141
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
this post was submitted on 30 Dec 2023
141 points (91.2% liked)
THE POLICE PROBLEM
2479 readers
278 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
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.
♦ ♦ ♦
ALLIES
• r/ACAB
♦ ♦ ♦
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
♦ ♦ ♦
ORGANIZATIONS
• NAACP
• National Police Accountability Project
• Vera: Ending Mass Incarceration
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
Car chases are bad. Not because people with warrants should go free, but because it puts me needlessly at risk.
We spend a ridiculous amount of money on our police. You're telling me that they can't invest in a GPS tracker to stick to cars at the start of a traffic stop, or a drone to follow someone silently until they stop on their own? It's just about 2024. Surely the Dukes of Hazard style chase is outdated.
The driver knew he had 4 kids in the car. The driver is fully at fault for driving recklessly whilst trying to flee a scene purely for his own benefit.
"Criminals are fully at fault when police randomly shoot at them and hit civilians behind them"
Is that the same kind of logic you'd have?
After reading a lot of people's take on the shootout where the UPS driver hostage got killed (likely by police, as the video doesn't show if anybody even fired from the UPS truck). So many people excused the police and blamed the criminals 100%, even though anybody whose favorite appetizer isn't boot polish could tell you firing into rush hour traffic is incredibly irresponsible.
All that to say, I wouldn't put it past them.
If it was say, a bank robber shooting at police, yeah. Yes, I'd blame him too. If the police shot unprovoked, no. Of course the police should handle situations like this better - put a tag on the car, call a helicopter, whatever - but at least part of the blame lies with this moron driving around with a felony warrant, no license plate, 4 kids in the car, then trying to run from the cops. For the warrant he already had, he will go to prison for a few years, so I could see why he'd be reluctant to turn himself in. But this sort of stupid shit isn't going to help.
Sure, if we're going to live in a simple universe where only one person is responsible when something bad happens. But that seem limiting to me. It means we can't find creative solutions to problems, since all the solutions devolve into "bad people need to do less bad stuff."
No one is saying the driver isn't at fault. But car chases can make suspect drivers panic, and panic makes bad drivers out of all of us.
Better for them to realise that escape is futile even if they do dodge that one police car, and just surrender at that point.
Better for the driver to figure that out before he decides to take off at high speed with 4 kids in the car.
Exactly. When the dude's been stickied with a GPS receiver, dude should know the game is up and he won't have time to take it off before cops are on his ass.
But that requires building a reputation and that requires building some solid AF procedures that cannot be dealt with quickly by an escaping driver.