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
view the rest of the comments
it's really not worth it... they have the license plate and can just go to their house later...
the driver is still a piece of shit for also endangering people's lives (and the three year old)
The three year old is also a piece of shit?
No they're not saying that
They're saying three-year-olds aren't people
I'd like to make a cliche joke here, about how 3 year olds are more like little goblins than people or something like that, but I'm not a parent.
But I have seen a three year old straight-up knock a lamp off a table for no apparent reason, not once but twice.
Three-year-olds are cats, confirmed
Apparent reasons:
Kid wants attention but isn't getting it; Kid is trying to get the adults' moods to match their own; Kid is experimenting with physics, weight and gravity; Kid mispprehended what would happen if the lamp fell.
I mean, have you been around any toddlers lately? Absolute monsters! 😛
Correct.
So when someone is evasive to police we should just go to their house later? It's called probable cause and you don't know if the people in the car are dangerous. I'm not a great supporter of the police but the hot takes in this thread are disappointingly dumb.
yawn
Compelling point, jfc
go have your rage war elsewhere
Haha, I'm not raging but nice projection, everyone in this thread is raging because they can't see reason over their self-righteous anger.
Yeah let's just make assumptions and put even more people's lives in danger
So if you were pulling someone over for a valid reason and they fled, you would just be like oh well I guess they got away? interesting mental gymnastics going on here, why do people let their blind hatred of a group subvert common sense?
"common sense"?
you do know that what you suggested ironically is literally what happens in sane countries, right?
you try to ignore the police because of a broken tail light? they'll just summon you to court, they have your plates. and you'll be fined for fleeing the police and probably lose your driver's license, at least temporarily and if it's a temporary revocation you'll definitely be required to attend further driver's training at your own expense before you're allowed to drive again.
you're not home or pretend not to be? they'll track you down and either deliver the summons directly or just arrest you.
that's normal. that's the normal thing to happen.
you know what's not normal? Killing people because they don't want to talk to you!
I take serious issue with delivering tickets at home later. The fact that it's your car is circumstantial. No way to prove you were driving.
You most likely know who was driving your car, and if it wasn't you, you could identify who it was, but frankly, I don't like it... Not for a traffic ticket where you're presumed guilty and have to prove you don't owe the state the fine... I don't think it's a great idea sending cops to a registered owners house in that context... Not with the current standards police are demonstrating.
Edit- don't chase either... Minor speeding, taillight, ranva stop sign... Let it go ffs
In my country the rules are simple. It's your car, so you're responsible.
The owner should've fixed the broken taillight, not the current driver.
What country? Do you have annual inspections? That's easily the right answer to a busted taillight question :)
In the UK, you would receive a letter with the details of the infraction. You can nominate someone else who was driving at the time but it defaults to the car’s registered owner.
And we have annual inspections (the MOT) or your insurance is invalid. You have to be taxed and insured or your car gets impounded.
Does the US not have annual inspections?
Quick edit: This is for things like speeding and other offences caught on camera. I doubt this would apply to a broken light as in the OP.
Same in Belgium and I assume most civilized countries. Either your car is stolen or it is not. If it is, you legally have to disclose that. If it is not, then "maybe I wasn't the one driving but I'm not going to tell you ;) ;) ;)" is a bullshit excuse, and everyone knows it. You know it, the person you replied to knows it, the judge knows it.
I think there's a whole-ass essay to be written on the Americans' relationship to law that leads them to using the stupidest legal arguments like some kind of arcane ward... and actually succeeding.
Hot take: we make fun of sovereign citizens but "speed cameras are unenforceable if you don't have a 4K picture of me at the wheel of what is unambiguously my car" is basically the same thought process.
In the US inspections are controlled by each state. Some have yearly, some have basically none, and everything in between like only during change of ownership.
Its the owners car. Either they say who was responsible for that ticket or the owner is getting fined themselves.
And to be fair, these tickets are delivered by post. Only if you then didnt pay or show up to a hearing will you get into more serious trouble.
Assuming the courts work (much better than police either way), you get a fair process there. (of course, circumstances can be fabricated, but thats then up to the court, not much you can do really apart from forcing them to have video evidence in such easy things)
So... Don't chase them. And don't serve them a ticket at home.
What's your solution?
I think his solution is to chase. Which is what they did and the results hurt people. My best guess is the rewards are better than the risks. I dunno. I'm just guessing
Let it go...
What's the premise of the ticket?
The premise is that a broken tail light doesn't indicate a turn or a stop to other drivers, who should be paying attention anyway... It's safety, public safety...
So to mitigate the risk of a collision because one of your three brake lights isn't working, we gotta chase someone? Or in the case of going to their home, we're gonna pay two cops an hours wage, reduce their ability to do anything else for anyone, and basically convict someone without any process whatsoever (unless they spend the time to contest it, and likely fail anyway just because cop says they did it) on circumstantial evidence?
Apply that to speeding... Apply it to rolling a stop sign... Apply it to 90%+ of the shit that gets ticketed...
The benefit to society for most traffic tickets is negligible at best. Let it go...
This is an extremely naive view. While the cops enforcing the law are almost always corrupt and do it in a corrupt way
The "benefit is negligible" is a mistake. The fact is driving around without brake lights IS a problem, driving without a seatbelt IS a problem, speeding IS a problem. That is why these laws came about in the first place. The facts and statistics are very clear about the increased accidents.
You appear to be assuming that I'm suggesting citations be done away with entirely...
I'm suggesting that a citation doesn't warrant a pursuit.
I'll go a little further and say that a "no pursuit" policy isn't appropriate either (and that sounds contradictory I'm sure, but if you publish it as a policy it becomes an incentive, not good), but a pursuit over a citation is negating, in a huge manner, the safety those citations provide...
Someone fleeing the police is a ridiculously more dangerous condition than an occasional citation getting skipped... how many people flee? 1%? I doubt it's even that... The statistical deterrence isn't affected by that, and arguably, the citation won't have a statistical impact on that fringe group anyway. The reduction in accidents happens in the 99% that pull over and simply pay the fines.
The facts and statistics would be, I'd guess, exponentially more clear about the increased accidents from police chases.
with the current standards police are demonstrating, im not okay with them doing anything...
i meant more, "in a perfect world" kinda sense...
with parking tickets they can't prov who drove either, so really the car gets the ticket...
the owner has to pay it to keep registration, though...
So what would you do then? Cause obviously the coppers didn’t do very well here.