Protect and Serve

"Protect and Serve," acrylic paint and pencil on canvas, 2025 Otto Von Miller.

Thee Optimist is well-traveled.

He has been to many, many places.  At times, he has visited a foreign country or two that a person might reasonably call a "police state."

Well-intentioned people have said to him, "I don't see how you can do that.  How can you go there and give your hard-earned, good American greenbacks to support a police state like that?"

Invariably, his answer has been, "I live in a police state."

Ouch!

That stings.

A few factoids, in case this seems like a controversial statement:

As of August 2024, the United States has about 2 million people residing in jails and prisons.

The US makes up about 5% of the world population, but has over 20% of the world's prisoners.

More than 5 million people are currently under supervision of the US criminal legal system.

Moreover, normal, everyday Americans are subjected to a system of high-tech mass surveillance that includes warrantless communications dragnets by the National Security Agency, as well as tens of millions of video cameras mounted in public spaces. 

Health insurance CEO killer Luigi Mangione flirting with a clerk at the front desk of a youth hostel in New York City.  This video still is the photo that doomed him. 

The painting at the top of this post, by Otto Von Miller (who is also Thee Optimist), is of a deadly spider with a web to capture you in.  Once you are ensnared in its web, the spider can do anything it likes with you, including kill you and eat you.

The word "Polizei," is German for police.  It is meant to provide echoes of Nazi Germany, and also the East German secret police under communism.

But make no mistake.  It's a painting about the United States.

I made the painting in response to the recent murder of a man named Robert Brooks, by prison guards in upstate New York. 

It's a somewhat complicated issue for me.

Patrick Dolan, born circa 1899, an Irish immigrant and long-time New York City corrections officer. 
 

Good People, Bad People

The photo above is of my beloved grandfather.  He was born in the then-British colony called Ireland.  As a young man, he fought (and was shot in the leg) during the Irish War of Independence.

Later, he came to the United States, landing in New York at Ellis Island.  The Irish largely controlled, and doled out, the jail and prison jobs in that long ago era, and he worked as a guard at Riker's Island for more than 30 years, finishing in the late 1960s.  

In the last years of his career, he oversaw trustworthy prisoners who buried New York's unclaimed dead at the potter's field on Hart Island.  

I knew my grandfather well, and I knew him as a very good person.  

I also know that many cops and prison guards are selected for their comfort with employing violence as a tool of control.

It troubles me to think that the members of the goon squad that killed Robert Brooks do a similar kind of job to the one my grandfather did. 

Yes, those were different, simpler times.  But the job is relatively the same.

Sometimes done by animals.

43-year-old prisoner Robert Brooks, hands cuffed behind his back, and ankles cuffed together, in the process of being beaten and choked to death by grinning guards at Marcy Correctional Facility, near Utica, New York.

No Mercy

Robert Brooks wasn't a saint.  

He was in prison for stabbing his former girlfriend.  He was on a 12-year sentence, 7 of which he had already done.  That said, he didn't murder anyone, and he wasn't sentenced to be executed.  

Technically speaking, New York State doesn't have the death penalty.

During his time inside, Brooks studied for and received his high school equivalency diploma.

On December 9 of last year, for reasons thus far unexplained, Brooks was transferred from the Mohawk Correctional Facility to the Marcy Correctional Facility.  He had an injury to his face when he arrived.

Soon afterwards, he was taken to a secluded medical examination room, where as many as 13 guards took turns beating, kicking and choking him. 

Brooks's wrists were cuffed behind his back, and his ankles were cuffed together.  In other words, he was utterly helpless.  

A male nurse on duty witnessed the attack, but did not try to intervene.  Indeed, he was filmed smiling while the beating took place.  

Body cam still of Robert Brooks slowly being killed by prison guards at Marcy Correctional Facility, December 9, 2024.

No More Marcy

Marcy Correctional Facility has a documented history of brutality.  An oversight report released in 2023 found poor food quality, poor healthcare facilities, and widespread violence against inmates (especially black inmates) by staff.

Numerous guards involved in the Robert Brooks murder had been disciplined for previous attacks.  

These include the 2020 assault and disfigurement of prisoner William Alvarez, and the 2015 assault of prisoner Equarn White, which left White confined to a wheelchair afterwards.

All 14 staff members implicated in the Brooks murder have either been fired, suspended, or have taken early retirement.  An FBI investigation is ongoing, and as of this writing, no one has been charged with a crime.

In the wake of the murder, dozens of New York State lawmakers have called for Marcy to be closed.  

There is a public petition calling for the same thing, if you want to sign it.

"Protect and Serve" police spider, early version, by Otto Von Miller.

Words of Wisdom

"One thing about a police state, you can always find the police."

- L. Neil Smith