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this post was submitted on 06 Jan 2024
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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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• 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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It's just infuriating how they refuse to admit wrongdoing in such obvious examples of it as this. That kid died because he had expired tags on his license plate and he was afraid of being arrested for an expired license.
That's it. That's nothing. That's negligent manslaughter and reckless driving at best on the part of the cop.
The are cases where pursuit is warranted, but cops are so stupid and lacking in human decency and common sense they can't be trusted even with an obvious 'judgment call' like in this case. Dude won't pull over for expired tabs, they'll chase him to death and hoist a few beers afterward telling themselves they're heroic.
You already have the tag so just....go where they live?
Probably in situations where the dude is just driving around with a gun and shooting people (as rare as that is). Probably want to stop the guy instead of giving him a ticket later after hes done killing lol.
Right that's why OP said judgement call. They are supposed to use their judgment to de-escalate when possible, yet they always seem to chose the most violent option available.
Almost as if they were idiot bullies.
I mean, it's expired... it's fair to say the address on file may not be reliable.
Also, since they haven't been pulled over, the driver isn't identified.
It's a lot of detective work vs. just following the guy. The fact that some people are so stupid they kill themselves and endanger others because they just refuse to not drive doesn't mean police shouldn't be able to follow someone.
A high-speed chase through a crowded downtown, this was not. As far as police know, it's a drunk driver, or someone with their license suspended for good reason. It wasn't someone getting hit with a pit maneuver into a schoolbus.
Did you watch the video? He did it all to himself. The police weren't even tailing him that closely when the collision occurred.
https://youtu.be/MKWmXBHAXIw?si=HOvLsH3kjv-anfxq
That “kid” was 24 years old.
Edit: kept reading
Provides a little more context for why the guy fled. Turns out, not just expired tags as most here would like you to believe.
Oh, in that case he definitely deserved to die. Carry on, then.
I know you need for me to hold the position that he deserved to die but I just don’t. You’re welcome to continue trying to put words in my mouth though.
I’m not particularly broken up about a gun thief dying, no. But I think we can all stop pretending like the guy didn’t have agency and drove himself into a truck all by himself.
I kind of stopped giving a fuck about stupid people dying around the time a bunch of dipshits refused a life saving vaccine during a pandemic.
This is just a different flavor of that.
If you're being chased, then no, you didn't drive yourself into something all by yourself. There was an extremely significant external factor.
That guy chose to gamble - running and maybe escaping (but also maybe getting seriously injured/die) instead of doing 5-10 for possession of a stolen firearm.
Attempting to evade the police can't be allowed to be a blank cheque to get away with crime.
That's the thing, you throw out 5-10 like it's nothing. Not to mention what going to jail and having a felony on your record do to your life. That's a significant amount of your life, which you don't get back. We can only speculate what led to him being in that position, but once there, consequences that steep strongly incentivize evasion. I have a similar thought experiment that tends to piss some people off: You're guilty of something (imagine) and you're evading and a law enforcement dog is chasing you. You're far enough away from the actual officers and the only way you're getting connected to the crime is that dog. It catches up to you, you have a weapon (baseball bat). Do you surrender to it knowing you're facing charges of 5-10 years?
In this imaginative situation, and assuming I were (beyond any doubt) certain that the dog were the only thing, I'd probably kill the dog with the bat. That doesn't mean it would be the right thing to do.
In reality however, I'd avoid making the choices to get into that situation in the first place (and there are a lot of other options).
Completely agree, I can't hardly imagine a series of choices I would actually make that could lead me to such a situation. And it definitely wouldn't be the right thing to do, just the subjectively imperative choice given circumstances. Just a what if, that naturally gets under the skin of many, especially (in my experience) those that equate animal life with human life, but that's a different rabbit hole.
Pull all that straw outta your shirt. You look ridiculous.
Oh, I'm sorry. This is definitely enough cause for his death. /s
No, it was dumb as fuck. But he did it to himself.
And nothing of any value was lost.
Tell that to his family, to their face. In case you forgot, these are real people.
Illegal possession of a stolen gun, likely intended to use that gun for at best extortion at worst murder. Yea I'll say it, that 24 year old was up to no good, and made the choice to drive dangerously and kill himself.
I'm happy his actions result in him no longer being able to cause pain and suffering to others. Instead of him harming others karma caught up with the punk.
Play stupid games win stupid prizes.
To most adults, 24 is a kid. And the cop didn't know he had a stolen handgun and it still isn't worth his death.
Stop infantilizing people just because you hate cops.
Dude died by driving himself into a truck because he didn’t wanna get caught with a stolen gun in his car.
Dude died because he knows that his life would be ruined or ended if he was being arrested by the cops.
There's no infantilizing. Quit licking the boot.