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In Louisiana, Police Reform Led Directly to a “Torture Warehouse” (slate.com)
submitted 1 year ago by Salamendacious@lemmy.world to c/news@lemmy.world
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A new lawsuit filed in federal court last month alleges that the Baton Rouge Police Department ran a “torture warehouse” where members of its Street Crimes Unit strip searched, beat, and otherwise humiliated people and then released them, often without their being charged with a crime. Soon after the lawsuit was filed, the FBI opened a civil rights investigation into the allegations of misconduct at the now-shuttered warehouse known as “the BRAVE Cave.”

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[-] girlfreddy@lemmy.world 82 points 1 year ago

East Baton Rouge Parish District Attorney Hillar Moore said the arrests of Street Crimes members could impact hundreds of criminal cases, comparing the fallout from the revelations around the BRAVE Cave to those during the 2021 Narcotics Unit scandal. Frampton said that the fact that the BRAVE Cave sprung from police reform is “a frustrating irony and it makes you wonder about the capacity there is to reform these sorts of institutions without dismantling them altogether."

Defunding/dismantling is the next step, and if cops keep doing shit like this it will happen.

#ACAB

[-] A_Random_Idiot@lemmy.world 22 points 1 year ago

Thats the trick.

You cant reform them.

They are corrupt to the core.

All reformation does is change how they cover up their corruption and take out their anger on the public at large.

The only way to get rid of police corruption, is to raise a new generation of intelligent, educated peace officers who are trained to de-escalate, trained on how to deal with difficult people who may be in crisis, who know the laws they are supposed to enforce, who do not want a thin blue line to hide behind, who do not need qualified immunity to protect them from their ineptitude, Who will actively arrested fellow officers and out corruption and criminal behavior should the need arise, and who wont stand by the side and do nothing while it happens infront of them.

And once they are ready, you fire every. single. person. associated with the police. You root out the corruption by purging it, and sterilizing the basket, so it has no roots from with to ruin the new crop.

then you put civilian oversite over them to investigate and monitor to make sure the new batch are staying true to their purpose and training.

[-] Salamendacious@lemmy.world 10 points 1 year ago

Make any argument you want. Whenever you want. For me, I don't think the defund argument will ever work nationally. I think all the defund argument does is help Republicans fund raise.

[-] ChicoSuave@lemmy.world 13 points 1 year ago

Let's take the money away from police and put it into social workers and therapy. A cop in a given area usually makes twice what a social worker does, so let's get some bang for our buck and remove all police, replace them with social workers. Twice the bodies to do the same amount of work but now with a focus on fixing the communities that generate the problems. A focus on working to solve the cause and remediate the families of those affected. Defending the police can happen and it will be gloriously effective.

Funny enough the only people who will start violent crime are ex cops who want to show how violence is only solved with violence.

[-] burntbutterbiscuits@sh.itjust.works 5 points 1 year ago

You forget that social workers actually need training to be certified.

[-] Salamendacious@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

There are a lot of great potential solutions. The problem is getting people in a position of authority where they can effect change. This isn't a insult to you but leaving a comment on a relatively obscure message board isn't likely to accomplish much. We need to find a way to motivate enough people to vote to elect politicians who see the problems and are open to solutions.

[-] Cryophilia@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

Funny enough the only people who will start violent crime are ex cops

You can't seriously be this naive

[-] MonsiuerPatEBrown@reddthat.com 48 points 1 year ago

I did not agree to torture as part of the social contract. Nor did I agree to qualified immunity.

The social contract has been repeatedly broken by the nation/state. And yet the nation/state still has the keys and purse strings.

[-] Salamendacious@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

Sometimes all you have is voting and hoping

[-] kautau@lemmy.world 45 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

What a shit headline. More like “power hungry cops committed human rights violations after their unit was disbanded for improperly using federal funds”

[-] gAlienLifeform@lemmy.world 15 points 1 year ago

You really should read the article,this headline is 100% on point. Federal funding supported the creation of the team that carried out this torture while the people in charge were celebrated as reform leaders.

This sort of thing happens a lot with federal funding into state/county/municipal police departments because we haven't had an administration/Congress that cared at all about police brutality since I don't know when and it's just very easy for them to sign the checks and look the other way, like when the Biden administration approved Memphis's plan to spend COVID money on the police department that went on to murder Tyre Nichols.

[-] qooqie@lemmy.world 37 points 1 year ago

What the actual fuck? Are people so fucking stupid they think this is somehow okay or that they won’t get hard slapped in return one day? Jesus Christ, seriously the biggest legal gang in America

[-] Salamendacious@lemmy.world 9 points 1 year ago

What frustrates me the most is it seems like both parties talk about police reform and then take turns blocking the other party's bills.

[-] noride@lemm.ee 21 points 1 year ago

Can you show me one of these Republican police reform bills? I must have missed it.

[-] Salamendacious@lemmy.world 6 points 1 year ago
[-] noride@lemm.ee 19 points 1 year ago

Well it's something, can't argue against that. I understand why it failed, though, it's a reform bill in name only. It doesn't even take half measures, just offers some cash if states so choose to enact their own reforms.

[-] Salamendacious@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

I'm not a politician but I'll pretty much always take something over nothing. I think that this was largely about optics. Democrats did not want to have to combat Republicans saying that they did police reform when Democrats couldn't get it done when they were in control. So I get it. By killing it before debate could begin they avoided publicity but also any chance at improving it.

[-] kobra@lemm.ee 8 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I think it’s more like democrats didn’t want to pass 5% police reform because if they do, republicans will use that to prevent any further reform from ever happening. It will be a combination of

  1. “We already did police reform and the problems solved” OR
  2. “See, police reform doesn’t work”

So I can see why they want to hold out for a better solution. And it’s not like the police aren’t doing everything to prove the democrats right on a daily basis so the dems case just gets stronger and stronger the more these cops out here fuck around and show who they really are and what they’re capable of.

[-] Salamendacious@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

Could be. I'd still probably take something over nothing.

[-] CodexArcanum@lemmy.world 21 points 1 year ago

Having lived there for 10 years, I can attest that BRPD are some of the fattest, grimiest pigs in the game. I would be surprised if several of them aren't proudly decended from long inbred pedigrees right back to the slave catcher days.

This whole racist state needs Reconstruction 2.0: tear down all this white supremacist infrastructure and get the people back in charge of their lives.

[-] Salamendacious@lemmy.world 11 points 1 year ago

It's incredibly sad but for a lot of, if not all, black folk in South, reconstruction was the last time they got a fair shot at effecting actual change in their state governments.

[-] Ya_Boy_Skinny_Penis@lemmy.world -4 points 1 year ago

This is the whitest thing I have read on the internet in a long time.

[-] Salamendacious@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

Mayonnaise and American cheese on wonder bread

[-] TropicalDingdong@lemmy.world 20 points 1 year ago

I would like some feedback on a dumb idea I have. I'm sure it has major flaws, including it being a pipe dream that could never get put into action.

All police departments are required to be unionized (at whatever resolution the motion is passed, local, state, whatever.).

Police unions are now responsible for all pensions and benefits, and funded via police salaries. However, municipalities are no longer required to fund any kind of police misconducts or settlements. The funds for these lawsuits come directly from police pensions, and if need be, directly from police paychecks. As well, eliminate qualified immunity and double the penalties for police misconduct of any kind.

The only way I can think to make reforms to the system apart from its elimination ( which is a pipe dream) is to make make them feel it in their wallets directly, and to make all department members accountable for the conduct of any department members. This would necessitate a cultural transformation, because the old timers who define that culture don't want their retirements to be chipped away by jr's doing dumb shitty things.

Thoughts? I'm sure the idea has flaws, but the force of economic violence can be very coercive.

[-] PhlubbaDubba@lemm.ee 7 points 1 year ago

You'd have to add a provision that any money received in fines or tickets or other such stuffs gets sent to the fed to be shredded so they don't try to float their boat by ticketing people over every little thing.

But honestly I could see it working.

[-] mrcleanup@lemmy.world 5 points 1 year ago

The main problem with this is that the hits these days are in the millions of dollars and that adds up fast. So the inevitable result even with just good faith mistakes would be that people would stop being cops. People who could be good cops wouldn't join to replace them because of the risk, and the entire thing would likely just disintegrate.

On the one hand fine! On the other hand, what takes its place?

This is not intended to be a pro-cop argument, just an explanation of the problem. We need a social institution that can fill that gap in a better way.

[-] DauntingFlamingo@lemmy.ml 3 points 1 year ago

City of Chicago is 22,000 police officers short of full enforcement. That means the good ones have left and they can't fire the bad ones, and they pay ridiculous salaries because nobody wants to be a cop. That song ain't called "fuck the firemen"

[-] dym_sh@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

oh noes, glorified parking tickets task force will not be able to assassinate on the job :'<

there are trained social workers and there are proper SWAT teams to replace this fat underbelly of bureaucracy and corruption

[-] mrcleanup@lemmy.world 0 points 1 year ago

Sarcasm aside, there's still gangs and prostitution and shoplifters and domestic violence and all that. Some sort of public safety mechanism needs to exist.

[-] PhlubbaDubba@lemm.ee 4 points 1 year ago

Gangs and DV are often problems the cops themselves are some of the worst offenders in, and sex work should be legal anyways.

Shop lifting is best handled through trial afterwards rather than intervention during.

The rare instances where an intervention of force is actually necessary could be covered by NG reserves or FBI field agents if a force is seriously so incompetent that they bankrupt themselves on liability.

[-] Cryophilia@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

Slowly we're getting back to "cops, but without corruption"

[-] dym_sh@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

the police does not PREVENT any of it

[-] mrcleanup@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

No, but how do we as a society respond, thoughts and prayers or some sort of actual response?

I'd love to hear your suggestions.

[-] mrcleanup@lemmy.world 0 points 1 year ago

Lol. Love the downvotes.

No response! Only criticize!

[-] Cryophilia@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

Welcome to lemmy

[-] iHUNTcriminals@lemm.ee 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Take everything that allows them to live and exist away from them. For real. Make it so people have to step over their body on the sidewalk and no one even bothers to clean it up. Because it's not worth the time. They are not worth respecting. Or maybe just toss em in a urinal.

Crooked cops and street thugs are the same enemy. The enemy is both.

[-] blazera@kbin.social -1 points 1 year ago

None of that shit was police reform

this post was submitted on 14 Oct 2023
366 points (98.2% liked)

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