THE POLICE PROBLEM
The police problem is that police are policed by the police. Cops are accountable only to other cops, which is no accountability at all.
99.9999% of police brutality, corruption, and misconduct is never investigated, never punished, never makes the news, so it's not on this page.
When cops are caught breaking the law, they're investigated by other cops. Details are kept quiet, the officers' names are withheld from public knowledge, and what info is eventually released is only what police choose to release — often nothing at all.
When police are fired — which is all too rare — they leave with 'law enforcement experience' and can easily find work in another police department nearby. It's called "Wandering Cops."
When police testify under oath, they lie so frequently that cops themselves have a joking term for it: "testilying." Yet it's almost unheard of for police to be punished or prosecuted for perjury.
Cops can and do get away with lawlessness, because cops protect other cops. If they don't, they aren't cops for long.
The legal doctrine of "qualified immunity" renders police officers invulnerable to lawsuits for almost anything they do. In practice, getting past 'qualified immunity' is so unlikely, it makes headlines when it happens.
All this is a path to a police state.
In a free society, police must always be under serious and skeptical public oversight, with non-cops and non-cronies in charge, issuing genuine punishment when warranted.
Police who break the law must be prosecuted like anyone else, promptly fired if guilty, and barred from ever working in law-enforcement again.
That's the solution.
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Our definition of ‘cops’ is broad, and includes prison guards, probation officers, shitty DAs and judges, etc — anyone who has the authority to fuck over people’s lives, with minimal or no oversight.
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RULES
① Real-life decorum is expected. Please don't say things only a child or a jackass would say in person.
② If you're here to support the police, you're trolling. Please exercise your right to remain silent.
③ Saying ~~cops~~ ANYONE should be killed lowers the IQ in any conversation. They're about killing people; we're not.
④ Please don't dox or post calls for harassment, vigilantism, tar & feather attacks, etc.
Please also abide by the instance rules.
It you've been banned but don't know why, check the moderator's log. If you feel you didn't deserve it, hey, I'm new at this and maybe you're right. Send a cordial PM, for a second chance.
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ALLIES
• r/ACAB
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INFO
• A demonstrator's guide to understanding riot munitions
• Cops aren't supposed to be smart
• Killings by law enforcement in Canada
• Killings by law enforcement in the United Kingdom
• Killings by law enforcement in the United States
• Know your rights: Filming the police
• Three words. 70 cases. The tragic history of 'I can’t breathe' (as of 2020)
• Police aren't primarily about helping you or solving crimes.
• Police lie under oath, a lot
• Police spin: An object lesson in Copspeak
• Police unions and arbitrators keep abusive cops on the street
• Shielded from Justice: Police Brutality and Accountability in the United States
• When the police knock on your door
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ORGANIZATIONS
• NAACP
• National Police Accountability Project
• Vera: Ending Mass Incarceration
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The cop had already lost, the shooter had the high ground!
Seriously though, he was on a ladder - all of your limbs are dedicated to keeping you on the ladder. You have to get off the ladder before you can do anything else, so you either go up the ladder probably getting shot multiple times before you can get to your gun or radio, or go down the ladder where you're not in the line of fire to call for backup, draw your gun, or whatever.
Not really, I’m on a ladder for hours a day frequently, like multiple times a month. You are only required 3 points of contact for OSHA compliance and pretty sure cops can ignore that. If you can’t grab the radio attached to your chest with one hand while on a ladder with three other contacts then you have no business being a cop lol
I agree that you can get one hand free while on a ladder, but I'm still going to duck first if someone is pointing a gun at me
Fully agreed, I’m just saying a cop who passed the annual fitness exam should be able to duck down a step and radio an alert pretty damn quick.
I’m still betting $10 that the shooter turned and threw lead without really aiming since he knew he was compromised.
I just think the journalists are wording this extremely poorly
I agree with the poor wording, "retreat" makes it sound he ran away.
Another issue is the Secret Service were probably on their own radio channels and not with the local police. When there's interagency things like this, there's usually a command center where they have the leaders of each group staged so they can relay things between the teams, but not direct communication between Deputy Bobby who sees the gunman and Agent Spike on the stage. Plenty of time to get off shots before the warning is heard by the people who need to hear it.
That would be super dumb. There should be some operator that relevant info is passed to either channel.