud! (Visual of Barney Fife in an exoskeleton maintaining law and order in downtown Mayberry.)

It dawned on me some time back that one of these days some police department or other is going to need to be taken down. A campus cop force seems like good place to start, especially after that dick move with pepper spray at UC Davis. They're small and not particularly well trained, sometimes staffed with badge-heavy wannabe badasses who couldn't hack it in a real police department, and could be overpowered by motivated protesters with a little training.

Remember, the idea is to humiliate them, not hurt them. Well, not too badly anyway. They've got a few lumps and bumps and bruises coming.

I've been thinking of ways to best accomplish a cop takedown. First, pick your target. Make sure they deserve it, that they're acting like total dicks. If they're just trying to keep the peace and not using excessive force, go with the flow. Don't fuck with guys who aren't fucking with you.

Next, block access to other law enforcement reinforcements. Bodies, lots and lots of people, as many as you can get. Hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands. It's what we have the most of to counter a few cops with weapons. The whole point is to keep the cops from using the weapons and embarrass the crap out of 'em in the process.

Also to take the establishment's only real power - violence - away. That'll scare the shit out of the front office.

I came up with a three-men-per-cop tactic. Not to exclude the ladies by any means, but it will take strength. It will also take practice. One man dives for the cop's legs and bear hugs 'em. One man grabs each arm and takes him down. The man with the cop's gun hand hangs on tight, the other sits on the sonofabitch. Then use the cop's own handcuffs or those big cable-tie ones you wisely stuck three of in your pocket first. If the cop needs a little extra persuasion at this point to quiet down, so be it. Line 'em all up in a nice neat row for the TV cameras.

Let's say 20 cops, 60 men to do this, all going down with split-second timing. Perfect.

And absolutely unworkable. A platoon of Marines could pull off shit like that because they work at training day in and day out. Civilians who have to go to classes to try and learn something so they can hopefully get a better job than the one they've got to get through school and still try and sleep a coupla hours a night haven't got the time.

The whole point is to immobilize the cops. If they can't move, they can't fuck with you, right? I thought of hosing 'em down with fast-drying concrete or that foam crap they ship Harley-Davidson engines in, but that brain fart passed pretty quickly.

I thought of boleadoras and other variations of ancient hunting weapons. Wow, a coupla those wrapped around a cop and he might as well turn in his time card for the day! Then my research turned up this:

The reason sectional, chained or flexible shafted tools make such excellent weapons is because of the "whip" amplifying effect of the "cords" causing a small hand movement to be translated into a much larger movement and hence bigger momentum. This then translates into either a greater throwing distance and/or bigger impact once the head of the weapon hits the target. You will most likely already know this if you have ever been hit by some fast moving poi.

Had that happen at a luau once. Ouch. No, swinging bits of whatever flying around in a crowd would have unintended consequences, like knocking out everyone but the intended. Why do the cops' work for them? Nope.

What to do, what to do. Came to me almost by mistake while I was culturally expanding my understanding of the performing arts whilst watching this. Research takes me many places.

Boas. Lots and lots of boas. Hundreds, thousands of boas, each in the hands of a scantily clad twisting gyrating nubile young Freedom Fighter! Extra long boas, perhaps modified for the job at hand by the addition of a length of ultra-flexible 7x7 motorcycle throttle wire down the long axis. To the beat of drum circles, the gals close in on the cops, mesmerized by the jungle beat, the bare skin, the bouncing butts 'n boobies! Then the dancers STRIKE! In one swift motion, the boas are whipped around the cops, two, three to a man, strategically placed, arms, legs, a neck or two of the worst offenders, pulled tight and the ends done up with a granny knot.

Deal done. The cops can't move. The TV cameras would have a field day with the brightly colored bits of feathers that took down America's Finest. Those cops would slink off as laughingstocks from the annual cop goat roping or whatever it is they do.

And let that be a lesson to the rest of 'em. Harrumph.

Ah, to dream... That was good shit ya sent me, F-Man...