this post was submitted on 21 Dec 2023
151 points (96.9% liked)

THE POLICE PROBLEM

2547 readers
31 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
top 29 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] _wizard 35 points 1 year ago
[–] cashsky 26 points 1 year ago

Fucking pigs.

[–] [email protected] 25 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Fucking nuts. There was NEVER a reasonable reason to detain him. Crashing into someone's house does not give you reasonable suspicion for an investigation. That's not how it fucking works. I don't understand why the prosecutor would even want to touch these bullshit charges.

[–] [email protected] 22 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Seems like if the owners are guilty of anything worthy of arrest, the pigs are guilty of property damage, assault and battery, attempted murder (all these add "with a deadly weapon" for the fact that they're armed and a 2000lb metal box is certainly deadly) , reckless driving, and a litany of other crimes that should land them in prison with life-crippling fines.

[–] [email protected] 24 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Statement from one of the owners:

“I feel like the situation has been handled horribly all the way around,” Pence said in an interview. He added: “All they needed to do was take responsibility, admit they had an accident and handle it differently.”

Hate to tell you buddy, but you've got a better chance of winning the lottery.

Statement from one of the cops (disputed by owners' attorney):

An officer identified in police records as John Pierce accused Morris of striking him “in the chest with an open hand,” causing him to lose his balance, according to police records.

How does a grown person use this to justify violence or arrest without feeling deeply ashamed at having taken a job as a cop despite being such an absolutely fragile human being?

[–] [email protected] 18 points 1 year ago

How does a grown person use this to justify violence or arrest without feeling deeply ashamed at having taken a job as a cop despite being such an absolutely fragile human being.

They took the job because they're so deeply fragile and completely lacking in shame, why would they feel bad about it?

[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

They definitely crashed the car on purpose. So they could beat the gay couple who own and live above the bar.

[–] Squizzy 3 points 1 year ago

They were absolutely lifting it on the video and managed to get spooked by a parked car and swerved across the road.

It didn't seem intentional just very embarrassingly poor skilled.

Their first intuition told them to arrest someone.

Cunts

[–] satans_crackpipe 3 points 1 year ago

St Louis metro cops are fucked up on their own supplies.

[–] Crack0n7uesday 2 points 1 year ago

Haha, I live in Seattle and I'm from St. Louis.