Former New Orleans Police Officer Kevin Hayden describes “The Largest Street Gang” –government police agencies, including the NOPD, that are riddled with murderers, robbers, and opportunistic thugs. Like many others who become police, Hayden earnestly wanted to protect and serve the public — and soon learned that he needed to protect the public from its supposed protectors in uniform. He eventually quit the NOPD in disgust and testified against former comrades who had committed crimes during the post-Katrina crisis. He warns that the behavior of police in the aftermath of the hurricane and flood portends a “national Katrina” — a crisis in which government-licensed criminals loot and murder with absolute impunity.

Hayden condemns the “Blue Culture of Silence” in which officer solidarity undermines the duty to “protect and serve.” He points out that “violations of the Fourth Amendment” most likely are committed by police departments across the country every day. While some small and mid-sized departments do provide useful services, Hayden contends, the mechanism of the militarized police state is simply too large, too powerful, too well-funded, and too deeply entrenched to overcome by working inside the system. This is particularly true regarding the so-called “war on drugs” — a literal war against the liberties of the American public, which has completely redefined the mission of nearly every police department and Sheriff’s department in the country. Hayden recalls how he, as an active-duty NOPD officer, nearly came to blows with a colleague simply by questioning the wisdom and propriety of the drug war — which is an institutional dogma embraced with nearly religious zeal by most police officers.

Hayden, a Ron Paul supporter and liberty activist who maintains the website truthistreason.net, was interviewed by Adam Kokesh as part of his web-based program “Adam v. The Man.”