this post was submitted on 09 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.

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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

[email protected]

[email protected]

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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[–] [email protected] 39 points 1 year ago (1 children)

FOP is against it? Sounds like a great reason to vote FOR it.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I don't want FOP goddammit I'm a Dapper Dan man!

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

"Watch your language young fella, its a public market. Now if you want Dapper Dan I can order it for you.. have it in a couple of weeks"

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

Well ain't this place just a geographical oddity: two weeks from everywhere.

[–] [email protected] 33 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Can't wait for the day when smelling MJ isn't probable cause to ruin your car.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago

isn’t probable cause ruin your ~~car~~ life.

[–] [email protected] 29 points 1 year ago (4 children)

Won't crime go down if it's legal?

[–] [email protected] 21 points 1 year ago (1 children)

pretty sure that's the case in the places where it has already been decriminalized or legalized outright; plus, it frees the resources and manpower that departments and agencies devote to the heinous crimes of weed possession and use.

the police, on the other hand, would lose easy targets to detain, abuse, harass, beat up, or shoot, all while hiding behind the flimsiest excuse and the easiest lie of 'i smelled weed', and enjoying the benefits of qualified immunity that comes from such claims.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 year ago

Yup, just about the easiest targets of all. Your average cop would much, much rather arrest a stoner in dreadlocks than bother with genuine bad guys.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 1 year ago (1 children)

They won't be able to pull over random black people because 'they smelled marijuana', and obviously every one of those was on their way to commit a crime.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Guess they'll have to smell fentanyl, which has no odor.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago (1 children)

No they can't use that excuse, because the cops are already faking fentanyl overdoses after "smelling" it and having panic attacks because they don't actually know shit about it and believe their own propaganda.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Ha — I attended a neighborhood meeting several months back where a policeman spoke, and described a bust where he'd "smelled fentanyl." It's amazing how much they don't know.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

It's like the Battle of Wits scene in Princess Bride.

What you do not smell is fentanyl powder.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I never really heard of police/crime incidents in my hometown involving weed before or after weed became legal in Washington. So I'd assume there really hasn't been a noticable change, which is still better than the fear mongering that crime will increase upon legalizing weed.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago

In illegal times and places, getting busted for weed is/was so common it only made the news when celebrities are/were caught. Can't much speak to the here and now, but I grew up in (suffice to say) an earlier decade of the illegal era, and dope busts were incredibly common.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

Yes and so will personal property confiscations (cash, vehicles, etc) I.e. police budget bonuses

[–] [email protected] 24 points 1 year ago

can we be real?

Police training is basically a diploma mill. It's a joke in most places. You've got people that barely passed high school in some cases, going to a community college with next to zero entry standards, doing this training that often contains no real legal courses.

They don't know shit about the subject matter.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 1 year ago

“But then we won’t have easy justification to go off the rails!”

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 year ago

If you consider marijuana a drug, then yeah, drug use will go up, dumbasses, that's the point.

If you consider marijuana use criminal, then yeah criminal activity will increase, dumbasses, that's the point.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago

Follow the money

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Maybe theft of potato chips.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Aggravated assault on ice cream.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago

War crimes of pizza.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago (1 children)

All im hearing is police are pro-crime

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

well, they do have a vested interest on keeping at least the perceived crime rate high. otherwise they lose their budgets for cosplaying special forces, or even their jobs and the 'privileges' that go along with them.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Yeah I'll let y'all know the next time the FOP manages to influence my opinions on basically anything. Oh they said it's bad? Then it's most likely fine and they've got ulterior motives.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

They are more concerned that easy drug busts and overtime will go down.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago

Seems like a great reason to vote yes!

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago
[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago

Who's with stupid?