this post was submitted on 20 May 2024
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US Authoritarianism
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Why is covering the badge number even allowed?
Because cops are the violent arm of the ruling class, and it's convenient for them to be immune to legal consequence.
When will the rich pay?
Who's going to stop them?
Laws?
Hi. Former prison guard here. It turns out that as a cop you can dictate the reality going forward. Just say what you wanted to happen and everyone with authority will say that's what happened.
Enforcement and accountability barely exist these days and you think those are going to work on police? The same police working every day with the very same officers, judges and prosecutors that would investigate them?
Tell me another fairy tale...
...okay...and if the police are breaking the laws, who upholds the laws they're breaking?
Independent police complaint authority, authorized by the government, but run entirely by people from the community. There is a legal department there who handles cases, paid for through taxes. If you have any relationship to anyone on the force, you're ineligible to serve, and no one can handle a case that concerns anyone they know.
It works in my country, but I am aware that doesn't mean we can translate the solution 1:1 to the US, so I'd be interested to know why you guys think this would or wouldn't work.
It is not a perfect system that will solve all problems immediately. There are thousands of daily cases of harassment and abuse of power on a small scale that might end in the big pile and take forever to process. But it will effectively solve a lot of cases - fx cases about covering badge numbers and turning off body cams. These will be open and shut cases, and the punishments will be decided by the Independent Police Complaint Authority, meaning no bullshit paid vacation. Also cases in general that have an obvious outcome to the public, such as unnecessary police brutality and excessive force would probably be handled better by an independent authority.
Every time one of these oversight committees gets set up in the US, the local police Union infiltrates it and prevents it from doing anything.
OR the police union just litigates any punitive damages against one of their own and off they go, scot free.
Look, we just need more police, obviously. /s
The only thing that works against a bad cop is a good cop. Except there ain't no good cops. Police is inherently not reformable.
#defundthepolice
I mean, if we massively increased the number of officers we might actually be able to police the police.
who watches the watchmen?
Last I checked, a piece of paper with words on it can't carry a gun or force someone into handcuffs.
Laws have had little luck stopping police from doing whatever the fuck they want
What enforcement mechanisms will we use? Cops already break laws regularly
I'm calling the cops!!
Why do you think body cam was introduced? Pigs do shady shit when no ones watching and they don't want to be identified when they do.