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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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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
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• Vera: Ending Mass Incarceration
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"The woman, Chanetto Rivers, will receive more than $75,000 and payment for legal fees after she accused New York City and its child welfare agency of separating her from her son when he and Rivers tested positive for marijuana in August 2021."
Newborn tested positive for marijuana. Looks like the agency originally believed there to be an abuse issue. Makes sense. Alcohol is legal, but if a child is being exposed to alcoholic abuse, best to take them away from the environment.
And it appears the settlement was more about the difficulties in getting her child back due to systemic racism in the courts.
I see nothing in the article indicating any problem except racism.
And the article is omitting information such as why there was a drug test to begin with and if it was breach in privacy, why is the hospital not being sued?
Here's why: "claims from a hospital worker that she smoked marijuana in the hospital room". Mother also had previous interactions with the agency in regards to her older children.
So, hospital has cause to run a drug tests, drug test comes back positive on mother and newborn. Hospital reports to ACS who tell hospital to hold baby. Mother goes to court to get baby released, but this whole issue greatly affects an existing case she has with ACS in getting her older children back.
The lawsuit claims racism and falls flat when evidence suggests she is a neglectful parent and willingly endangering the unborn child by smoking marijuana while pregnant.
This is not a hill to die on when it comes to police problems. Not when there are more clear cut examples of systemic issues than this.
I'm old and fat, and would die climbing any hill.
Always I've been told that there's confidentiality when dealing with doctors, hospitals, clinics, even blood and urine samples, so when you say, "hospital has cause to run a drug test," that startles me. A hospital giving drug test results to ACS startles me. If this is OK, it establishes that doctors, hospitals, clinics, and medical labs are agents of law enforcement, which startles me.
And it should because thanks to democrats we are moving towards a world where no one has any privacy or any fundamental liberties and is a slave to the state
This is not the country I want for my children
Lmao!!!
Good! we don't want you here either... so leave.. oh wait that's right, you can't leave, even if you wanted too.
You're a peasant like the rest of us.. yet you think eating the boot is a better resource than lining up with your fellow countryen for perceived us, against them mentality...
You're not very bright, are you?
Every year since Biden became President you fake leftists are acting more and more like conservatives and it's starting to get real annoying. You're the ones now destroying the environment, you're the ones attacking environmental protesters, you're the ones racially attacking black people 24/7, you're the ones violating peoples basic rights and destroying peoples right to privacy, increasing the police budget, attacking peaceful protesters.
Congrats, you're now the Neo-Cons of 2004
Self aware wolf moment - "western democracy paints a false dichotomy of choice when really all it offers are flavours of neolib"
Asking nicely. Knock it off and talk about the police, please.
Am I reading it wrong or does it imply she smoked it while pregnant?
Even heavy weed smokers would agree you don't take that shit while pregnant. Most people try to avoid shit like Tylenol, let alone weed.
That's advice, possibly even good advice. It's not the law.
Ignoring advice, even good advice, should not be grounds to lose a child.
I don't know the law in NY, but where I am something does not have to be against the law in order to trigger child safety services.
I'd like to know more about this, but I know Googling it would sour my stomach and ruin my evening. Can you tell me (briefly please) what not-illegal acts can trigger action or an investigation by child safety services?
Other than substance use (don't smoke around kids, don't be drunk/high and incapacitated when taking care of kids), having a disgusting house (e.g. things like uncleaned animal feces and urine everywhere) is a good one. It's not illegal to live like that, but can rise to level of being unsafe for children.
That's not a good example. Child endangerment is illegal, which is what your examples are.
Makes sense, thanks.
Who the fuck is even testing babies for drugs?
An un-named New York hospital, apparently, and then they turn the results over to ACS. I'd like to know which hospital did this, in case I ever need medical care in NYC.
Most hospitals do if the mother discloses any kind of drug use. Likely a bit antiquated if testing for thc but laws are slow to catch up to things