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San Diego officer resigns after locking himself in patrol car with woman he arrested
(www.sandiegouniontribune.com)
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this post was submitted on 21 Jun 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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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
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• Vera: Ending Mass Incarceration
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MODERATORS
Yes, if an officer uses their position of authority to take money that doesn't belong to them, it is theft. If they use the threat of imprisonment to have sex with someone, that's rape. This isn't complicated. It doesn't matter if the bribe was offered or solicited, the officer is either using force to have non-consensual sex or taking something that doesnt belong to them. It doesn't matter if there was an actual quid pro quo agreement, or if the officer was planning to continue to deliver the detainee to jail. It doesn't matter at all if the detainee is guilty, and it's disgusting to suggest that it does so you should stop that.
It depends on the behavior of the officer. It’s the difference between these two statements:
“I’m going to make things worse than they should be for you if you don’t do what I want”
And
“Ok, I will not fulfill my duty because you offered me something to look the other way.”
In the first case, the officer IS using the threat of imprisonment to have sex with someone. In the second case, the officer is shirking his duty because the arrestee has offered a quid pro quo. These are two different scenarios and it comes down to who is instigating the act. In the eyes of the law, intentions matter. This is why there is a distinction between first and second degree murder.
No. Stop it. There is no difference between those two crimes because of the inherent power disparity between police and detainees.