691
Texas cops arrest 11-year-old honors student and put him in solitary confinement for three days
(www.texasobserver.org)
this post was submitted on 04 Nov 2023
691 points (98.6% liked)
THE POLICE PROBLEM
2472 readers
2 users here now
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.
♦ ♦ ♦
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.
♦ ♦ ♦
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.
♦ ♦ ♦
ALLIES
• r/ACAB
♦ ♦ ♦
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
♦ ♦ ♦
ORGANIZATIONS
• NAACP
• National Police Accountability Project
• Vera: Ending Mass Incarceration
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
This 11-year-old will grow up to be a doctor while this cop will continue to be a useless sack of shit to society.
Not with an arrest record at age 11. Medical school applications, state medical licenses, controlled substance prescription licenses, hospital credentialing applications, etc - all of the underlying bureaucracy of being a clinician (understandably) require background checks with clean records.
Unless his lawyer can get the record sealed and expunged, he'll most likely have to explain this event at every turn. One would hope that juvenile records could be explained away, but the field is so competitive that it could very well be the thing that keeps him from pursuing his dream.
All because a shitbag principal didn't want to deal with the requests of an 11 year old grieving his father and opportunistically punished him for it on the alleged word of another dumbass child's idea of a practical joke.
Even if he actually said it - he's an 11 year old, with a prefrontal cortex that is just starting to come online, on the hormonal cusp of puberty, trying to deal with the complex social dynamics of being 11 and changing schools, getting bullied about his haircut and clothes by a shitty adult abusing their authority.
I cant help but wonder how the situation would be if he was white.
Not that the rest of your comment isn't valid about his developmental risks, but juvenile records aren't public and I believe usually expunged when the kid turns 18.
That's the way it should work. But my wife has something on her record from when she was a minor that was supposed to be expunged and sealed, but keeps popping up from time to time.
IANAL, but Texas Article 45.0218 would likely offer some protection to the kiddo since it's a Class C Misdemeanor. The short of it is that being held or detained doesn't mean that the individual was "prescribed jail time."
However, since the Texas Observer is shamelessly plugging away and, as a result, search engines may recognize the child's name, then the article (and similar "news" reports) will likely have more disastrous impacts than the actual event since the print industry is declining/desperate and the internet never forgets.
Not a lawyer either, but although I agree with that interpretation, I'm not sure where Class C Misdemeanor comes from.
The article states that:
I used your link to search for "terroristic threat," and found this statute:
Penal Code Section 22.07 - Terroristic Threat
There is no mention of a Class C Misdemeanor in that statute; so I'm not sure what the Texas Observer is talking about.
Again, not a lawyer, but by my reading of 22.07, it seems like this ridiculous charge would be a Class A Misdemeanor under:
Subsection (a)(2):
With the penalty described in subsection (c)(2):
Class A misdemeanors carry both a fine up to $4000 and jail time up to 1 year.
Texas Penal Code Section 12.21 - Class a Misdemeanor
TBH, I'm not sure if either of us (The Texas Observer and myself) know what we're talking about. IIRC, Texas classifies felony charges as 1st, 2nd, or 3rd degree offenses and Misdemeanors as Class A, B, or C by their severity.
The fact that they would consider it a "Felony", or anything other than frivolous, is disheartening though I appreciate your efforts to research and correct any potential misinformation that I may have spouted. (Good catch, btw)
SMDH, Texas 🤷
Stop and think about this. The only evidence is hearsay. There is a long string of evidence of retaliation. What jury would actually convict this kid because of this? We don't know that it actually happened. It could all be made up. The kid will walk, they will sue for enough money he will walk out of med school debt free.
You: "This 11-year-old will grow up"
The cops: "That's where you're wrong, buck-o..."
Hopefully leaving the state is an option.
Unfortunately I doubt that a single mother that has to rely on a court appointed attorney to defend against felony charges has the money to leave.
Depends if they have family out of state or if they're tied to a job instate. Also, don't discount the paternal side. Considering the father died, there's no reason to believe that that side is cutoff. Too many variables to make assumptions.
And yeah, it's hard to move, but it's also hard getting harassed for years or even disappeared by the cops.
https://www.bobvila.com/articles/how-much-does-it-cost-to-move/#:~:text=Interstate%20moves%20are%20usually%20considered,national%20average%20cost%20of%20%244%2C792.
Only source I could find that didn't give a really wide range says the average move costs $5000
https://www.nerdwallet.com/article/banking/data-2023-savings-report
55% of Americans would need to borrow to cover a right now emergency of $1000
Not if the justice system has anything to say about it