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this post was submitted on 25 Oct 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
• National Police Accountability Project
• Vera: Ending Mass Incarceration
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Misleading title. The article headline isn't much better. They shot into the air, the title makes it sound like they went on a killing spree.
They did tell everyone they were going to die before emptying their gun into the air. They'd clearly lost their damn mind and this probably traumatized a bunch of kids. Throw the book at them by all means.
The title is bullshit though.
Not to mention that a bullet shot in the air can absolutely kill someone when it comes down.
Someone at a kids' event shoots a gun "at least a dozen times" — that's not shooting up the event?
Luckily no one was hurt. I know people who were at the event.
This dude is screwed even with his political connections. He will never be a cop again.
Also he wasn’t a St. Louis cop. He was a St. Louis county cop. It’s a weird St. Louis thing.
No. It's shooting within the event and/or near it but not at it or any of the participants. The phrase "shot up" infers that the subject was the target.
But I get the sentiment of wanting to phrase it in a way that conveys the most amount of danger and insanity.
You smell like bacon.
It's okay to hate both cops and garbage journalism
What's wrong with that comment? Both the title here and on the article absolutely do make it sound like the off-duty officer shot at people, when he actually shouted "you're all gonna die" and then fired into the air around a dozen times before being tackled and disarmed by event-goers.
The article also mentions that it's unknown if the officer was fired or quit. Finally, the officer is asking the judge for reduced bond, which really might not be reasonable in this case.