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
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There was some deeply downvoted comment on this in a post yesterday, and I initially was like “wtf no” but this time I decided to click and really listen to the conversation. And now I think that downvoted commenter was onto something.
To paraphrase the statement that got downvoted: “This dialog sounds like an officer who, in a grim and traumatizing line of work, turns to dark humor to laugh instead of wanting to give up. This is common for medical workers too - they see so much of the worst moments in human life that their humor would crush & nauseate the rest of us. But humor is a way to share trauma and camaraderie.”
His tone clearly changes in response to some joke the other caller made. These statements sound every part of some dark bit he’s playing out with the caller.
If you believe it’s vile and unprofessional to make light of this situation (I do), that’s very valid.
But there are a lot of comments here acting like this person truly believes in the limited value of the victim or something. On some level, yea, police are problematically numb to the value of human lives. But I wouldn’t pretend this guy is celebrating the tragedy in this conversation.
I'm a fan of gallows humor, enjoy cracking the joke that makes other people aghast, but my jokes (all modesty aside) would have some twisted element of humor, and the cop's cracks do not.
What's most striking to me is that no time had lapsed — his unfunny jokes weren't the next day or the next week, they came quite quickly after the wreck, where a young woman had been killed.
Can't find any benefit of the doubt. Officer Daniel Auderer's remarks reveal who Officer Daniel Auderer is. So does this earlier, better coverage.
It was the same night??? :( Nevermind.