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this post was submitted on 04 Apr 2024
990 points (99.3% liked)
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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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
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
I hope Mr. Riley is found not guilty. And that all three officers who participated in this dangerous fraud are charged and punished appropriately. Mr. Riley deserves compensation for harm done. Tallahassee, you can do better. smh.
Don’t worry. Internal affairs with complete an investigation and find that the officers not only did nothing wrong but are being commended and recommended for promotion!
After their paid vacation
Possibly a paid transfer funded by taxpayers.
Any fucking municipality that allows this needs to swing.
How about we compromise. No punishment for the officers, and Mr Riley gets 12 months in jail, but he gets out 3 months early if he admits he was wrong and promised not to sue.
Unfortunately that compensation will come from florida taxpayers instead of the criminal cops themselves.
Nothing will change until the cops have to pay their own damages.
How can you hope that? Are you high?
Theres one way a cop will ever be held accountable.
I hope for justice, and equality under the law. Are we there? No. And my activism focuses on what we need, deserve, and want. Why do you not? Do you advocate apathy? Do you have another suggestion?
Laws aren't for justice. I think if they're ever in the same room, justice never showed up and the wall has some new stains.
Even if you don't believe this, a system so thoroughly, from its original seed to every major input its had,made from injustice and tyranny for injustice and tyranny, is not going to provide you with justice.
You need to start fresh from the ground up. Maybe its possible to create a mostly-just system of laws; i don't think it is, but I'm down to be proven wrong. I do know its impossible to salvage the ones we have, and if you wanted to make a serious attempt, you'd start from scratch.
I think we use laws because they're a tool for exercising power, and we, growing up in strict hierarchalist societies, confuse power with justice. They're opposites. Laws are a tool for systematizing and flattening morality so its legible to a top down hierarchy that doesn't have time/bandwidth to fully pay attention, and a tool to divide a populace so you can justify picking out people you find inconvenient, or increasing power exercised against the people.
I think you find justice where laws don't excuse people from thought compassion and consideration, put anyone above anyone else, or justify doing awful shit, and I think a lot of the work towards justice and equality is going to be emotionally messy and unpleasant til we get there.