this post was submitted on 30 Jan 2026
156 points (100.0% liked)

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.

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.

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ALLIES

!abolition@slrpnk.net

!acab@lemmygrad.ml

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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[–] TommySoda@lemmy.world 51 points 3 days ago (4 children)

The fuck is the DEA doing arresting people for things that have nothing to so with drugs? Don't you have, like, drug stuff to enforce? What about all the fentanyl?

[–] Zombiepirate@lemmy.world 20 points 3 days ago

This was my exact question.

It seems that any federal agent is now free to do whatever the fascist freaks in the White House want.

[–] Zaktor@sopuli.xyz 10 points 3 days ago

Feels like it's probably the first agency that said yes to the regime. If there was a case here it would clearly a FBI matter, with no masks, but since FBI has a higher strain of professionalism, the fascism is taking longer to fully take hold.

[–] theparadox@lemmy.world 5 points 3 days ago

Didn't you hear? A journalist covering a protest in a church is actually committing a heinous act of terrorism against a religious establishment.

A federal grand jury seated in Minnesota returned the indictment on Thursday against Lemon and eight co-defendants. The indictment charges Lemon with conspiracy against the rights of religious freedom at a place of worship and injuring, intimidating, and interfering with the exercise of right of religious freedom at a place of worship.

Lemon, 59, and three of the co-defendants — Trahern Jeen Crews, Georgia Fort and Jamael Lydell Lundy — were arrested Friday in what Attorney General Pam Bondi described in a post on X as a “coordinated attack on Cities Church in St. Paul, Minnesota.”

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/don-lemon-arrested-federal-authorities-attorney-says-rcna256680

This is America.

[–] Maeve@kbin.earth 1 points 3 days ago

So you want them to start themselves, the Coast Guard members, police, and politicians? I can support this.

[–] Hideakikarate@sh.itjust.works 33 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Having a random dude just watching you from your window one second, then disappear the next is straight up horror movie shit. I still can't fathom how more of them haven't been shot.

[–] pipi1234@lemmy.world 2 points 3 days ago

Because all the american bravado is reserved to shooting unarmed children. Great work 2nd amendment crowd...

[–] homesweethomeMrL@lemmy.world 7 points 3 days ago

“DEA Police”??

[–] TropicalDingdong@lemmy.world 1 points 3 days ago (4 children)

Liberals when they see shit like this: "Oh I'm gonna vote so hard about this!"

[–] Dionysus@leminal.space 3 points 3 days ago

Chuck has a sternly worded letter ready to go.

[–] atomicbocks@sh.itjust.works 3 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Does liberal mean conservative where you are from or something?

[–] TropicalDingdong@lemmy.world -4 points 3 days ago (2 children)

Are we really doing this?

Can we get like, a fucking questionnaire people gotta answer, before the spout they dumb mouth off? I just don't have the fucking limits today when journalists getting snatched up out they bedrooms for shitlibs that don't even know the water in which they swim.

Liberalism is, and always has been, a center right ideology.

[–] atomicbocks@sh.itjust.works 4 points 3 days ago (2 children)

That isn’t necessarily correct, and there is zero reason to be an asshole. But even if you think that, you aren’t explaining why you think liberals would want a police state. (For the record they would not.)

[–] crusa187@lemmy.ml 3 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Then why are Dems voting to increase ICE funding? Why are they voting to fund ICE at all, given that they are murdering innocent civilians and kidnapping journalists? Liberals like Chucklefuck Schumer are literally enabling the fascist regime every step of the way, and you claim they’re somehow above a police state?

You’re trolling, or delusional about what liberals are all about. Here’s a hint: protect capital at all costs.

[–] atomicbocks@sh.itjust.works 2 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Because dems aren’t all liberal?

[–] TropicalDingdong@lemmy.world -2 points 3 days ago (1 children)

No its necessarily correct.

Historically correct, and as its applied today, correct.

[–] atomicbocks@sh.itjust.works 3 points 3 days ago (1 children)

You still didn’t answer my question.

[–] TropicalDingdong@lemmy.world -1 points 3 days ago (1 children)

A fish which doesn't know it lives in the sea doesn't deserve an answer.

[–] atomicbocks@sh.itjust.works 1 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Bye troll. I hope you have fun.

[–] TropicalDingdong@lemmy.world 0 points 3 days ago

You not knowing what a political ideology isn't doesn't make you a troll, it just makes you an idiot.

[–] butwhyishischinabook@piefed.social 1 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

Ah yes liberalism. The center right ideology which is famously critical of freedoms of speech and the press 🙄.

EDIT: I can't believe I'm saying this, but read theory. Liberal isn't just literally everything that isn't leftism, monarchy, or feudalism.

[–] GreatBlueHeron@lemmy.ca 2 points 3 days ago

I don't get the downvotes here. I read it as frustration at the number of people that seem to think the current state of the USA is something that can be fixed at the next election - when it's clear to anyone with half a brain that it's way beyond that. We're already at the point where high profile journalists are being arrested and Nov. is still nine months away!

[–] Armok_the_bunny@lemmy.world 0 points 3 days ago (1 children)

There's a proper order to making change like this, called the four boxes of liberty: the soap box, the ballot box, the jury box, and the ammo box. They are to be used in that order. The soap box is currently in use across the country, and so far there still is the chance to use the ballot box. Unless and until that option fails violence is only going to make things worse.

[–] TropicalDingdong@lemmy.world 4 points 3 days ago

The US is running concentration camps and killing civilians and prisoners alike, while being accused of no crimes.

Your privilege is showing.