THE POLICE PROBLEM
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
① Real-life decorum is expected. Please don't say things only a child or a jackass would say in person.
② If you're here to support the police, you're trolling. Please exercise your right to remain silent.
③ Saying ~~cops~~ ANYONE should be killed lowers the IQ in any conversation. They're about killing people; we're not.
④ 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
• 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
view the rest of the comments
So just so I'm clear...
Shooting him = Totally justified
Incapacitating him = off the deep end
Must be a fun reality to live in buddy
You're off the deep end for thinking that would work, tranquiliser darts aren't really a thing for people.
Tranquilizers do work on humans though. So do tasers or several other non-lethal options, which is really the point people are making while you're choosing to be pedantic.
It's pretty common for a tazer to not work, for various reasons, and if it doesn't, your chances of getting your firearm out before they get to you are slim to none. Similar story with this hypothetical tranquiliser gun.
Would you take that chance?
Police are trained and supposed to take that non-lethal force chance, yes absolutely. I am personally not a cop, because I don't want to be in those situations. But people that DO sign up to serve and protect the public should be held to a higher standard than the general public, especially considering the tools, training, and resources (money) police forces have at their disposal.
You're not going to convince me the only way to safely end this altercation was by shooting the mentally ill man to death. We have to ask ourselves how we can do better so we can learn from these situations and less people die violent deaths.
To use your your logic: why do tranquilizers even get produced at all then? Why don't we just shoot every unruly animal? Wild and sick animals are just as or more dangerous than a man with a knife on a stick.
They did try other options before shooting him though. It unfortunately sounds like they ran out of options.
He had a knife taped to a stick.
They put numbered him.
They could have done a lot more than just kill him.
We don't have video anyways to know exactly what happened.