this post was submitted on 07 Oct 2023
350 points (99.2% liked)

THE POLICE PROBLEM

2547 readers
578 users here now

    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

Real-life decorum is expected. Please don't say things only a child or a jackass would say in person.

If you're here to support the police, you're trolling. Please exercise your right to remain silent.

Saying ~~cops~~ ANYONE should be killed lowers the IQ in any conversation. They're about killing people; we're not.

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

[email protected]

[email protected]

r/ACAB

r/BadCopNoDonut/

Randy Balko

The Civil Rights Lawyer

The Honest Courtesan

Identity Project

MirandaWarning.org

♦ ♦ ♦

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

♦ ♦ ♦

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

 

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 

Original link

🚨🚨🚨

TL/DR: As a cop in Youngstown, Ohio, Lieutenant Brian Flynn was charged with 14 counts of dereliction of duty, including "failure to investigate numerous cases of child sex abuse or child pornography." He was fired, and then charges were dropped on a technicality.

He was then hired as a cop in the neighboring town of Poland, Ohio, where he was assigned as a school cop, despite the bit about failure to investigate child sex abuse or child pornography. After public outcry, he's no long a school cop. Instead he's been reassigned to road patrol, because "Not every police officer is a good school officer," says the schools superintendent.

top 24 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] teamevil 45 points 1 year ago (5 children)

Time to get rid of police unions that encourage this type of behavior.

[–] SinningStromgald 31 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Police union is the only union I don't support.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 1 year ago

And the only union the right-wing supports.

[–] [email protected] 21 points 1 year ago

Just make the unions pay liability insurance for the cops. The problem would be solved over night.

[–] deweydecibel 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Reduce their power, don't need to remove them entirely. Every worker should have the security of one, on principle. There just need to be common sense limits to their power when it comes to such high stakes, judgment-heavy jobs as police.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago

Nah, fuck the police, they shouldn't have a union. They should have extremely high standards but instead they hand a gun to any moron who can go through 6 weeks of "training"

[–] rifugee 1 points 1 year ago

We need to apply the same level of safety regulations to police that we do to truck drivers.

[–] NotMyOldRedditName -3 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Not just police unions, unions that don't do their jobs properly.

There's a building in NYC (or was before the news story anyway) with a room of teachers just sitting there doing nothing because they couldn't be fired. Some there for years.

It's insane what they protect sometimes.

[–] Nurse_Robot 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] NotMyOldRedditName 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] Nurse_Robot 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I stand corrected. I don't think this is the norm though

[–] NotMyOldRedditName 0 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

No, this definitely isn't. But many unions do have a habit of keeping people who should be fired for many good reasons employed.

[–] dan_linder 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] NotMyOldRedditName 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] dan_linder 2 points 1 year ago

Fascinating and dystopian... Thanks for the link.

[–] Late2TheParty 11 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Oh. My. Fuck!

Why do these assholes protect each other?!?!

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago

Because they're all the same

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I wonder how that interview went?

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago

It was just a formality where they ended up trading stories about their exploits.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

Probably a lot of fist bumps

[–] LEDZeppelin 7 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Youngstown. It can't be overstated just how trashy that part of Ohio is.

[–] S_204 5 points 1 year ago

Doesn't have enough white supremacy for an Ohio cop. Let me know when there's an update posted.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

It’s overdue to create a system of licensing and certification for cops that we have for lawyers and doctors. They should be required to pass a test that certifies they understand all the laws they enforce and are then licensed to enforce the laws. Any misconduct and the lose their license to enforce the law and cannot just be rehired in the next precinct over.

Turn your body cam off during on a call? Lose your law enforcement license.