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submitted 11 months ago by MicroWave@lemmy.world to c/news@lemmy.world

A cop's decision to sport a body camera and search a Massachusetts middle school for a book has raised serious concerns among civil liberties experts, a new report shows.

The Berkshire Eagle reported Wednesday on mounting fears after the Great Barrington plainclothes police officer who entered an eighth grade classroom at W.E.B. Du Bois Regional Middle School.

“Police going into schools and searching for books is the sort of thing you hear about in communist China and Russia," Ruth A. Bourquin, senior and managing attorney for the ACLU of Massachusetts, told the local news outlet. "What are we doing?”

For their part, police say they were obligated to investigate a complaint about the book "Gender Queer" by Maia Kobabe, a memoir about gender identity that contains sexually explicit illustrations and language, the report notes.

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[-] charonn0@startrek.website 161 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

But Great Barrington Police Chief Paul Storti said in a statement, “Because this complaint was made directly to the police department, we are obligated and have a duty to examine the complaint further."

I call bullshit, and would like to see the law and/or court rulings that support this assertion.

Because if cops have no duty to protect the public, then in what sense do they have a duty to take this complaint seriously?

[-] Audrey0nne@leminal.space 56 points 11 months ago

You are right they have no duty to protect the public, their job is to maintain the status quo and defend capitalist interests. Two guesses into which category searching for this book in a middle school falls under.

[-] JustZ@lemmy.world 25 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

When people say police have no duty to protect the public, they are talking about a legal affirmative duty to act.

Usually the law does not impose a duty to act. If you see someone drowning, it's not negligent to NOT jump into the water and save the person. You can stand there and watch your neighbor's kid drown and you're neither breaking the law nor being negligent. Even if your neighbor's kid screams for help and looks right at you and says please help me, it's legal to do nothing: there is no affirmative duty to rescue.

It's the same for police. The exception are when there is a fiduciary relationship, if you created the peril, or if you start rescuing someone you can't leave them worse off. Usually these exceptions don't apply to police, even if you call and ask for help, they have no duty to act. That doesn't mean they won't show up and do their best. Just means you can't sue them for negligence if they fail to save you.

Therapists, doctors, lawyers, architects, have legal duties to act.

[-] BeautifulMind@lemmy.world 10 points 11 months ago

It’s the same for police. The exception are when there is a fiduciary relationship, if you created the peril, or if you start rescuing someone you can’t leave them worse off. Usually these exceptions don’t apply to police, even if you call and ask for help, they have no duty to act.

Clear takeaway: when they said “Because this complaint was made directly to the police department, we are obligated and have a duty to examine the complaint further" it really means they wanted to do it but didn't want to be held responsible for wanting that. (after all, if they had no choice in the matter it's not their fault they're doing ghoulish police-state things most people don't want done)

[-] JustZ@lemmy.world 2 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

So I wonder:

  1. Does MA have some statutory requirement, such as how many states have statutes requiring police to followup to a 911 hangup call, perhaps requiring a response to complaints about sexual deviance with children or something, and perhaps the police had no choice but to make contact with the teacher. They didn't find the book. Could have been showing up a friendly warning of a nutjob parent, and the ACLU is taking liberty with the term.

  2. What was the extent of the search? IMO, even showing up at the school and entering the classroom whilst having eyeballs, let alone a camera, is a search.

  3. What the fuck is wrong with parents that they can't have these conversations with their kids, or... Fuck, I don't know, check the book out at the library and read it to their kid and talk about it in a context they are comfortable with? Oh k forgot, that requires emotional intelligence and these people who try to control their environment instead of their emotions are fucking ghouls that nobody wants to fuck.

[-] chitak166@lemmy.world 0 points 11 months ago

I'm not sure why this had to be typed out.

[-] SatanicNotMessianic@lemmy.ml 45 points 11 months ago

Anyone who has had their bike stolen or car broken into or otherwise be victim of a crime the police don’t really care about knows this is not the case. You’ll be told to come in and fill out a form, or if you’re lucky you might have someone call you and fill out the form for you. They’re not going to send a cop out for that, and the form doesn’t really get acted on, it’s just for records keeping.

[-] cannibalkitteh@lemmy.blahaj.zone 20 points 11 months ago

The last time I had my car broken into, they sent an officer out to take the report. They, of course, did nothing with that report, and I found the person who had broken into my car later through reliable sources.

[-] SatanicNotMessianic@lemmy.ml 17 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

For a while, I had a partner who lived in Harlem. Their apartment was broken into multiple times by forced entry via the fire escape.

I remember the cops laughing as they took the report, which we only filed to get the insurance claims. Nothing was done other than sending out two officers to spend five minutes taking the report. I’m not saying they need to find every stolen laptop in NYC, though. I’m just saying that they absolutely choose how to investigate and resource complaints.

[-] Tujio@lemmy.world 9 points 11 months ago

Last time I had my car broken into they told me to file a report online. It took them over a year to send a form letter reply saying they got it.

[-] TimLovesTech@badatbeing.social 19 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

The full news article states that they do not have that authority, this is just ass covering by wanna be heroes of oppression.

This "report" was done anonymously probably for the reason they knew it was BS, and just looking at the report should have been enough to dismiss it. At the very most a phone call to see if the school wanted to handle it, but sending an officer should get all involved parties suspended without pay. That principal should have also called bullshit and never escorted a cop to a classroom to search for a book. They should also be suspended and the policy gone over again on what to do with these bullshit book banning "reports" (deleted/recycled).

Edit - extra shit

[-] TheChurn@kbin.social 12 points 11 months ago

The problem with the principal refusing to escort the officer is then they are obstructing a police investigation, and that is a crime. It isn't fair to put this burden on them, the blame lies squarely with the police chain of command.

In fact the root problem of all things police is that once police decide to do something, even if that thing is illegal, interfering is a crime.

This is how we end up with people being charged with resisting arrest, and no other crimes that would warrant an arrest. This is also how we end up with a bunch of people live streaming George Floyd's execution, because stopping a cop from killing someone is a crime.

[-] TimLovesTech@badatbeing.social 1 points 11 months ago

Should have asked them to come back with a warrant as that is within his legal rights. The officer had no reason to suspect any real harm to any child in a school classroom after hours (this all happened after school was out for the day).

[-] TheChurn@kbin.social 1 points 11 months ago

With a complaint and a full description of the offense, the officer had cause to force entry.

Same as if someone called in a suspicious package, they wouldn't need a warrant to gain entry.

Society gives police an incredible amount of leeway.

[-] TimLovesTech@badatbeing.social 1 points 11 months ago

On the complaint of a book? I'll call bullshit on that, and no way that would hold up in any sane court. A book is not something that should give police any probable cause, and really something that the police shouldn't even be investigating. Having police coming in to schools to look for books is so far out of what they should be doing the principal should have laughed and called the station to ask what the hell is going on over there.

[-] MotoAsh@lemmy.world 16 points 11 months ago

Because this complaint hurt little piggy's feelings.

[-] afraid_of_zombies@lemmy.world 9 points 11 months ago

Yeah I don't believe it either. The courts have agreed the cops don't have to help anyone.

[-] BreakDecks@lemmy.ml 3 points 11 months ago

Yeah, but that's because they don't want to help people. They actively recruit cops who hate the communities they're going to police.

So it's never an issue when they're asked to do harm. That's why they became cops.

this post was submitted on 22 Dec 2023
476 points (98.6% liked)

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