this post was submitted on 25 Sep 2023
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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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RULES

Real-life decorum is expected. Please don't say things only a child or a jackass would say in person.

If you're here to support the police, you're trolling. Please exercise your right to remain silent.

Saying ~~cops~~ ANYONE should be killed lowers the IQ in any conversation. They're about killing people; we're not.

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.

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ALLIES

!abolition@slrpnk.net

!acab@lemmygrad.ml

r/ACAB

r/BadCopNoDonut/

Randy Balko

The Civil Rights Lawyer

The Honest Courtesan

Identity Project

MirandaWarning.org

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INFO

A demonstrator's guide to understanding riot munitions

Adultification

Cops aren't supposed to be smart

Don't talk to the police.

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

So you wanna be a cop?

When the police knock on your door

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ORGANIZATIONS

Black Lives Matter

Campaign Zero

Innocence Project

The Marshall Project

Movement Law Lab

NAACP

National Police Accountability Project

Say Their Names

Vera: Ending Mass Incarceration

 

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 

Archived page, if you're paywalled or region-blocked.

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[–] negativeyoda@lemmy.world 83 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Rosenblatt was fired in 2020 after texting “ha ha” in response to a picture sent to him by other officers, one of whom appeared to be administering a chokehold near a memorial for McClain.

Can't reform this

[–] ZoopZeZoop@lemmy.world 16 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Certainly not on the taxpayer dime.

[–] Pips@lemmy.film 12 points 1 year ago (1 children)

We can and should, but through the prison system. I don't see why we can't help people become better citizens instead of better criminals if we're locking them up and paying for it anyway.

[–] ZoopZeZoop@lemmy.world 4 points 1 year ago

You’re right. I should have worded my response better. I meant if he is walking around free, he should be responsible for it, not the tax payer (unless that’s a tax-funded service that is available for everyone). If he’s incarcerated we not only have opportunity, we have a duty to try.

[–] Drusas@kbin.social 52 points 1 year ago

McClain was unarmed when he was stopped Aug. 24, 2019, by officers responding to a report of a suspicious person wearing a ski mask and waving his arms. He was carrying a plastic bag with three cans of iced tea in his left hand and his phone in his right hand. He was listening to music on headphones and didn’t initially respond when officers called to him.

Another case of being killed for being black.

[–] PunnyName@lemmy.world 36 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Aurora shooter went to the wrong building...

[–] iHUNTcriminals@lemm.ee 17 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

They all shot up the wrong spots. Nearly every one of them do. It's kind of wild.. you'd think it would be more balanced.

(No facts just casual talk)

[–] chaogomu@kbin.social 26 points 1 year ago

It's almost like most mass shooters to date have been right wing fucks.

Hell, the Columbine kids were wannabe Nazis and had copies of Mein Kampf.

The Aurora shooter, on the other hand, one of the few cases where it was actually just a mental illness and not a cultlike belief in a twisted ideology.

[–] Melkath@kbin.social 31 points 1 year ago (2 children)

"If YoU cAn TaLk YoU cAn BrEaThE" - pigs and bootlickers

[–] superduperenigma@lemmy.world 10 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Counterpoint: if he could breathe he wouldn't have suffocated to death.

[–] Melkath@kbin.social 5 points 1 year ago

"ThAtS oNlY HaPpEnEd LiKe OnCe AnD hE wAs PrObAbLy LyInG aNyWaY" - pigs and bootlickers

[–] Karnickel@lemmy.world 4 points 1 year ago

And my sister after I fell down the stairs

This one has been breaking my heart since it happened. Don't read the transcript or listen to the audio unless you want to be sad all day.

If there's no conviction here, I will lose any shred of faith that I might still have in our justice system.