this post was submitted on 02 Nov 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

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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[–] logicbomb 5 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

What a coincidence that this cop never did anything that landed himself in jail for his whole career, but then after he retired, he suddenly turned abusive. /s

I don't know exactly what he did, but 17 years seems excessive for what is described in the article. I wouldn't be surprised if the plea deal was specifically giving a long sentence on this sort of crime so that another crime could be dropped.

Like, let's say that in addition to all of these computer chats, he actually abused a child in person. If he pleads guilty to that, he might have a hard time in prison. Also, the child he abused might have the truth come out. So, they figured they'd let him plead to this other crime to save everybody embarrassment, because he's going to die in prison, anyways. It's just a theory to explain why the sentence seems long.

[–] JudCrandall 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

May I ask why you think that sentence is excessively long? It's ten counts. I don't know anything about VA law, but in some states the maximum sentence for one count of child solicitation is five years, so it could have been a lot longer.

Edit: changed PA to VA whoops

[–] logicbomb 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

Look, I had a comment typed out to explain this, but I don't think people act rationally when it comes to cases involving children, so even if I can perfectly explain why I think it, I'd expect a neverending fight and tons of shitty downvoters.

I think it's enough to say that it just seems surprising to get 17 years in prison if nobody was physically harmed.

[–] JudCrandall 3 points 1 year ago

I haven't read a lot about this, and the article linked here is pretty light on details, but it may be related to him being a school resource officer, or possibly the search they did at his home. But that's also all speculation, so don't really know.

[–] JudCrandall 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I'm sorry if I seemed like I was trying to pick a fight, I wasn't being disingenuous when I asked.

[–] logicbomb 1 points 1 year ago

I didn't think you were trying to pick a fight or were disingenuous. What I thought was that when I read my original answer that I had written, that somebody would end up reading that and would try to fight with me.

This is just from my experience from some other forums, but on those, they always thought there was no punishment enough for some crimes, especially child abuse, and they even rejoiced in the thought that the person might be raped to death in jail. If you even suggested that might be an excessive punishment, people would fight with you.