Many Americans, especially on the right, have rallied around two political creeds: support for the police and the right to armed self-defense. But what happens when #BackTheBlue and #StandYourGround conflict?
Consider the trial of Marvin Guy, which begins Monday in Bell County, north of Austin, Texas. In 2014, Killeen Police Department officers suspected he was selling drugs and a SWAT team raided the apartment where he and his girlfriend were asleep. They didn’t knock, and it’s unclear whether they announced themselves before smashing windows. “I fired out the window, having no idea it was the police, thinking it was a robbery, or somebody trying to come into the house to kill us,” Guy told The Washington Post last year. (He has acknowledged it was illegal for him to have firearms, due to a criminal record.) Police found “approximately one gram of suspected cocaine” on the property, according to The New York Times. Amid the exchange of fire, four officers were hit and one, Detective Charles Dinwiddie, was killed.
Prosecutors initially sought the death penalty but dropped it, so Guy faces life in prison on his capital murder charge. The trial will likely focus on whether he knew he was shooting at police. Jurors will undoubtedly be thinking about “stand your ground” and “castle doctrine” laws, which vary by state but generally give people the right to use deadly force when they are unable to retreat or inside their own homes.
Several high-profile shootings recently underscored the risks of these laws. The 2020 killing of Breonna Taylor during a raid in Louisville, Kentucky, ignited protests and led some states and cities to ban or restrict police from descending on a property without announcing themselves. Following Guy’s arrest, Killeen ended no-knock raids in drug cases. His upcoming trial is the latest example of the collision course between laws that give police the ability to surprise people, and laws that give people the right to shoot back.
Searching court records and news articles, I found nearly two dozen people who have been arrested since 1978 for shooting at officers during raids involving forcible entry or surprise. A New York Times analysis found at least 13 officers and 81 civilians had died in “forcible entry” raids from 2010 through 2016, and that even when police announced themselves before a late-night raid, people inside a house might not have heard them. Many were asleep. ...
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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
Does any one know the street value of 1 g of suspected cocaine?
About $10 to a high school kid, along with a $20 bag of oregano
Less than the money spent on fuel to get the police vehicles to the victim's house.