General Police Abuse Thread

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MKSheppard
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Re: General Police Abuse Thread

Post by MKSheppard »

Lonestar wrote: 2019-10-08 05:57amOh no there's an education requirement now before you have the life of others in your hands as your job.
There's actually multiple elephants in the room regarding the increasing amount of college credits for police jobs. I'll list them off; but first let's look at Howard County's requirements (saw therm posted on a substation wall in Columbia):

Minimum Qualifications
U.S. citizen
At least 21 years of age by the swearing-in ceremony
Possess a valid driver’s license
60 college credits OR two years of active military service OR two years of full-time Cadet employment with HCPD OR a minimum of two years of police service in a full-service agency (out-of-state)


Elephant A.) What does the increasing number of college-educated officers do towards the current perception by some here of the police as an oppressive brutalist racist force? There are studies out there showing that the more education an officer has, the less problems they have with him in terms of Use of Force complaints, etc.

Elephant B.) What does the waiver for 60 college credits if you have two years of active duty service in the Armed Forces mean towards the militarisation of police?

Elephant C.) For a long time, Police Work was a good solid, blue collar working man's occupation. You weren't going to retire to Aspen, CO on it; but you weren't going to starve on it either.

60 college credits is 50% of the credits needed to get a four year bachelor's; and with the average cost of $594 per credit; that's an investment of $35,640 of schooling to get a policeman's job. If you can find online classes; that drops to about $12,000.

Elephant D.) Given the waiver for "minimum of two years of police service in a full-service agency (out-of-state)"; sleepy suburban police departments are vacuuming away officers from departments which need quality officers.

Case in point; HCPD's requirements are written in a way such as to keep them from draining away Baltimore Police; but the same couldn't be said for an department in either Richmond, VA or Philadelphia, PA.
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Re: General Police Abuse Thread

Post by Elheru Aran »

For professional level jobs, increasingly at least 'some college' is a requirement. I see nothing particularly unusual in police departments doing so as well.

As for the military service thing-- it's good PR to be able to say 'we employ veterans', and well, yeah, the increasing militarization of police departments in the US probably correlates to hiring veterans as well, to some degree at least, but I think it's a cultural thing as well. Police get a similar level of cultural veneration compared to the military.
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Re: General Police Abuse Thread

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Kamakazie Sith wrote: 2019-10-04 05:16pmI would also add local government certification. If you want to form your own law enforcement agency that's fine but it needs to be these standards and failure to do so with result in your certification being terminated and then disbandment of that law enforcement agency.
Probably not a bad idea, though it runs up against Sheriff's Offices that are often constitutionally provided for. That would be a trickier proposition, though state constitutions are generally easier to amend than the federal one. Well, that and massive resistance from local governments.

As for the college credits thing, my personal take on that is they don't even require a degree or anything to show for it, just some amount of courses taken and passed. 60 seems to be pretty standard though from what I've seen. My guess is they want applicants with at least a couple years of experience doing "something" and that's a convenient way to provide for it. I'd be a bit more sold on it if they required an actual A.A. though. Otherwise, as an entrance requirement, it's kind of silly. Better than taking people straight from high school I guess?

And yeah, I can see how police aren't really prepared for all the roles they have to assume, but I think a better question is: should they be assuming those roles at all? For a lot of it I feel like it's because instead of the police being an option of last resort for, say, somebody suffering a mental health issue or family disputes or whatever; the police are instead the only option because our (the US) society simply fails at providing those other, better options - or at least in making them available.

So either the police are called in to a situation they didn't really need to be there for (and are ill-prepared to deal with) or a situation has deteriorated to the point it became a police matter when it never needed to get that far.

To an extent I can't really blame the cops or their departments for this, because how realistic is it really to expect a beat cop to be substitute parent, family/marriage counselor, mental health counselor and all the rest of it on top of being a police officer? I mean, from my understanding is that actual mental health professionals would never really give a diagnosis with a single 15 minute session talking to someone in a reasonably calm and controlled environment, but we're expecting the cops to figure it out - and how to properly handle the person's issues - in 5 minutes during an uncontrolled and possibly chaotic encounter on the street? Same thing with domestic disputes that haven't (yet) turned violent, solving juvenile delinquency issues, and so on.

Even with some hypothetical proper training the police don't have the time, resources or capacity for necessary follow-up to actually address these issues in a meaningful way, but nevertheless they're the ones called upon to "deal with it" and there seems to be no real guide on how to really "solve the problem" - although at best they're probably putting a band aid on it - but a whole lot of criticism ready to go out when things go wrong.
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Re: General Police Abuse Thread

Post by Elheru Aran »

^A lot of that, IMO, ties into general de-funding of public services... EXCEPT the police and (to a lesser extent) fire departments. So when there's no functioning mental health infrastructure left on a local level outside private practices and the state or federal social welfare organizations, someone still has to do the job, pick one. (EMS is largely ganked too. There's a ton of private EMS providers now)

I've been seeing a few memes on Facebook lately about 'shortage of teachers=because nobody wants to do that job for what they require and pay'. If education is being treated like that, but all the cops in the county get issued brand new phones and pistols (literally happened in the last county I lived in, in the same year)... tells you what the local government's priorities are.
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Re: General Police Abuse Thread

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Are local police funded from the local budget, or is there some sort of state/federal grant?
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Re: General Police Abuse Thread

Post by Ralin »

MKSheppard wrote: 2019-10-08 03:33pm
Police are searching for two suspects in connection with the death of Joshua Brown, who testified at the trial of former Dallas police officer Amber Guyger, officials say.

A third suspect is hospitalized and already in police custody.

Brown was shot during a drug deal Friday night at his apartment complex on Cedar Springs Road.

Michael Mitchell, 32, Thaddeous Charles Green, 22, and 20-year-old Jacquerious Mitchell traveled from Louisiana planning to buy marijuana from Brown.

The men got into a fight, and Brown shot Jacquerious Mitchell in the chest, police said. Green then shot Brown. Jacquerious Mitchell told police he heard two gunshots.
...Yes. It's totally plausible that the guy who was just a witness against a cop in a high-profile murder trial is not only stupid enough to sell drugs in front of his apartment but that neither the police nor the cop's lawyer found out that he was a drug dealer ahead of time and used that information to discredit him at trial. And also people crossed state lines to buy marijuana from him because apparently there just weren't any good pot dealers available in Louisiana or something.

The fuck are you smoking?
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Re: General Police Abuse Thread

Post by Elheru Aran »

Gandalf wrote: 2019-10-08 05:00pm Are local police funded from the local budget, or is there some sort of state/federal grant?
Bit of both. There's no real federal police force other than the US Marshals and the FBI, but the nation does provide grants on occasion, which typically go to the states to be disbursed as the states see fit. The states fund their state police forces such as investigative bureaus and highway patrols via sales and special taxes, as well as income taxes (but not all states have income tax). Local governments use sales and special taxes, which are usually (but not always) approved via referendum.

Notably large projects such as say county jails often receive state assistance, and older equipment is often passed on to less well off departments if it's not sold at auction. Weapons generally aren't sold for obvious reasons.

And then individual officers are often allowed to provide their own equipment, up to a point naturally.
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Re: General Police Abuse Thread

Post by Elheru Aran »

Elheru Aran wrote: 2019-10-08 08:16pm
Gandalf wrote: 2019-10-08 05:00pm Are local police funded from the local budget, or is there some sort of state/federal grant?
Bit of both. There's no real federal police force other than the US Marshals and the FBI, but the nation does provide grants on occasion, which typically go to the states to be disbursed as the states see fit. The states fund their state police forces such as investigative bureaus and highway patrols via sales and special taxes, as well as income taxes (but not all states have income tax). Local governments use sales and special taxes, which are usually (but not always) approved via referendum.

Notably large projects such as say county jails often receive state assistance, and older equipment is often passed on to less well off departments if it's not sold at auction. Weapons generally aren't sold for obvious reasons.

And then individual officers are often allowed to provide their own equipment, up to a point naturally.
Ghetto edit:

I did a little bit of digging and in general it appears that the majority of police departments are funded on whatever government level they operate at, though states do on occasion help support local departments that don't have the funding to operate efficiently. Funding typically comes from a few different sources. Traffic citations (obviously prone to abuse so this is less used than it has been in the past, in most areas at least), various other citations/fines gathered via the courts, tax revenues, seized monies, and the occasional fundraiser ("help buy our cops bulletproof vests").

However, if you're thinking of what I said about funding education, that is also funded largely on whatever level of government it's rooted in. Which means that by and large, for the number of people employed and the social impact they have, police departments are disproportionately funded and equipped compared to public education.
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Re: General Police Abuse Thread

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Ralin wrote: 2019-10-08 07:19pm...Yes. It's totally plausible that the guy who was just a witness against a cop in a high-profile murder trial is not only stupid enough to sell drugs in front of his apartment but that neither the police nor the cop's lawyer found out that he was a drug dealer ahead of time and used that information to discredit him at trial. And also people crossed state lines to buy marijuana from him because apparently there just weren't any good pot dealers available in Louisiana or something.

The fuck are you smoking?
Look, the police had one of the three suspects right from the start; given that Brown shot the man; and they had to drop him off at a hospital before disappearing. They've now captured a second one; so um.

On the Dallas reddit forum, they have a theory that makes a great deal of sense: It was a rip and run on a mid-level dealer.

Basically, a real life Omar Little; except without the Character Shields Omar has.

They first negotiate a sale over social media; then show up at Brown's new apartment. Brown senses something may be wrong -- like the facilitator said he'd be coming alone, and two guys show up with him?

Brown decides to gun his way out of a rip and run, but gets deaded.

It does line up neatly.

1.) The gas money ($90 round trip total) and time (14~ hours total driving) are marginal for a legitimate weed deal; but make sense if the weed is "free", via armed robbery -- you're spending $90 bucks and a weekend in a car to grab something with the street value of $60,000 (the 12 lbs in his apartment) for FREE.

2.) The distance works here; since you really can't rip and run local dealers; since their homies will come for you. I think they were counting on distance and the fact that Mr Brown was recently part of the Amber case to prevent any blowback on them.
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Re: General Police Abuse Thread

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Elheru Aran wrote: 2019-10-08 08:16pmWeapons generally aren't sold for obvious reasons.
Weeeeeellll... In some areas; there may be policies that used guns be destroyed. But most departments trade them in.

A local store near me posted this...

We outfitted a police department with new gear and got some Glock 19 Gen3’s. They all have Glock Night Sights although most are dim or dead. We have them in our store for $349. We recently got our first 100 but have more on the way so there should be plenty to go around.

[insert pictures of dozens of G19s with painted on numbers]
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Re: General Police Abuse Thread

Post by Elheru Aran »

MKSheppard wrote: 2019-10-10 03:52pm
Elheru Aran wrote: 2019-10-08 08:16pmWeapons generally aren't sold for obvious reasons.
Weeeeeellll... In some areas; there may be policies that used guns be destroyed. But most departments trade them in.

A local store near me posted this...

We outfitted a police department with new gear and got some Glock 19 Gen3’s. They all have Glock Night Sights although most are dim or dead. We have them in our store for $349. We recently got our first 100 but have more on the way so there should be plenty to go around.

[insert pictures of dozens of G19s with painted on numbers]
I've always heard that they're typically destroyed, but I'm not surprised at all to hear that some departments might trade/sell them to save/make a few bucks. /shrug
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Re: General Police Abuse Thread

Post by Alyrium Denryle »

Black woman shot during wellness check for existing at home while black
This breaking news story will be continuously updated throughout the day.

A Fort Worth police officer shot and killed a woman inside her own home early Saturday while responding to a call, officials said.

Officers responded to an "open structure" call around 2:25 a.m. near the 1200 block of East Allen Avenue, east of Interstate 35W, Fort Worth police said.

Body-camera footage shows the officer standing outside the front door of the home before walking around the side of the house and opening a gate to the backyard. The officer was in the backyard when he turned toward the window and shouted.

"Put your hands up. Show me your hands!" the officer yelled before firing once through the window, the bodycam footage shows.

Officials said the officer shot through the window "perceiving a threat."

Atatiana Jefferson, 28, was killed in a bedroom, according to the Tarrant County Medical Examiner's office.

Jefferson was black. Fort Worth police officials have not released the officer's name but say he is white.

The officer has been placed on administrative leave. He has been on the Fort Worth Police Department since April 2018, officials said.

RELATED: Who was Atatiana Jefferson? Woman killed by Fort Worth police officer in her home

James Smith said he called the non-emergency police number to request a welfare check at his neighbor's house. He said he saw the lights on and the front door open.

Bodycam footage shows a screen door closed but the front door open at the house. The lights were on inside. The officer did not appear to knock and could not be heard announcing himself at the doorway.

Smith said he didn't understand the officer's response.

"I called my police department for a welfare check. No domestic violence, no arguing, nothing that they should have been concerned about as far as them coming with guns drawn to my neighbor’s house," Smith said.

He said he was shocked to hear the gunshot in his neighborhood.

"I don’t know what went on in that house, but I know she wasn’t a threat," Smith said.

The shooting comes in the wake of the recent murder trial for the fired Dallas police officer who killed a man inside his own apartment.

Amber Guyger was sentenced to 10 years in prison for the murder of 26-year-old Botham Jean. Guyger was off duty but still in uniform when she went into the wrong home and killed Jean.

RELATED: Amber Guyger sentenced to 10 years for the murder of Botham Jean

Activists, community members and Jean's family questioned how Dallas police handled Guyger's shooting.

Many in Fort Worth are already questioning why an officer killed a woman inside her home.

Fort Worth police officials claim they found a firearm inside the residence but did not say where the gun was found or whether the officer had seen it before he shot.

Officials also have not clarified what the officer perceived as a threat.

They said the officers at the scene administered first aid to the woman, but she was pronounced dead at the residence.

"All of Fort Worth must surround Atatiana Jefferson's family with prayers, love and support," said Mayor Betsy Price in a written statement.

The mayor said the Police Department leadership is "acting with immediacy and transparency to conduct a complete and thorough investigation."

Community members gathered at Exciting Greater Saint Stephen First Church Saturday afternoon, calling the woman's death "murder" and demanding transparency from the Fort Worth Police Department.

"We're not going to stop until we get justice for our village," one man said.

Rev. Kyev Tatum said the community wants answers.

“You cannot continue to kill people and justify it because they are law enforcement," he said.

Others questioned why police officials were bringing up a firearm found inside the home.

"Don’t paint this sister as no villain. They’re the ones who murdered. They murdered her and there’s no excuse for it. That’s it," said Pastor Michael Bell of Greater St. Stephen First Church.
1. For a wellness check, you're not typically in fucking stealth mode? Or shouldn't be.
2. Given human reaction time, he likely decided to shoot before he even finished the sentence, and she'd be dead no matter what she did.
3. She didn't have time to comply, given human reaction time.
4. Entry was illegal, because there was no reasonable suspicion of anything actually going on - it was a fucking wellness check - and thus he had no legal right to be in her back yard.

This is fucking homicide. And yeah, the judge probably will hug him. If prosecutor bothers to do their fucking job. And if they don't, he'll probably get qualified immunity. You know, because blithering incompetence is insufficient to nail a cop for negligence leading to death.
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Re: General Police Abuse Thread

Post by Kamakazie Sith »

loomer wrote: 2019-10-08 03:10am In reality, no - at least not outside of very small communes. In theory, this is what all ideologies seek, but few can articulate a form of or path to. Anarchistic frames require it as a baseline, though, but they also exclude police as we currently understand them.
The fact that few can even articulate a form or a path to leads me to believe that certain attitudes, such as ACAB, might not be realistic. Though one thing is for certain here. I came into this assuming the ACAB thought process was shallow and formed purely from emotion. I was completely wrong. I had the shallow position.

I've done quite a bit of reading on the subject, still more to do, in an effort to bridge this understanding. This doesn't mean that I agree with the position, especially the ACAB group, but I won't dismiss it like I have before.

I appreciate the time you took to educate me.
This is where most anarchists will disagree with you. Most laws - and thus, police actions - serve only to protect and serve the State and its various unjust systems (e.g. castes, race, capitalism, and so on). Accordingly, most crimes are in fact only crimes because the conditions of living under the State are unjust, and if these circumstances were different, there would be no need for police.

To elaborate, to an anarchist there are usually three categories of crime:
1. Crimes of property
2. Mental illness related crimes
3. Crimes of passion.

Personally, I add a fourth category, which is 'transgression as rebellion' - think teenagers who break the law just to be edgy. It's not a crime of passion, it's not due to mental illness, and it isn't necessarily a crime of property.
All four of these categories would have victims associated with them so how is that addressed?

To be clear on 2 - I am not saying that mental illness by itself is a crime because it is not even under the current system.
All crimes of the first category basically vanish in the hypothetical anarchist endgame, because the necessary preconditions - the inequitable private distribution of wealth leading to social injustice - have ceased to be. Everyone's needs and desires are met, and therefore, there is no need for theft, for smuggling, and so on. There being a number of free associations to live in and move between easily, there is no particular need to import something barred from a particular association into another, and so on. These crimes, then, fade to the level of nuisance - petty individual theft of personal possessions. Such matters do not need a police force to deal with - the other proposed models, which I'll get to momentarily, are largely sufficient.
If the new system replaced the loss in a time efficient manner than I guess you could reduce it to a nuisance but I think it is unrealistic to assume that large scale theft, smuggling, etc would disappear because you would still have people that desire more that are greedy. Even the very rich steal but they do so differently. Just look at Donald Trump.
The second category is, likewise, meant to evaporate. This is a somewhat trickier position as it may still occur regardless, but the basic premise is this: Most crimes spawned by mental illness are a reaction to injustice putting pressure on vulnerable and fragile people, who react badly. In the anarchist endgame, these people are instead protected, helped, and treated - not criminalized. Accordingly, their deeds do not require a police force per se to deal with. This is one I'm uncomfortable with personally to a certain level, but I agree with most anarchist thinkers that the police are extremely poorly placed to prevent or deal with mental illness based crimes.
What if they don't want to be protected, helped, or treated? Mental illness is not a crime under the current system but some of the behaviors that can manifest are such as violence. So, under the anarchist system a mentally ill person that assaulted someone would be protected, helped, and treated - which I do not have a problem with. However, what if they do not want that help and resist violently?

I agree the police are poorly placed to deal with mental illness and so would most cops.
The third category cannot be eradicated, as humans suck. These are murders in a rage, rapes, assaults, etc - your standard crimes of passion. Policing does very little to actually deter crimes of passion, and can only address it after the fact in most cases. In this sense, police are not necessary to address crimes of passion, largely because, well, they can't. Now, you may be thinking 'but what about the times when I've stopped one?', which is valid, and is where we get into the tricky spot of anarchist self-policing.
I mean policing does little to deter crimes of any type because we are limited in number and not clairvoyant. Police are reactionary and always will be. I don't see this changing regardless of whether it is the police or something different charged with handling this matter.
Basically, anarchists (who don't reject all forms of communal government, anyway - some go that far) usually propose a body of volunteers who do much of what police currently do. They stop fights, respond to cries for help, gather evidence, and so on. The distinctions between these and the police as they are currently constituted usually (and with anarchism I'm afraid you can't really get more precise than 'usually', with a few exceptions like 'we don't like the state!', since if you ask a room of five anarchists how something should be set up you'll get seven answers) amount to the following:
1. This group is directly accountable to the collective, without an intermediary body;
How do you avoid mob mentality from taking over then?
2. This group is not specially empowered to use force except in the most serious circumstances;
How do you investigate a scene of a crime with suspects on scene that aren't cooperative?
3. This group does not participate in any other form of action - e.g. breaking strikes - and exists solely to prevent what few crimes remain in an anarchist association and gather evidence on those that have taken place.
No issue with this.
There's sometimes 4, where the members of this group are held to the highest possible standard and, whenever found to do wrongs, are given the harshest punishments the association has collectively assented to. I maintain that one myself and feel that in every society, police and politicans should be exposed to the most severe scrutiny and treatment they would impose on others.
I do as well but with one hangup. Does the current training you are giving these people reflect the standard you are holding them accountable? Don't misunderstand I'm not saying a poorly trained police officer should be let off when they commit a crime. What I am saying is that a poorly trained police officer should not be held accountable when they fail to deescalate a situation.
1 is especially important as a point of distinction, as this direct accountability - manifested usually in the requirement of total disclosure of anything not justifiably non-disclosed (e.g. 'who murdered Tim?' can still be met with 'we can't say just yet - it'd prevent us from taking the proper action') and the ability of the public to discharge, dismiss, and potentially penalize members of the self-policing body. This is a radical departure, and if modern police forces adopted such a policy even under capitalism, I suspect the ACAB position would become less drastic and less popular.
I suspect you are right but again I reiterate my question about mob rule? Policing has training and the best have long training programs which means you typical layman isn't going to be in a position to say if this is right or wrong.

If you need an example imagine being judged as a scientist on climate change by a random group of americans. Sounds dodgy to me and because of this I think accountability systems should be grounded in knowledge and reason.
Now, such anarchist endgames also tend to focus on rehabilitative and restorative justice rather than punitive. This is where the evidence gathering role of the quasi-police enters in, but it has to be understood in the following context. These quasi-police exist to figure out why something went wrong and fix it - not just by handing a criminal to the courts, but by arguing that the conditions of life in so-and-so part of the association are unjust and need to be fixed; by identifying weakspots in mental healthcare; etc. In doing so, they interface with the collective and whatever legal experts exist (and any anarchist association worth its salt is full of them - anarchist endgames are, contrary to opinion, not lawless. Rather, they are communities of the utmost lawfulness - and so there must necessarily be experts in how and why this lawfulness is to be constructed within said communities. This is a point of some contention, however - many anarchists feel (wrongly) that lawyers of every stripe are just as bad as cops.) in order to remedy the situation, make good the harm that's been made, and prevent future harms. In this respect, they are not expected to enforce order, but to actually serve and protect - to be, essentially, proper police rather than the running dogs of the masters.
No issue here.
Basically, the service itself still exists but in a radically altered form. The drive to service is indeed admirable when it's genuine - I went into my field out of a similar one, a desire to see justice done in the world and peoples lives bettered - but the issue most anarchists take is that this drive is easily misplaced. It is very easy to feel that one is doing good when working within an awful system (it may even be true - even a lot of ACABbers will agree that the police do some good now and then) but this does not prevent the system being awful. If the system is so awful that it cannot be tolerated, then no matter how noble the subjective goals, they do not suffice to redeem complicity. I don't mean to Godwin, but I will point out that Nazis felt they were doing a great service of noble purpose as well - it is for this reason that we cannot rely on the idea that service to the extant system is, in itself, sufficiently good to ward off moral criticism and turpitude. I use them because they're a constant reference in this matter rather than for shock value - whether it's anarchists calling all statists fascists or natural law theorists accusing us positivists of being somehow helplessly unable to prevent the rise of the Nazis. People's subjective sense of morality and general desire to do good lead, naturally, to the conclusion that their deeds are - on the whole, if not in specific - moral even when they aren't. That same drive to do good and serve the people can, if not adequately directed and restricted, lead to the most horrific outcomes.
I think there is a difference between emotionally feeling like you are doing good and logically doing good. When I arrest an abusive husband and take him to jail I am logically doing good. When I arrest a drug user because they have something they are biologically addicted to and treat that addiction as a crime then I am logically doing wrong.

To some degree police are given some flexibility in the current system either by intended discretion or just an unavoidable reality of not being totally micromanaged. Like I said I haven't made a drug arrest in a very long time and if I have a choice I won't for the remainder of my career.
We might, if you like, modify ACAB to the following: All Cops Are Bastards, But In An Anarchist Utopia, Their Replacements Are Pretty Okay. Still not quite as catchy or easy to tattoo on your knuckles, though.
Not necessary. I get it. Though like I said above I don't know if an anarchist utopia, or a human utopia of any kind, is a realistic thing. Maybe I'm just a glass half empty type of person.
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Re: General Police Abuse Thread

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Alyrium Denryle wrote: 2019-10-12 08:07pm 1. For a wellness check, you're not typically in fucking stealth mode? Or shouldn't be.
It would depend on what observations you make and what information you receive. A wellness check because a door is left open could be a burglary. Caution is advisable. However, this applies both ways. Unless you see clear evidence indicating a probable crime then you should be aware that it may be the homeowners and because it is dark outside they may think you are someone other than police.

I will attempt to break this down.

:21 seconds - Body cam shows a bunch of items on the ground which the officer may have interpreted as evidence of violence inside the home. At 27 seconds you hear the activation of the body camera so it is now actively recording both video and audio instead of just buffering 25-30 seconds of video with no audio.

:34 seconds - Officer sees something that causes him to pull his firearm and given commands.

:36 seconds - Shot fired.

2. Given human reaction time, he likely decided to shoot before he even finished the sentence, and she'd be dead no matter what she did.
3. She didn't have time to comply, given human reaction time.
Agreed. Though the most significant issue that resulted in this tragedy/crime is failure to attempt contact at the front door.
4. Entry was illegal, because there was no reasonable suspicion of anything actually going on - it was a fucking wellness check - and thus he had no legal right to be in her back yard.
There was reasonable suspicion and going into the backyard is totally justifiable. However, it would be to keep eyes on the other exits while contact was attempted at the front door. Prowling around in a dark backyard with flashlights will cause most people alarm and thus shooting someone reacting with alarm is not reasonable.
This is fucking homicide. And yeah, the judge probably will hug him. If prosecutor bothers to do their fucking job. And if they don't, he'll probably get qualified immunity. You know, because blithering incompetence is insufficient to nail a cop for negligence leading to death.
Yeah this is murder. A reasonable officer should be aware that prowling around in the dark can cause significant alarm in some people and make them react in self defense.
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Re: General Police Abuse Thread

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It's one of those sum-totality things. Both the resident's cars are in driveway, the lights are on. It's just... the front door is open, with the screen door shut. I would not think that a reasonable officer would then conclude that there is reasonable suspicion of a burglary - just a spooked neighbor.

Hopefully, even if the DA refuses to do their fucking job, there is at least precedent on point enough for qualified immunity to be dropped.
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Re: General Police Abuse Thread

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Alyrium Denryle wrote: 2019-10-12 11:45pm It's one of those sum-totality things. Both the resident's cars are in driveway, the lights are on. It's just... the front door is open, with the screen door shut. I would not think that a reasonable officer would then conclude that there is reasonable suspicion of a burglary - just a spooked neighbor.
Domestic violence, home invasion robbery, etc. Holding on a corner of the home, even located behind a locked fence, is a very easy 4th amendment bar to pass when your articulation indicates possible danger for the occupants inside. Your observations make a lot of sense and I agree with them but the items and the number of them on the ground in the kitchen would make me suspicious and concerned for the people inside. Though my concern would extend far beyond that of the officer in question.
Hopefully, even if the DA refuses to do their fucking job, there is at least precedent on point enough for qualified immunity to be dropped.
I do hope so but I think this one will be significantly more difficult. The presence of the gun, the signs in the kitchen, and even the neighbors initial statement will all be powerful tools for defense.
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Re: General Police Abuse Thread

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Update - Officer Aaron Dean, the officer who shot Atatiana Jefferson in her home, was arrested and booked on a charge of murder Monday evening. He was later released on a $200,000 bond. Some highlights on this officer is he has only been a cop since April of 2018 and he has not been cooperative with the investigation. He resigned before just hours before he was to be terminated, however, the department still placed a dishonorable discharge in his file and Fort Worth chief asked the FBI to conduct a civil rights investigation.

https://www.vox.com/identities/2019/10/ ... ean-murder
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Re: General Police Abuse Thread

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Rogue 9 wrote: 2018-12-02 10:15am Officer does not shoot black man, is fired for it.

This is a ProPublica investigative piece, and extremely long. I'm not comfortable copying and pasting it, and not entirely unsure I wouldn't hit the character limit if I tried. But it's worth reading.
A followup: Officer Mader has won a $175,000 settlement from Weirton for his firing. R.J. Williams is still dead. ACLU
Police Officer Wins Settlement From City That Fired Him for Not Shooting a Black Man

By Joseph Cohen, Executive Director, ACLU of West Virginia
February 12, 2018 | 1:00 PM

In the early hours of May 6, 2016, the lives of rookie police officer Stephen Mader and R.J. Williams intersected in Weirton, West Virginia. Both men were young fathers. Mader was a white cop holding a gun. Williams was a Black man holding a gun. This tragedy ends exactly as you’d expect — with R.J. Williams killed by a police bullet — but with a twist: Mader did not kill him. In fact, he tried his best to save Williams’ life. And for doing his duty, Mader was fired.

Today we can announce a resolution of the case in favor of a police officer who chose not to shoot a Black man.

To settle all outstanding claims, the City of Weirton will pay Mader $175,000. And while justice prevailed for Mader, R.J. Williams is still dead — a constant reminder police nationwide need the proper de-escalation training needed to avoid unnecessary killings, especially of Black men and boys.

In the case of the death at the hands of police of R.J. Williams, it all started with a domestic disturbance call by Williams’ girlfriend. Arriving first on the scene, Mader came upon Williams, who had his hands behind his back. The officer quickly asked Williams to show him his hands. Williams complied, revealing a gun. Immediately, Mader ordered Williams to drop his weapon. But Williams refused, repeatedly for Mader to “just shoot me.”

In that moment, Mader did not see a man with a gun. He saw a human being in crisis. Mader deduced that Williams was not what he might appear — a danger to others and to a responding officer alike. Mader saw that Williams was trying to commit “suicide by cop.”

Rather than shoot, Mader returned to his military training and attempted to de-escalate the situation. He softened his voice, looked Williams in the eye, and said, “I’m not going to shoot you, brother. I’m not going to shoot you.” With those words, Officer Mader connected to the humanity of Williams, a man in deep distress.

While Mader continued his attempt to convince Williams to drop his weapon, two other officers arrived on the scene. In a matter of seconds, one of the newly arrived officers fired four shots, killing Williams. It was at that point the officers discovered that Williams’ gun was unloaded. Stephen Mader was correct. R.J. Williams was not a threat, but it didn’t matter. He was dead.

Weeks later, the Weirton Police Department fired Stephen Mader.

We have grown accustomed to hearing about outrageous acts of violence perpetrated by the police against communities of color. Some become more outraged. Some have become numb. Some call for accountability or for the needed reforms to stop unnecessary police violence and deadly use of force. No matter the public’s reaction, in nearly every instance, the offending cops are not prosecuted and are back patrolling the streets in a few weeks.

But in Weirton, West Virginia, there is the bizarre opposite. Officer Mader was fired for not shooting a Black man with a gun. The message the police department sent is tragically clear: Law enforcement in Weirton should err on the side of killing people.

Under the Fourth Amendment, police officers may only use deadly force if they have probable cause to believe that the target is a violent imminent threat to the officer or someone else. Officer Mader came to the opposite conclusion — he reasonably, objectively, and correctly determined that R.J. Williams was not a threat to anyone except maybe to himself. And once he made that determination, Mader was not permitted to use deadly force under the U.S. Constitution.

Essentially, the Weirton Police Department fired Stephen Mader for failing to violate R.J. Williams’ Fourth Amendment right to not get shot.

A police officer cannot lawfully be fired for failing to violate someone’s constitutional rights. So this past May, along with the Law Offices of Timothy O’Brien, we filed a lawsuit against the City of Weirton on behalf of Mader. We argued, in part, that the termination of Stephen Mader was in violation of West Virginia public policy.

Mader’s firing exposed, again, the toxic culture that infects far too many police departments in America. We need to end the insularity and hostility towards the community exhibited by so many law enforcement agencies. We need to give law enforcement officers tools to effectively serve their communities. That means we need to invest in de-escalation training, implicit bias training, and crisis intervention training. The resolution of this lawsuit sends a clear message to the City of Weirton and to police departments across the country. Our communities deserve thoughtful, compassionate, transparent law enforcement.
This actually postdates the ProPublica story and the settlement is noted way at the bottom of it, but since it was too big to copy paste and that didn't come up in the ensuing discussion (and this floated across my Facebook feed today), I thought it was worth posting.
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Re: General Police Abuse Thread

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It's Rogue, not Rouge!

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Re: General Police Abuse Thread

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Police shoot their own dog, lie about it, raise money off of it.
“POLICE K9 — and Tik Tok star — gets lifesaving surgery at OSU after he was shot twice,” read one headline from an ABC affiliate in Oregon this January. “Thurston County Sheriff K-9 Arlo back home after undergoing surgery in Oregon,” read another.

“Right now a police dog and an armed driver are in the hospital after a police chase and shooting overnight in Thurston County,” a KOMO News reporter told viewers on January 14, the day after the incident. “The state patrol says one of its troopers shot the driver. The driver shot a K-9 … named Arlo.” A few days later, Q13 FOX reported that “the sheriff’s office said a suspect ‘exchanged gunfire’ with officers, injuring the suspect and K-9 Arlo on scene.”

The story, that a K-9 named Arlo was shot in the line of duty in Thurston County, Washington, made waves in local news for weeks — and even garnered national attention. It had all the elements of what cable networks like to portray as feel-good news: Police had apprehended a suspect in a high-speed chase, he pointed a gun at them, and their dog had been injured in the altercation. But not to worry, thanks to efforts from the community and law enforcement, K-9 Arlo was on his way to a speedy recovery.

The only problem? The gun wielded by the suspect that some had suggested shot Arlo didn’t contain any bullets. No shell casings from his weapon were found at the scene. The only bullets that were fired came from the police.

On January 27, the Mason County Sheriff’s Office, which led an investigation into officers’ use of force in the shooting, notified the public that Arlo had been shot by friendly fire. But it wasn’t until weeks later that local outlets like The Olympian, a paper based in Olympia, reported on what had actually happened.

By that point, Arlo’s story had taken on a life of its own. The Thurston County Deputy Sheriff’s Foundation organized a GoFundMe page and raised more than $73,000 for Arlo’s medical bills. Arlo grew his social media following on TikTok to 2.5 million, and on Instagram to 130,000. Arlo’s handler, a deputy with the sheriff’s office, together with another K-9 handler and ex-cop started a website called “VARLO Nation,” a business for law enforcement officers and others to “buy affordable quality equipment.” No such efforts were made to support the recovery of the suspect, who was hospitalized after being shot at least three times by police and later told a nurse he was contemplating suicide. He was released from the hospital in late January and booked into the Thurston County jail.

The police say they did not mislead the public about the incident. “To the best of my knowledge we did not make any statements that the dog was shot by the suspect or was shot by the officers until we were very comfortable,” Jason Dracolby, chief criminal deputy of investigations at Mason County Sheriff’s Office, told The Intercept. The department declined to comment on local reporting that the suspect had shot Arlo, or that the Thurston County Sheriff’s Office had described an “exchange” of gunfire. The Thurston County Sheriff’s Office and the K-9 Unit did not respond to requests for comment.


Yet Thurston County police continued to ride the wave of public interest that followed the friendly fire incident. As of at least mid-March, two months after the incident, the police were selling merchandise with the dog’s photo and had even partnered with a local graphic design shop that agreed to give $1 from every sale to help fund the Thurston County Sheriff’s Office K-9 unit.

The six officers involved in the incident were put on administrative leave pending the use-of-force investigation, carried out by the Region 3 Sheriff’s Critical Incident Investigation Team, or CIIT — a unit that has not always been forthcoming about the details of use-of-deadly-force incidents. The Washington State Attorney General found 22 deadly use-of-force incidents in the state over the first six months of last year. His office requested that agencies investigating such incidents complete surveys on their compliance with a police reform law requiring independent inquiries into use of deadly force. The CIIT declined to participate in the study; the Thurston County sheriff and the sheriffs of four other police departments in the area signed a letter to the attorney general’s office explaining that they would not complete the survey but would turn over files related to specific incidents upon request.


WHEN THE INCIDENT initially made headlines, the police had released little information on what had prompted their chase of the suspect. Officers later said they had seen the suspect driving erratically and tried to make a traffic stop but that he kept driving, and a chase ensued. Afterward, it was reported that the suspect was under investigation by another police department for sexual assault of a child. According to a probable cause statement, officers said the suspect told them he had tried to attract their attention and wanted to die rather than go to prison.

Details about the shooting itself were revealed in an incident report dated January 13, first reported on by The Olympian in late February and obtained by The Intercept.

According to the report, law enforcement deputies from the Thurston County Sheriff’s Office and a trooper with the Washington State Patrol fired at the suspect for seven seconds, hitting him multiple times. After the suspect was taken to a local hospital, a nurse told him that it was her understanding that he had shot the K-9, according to the report. The suspect later told investigators at the hospital that the gun wasn’t functional.

In a January 27 press release, the Mason County Sheriff’s Office notified the public that the Thurston County prosecutor had requested an independent review of the officers’ use of force by the Mason County prosecutor. After a legal review of the CIIT investigation, the Mason County prosecutor cleared officers of wrongdoing and declined to bring criminal charges against them, according to supplements to the incident report added in late March. The officers have returned to duty.

The dog’s injuries required tens of thousands of dollars in surgery and medical bills. Arlo’s handler documented his recovery process on social media, according to the incident report, and published an Instagram post claiming Arlo was shot by a suspect that has since been deleted. A Mason County investigator made multiple requests of the Thurston County Sheriff’s Office that Arlo’s handler be instructed to stop using social media to comment on the case while it was being investigated, according to the incident report.

Arlo returned home in January to much fanfare and honored as a hero. “Every dog has his day. Woofing up a whopping 5.2 million likes on TikTok, K-9 Officer Arlo was afforded a howling hero’s welcome as he walked out of the hospital Monday after a near-fatal shooting,” the New York Post wrote.

In February, the dog was awarded the 2021 Paw of Courage Award from the American Kennel Club, which promotes purebred dogs. The dog retired last month at the recommendation of his veterinarians. Arlo will appear at a fundraiser for the Georgia Police K9 Foundation in June.
https://theintercept.com/2021/04/05/pol ... -gofundme/

I don't really post police abuse stories anymore because I think everyone gets it by now, but this story has everything. It's perfect.
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Re: General Police Abuse Thread

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I'm disgusted by what's coming out in the Chauvin Trial. The ME had to have been in on the cover-up.

From the BBC Coverage: "Prosecutors have suggested that asphyxiation was the cause of Mr Floyd's death - contrasting with the ruling of the medical examiner who said Mr Floyd died of "cardiopulmonary arrest", which means a person's heart and lungs have stopped."

When I worked as a Death Registrar for the WVDHHR, "cardiopulmonary arrest" would not have been an accepted Cause of Death because ALL IT MEANS IS THOSE ORGANS STOPPED WORKING. It doesn't say WHY the organs stopped working.
A Stroke that hits the brainstem will cause cardiopulmonary arrest -- that's how my dad died.
Falling and breaking your neck will cause cardiopulmonary arrest.
Exsanguination will cause cardiopulmonary arrest.
Falling out of a deer stand and suffering situational asphyxiation will cause cardiopulmonary arrest.

That ME was trying to cover-up the fact that Floyd was asphyxiated, using weasel words that would NEVER have been accepted by a WV Medical Examiner or by the WVDHHR Registrars.
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Re: General Police Abuse Thread

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Exactly what causes of death don't involve the heart and lungs ceasing to function?
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Re: General Police Abuse Thread

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Ralin wrote: 2021-04-06 05:36pm Exactly what causes of death don't involve the heart and lungs ceasing to function?
Possibly some form of brainstem damage if the organs are kept operational using a ventilator for the purposes of transplantation? I don't know if the terminology covers situations where they would crease to function if not for external intervention.
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Re: General Police Abuse Thread

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Ralin wrote: 2021-04-06 05:36pm Exactly what causes of death don't involve the heart and lungs ceasing to function?
Decaptiation might fall into this, if the brain does keep working for a short time afterwards.
\Massive brain damage that doesn't affect the automatic brain functions could also fall into this. Technically, the body keeps 'living' after this, and would starve/dehydrate to death.

But yeah, such a vague term, that's a cover-up.

Oh, and look, it's coming out just in time to start warm-weather riots in the United States.
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Re: General Police Abuse Thread

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Solauren wrote: 2021-04-07 08:02am
Ralin wrote: 2021-04-06 05:36pm Exactly what causes of death don't involve the heart and lungs ceasing to function?
Decaptiation might fall into this, if the brain does keep working for a short time afterwards.
Um. How is the functionality of the brain relevant to the heart and lungs working, following decapitation?

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