this post was submitted on 04 Nov 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

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

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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

 

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[–] MedicPigBabySaver@lemmy.world 96 points 1 year ago (3 children)
[–] satanmat@lemmy.world 86 points 1 year ago (1 children)

“When the police officer had his body cam off, they were yelling and telling me, ‘We’re gonna go to the full extent. We’re gonna put you in a lockbox,’” Timothy said. “Then, when the body cam was finally on, they were so nice.”

No shirt ! Wtf with a god damn kid the cop turned off his body cam!

Grrrrrrrrrr

[–] mtdyson_01@lemmynsfw.com 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I have always wondered since the body cams came out and even the dash cams over why is it even legal for an officer to turn off the cams. Why would they even have the ability to turn them off. The cams were proclaimed to be for the civilians safety and to keep officers in check and professional.

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

If I had it my way…

Any cop who turned off their body camera would be fired immediately

This is the only union I’m against, police unions; I’d fire them and have them arrested for obstruction of justice

[–] jordanlund@lemmy.world 41 points 1 year ago (1 children)

While true, this started with an insane school administrator.

[–] Baines@lemmy.world 50 points 1 year ago (1 children)

fuck em both but the admin didn’t put the kid in jail

[–] jordanlund@lemmy.world 19 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Oh, you know damn well she put the cops up to it.

[–] Madison420@lemmy.world 21 points 1 year ago

Sure. That doesn't negate their responsibility or hers for that matter.

[–] felixthecat@kbin.social 6 points 1 year ago

Sure, but the cop could have told her to kick rocks. Instead he arrested a child with the closest thing to no evidence there is. And made sure to bully him with the body cam off. The cop chose to be a bastard which is why this is a story.

[–] Baines@lemmy.world 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

oh those poor cops just couldn’t say no

[–] jordanlund@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

I'm sure it was one of those "reeee!" Karen moments. "I want them arrested! Don't you know who I am??!?!" etc. etc.

Cops are dicks for putting the 11 year old in solitary though.

[–] gkd@lemmy.ml 3 points 1 year ago

This is why I always tell people who say “reporting the _____ incident to the police isn’t going to get anyone hurt, it’s just going to get them help” that they are idiots. You have no way of knowing what the police are going to do in any situation. I don’t care if there’s a 99% chance of it going right (it’s much lower in reality). That isn’t a chance worth taking for something that can absolutely be resolved without police.