this post was submitted on 19 Aug 2024
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THE POLICE PROBLEM

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    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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ALLIES

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r/ACAB

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Randy Balko

The Civil Rights Lawyer

The Honest Courtesan

Identity Project

MirandaWarning.org

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INFO

A demonstrator's guide to understanding riot munitions

Adultification

Cops aren't supposed to be smart

Don't talk to the police.

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

So you wanna be a cop?

When the police knock on your door

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ORGANIZATIONS

Black Lives Matter

Campaign Zero

Innocence Project

The Marshall Project

Movement Law Lab

NAACP

National Police Accountability Project

Say Their Names

Vera: Ending Mass Incarceration

 

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[–] [email protected] 33 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (1 children)

Still don’t understand how tf you bungle a situation like this so badly.

Step 1: Assume the person is intoxicated
Step 2: Do whatever you want because you're a cop and you don't consider drug users people/"something something fentanyl"

[–] [email protected] 14 points 3 months ago (2 children)

Read the article, sounds like he was combative post-ictal. I'm not excusing the officer; it's a thing, not the most common, but I've definitely had my share of dudes that would just hulk out after a seizure. There's no real reasoning or logic to it, they don't mean to be combative. I think it's down to the lights being on while monke brain is down for the count, so lizard brain senses all the hallmarks of a fight or flight situation in the wake of the seizure and decides "fuck it, we ball". This is definitely a situation that needed medical professionals. We've always managed these situations without bringing the patient to any harm, all while still protecting ourselves. Cops aren't taught those skills, especially not since the war on drugs and war on terror allowed them to tell themselves that they're the warriors on the Frontline, the thin blue line that seperates the good from the wicked, yadda, yadda, yadda. When you're a hammer, everything looks like a nail, etc. The smart thing for the cop to have done would be to listen to the wife and remove himself from the situation until EMS arrived.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 months ago

You're absolutely right. I tried to flee after my seizure, and the paramedics still got me to the hospital without anyone beating me or otherwise causing me harm. The police screen for people who actively want to hurt others and amplify that impulse.

[–] EmpathicVagrant 5 points 3 months ago

Gotta love warrior training tracing cops across the map to shoot before they’re even done assessing the situation. They got rid of all that pesky responsibility the job had before.