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.
♦ ♦ ♦
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.
♦ ♦ ♦
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.
♦ ♦ ♦
ALLIES
• r/ACAB
♦ ♦ ♦
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
♦ ♦ ♦
ORGANIZATIONS
• NAACP
• National Police Accountability Project
• Vera: Ending Mass Incarceration
view the rest of the comments
Why is it that so many cops have the personality where you actually expect that type.of behavior? Fuck America. This is their American dream not ours.
I mean, would you become a cop?
Sometimes I read some people try to defend cops by saying "you're too scared to be a cop", and I think to myself, actually, yeah. That's the point: being a cop means needing to face desperate people and de-escalate; it means being able to be calm in the face of danger and make sound snap decisions. People's lives and safety are in your hands. It's a fucking terrifying and difficult thing to do, especially in a country as polarised today as America.
The problem is that means that a lot of people who still want to be cops are people who don't appreciate the difficulty of what it is they have to do.
And for the few that do understand and are sensitive enough to prejudice to make this sacrifice: when they end up in a department of these other people who make wrong decisions every day and put money where it's not needed, I wouldn't be surprised if they'd want to leave, be harassed out or worse, end up going through the motions and joining in as well.
That's the crux of it all, right there.
Cops ought to be what you describe in your first paragraph, but in reality the job is simply thug-with-a-badge.
Cops must take six weeks off BLET (basic law enforcement training). That’s mostly it, some cops get a two year criminal justice tech degree, and humanities weren’t part of the required curriculum when I was a student. If they are now, it apparently doesn’t sink in.
To further illustrate your point, consider Christopher Dorner.
Wow. I remembered his face when duckduckgo led me to a wikipedia article. Was fired for reporting use of excessive force, then went on to kill officers and their family members until they admitted their wrong doing of firing him. From wikipedia, “A manifesto posted by Dorner on social media declared "unconventional and asymmetric warfare" upon the LAPD, their families and their associates unless the department admitted publicly he was fired in retaliation for reporting excessive force.” I have conflicting feelings about this. It makes me happy he took a stand against those organized criminals but I’m sad the criminal’s, possibly innocent, family members got dragged into the bloodshed.
I’d be much concerned if you didn’t have conflicting feelings about it. I have conflicting feelings, but the predominate one is overwhelming sadness. The whole mess was easily preventable, with proper action by the lapd, and persecuting him wasn’t it, as we see.
No
Maybe if it wasn't the way that it is