this post was submitted on 26 Aug 2023
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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

[email protected]

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r/ACAB

r/BadCopNoDonut/

Randy Balko

The Civil Rights Lawyer

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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

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The Marshall Project

Movement Law Lab

NAACP

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Say Their Names

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[–] Crackhappy 9 points 11 months ago (2 children)

While I am entirely against capital punishment at least if they use this method it will be much more humane.

[–] dmonzel 4 points 11 months ago

There is no such thing as humane capital punishment.

[–] DougHolland -4 points 11 months ago (1 children)

"Much more humane," says who?

The article says "proponents of the new method have theorized it would be painless," but I'm not inclined to take their word for it.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 11 months ago (1 children)

It is painless. You can try it out yourself. Your body only detects excess CO2 not lack of oxygen. You will go lightheaded before passing out and eventually dying of oxygen starvation

[–] DougHolland 3 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Oh, and I can try it out myself? Thanks, mate. :)

Never heard of death by nitrogen until his morning, but this conversation got me curious enough to read this article, which doesn't convince me it's painless.

    When Alabama and two other states authorized nitrogen hypoxia, supporters said it was a more humane method of execution. Others, including the U.S. Supreme Court, have said there isn’t yet sufficient evidence to back up that claim.

    Because no person has ever been executed by inhaling pure nitrogen — there is seemingly no way to humanely test its use — exactly how the state will carry out a nitrogen hypoxia execution is unclear. A deputy state attorney general said the state has developed a protocol for it, but added that it has not been finalized....

It's only a quibble, though, for me. I'm opposed to the death penalty, even if they devise a method that causes fatal orgasm.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Oh, this is absolutely nothing new. Without getting into details... this method of administering death has been advocated for by doctors and activists. Done correctly, the victim of this capital punishment may not feel a thing at all. Done poorly, there may be raised heart rate, hyper-ventilation, and involuntary convulsions.

[–] DougHolland 3 points 11 months ago

...this method of administering death has been advocated for by doctors

You cracked me up with that. :) Sounds like a doctor my wife & I had in Kansas City...

[–] [email protected] 7 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

Goddamn finally, I've always wondered why nitrogen was never used for these kinds of things before. Cheap, painless, and effective.

Not exactly advocating for the death penalty, but if it must exist in this world I'd hope it'd use an effective and painless method

[–] [email protected] 4 points 11 months ago

Prisons must be abolished. Free em all!

[–] blackbelt352 1 points 11 months ago (2 children)

This is easily the most dangerous method possible for everyone involved. Strangely enough our body only reacts to buildups of CO2, it does not react to a lack of oxygen.

So while in theory it would be painless as an execution method, if anything leaks into the viewing area for the execution there is no visible signs anyone is in danger as oxygen is being displaced thus potentially killing everyone involved.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 11 months ago (1 children)

There's a whole field of industry for gas detection, whether it be for the presence of toxic or explosive gas, or the absence of healthy breathing air. It's an easily mitigated problem. If the detector on the wall goes below 20% o2, an alarm sounds, circulation fans turn on, and everyone leaves the room.

[–] blackbelt352 1 points 11 months ago (1 children)

But the system overall is not fail safe. Through sheer bad luck, the warning system could fail and there could be a leak into the viewing chamber.

[–] Madison420 1 points 11 months ago

This is quite literally what a Deadman switch is for. The man closest to the wall holds the switch that sucks out the oxygen and replaces it with nitrogen and when that man lets up it kicks on high power fans in the viewing area unless you hold another switch almost out of reach that you must hold up.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago

It's well established how to administer this method of death, I don't see this same safety concern as you do.