> The video the NYPD kept hidden from the public shows officers removing Jason Serrano from the car, ignoring his warnings that he had just been stitched up after being stabbed in the stomach. The cops decided Serrano's reluctance was an invitation to throw him on the ground and reopen his wound. Once they were done brutalizing Serrano, they decided this might pose less of a problem for them if they came up with something they could bust him for.
> As Serrano curls up on the sidewalk, bleeding from his wound, and as more officers and bystanders gather on the scene waiting for an ambulance, Pastran searches Serrano’s jacket. “We gotta find something,” Erickson tells him. [...] Erickson again returns to the car and continues to meticulously search it, while Pastran briefs a supervisor who has arrived on the scene. Erickson then appears to place something in the car’s drink holder, before opening the front seat’s console and a small toiletry box. Erickson then says “I smell a little weed” just as he appears to pick up and move the little bud he seemed to have dropped in the drink holder moments earlier. Erickson then searches the back of the car, and when Pastran approaches, the two exchange a charged look as Erickson tells Pastran “I see nothing. … You know what I mean?” He then returns to search the front seat area for a third time, this time dropping a larger bud in the drink holder and saying, “There’s a little bit of weed.”
> That's the end result of the NYPD's internal investigation deciding two years ago that planting evidence was no big deal. The cop went back out on the street with a partner who enabled evidence-planting. Serrano didn't spend two weeks in jail but he did spend five days handcuffed to a hospital bed. He pled guilty to the resisting arrest charge, even though it was a blatantly bogus arrest.
As I usually ask in these sorts of threads: what are we going to do about this?
Many police officers seem to have just the right combination of poor incentives, mental illness, and power-drunkenness sufficient to result in wanton lying, lawlessness, and victimization.
This is not a situation compatible with a society in which thoughtful, calm, mature innovation unto a pursuit of happiness can occur.
So what's the plan? How can we approach this with an adult disposition and put an end to this bizarre experiment of giving the state unchecked power?
The police almost only abuse very poor people. Eliminating poverty with redistribution and active labor market policies would mean fewer targets. Better housing and land use policies would help by allowing people to live in mixed communities rather than concentrating poor people into ghettos. Making policing an easier job would attract less problematic people. Hiring a lot more cops and banning guns would greatly reduce the stress cops are under. The cops in prosperous, egalitarian places are generally pretty chill, so the idea is to recreate those conditions.
> Eliminating poverty with redistribution and active labor market policies would mean fewer targets.
I think you'd need to prove the direction of causality here to be convincing.
> Making policing an easier job would attract less problematic people.
What are "problematic people"? I find this judgment to be very, very troubling. Is it that "problematic people" are becoming police officers? Or that something about the job is causing problematic behaviors in people like you and I?
> Hiring a lot more cops and banning guns would greatly reduce the stress cops are under.
This seems downright preposterous to me. Guns aren't a significant cause of death for cops. Cars (including their own cars) are a far bigger threat. Moreover, there is no evidence to suggest that places where guns are materially banned enjoy less police corruption. Chicago has has some of the most draconian gun laws in the nation for decades and also has a police department indistinguishable from a criminal cartel by most measures.
> The cops in prosperous, egalitarian places are generally pretty chill, so the idea is to recreate those conditions.
Again, I suspect the causality may run in the other direction.
Making guns illegal will do little if it is not accompanied by getting rid of the existing guns. People are poor judges of risk and it would not surprise me that cops are more fearful of guns than they are of cars even if it ought not be that way.
You may be right in the direction of causation that questioned. I look at it this way. Suppose we create a more prosperous, egalitarian society and find out the cops are still jerks. The experiment shows you are correct but at least we'd end up with a better society in other ways. There does not appear to be any harm in performing the experiment.
I'm suggesting that it's possible that corruption, and particularly unaccountable police forces historically infused with racism, might be among the primary barriers to achieving such a society, and that a plan to directly engage with this problem might be a necessary precondition to any such movement.
Also, if they legally own one, chances are about 100% they aren’t allowed to carry it, loaded.
Even if they carry a loaded gun, they’re less likely to use it against the police than in the USA because punishments are less severe. In the extreme, three strikes laws (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-strikes_law) makes even petty thieves with a previous felony conviction more likely to use a gun.
The USA has found a local optimum where cops have reason to be afraid of a large fraction of the population and vice versa, and doesn’t seem to be able to find a way out of it.
Don't think this can't happen to you. If you, an ordinary person, find yourself in a bad neighborhood and lost, you also can be abused just as easily. Such a thing happened to me a long time ago (it was the only time such a thing happened). but because I was lost, and switching signaling from left to right, they assumed I was on drugs.
Or if you have dark skin. A coworker got pulled over while on a family trip. He was searched, the car was searched, and the only reason his wife wasn't searched was: "You're lucky I don't have a female officer available". He was a developer (so not poor) and ex-military, which usually gets you some respect.
I feel sure the vast majority of Police officers are doing upstanding work, so it's a matter of identifying and punishing the bad apples. Once a few have been targeted and made examples of, surely the rest of the bad apples will smarten up, or quit.
Without question, these officers should be charged with battery, kidnapping, planting false evidence, unlawful arrest, possession of drugs, etc. etc.
Minimum 5 years jail each, maybe 10.
It's not like they did any of this by accident. Yes, five to ten years in jail will ruin their lives, and it's important to remember they did it to themselves.
We place our trust in them, and they're caught on camera behaving like regular street thugs. This is utterly unacceptable and should be eliminated.
There's some irony in using the phrase 'bad apples' because it comes from the idiom, "one bad apple spoils the barrel" which is about how rotting apples give off ethylene gas that causes other apples around them to rot faster.
Corrupt bad actors that can get away with what's described in the article exist in a culture that corrupts everyone else eventually leading to a situation where the only people willing to join or stay are 'bad apples' protected by a culture of other bad apples. When something is this bad you probably need large purges as opposed to firing a couple individuals.
I don't think you can do this from within, some serious restructuring or oversight has to happen from elsewhere.
I suspect in most organizations of people you have 10% that care about doing the right thing, 10% that will do bad things and 80% that will do either depending on who is around them.
Additionally - Serrano needs to file suit against NYPD and/or the city; claiming enough damages such that the organization has an incentive to address this internally.
The vast majority of upstanding Police are allowing their fellow officers to get away with it. Even if they aren't doing it themselves, they turn a blind eye and close ranks when one of their own is threatened.
So is it a few bad apples or is it the system in general?
I feel sure the vast majority of Police officers are doing upstanding work, so it's a matter of identifying and punishing the bad apples.
I strongly disagree that the vast majority of police office are doing upstanding work. Officers don't testify against each other. They refuse to help investigations of colleagues. The whole thin blue line mentality is a stain on the whole profession. As Edmund Burke said, "All that is necessary for evil to prevail is that good men do nothing." Police officers that refuse to call out the bad apples are themselves bad apples.
> I strongly disagree that the vast majority of police office are doing upstanding work. Officers don't testify against each other. They refuse to help investigations of colleagues. The whole thin blue line mentality is a stain on the whole profession.
I think this comes from a person based on ignorance, in that they usually have limited to no exposure to most LEO; or alternatively, they have vested interests in keeping that narrative up.
To this day I still cannot fathom not just how the 'blue line' practices holds true to this day given all the cameras, but they CAN AND DO PURPOSELY LIE and are allowed to do so with impunity in court. This is what is considered law enforcement in the US?!
Punishing them is limited in scope, you can at best get minor monetary compensation (which is tax derived) when they abuse their power, but as seen with this example they're allowed to return to their patrol in most cases, or given a paid leave of absence when its deemed too embarrassing to sweep under the rug.
>> How on earth is the on/off switch for the body camera under the officer’s control?
Honestly, plausible deniability; here is a horrid case in which you can see (Graphic/NSFW) they can use that to justify their violent behaviour as small/thin woman is forcefully strapped down, choked and repeatedly tazed by a group of officers claiming she was 'suicidal' but somehow that part wasn't recorded but is seen complying with the officers requests:
Worth noting, as it coincides with the quote above its not just police but also the Court system the enables their behaviour, the local State court ruled in favour of the police stating the use of force was justified; it wasn't until it was taken to the Supreme Court that it was exposed to the public what took place with body cam footage.
> The cops in prosperous, egalitarian places are generally pretty chill, so the idea is to recreate those conditions.
God, I'm just going to put aside how absolutely elitist this statement is, but consider that the case above took place in Boulder, CO. Where for a few years the average home price was well over $1 million dollars, and her initial arrest took place in the Downtown mall that's typically yuppy-centric shops.
I feel sure the vast majority of Police officers are doing upstanding work, so it's a matter of identifying and punishing the bad apples. Once a few have been targeted and made examples of, surely the rest of the bad apples will smarten up, or quit.
I've heard people like you say that for 30 years or so, why hasn't it happened? The answer is that the institution is much more corrupt than you're willing to admit. You don't like to think about that so you pretend otherwise.
EDIT: Consider this, if you're an upstanding citizen, never had problems with the law. and all the sudden an officer pulls you over, plants evidence, sends you to jail and now your life is ruined forever: no more jobs, no more means to support yourself. This is NOT a minor offense.
First of all, drug offenses should never be more than a ticket, perhaps a really expensive ticket for the harder drugs.
As for officers, that are blatently planting evidence that puts people in jails. Planting evidence, isn't something you do on accident. It's not something you do because you had a bad day. It's not something that occurs because you made an incorrect split second decision. It's a deliberate offense (planned for days ahead) worse than anything a police officer can do. And it requires the harshest penalty known to man: capital punishment. we need to send a very strong message, that this is under no circumstance acceptable. Personally, i think capital punishment isn't severe enough for this crime. they should also be forced to give up their entire pension and sued into oblivion for their entire networth.
Let my try to restate what Ididntdothis is saying in a self-contained manner in case thorwasdfasdf is unclear. Calling for "capital punishment" means you think the offender should be put to death: literally, the state should take their head. Whether or not this is excessive (most would think so) it seems odd to follow up by saying that they person should also give up their pension and be sued. Could you (thorwasdfasdf) please clarify?
I think capital punishment may not be enough to deter the crime fully (at least not for everyone). But, the person may think twice if their pension wasn't around to go to their next of kin.
It's not just about punishing this heinous crime, but rather, it's about setting a precedent, and ensuring that there is sufficient deterence to make sure this never ever happens.
It's kinda like that time, someone got 20 years, for Swatting someone. It set a precendence that will never be forgotten.
He's not saying "instead", rather he thinks that loss of pension is a useful addition to execution. This doesn't strike me as likely, but then again I don't understand the psychology of serial killers or cops who would plant evidence on someone. I'd also sort of assumed that being sentenced to death for a crime would void any life insurance policies, but I don't know that for sure.
A friend became a police officer (in Australia) a couple of years ago at the age of 35.
He quite quickly became distrusting of what people say and would adopt a negative analysis of situations. Why? - because for the majority of his shifts he has to deal with people who _are_ lying to him.
Lots of domestic violence calls, drug dealers, thefts, reckless driving, people with serious mental illness (danger to themselves and others). The perpetrators inevitably lie and often the victims are not telling the whole truth (to protect themselves from incrimination for something else or to exaggerate what happened).
Prior to joining he was a well rounded and very grounded person. As far as i can tell, he hasn't resisted the power-tripping trap but I can see some racial and socioeconomic stereotyping creeping in to his world view. It's sad to see but it shouldn't be surprising that people's jobs strongly shape their world view. Some other examples I've encountered personally:
- emergency medical workers strongly against motorcycle riding as they see so many horrific injuries and fatalities from accidents
- a child services worker who assumed men interacting with children were pedophiles as her work involved re-homing children who had been abused
For the above occupations, the work involved exposes the workers to highly charged/traumatic situations often daily. A good place to start looking for a solution would be how to help these workers regain a balanced view of society.
> For the above occupations, the work involved exposes the workers to highly charged/traumatic situations often daily. A good place to start looking for a solution would be how to help these workers regain a balanced view of society.
And clearly, as the GP illustrates, in the cop's case it's at least partially lying by those same cops to fix their own crimes. Or just lying for their own convenience, at the cost of everyone else.
Why do you assume it's any different for the child services worker? They have the power to trade kids, for power, money, or just ego - and are also frequently convicted for doing so. Worse than that, many studies point out that the net effect of child services ... is NEGATIVE for children: there is a lot of statistical proof that children would grow up more successfully if child services didn't exist. Even kids with serious problems at home fare better ... without child services. So it's even worse than the police force, which at least prevents worse.
And why do you assume it's any different for emergency medical worker? In Australia I was blatantly told that I wouldn't get any assistance from an ambulance unless I accepted a morfine injection. That, of course, turned out to be a financial incentive: it allowed them to charge a lot more to insurance. Of course it also prevented treatment (because doctors assumed I had abdominal pain because I was drugged. And, sure enough, I was: by THEM ! Of course that wasn't the cause of the pain, but cause + expected result = just sleep it off and go home. To be hit by terrible pain again the day after. This did not happen once, but THREE times)
And to top it off, when it eventually did get correctly diagnosed, 2 weeks later, that morfine DID cause abdominal pain (morfine stops the peristaltic movement. Therefore, if you're on morfine for more than ~12 hours you're in for a very painful bowel movement. If you're on morfine 3 times for 6 hours in a week, it's no different)
And again, at least the police force and emergency medical worker help. They cause a lot of collateral damage, but at least it prevents worse. Child services ... causes a lot more damage than they fix. So ESPECIALLY that person should shut the fuck up about how bad society is and take a good long look at themselves.
In another world, I didn't go into CS and instead became an attorney who specialized in exactly that. Police brutality is everywhere
It's one of the main things that kept me interested in the legal system.
The privacy button should turn the recording off for 10-15 minutes and automatically send an alert that this has happened. The alert should trigger the footage from before and after the button press to be sent to 3rd party who evaluates it for potential abuse.
Any evidence produced during a button press is default inadmissible and the law enforcement officer is assumed to be unreliable in this situation by default.
This. Store the private key in a sealed envelope somewhere where only a judge can get it. If they push the privacy button and the timeframe is shown to be relevant to a case, it gets decrypted.
This is the same type of argument made by people that say the government should have the keys to all encryption. The standard response is that, if there is a key and the government has it, it will get out and then all those things that were recorded are now open to the public. Not wanting to be filmed whiled going to the restroom seems reasonable.
A police officer is not an ordinary citizen. They have huge authority, and the accountability should match. Also, I'm not suggesting that they should have to wear their body cams at all times, just when they are clocked in. Hell, even gas station attendants have constant video surveillance of their actions and no one complains.
It could be a good example of public/private key encryption too. You can encrypt with a public key (or more commonly, symmetrically encrypt with a symmetric key asymmetrically encrypted with a public key), with the private decryption key only in the hands of a judge (or other supervisor).
There should be no privacy button. Privacy is for citizens. When you have the power to commit violence on behalf of the state, you shouldn't be afforded the privilege of privacy, you're a predator and predators aren't to be trusted by prey.
Whooa, not all cops are predators, just a small minority. I think you’re forgetting what lawlessness means and what these cops do. Some arest dangerous people, murderers and such. Some plant cocaine evidence and some are power tripping. They are people like everybody else and if they get no privacy at all maybe they wouldnt want to enroll to be cops. How about we devs were constantly monitored becaus some dev stole some credentials to some database. But, why, we have nothing to hide, why not be filmed all the time and when you go to the toilet the video gets encrypted and only a judge can see that.. see where its going?
There must be a middle ground. You see, this cop fucked up, that guy did a hit and run and now will probably will go free. Double fuck up imo
All cops are predators in that the function they serve in society is to hunt people down, sometimes with violence. Predators serve a function in the ecosystem, just as the police serve a function in civil society, but it's important to remember the relationship between the police and citizens is one in which the police will find and exploit weakness wherever they can find it. Even the good cops aren't to be trusted, because their line of duty makes them untrustworthy.
>They are people like everybody else and if they get no privacy at all maybe they wouldnt want to enroll to be cops.
I'm fine with them just getting no privacy while on duty. On duty, they're not people like everyone else, off duty, they are.
If the police can't respond with an appropriate amount of force to make it impossible to destroy all of the attending officers cameras, they are not doing their job correctly.
Also, if the body camera isn't (1) robust enough to withstand an attack; and/or (2) streaming or at least storing the footage quickly enough to capture evidence of an attack, then whoever designed the body camera system has done an unbelievably awful job.
not great for super high stakes stuff (which interacting with US law enforcement absolutely is, given your life may be in jeopardy) - really need a streaming externally enforced trust and confirmation mechanism... perhaps something like, i dunno, oversight? just brainstorming here though.
Isn't there Internal Affairs? Though the problem is the incentive is not there. Budget problems prevent hiring only good candidates, and similarly the courts don't think cities should be paying a lot after these bad apples.
Why isn't it standard for all body cam footage of an arrest to automatically be entered as evidence? It seems like even for a judge to accept a plea deal, they should be forced to see the footage. Someone should be catching things as clear as this.
I agree with this. I really feel like we have to start taking measures to force accountability at all levels on those who hold the public trust.
In related news, "losing" the camera footage should cause everyone in charge of the system to be put on leave while outside people investigate why it was "lost."
>Citizens of US are in the exceptional position that they can actually force things - as gun is legally owned.
>Other countries are not so lucky if such things occur - they just wait for the next election and hope for the best...
Are you implying that armed revolutions don't occur in other countries, or that such a revolution would actually be legal in the US because the guns are legally owned?
If so, you would be wrong on both counts. The only thing the Second Amendment buys Americans who want to "force change" is the convenience of not needing to procure arms through a black market, as other countries do. The "politics by other means" part, though, is illegal everywhere.
In that sense, American citizens aren't in that exceptional a position as anywhere else.
If the second amendment of the constitution is supposed to be the guarantor of civil rights in the USA, it does not seem to be working too well. I put somewhat more faith in the first amendment and cellphones with cameras.
> Why isn't it standard for all body cam footage of an arrest to automatically be entered as evidence? It seems like even for a judge to accept a plea deal, they should be forced to see the footage. Someone should be catching things as clear as this.
Because they don't have an incentive to do so and have every incentive to not do so.
I won't go into a great deal of detail, but in short: getting this as discovery without an attorney present and actively forcing the Courts to release it won't yield much, it is often entirely impossible to do so in time by the forced court dates forcing most people to accept plea deals if they cannot afford legal counsel, getting even the District Attorneys to review this footage before moving with a case in time of said case is equally unlikely (combination of apathetic and being overwhelmed), and Judges' will ALWAYS favour with an officers recount of events UNTIL FORCED for compelling reasons to over turn this. Which means an almost certain guilty verdict.
Discovery in general is so hard to get, and they can/do use a series of excuses; not limited to using proprietary software to release the body cam footage which is not compatible with any other system. Even between other attorneys and jurisdictions.
You need to realize that you're assumed to be guilty in the Legal system, and the burden and responsibility to prove otherwise is on the defendant: who is possibly injured (physically as well as mentally), all the while you're incurring costs left and right for everything (even wrongful arrest cases), in addition to apathetic-callused District Attorneys/Public Defendants just trying to bide their time and not 'rock the boat' until getting to the next level of their careers and are often forcing people to just accept untenable time frames for court dates or pleas deals to just churn the numbers and look good in front of the Judge who they will encounter again in their career(s).
In this case, the video footage was shown to a judge. It only prevented more damage on the victim's life, but had zero impact on the policemen. As long as policemen are not accountable for their acts, no one is safe in their hands.
In France, there have been many videos of policemen shooting citizens in the head, kicking people on the ground, and so on. So what? None of them will ever lose their job for this, or suffer any serious penalty.
Here are 2 stories about the French police. One where a complete footage was not enough for justice to act. And one where the police footage was conveniently lost.
Just a single French policeman has been sentenced for a flash ball misuse. It was after a high school boy was shot in the head and permanently disabled. The boy's family filed a complaint. Policemen claimed self-defense and accused the boy of attacking them. During the trial, a video proved that a police officer, in a group of policemen, aimed then shot at the boy that was slowly pushing a trash can. 7 years after the assault, the police officer was sentenced to 3 years... with no flash ball gun. Policemen can assault a boy and lie to a judge, then go on as cops.
https://www.20minutes.fr/paris/2039131-20170328-lyceen-bless...
In another well-known case in France, a black man died in a police cell. According to the police report, he killed himself by banging his head on the walls. The CCTV in the cell was sabotaged. The post-mortem medical report was lost. The family filed a complaint. 8 years later, the French justice ruled that the police report was a complete lie, but refused to prosecute anyone, not even the policemen that wrote the false report.
https://www.lemonde.fr/societe/article/2009/01/24/l-etonnant...
Isn't it strange how we never had this many problems with bad cops before the invention of body cameras? It's a pity that the upright and moral institution of policing in the US, from its noble origins in runaway slave patrols, has been suddenly and inexplicably corrupted of late.
You assume there wasn't problems before, because none was being brought to public attention. You also assume there has been an increase in corruption because there is an increase in problems, as you say it.
You are linking two separate issues through correlation and implying causation, which is a fallacy.
I'm black, I've had my share of "random" unfair and plain scary interactions with police, but until people actually begun seeing the proof I would always get variations of "A cop would not behave that way, you must have been doing something" from acquaintances (almost always white).
Uh, you clearly did something to warrant scary, intimidating encounters with the police. Police don’t stop people for no reason. But, the fact that their reason was most likely you are black is certainly a good reason, right?
> Isn't it strange how we never had this many problems with bad cops before the invention of body cameras?
Rodney King? And the subsequent LA riots in K-Town come to mind, where they arrested the Korean merchant owners defending their homes, busniesses and property.
I think you need to understand that this is systemic, Police officers are vetted and no longer considered if they have High IQs, and the courts allow this:
Rodney King is complicated. He's not the blameless victim you might think. At the same time, the cops responsible used ridiculously excessive force restraining him, and their initial acquittal was a sham (and everyone knew it, leading to the riots).
I'd like to live in a country where you can be a bit of a flawed person and still not experience any violence from the government, unless you're so flawed that you're actively hurting others and there's no other way to make you stop.
> I'd like to live in a country where you can be a bit of a flawed person and still not experience any violence from the government, unless you're so flawed that you're actively hurting others and there's no other way to make you stop.
Yes, me too.
But this is not responsive to my comment and if you feel that it is, maybe you're not familiar with the full series of events that night? I recommend the documentary LA 92.
> In this world, none of us are blameless victims.
Um, sure, in some abstract sense.
But in a very specific and real sense, Rodney King was less blameless than most of us.
* He was speeding while driving drunk, endangering others;
* he failed to pull over when the police initially indicated he should (a non-violent authority granted to police by the state to enforce traffic laws);
* he attempted to outrun LAPD by driving at high speeds through neighborhoods (in an attempt to avoid parole violation for previous robbery), further endangering others;
* and finally after the chase was stopped, and he was out of the car on the ground, he attempted to get up and fight the police officers arresting him several times.
* Here is where the the Holliday video starts.
* Police first use violence against Mr. King: they taser him when he first gets up off the ground, refusing police direction to stay on the ground.
* He gets off the ground again and attempts to attack a cop (Powell).
* Here's the beginning of the video cut that KTLA broadcast. Notably, it's missing the part where he tried to attack Powell.
* Police again use violence in self-defense.
* He continues to refuse to submit to arrest and attempts to stand repeatedly. Police continue to use violence.
* At some point the violence was no longer necessary to keep him detained and allow an officer to safely handcuff him, but continued despite that.
That last bullet is unacceptable! I don't dispute that. But Rodney King meets your bar for actively hurting others justifying government violence.
Yes, people shouldn't have to be blameless to avoid government violence.
But it is a much more compelling demonstration of the problem when the victims are blameless. There are so many other recorded incidents of excessive police force with less problematic victims.
These police officers plant drugs on the poor guy's car, they then take him out. He wasn't even the driver BTW.
Because he asks them to be careful of his recently stitched up stab wound the officers decide to toss him on the ground breaking open his stitches and causing him medical problems.
Then, they hold him for two weeks because of course he can't pay bail.
When it comes to light that the officers planted the evidence... mind you, not because the department handed over the footage, but because a non-profit got their hands on it... the case gets dropped.
The officers walk away with no punishment and the man got nothing for the two weeks he had to spend with ouy of a job and for his new medical expenses.
Is there a way to just start over when it comes to policing in America? Stories like these make me think that our problems are so deeply rooted that this is the only way to resolve them.
What if it's obvious that the police are framing you? I've seen videos where the police outright refuse to tell the suspect what they're accused of, so the arrest is illegal. In those cases, resisting unlawful arrest seems reasonable.
Reasonable in the sense of "in a just world, it would be a good idea"? OK.
Reasonable in the sense of "in this world, it's a good idea"? Absolutely not. It gets you physically hammered to whatever degree they decide is necessary to get you to the point where you don't (or can't) resist any longer. And then it gets you charged with resisting arrest.
And if you're going to say that, even if it's a bad idea in this world, it's the only way to move is toward that more ideal world, I would say that it does not seem to be having any effect whatsoever in doing so.
The cops aren't the ones who get sued. It's the city government. So no, there's no chance of that. Threats to person, property or family are illegal and punishable. Not all cops are dirty. The vast majority are ethical.
> Threats to person, property or family are illegal and punishable.
What's your point here? Isn't planting evidence also illegal? The problem is that, well, the law is expensive, slow, and tiresome, and there's an inherent power imbalance.
The topic here revolves around how law enforcement officers are able to act with impunity.
> Threats to person, property or family are illegal and punishable
So is planting drugs, and obviously the law's not being enforced.
> Not all cops are dirty.
Of course not. But that doesn't make OP's comment "he'll probably be subject to threats to his person, property, and family from dirty cops" less true.
Yes it does, because one was a dirty cop acting in isolation without observation. The follow up with a threat to person, property, or family would be beyond a major felony and egregious. Many people, cops included have been convicted for such things. So no, it's not likely. If this cop escaped charges on some technicality, he sure as hell wouldn't escape charges for a direct threat.
There isn't really such a thing as acting in isolation in a police department. They work together a lot, even in departments that don't do two man patrols.
The police are a fraternity. They have a code. At worst, they actively protect and cover up bad actors. At best, they just don't report it. That's why you rarely hear about officers being whistleblowers, or departments doing internal investigations and finding wrongdoing. Things rarely gets past the blue wall.
Policing in America is fundamentally broken, from urban areas where people are framed, to rural areas where people are robbed.
This doesn't mean that all police are bad, but the culture around policing certainly seems bad.
> Many people, cops included have been convicted for such things.
> So no, it's not likely.
Has it occured to you that if cops have been convicted for such things it's because they have at some point engaged in such behavior? Sure, it would be foolish to do so given the risks of getting caught, and yet you could say the same thing about every cop ever convicted of a crime.
depends heavily on what you mean by ethical. would they commit those offenses themselves? maybe not. but - and this is absolutely crucial - many of them will refuse to tattle. if they do, they'll get blackballed. ref: blue wall of silence or related terms.
I cannot blame them for that, as the elected government does not stand up to the abusers and will not provide any worthwhile backing to an officer who does.
A lawsuit will merely increase costs to government without solving anything. Maybe this officer will be fired (and probably rehired in a different precinct), but they won't learn anything other than to be more careful about the body cam.
Ideally, we should legalize victimless "crimes" like drug possession. If there isn't a clear victim, it shouldn't be illegal. That alone might be enough to refocus police departments on their proper role in society. But in the meantime, we should aggressively prosecute crimes like these.
Bringing a case to trial costs $10-20k on the low end, and there’s the risk that their coworkers do it to you again as you drive home from the civil court.
Most people harassed by the police don’t have even $5000.
Furthermore, ifwhen they win, the money paid out as settlement/judgement comes from local taxpayers via the city, not the cop. It’s not legally possible to sue an individual cop for violating your rights, so the individual cop in question suffers no real consequences.
There is also the history of the incredibly harsh retaliation by other cops against people who bring evidence to light against cops:
Oh, I'm not saying the dude should invest. I'm saying someone like Thiel could invest, as he did in the Gawker lawsuit. Alternatively, a lawyer could invest their time. In either case, I'm saying a 3rd party could step in and facilitate a lawsuit and, apart from doing the right thing, could be financially rewarded for it, in the end.
Would this be a good use of gofundme? Not sure if they have restrictions on paying for civil lawsuits. I would gladly contribute money towards holding public officials accountable for abuses of power.
There is a logical progression here that I think means sueing isn't necessary:
Are police protected by law from coming under charges such as assault, kidnapping, breaking and entering, manslaughter, etc, if those things are done in the course of duty?
- Yes
Are police required to follow certain regulations in order to retain those legal protections?
- Yes
Do those regulations allow for drugs to be intentionally planted, then used as false evidence for an arrest?
- No
Were these officers under special legal protection during this arrest?
- No
Was this arrest legal?
- No
Are these officers solely liable for their actions, as any other person would be?
- Yes
Did they assault and kidnap a man, then perjure themselves on a legal document?
- Yes
Is the State District Attorney required to press criminal charges against them?
- Yes
Are they required to be tried in front of a jury of 12 other citizens?
- Yes
This has too much media attention, I doubt they'll get away with no charges for long, but it might take them some time to get to the point of charging them.
Ideally this would stay in the news until such time as the officers responsible were permanently removed from the force. They should never be permitted to be cops again and they should spend a long time behind bars as well.
On a somehow slightly ironic note I cannot read about these uplifting events from the EU. :-)
The EU is just not free enough, or something:
"Unfortunately, our website is currently unavailable in most European countries. We are engaged on the issue and committed to looking at options that support our full range of digital offerings to the EU market. We continue to identify technical compliance solutions that will provide all readers with our award-winning journalism."
Is it? I don't think a cookie popup is the issue here. EU websites have those too. I think what's being done with the data they are collecting is the issue.
Suspended with pay, eventually he "retires" so nobody has to say anything about firing for cause, he finds a new job 20 miles away in the next town over with glowing references from all his cop buddies.
They'll lose their jobs in this precinct and drift over to the next township and get rehired. It's money-laundering for police misconduct. As long as prosecutors refuse to charge cops for malfeasance, it will continue.
Yes. IMO: Seriously resolve to disband them. Just recognize that the institution is fundamentally dysfunctional and take the necessary action. Reassign their duties to separate agencies with appropriate oversight: the general security forces should not be the investigators should not be the large crowd control force. Absolutely none of them should be military, and absolutely all of them should have degrees in psychology, at the very least, and from institutions accredited by an independent body. Finally, disarm them all by default, and rearm based on independently-determined necessity.
I think it would be a mistake because if you have LEO who are disarmed, then criminals may be emboldened and LEO wouldn’t be able to defend themselves in the situations where they need to do so. We can’t both be advocating for better police training, police with all psychology degrees as a minimum, and then also saying we wouldn’t trust them to be armed.
The USA is very unusual in the developed world in having armed police. In Germany, for example, the officers on the streets do not carry firearms. What they do have is riot squads a couple minutes away if force is actually necessary.
> then criminals may be emboldened and LEO wouldn’t be able to defend themselves in the situations where they need to do so
I hear arguments like this in the USA a lot, but it doesn't seem to be a major issue in the rest of the world. I suspect it's another talking point that assumes certain conditions as universal that are very unusual and strange.
BS. Of course german cops carry guns on the street. IIRC, Walther P99 and/or HK P2000. In times of heightened threat level, the police cars carry HK MP5s in the trunk from what I heard from cop friends.
However, and that's the difference here, none of them EVER shot a weapon outside of training/shooting ranges. You don't even lose a bullet, because you have to file a report for every one that's missing from your arsenal. I've heard several german cops state that they're sure they're done with being a police officer if they would ever have to shoot someone.
Like the other guy said, of course policemen in germany carry weapons. Not sure where you picked up they don't. They're even clearly visible, carried openly on the belt.
I think the LEO argument for requiring firearms for safety is weaker than the public's interest in encouraging the social and strategic/tactical training police need to get to a point of operating functionally, which, to me, would necessarily involve a reduction in the necessity for carrying, drawing, and firing a service weapon.
They may not like what they'd have to do in lieu of just shooting an alleged suspect, but that's different from it being less effective.
Do we need to start over or take the Bill of Rights much more seriously? The Miranda Rights thing only helps so much sadly. People need to lawyer up and not speak to cops period.
Also we need to ensure cops like these are only given 1 single chance and when they go under scrutiny the 2nd time no paid leave. No exceptions. The law matters more than protecting scumbags.
Course if you are caught as a officer interfering with the law you should be charged of the same crime in addition to what anybody else would be charged of for doing the same.
When I was a senior in college, I got pulled over by Chicago Housing Authority while driving (with out of state plates) through the south side projects ostensibly for a lane change without signalling (which is bullshit, signalling is a pet peeve of me, and I always signal).
There were 3 officers. One was being a real dick. Was asking me all sorts of questions unrelated to the traffic stop, like why am I here, where do I work, etc. Told him it was non of his business. Then, he threatened to arrest me. Told him I'm not answering any more questions without a lawyer present. He went back to the van to write up the ticket. The other 2 officers apologized to me, but did nothing to stop the ticket.
They were trying to get me to admit I was trying to score drugs. I was just on my way to school to take a final.
They took my license as bail, leaving me without photo ID, the week I was supposed to fly home for Christmas. Had to get a state ID. Only cost $4, but I was broke, didnt even have enough to take out at an ATM. Paid the $4 in dimes so I could have a photo ID to fly. The clerk at the DMV was pissed, but once I explained the circumstance, she patiently delt with me.
Tldr; white college student with out of state plates is profiled in a poor black neighborhood known for dealing druga on his way to take a final.
And, no, I didnt fight it. It would have been my word against 3 cops. The only way I could have won is if all 3 cops didn't show up to court. Repercussions of pleading np contest are far less than pleading not guilty and losing in Illinois.
The radical solution will be eventually to extend the tools of surveillance and place them in the hands of the masses. Increasingly cheaper hardware and increasingly prevalent knowledge of software will support this.
Until deepfakes become more sophisticated. We have a serious problem on our hands, that we will probably need to solve as much with social and pyschological system retools as with technological ones.
Well regardless of whether social and psychological can keep up, the incentives to push the technological ones forward are happening now. Those who wont be able to adapt to the fact that entrenched power structures will become increasingly irrelevant at being the arbiters of truth and information will suffer most.
1) The entrenched power structures will be most able to abuse this technology, as they have the social structure through which the technology acts on their side, and
2)The lack of any authority, central or otherwise, makes the importance of these soft and constructed parameters even more important, not less. If you're betting on anarchy sorting more effectively because you think authority distorts a natural balance, that's probably not the case. When you remove the tentpole, you're not freed from the tent, it just collapses on top of you with all its weight. Everyone needs to have their personal pillars ready.
RE #1: I agree that this is the case now, but this depends on people who build these tools and systems to not co-opt and subvert them for their own ends.
RE #2: I'm not betting on anarchy, but on the emergence of form of a way of organization that is able to operate with bit of disregard of entrenched power structures by co-opting those who work for them yet don't feel they receive enough benefits from the current situation to uphold a particular institutions beliefs, and willing to explore the horizon for more options. The tent-pole isn't something necessary to remove, and it's not necessarily desired remove because it allows for those who lack will to purse any other way to rely on its existence for shelter, while others can simply walk out the tent, and construct/decommission a structure that which they choose for any particular ends, and walk in/out of the tent and leverage its resources as it sees fit and work with others who share similar goals against those can not imagine any other way of being. I think a good example of this is with regards to academics and shared credential usage that enables sci-hub. I see a similar situation unfolding in banking right now.
>I'm not betting on anarchy, but on the emergence of form of a way of organization that is able to operate with bit of disregard of entrenched power structures by co-opting those who work for them yet don't feel they receive enough benefits from the current situation to uphold a particular institutions beliefs, and willing to explore the horizon for more options.
Sounds like a religion.
>while others can simply walk out the tent, and construct/decommission a structure that which they choose for any particular ends, and walk in/out of the tent and leverage its resources as it sees fit and work with others who share similar goals against those can not imagine any other way of being. I think a good example of this is with regards to academics and shared credential usage that enables sci-hub. I see a similar situation unfolding in banking right now.
The problem with this is that the people who are privileged to be able to walk in and out tend to feel entitled to the tent because they have access, but not obligated because "they can leave any time," not observing that their lifestyle still requires the tent and the people living under it.
Well one major difference is that I don't think it has to become true, but I'm benefiting from the decaying and over leveraged status quo globally, and will continue to do so if it gets worse. If things get better, I still win, but just less so. If this framework of allocating resources (time/money/effort) now under my control is a religion, then so be it.
>The problem with this is that the people who are privileged to be able to walk in and out tend to feel entitled to the tent because they have access, but not obligated because "they can leave any time," not observing that their lifestyle still requires the tent and the people living under it.
You can't force people into obligation, there must be agreed upon terms, which are always up for negotiation despite what people may say (not saying that some/most people wont just bend over to such obligations out of some kind of perceived higher morality [at least higher signaled morality, their actions/inaction might speak otherwise])… one doesn't have to out run the bear, just the person next to them who has their hands in their ears about the possibilities and configurations the state of things can take (who may or may not have the resources to maintain [or have to spend more and more resources to maintain something falling apart]) and does nothing different.
If the tent falls down or degrades, the person who was betting on it and the implications, or positioned for it happening is going be better prepared more often then not (unless one happens to think that were all gonna die anyways, so better not do anything new that could arise from the ashes). If that is privileged, then sure. Nothing was ever fair, and let us not pretend that compelling everyone into tent and staying there indefinitely because "obligations" is fair either.
>If this framework of allocating resources (time/money/effort) now under my control is a religion, then so be it.
Yeah, that's what I'm afraid of. That's, like, the worst aspect of religions. It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy of hoping for/boosting Armageddon because you're convinced you got it figured out and know how to come out on top.
>You can't force people into obligation
Of course you can. Lock them out or lock them in. In fact, that's the perfect way to deal with those who are trying to play both sides: make them choose. That makes it a lot easier to determine what needs to be done vis a vis the tent. The worst thing these privileged people can do is to draw attention to that privilege, then, because it welcomes intervention. Their behavior becomes self-regulating in this way.
> Yeah, that's what I'm afraid of. That's, like, the worst aspect of religions. It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy of hoping for/boosting Armageddon because you're convinced you got it figured out and know how to come out on top.
Well I don't know if I'll come out on top, but it works for me and my family. I'm just not about to pray to tent gods to figure out how to fix things and hope for me to engage in current alter praying (and accept getting molested by the tent priests) to perpetuate something I see falling apart, without at least hedging my risks. You're afraid, and I'm not, that's the difference.
>Of course you can. Lock them out or lock them in. In fact, that's the perfect way to deal with those who are trying to play both sides: make them choose.
If only things were that simple, seeing as these are the people of any given society that are keeping it running, define how things operate, discover things, and execute on the supposed will of the larger society. You are essentially asking for the masses of people who don't understand, to try to create a system of rules regarding systems these people create/keep running. It's a cat and mouse game agaisnt people who only see and rely on tent (and whose ideas on the tent existence are mostly immutable) and can't think beyond (out of laziness,fear, or whatever contrived excuse).
> The worst thing these privileged people can do is to draw attention to that privilege, then, because it welcomes intervention.
Have you ever tried to explain domain knowledge to someone outside of the domain? For them to even get upset to even create some kind of intervention, they would first have to understand how things work (and not how they want things to work), then how to mitigate against it (and that is assuming that what is being exploited isn't fundamental to their tent even standing up) From the perspective of the privileged, the worst thing that these privilege people can do is not engaging in the privilege… to operate solely in the banality of the the tent… death is preferable to the perceived insanity of the tent believers, whether society provides such death or if inflicted upon the self makes no difference, the tent believers still have to deal with such things that do not matter to the dead.
> Their behavior becomes self-regulating in this way.
Only against their peers who have a mutual self interest of taking advantage of the privilege (as long as they also maintain and grow their understanding of how things work and are evolving), not from those who can barely understand how to keep the tent propped up or if its even worth the socioeconomic costs to keep it propped up (or pretend like there are none lol), and want to keep it the same way forever into the future… amen lol
> Is there a way to just start over when it comes to policing in America?
I'm afraid this would be a beginning, not a start over, because what you're describing is technically not meeting the definition of a democratic "police".
As a foreign observer, were this my country— I'd feel in presence of an occupying force, whose master and goals are unclear but randomly hostile.
Apparently they do worship the god "prison", feeding it as many people as possible, in the worst shape possible¹.
These is emphatically not the behavior of a group whose ultimate responsibility is to citizens. It is not worthy, ethically or technically, of the name police. There are other (notably italian) words to qualify such practices.
____
1: I know it's a caricature, but frankly the notion of "police" in the USA is itself but a sorry caricature, compared to any other modern rich country. Citizen-police interactions too often devolve into quasi-dystopian (certainly authoritarian) situations, straight from the 1980s of Orwell where words and actions are so twisted they no longer make any sense.
Leftists really like to point out that the American police system has deep roots in the paid slave catchers that would return escaped slaves in free states to their masters. And the fact that America never actually abolished slavery, just made it contingent on being punishment for a crime.
Stories like this make you wonder if they're right.
Really? That's certainly not something I generally hear. You can levy a lot of complaints against police systems, especially the a few of the more infamous departments. But that one seems like it's pushing a bit to make a specific connection.
The United States "abolished" slavery in the 13th amendment of its Constitution;
however, the amendment explicitly makes an exception for punishment for crime.
Text of the 13th amendment of the United States Constitution, Section 1 (emphasis
mine):
> Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.
It's really not pushing it when it says so right there.
Makes you wonder how many people are in jail or have criminal records because of corrupt cops.
If a cop plants drugs/evidence on you, how do you fight the charge without video proof? Especially if another cop or the cop's partner backs up the "planter"?
People programmed to trust cops, so your word vs 2+ cops would mean nothing. You are entirely at the mercy of corrupt cops, corrupt prosecutors, corrupt system. Lets be honest here, most of us here would take the cops' side without the video proof.
Essentially, your best bet is to plead guilty to lesser charges. But your criminal record will be an albatross around your neck and ruin your life.
Don’t consent to a search, ever. Even if they say they have probable cause. Even if you actually did what they accuse you of. A good attorney may be able to get the evidence tossed from an unconstitutional search. But the best attorney can’t get anything done if you consent. And if you allow a search and they plant evidence you’re really pushing a rock up a hill.
If you are black, and you don't consent to a search, you are probably getting arrested for "resisting arrest" (I've had it happen to a friend). It's a lose-lose situation.
They can decide to murder you for allegedly resisting arrest. The list of people killed by police for no reason without anything happening to the cop is not short enough.
I've had friends consent to a search to avoid a $120 speeding ticket. I've also had a friend consent to a search. They found a seed of marijuana in his backseat (probably left behind by another friend). And used that as evidence to hit them for further charges.
Honestly, if I was black, I would just lay down with my hands behind my back anytime I was asked to be searched and never consent. It's certainly a rights violation, but I'd rather fight an illegal search/seizure case than a resisting arrest case. If they want to arrest you, they will, and I'd rather make that as easy as possible.
However, since I'm white and relatively well off, I'll try my chances with talking my way out of the search.
They can certainly say you consented. But most likely it's going to get recorded. If it's not recorded and the LEO had a body cam the DA, judge, and potential jury are going to start questioning the LEO why. That takes the heat off the defendant and puts the entire case into question.
This is the sort of poisonous waters where basically anything this officer has ever said as part of their job should be instantly discounted. Anyone convicted based solely on the testimony of this officer should be released, their record stricken, and they should be well compensated for what must be assumed to be false evidence.
so of all those minorities you see pulled over on the curb, 90% of them were just being arbitrarily frisked and had nothing on them and were not arrested, but you wouldn't know the difference, some of the other 10% had drugs planted on them, and many of those weren't their first random stop
the other validation of all those arrests and prison population records, many of them simply took the plea deal or violated parole where anything from any minor infraction to exercising a freedom you already have such as staying out after a certain hour imprisons them for the original length of the sentence
the other validation is all the violent crime stats, which comes from communities demanding certain areas are policed, based on the images of 90% non-arrests already burned into their mind
all while all the minorities have been trying to say this is exactly what has been happening while the majority power remains in actual and intentional denial, now relying solely on an unquantifiable comfort that this is statistically rare, because it has to be, .... right?
In all the TV shows I've ever seen featuring police as protagonists, I believe 100% of them show police corruption as part of standard procedure.
And it's gotten far, far worse over the years. Dick Wolf's "Law & Order" (1990) sometimes had rather subtle corruption, while his "Chicago P.D." (2014) makes torture a primary investigative method in every episode. Even in the rare case where a corrupt cop is taken down on TV, it's done by a slightly less corrupt cop.
Is it any surprise that we see issues with police in real life, when our entertainment has normalized much more brutal behavior? There's a huge discrepancy here. In the fictional world, torture works, and corruption always ends up being justified.
I love a good crime story, but all I see today is producers competing for who can be the most outrageous.
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[ 3.2 ms ] story [ 81.8 ms ] thread> As Serrano curls up on the sidewalk, bleeding from his wound, and as more officers and bystanders gather on the scene waiting for an ambulance, Pastran searches Serrano’s jacket. “We gotta find something,” Erickson tells him. [...] Erickson again returns to the car and continues to meticulously search it, while Pastran briefs a supervisor who has arrived on the scene. Erickson then appears to place something in the car’s drink holder, before opening the front seat’s console and a small toiletry box. Erickson then says “I smell a little weed” just as he appears to pick up and move the little bud he seemed to have dropped in the drink holder moments earlier. Erickson then searches the back of the car, and when Pastran approaches, the two exchange a charged look as Erickson tells Pastran “I see nothing. … You know what I mean?” He then returns to search the front seat area for a third time, this time dropping a larger bud in the drink holder and saying, “There’s a little bit of weed.”
> That's the end result of the NYPD's internal investigation deciding two years ago that planting evidence was no big deal. The cop went back out on the street with a partner who enabled evidence-planting. Serrano didn't spend two weeks in jail but he did spend five days handcuffed to a hospital bed. He pled guilty to the resisting arrest charge, even though it was a blatantly bogus arrest.
As I usually ask in these sorts of threads: what are we going to do about this?
Many police officers seem to have just the right combination of poor incentives, mental illness, and power-drunkenness sufficient to result in wanton lying, lawlessness, and victimization.
This is not a situation compatible with a society in which thoughtful, calm, mature innovation unto a pursuit of happiness can occur.
So what's the plan? How can we approach this with an adult disposition and put an end to this bizarre experiment of giving the state unchecked power?
I think you'd need to prove the direction of causality here to be convincing.
> Making policing an easier job would attract less problematic people.
What are "problematic people"? I find this judgment to be very, very troubling. Is it that "problematic people" are becoming police officers? Or that something about the job is causing problematic behaviors in people like you and I?
> Hiring a lot more cops and banning guns would greatly reduce the stress cops are under.
This seems downright preposterous to me. Guns aren't a significant cause of death for cops. Cars (including their own cars) are a far bigger threat. Moreover, there is no evidence to suggest that places where guns are materially banned enjoy less police corruption. Chicago has has some of the most draconian gun laws in the nation for decades and also has a police department indistinguishable from a criminal cartel by most measures.
> The cops in prosperous, egalitarian places are generally pretty chill, so the idea is to recreate those conditions.
Again, I suspect the causality may run in the other direction.
You may be right in the direction of causation that questioned. I look at it this way. Suppose we create a more prosperous, egalitarian society and find out the cops are still jerks. The experiment shows you are correct but at least we'd end up with a better society in other ways. There does not appear to be any harm in performing the experiment.
Even if they carry a loaded gun, they’re less likely to use it against the police than in the USA because punishments are less severe. In the extreme, three strikes laws (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-strikes_law) makes even petty thieves with a previous felony conviction more likely to use a gun.
The USA has found a local optimum where cops have reason to be afraid of a large fraction of the population and vice versa, and doesn’t seem to be able to find a way out of it.
Without question, these officers should be charged with battery, kidnapping, planting false evidence, unlawful arrest, possession of drugs, etc. etc.
Minimum 5 years jail each, maybe 10.
It's not like they did any of this by accident. Yes, five to ten years in jail will ruin their lives, and it's important to remember they did it to themselves.
We place our trust in them, and they're caught on camera behaving like regular street thugs. This is utterly unacceptable and should be eliminated.
Corrupt bad actors that can get away with what's described in the article exist in a culture that corrupts everyone else eventually leading to a situation where the only people willing to join or stay are 'bad apples' protected by a culture of other bad apples. When something is this bad you probably need large purges as opposed to firing a couple individuals.
I don't think you can do this from within, some serious restructuring or oversight has to happen from elsewhere.
I suspect in most organizations of people you have 10% that care about doing the right thing, 10% that will do bad things and 80% that will do either depending on who is around them.
So is it a few bad apples or is it the system in general?
I strongly disagree that the vast majority of police office are doing upstanding work. Officers don't testify against each other. They refuse to help investigations of colleagues. The whole thin blue line mentality is a stain on the whole profession. As Edmund Burke said, "All that is necessary for evil to prevail is that good men do nothing." Police officers that refuse to call out the bad apples are themselves bad apples.
That's precisely how the bunch is spoilt. That's the entire reason for the adage in the first place.
I think this comes from a person based on ignorance, in that they usually have limited to no exposure to most LEO; or alternatively, they have vested interests in keeping that narrative up.
To this day I still cannot fathom not just how the 'blue line' practices holds true to this day given all the cameras, but they CAN AND DO PURPOSELY LIE and are allowed to do so with impunity in court. This is what is considered law enforcement in the US?!
Punishing them is limited in scope, you can at best get minor monetary compensation (which is tax derived) when they abuse their power, but as seen with this example they're allowed to return to their patrol in most cases, or given a paid leave of absence when its deemed too embarrassing to sweep under the rug.
>> How on earth is the on/off switch for the body camera under the officer’s control?
Honestly, plausible deniability; here is a horrid case in which you can see (Graphic/NSFW) they can use that to justify their violent behaviour as small/thin woman is forcefully strapped down, choked and repeatedly tazed by a group of officers claiming she was 'suicidal' but somehow that part wasn't recorded but is seen complying with the officers requests:
https://www.9news.com/article/news/local/woman-sues-alleges-...
Worth noting, as it coincides with the quote above its not just police but also the Court system the enables their behaviour, the local State court ruled in favour of the police stating the use of force was justified; it wasn't until it was taken to the Supreme Court that it was exposed to the public what took place with body cam footage.
> The cops in prosperous, egalitarian places are generally pretty chill, so the idea is to recreate those conditions.
God, I'm just going to put aside how absolutely elitist this statement is, but consider that the case above took place in Boulder, CO. Where for a few years the average home price was well over $1 million dollars, and her initial arrest took place in the Downtown mall that's typically yuppy-centric shops.
If this were true the upstanding officers wouldn't be protecting the bad behaviour of their colleagues.
I really was expecting this comment to continue in that vein of heavy sarcasm.
Are you aware that "a few bad apples" is usually used ironically to mock apologists?
I've heard people like you say that for 30 years or so, why hasn't it happened? The answer is that the institution is much more corrupt than you're willing to admit. You don't like to think about that so you pretend otherwise.
Line the cunts up on their knees and shoot them in the back of the head.
First of all, drug offenses should never be more than a ticket, perhaps a really expensive ticket for the harder drugs.
As for officers, that are blatently planting evidence that puts people in jails. Planting evidence, isn't something you do on accident. It's not something you do because you had a bad day. It's not something that occurs because you made an incorrect split second decision. It's a deliberate offense (planned for days ahead) worse than anything a police officer can do. And it requires the harshest penalty known to man: capital punishment. we need to send a very strong message, that this is under no circumstance acceptable. Personally, i think capital punishment isn't severe enough for this crime. they should also be forced to give up their entire pension and sued into oblivion for their entire networth.
It's not just about punishing this heinous crime, but rather, it's about setting a precedent, and ensuring that there is sufficient deterence to make sure this never ever happens.
It's kinda like that time, someone got 20 years, for Swatting someone. It set a precendence that will never be forgotten.
He quite quickly became distrusting of what people say and would adopt a negative analysis of situations. Why? - because for the majority of his shifts he has to deal with people who _are_ lying to him.
Lots of domestic violence calls, drug dealers, thefts, reckless driving, people with serious mental illness (danger to themselves and others). The perpetrators inevitably lie and often the victims are not telling the whole truth (to protect themselves from incrimination for something else or to exaggerate what happened).
Prior to joining he was a well rounded and very grounded person. As far as i can tell, he hasn't resisted the power-tripping trap but I can see some racial and socioeconomic stereotyping creeping in to his world view. It's sad to see but it shouldn't be surprising that people's jobs strongly shape their world view. Some other examples I've encountered personally:
- emergency medical workers strongly against motorcycle riding as they see so many horrific injuries and fatalities from accidents - a child services worker who assumed men interacting with children were pedophiles as her work involved re-homing children who had been abused
For the above occupations, the work involved exposes the workers to highly charged/traumatic situations often daily. A good place to start looking for a solution would be how to help these workers regain a balanced view of society.
And clearly, as the GP illustrates, in the cop's case it's at least partially lying by those same cops to fix their own crimes. Or just lying for their own convenience, at the cost of everyone else.
Why do you assume it's any different for the child services worker? They have the power to trade kids, for power, money, or just ego - and are also frequently convicted for doing so. Worse than that, many studies point out that the net effect of child services ... is NEGATIVE for children: there is a lot of statistical proof that children would grow up more successfully if child services didn't exist. Even kids with serious problems at home fare better ... without child services. So it's even worse than the police force, which at least prevents worse.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jun/27/italian-police...
And why do you assume it's any different for emergency medical worker? In Australia I was blatantly told that I wouldn't get any assistance from an ambulance unless I accepted a morfine injection. That, of course, turned out to be a financial incentive: it allowed them to charge a lot more to insurance. Of course it also prevented treatment (because doctors assumed I had abdominal pain because I was drugged. And, sure enough, I was: by THEM ! Of course that wasn't the cause of the pain, but cause + expected result = just sleep it off and go home. To be hit by terrible pain again the day after. This did not happen once, but THREE times)
And to top it off, when it eventually did get correctly diagnosed, 2 weeks later, that morfine DID cause abdominal pain (morfine stops the peristaltic movement. Therefore, if you're on morfine for more than ~12 hours you're in for a very painful bowel movement. If you're on morfine 3 times for 6 hours in a week, it's no different)
And again, at least the police force and emergency medical worker help. They cause a lot of collateral damage, but at least it prevents worse. Child services ... causes a lot more damage than they fix. So ESPECIALLY that person should shut the fuck up about how bad society is and take a good long look at themselves.
Any evidence produced during a button press is default inadmissible and the law enforcement officer is assumed to be unreliable in this situation by default.
It could be a good example of public/private key encryption too. You can encrypt with a public key (or more commonly, symmetrically encrypt with a symmetric key asymmetrically encrypted with a public key), with the private decryption key only in the hands of a judge (or other supervisor).
There must be a middle ground. You see, this cop fucked up, that guy did a hit and run and now will probably will go free. Double fuck up imo
>They are people like everybody else and if they get no privacy at all maybe they wouldnt want to enroll to be cops.
I'm fine with them just getting no privacy while on duty. On duty, they're not people like everyone else, off duty, they are.
That includes whistleblowing.
In related news, "losing" the camera footage should cause everyone in charge of the system to be put on leave while outside people investigate why it was "lost."
Other countries are not so lucky if such things occur - they just wait for the next election and hope for the best...
>Other countries are not so lucky if such things occur - they just wait for the next election and hope for the best...
Are you implying that armed revolutions don't occur in other countries, or that such a revolution would actually be legal in the US because the guns are legally owned?
If so, you would be wrong on both counts. The only thing the Second Amendment buys Americans who want to "force change" is the convenience of not needing to procure arms through a black market, as other countries do. The "politics by other means" part, though, is illegal everywhere.
In that sense, American citizens aren't in that exceptional a position as anywhere else.
0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mulford_Act
Because they don't have an incentive to do so and have every incentive to not do so.
I won't go into a great deal of detail, but in short: getting this as discovery without an attorney present and actively forcing the Courts to release it won't yield much, it is often entirely impossible to do so in time by the forced court dates forcing most people to accept plea deals if they cannot afford legal counsel, getting even the District Attorneys to review this footage before moving with a case in time of said case is equally unlikely (combination of apathetic and being overwhelmed), and Judges' will ALWAYS favour with an officers recount of events UNTIL FORCED for compelling reasons to over turn this. Which means an almost certain guilty verdict.
Discovery in general is so hard to get, and they can/do use a series of excuses; not limited to using proprietary software to release the body cam footage which is not compatible with any other system. Even between other attorneys and jurisdictions.
You need to realize that you're assumed to be guilty in the Legal system, and the burden and responsibility to prove otherwise is on the defendant: who is possibly injured (physically as well as mentally), all the while you're incurring costs left and right for everything (even wrongful arrest cases), in addition to apathetic-callused District Attorneys/Public Defendants just trying to bide their time and not 'rock the boat' until getting to the next level of their careers and are often forcing people to just accept untenable time frames for court dates or pleas deals to just churn the numbers and look good in front of the Judge who they will encounter again in their career(s).
In France, there have been many videos of policemen shooting citizens in the head, kicking people on the ground, and so on. So what? None of them will ever lose their job for this, or suffer any serious penalty.
Here are 2 stories about the French police. One where a complete footage was not enough for justice to act. And one where the police footage was conveniently lost.
Just a single French policeman has been sentenced for a flash ball misuse. It was after a high school boy was shot in the head and permanently disabled. The boy's family filed a complaint. Policemen claimed self-defense and accused the boy of attacking them. During the trial, a video proved that a police officer, in a group of policemen, aimed then shot at the boy that was slowly pushing a trash can. 7 years after the assault, the police officer was sentenced to 3 years... with no flash ball gun. Policemen can assault a boy and lie to a judge, then go on as cops. https://www.20minutes.fr/paris/2039131-20170328-lyceen-bless...
In another well-known case in France, a black man died in a police cell. According to the police report, he killed himself by banging his head on the walls. The CCTV in the cell was sabotaged. The post-mortem medical report was lost. The family filed a complaint. 8 years later, the French justice ruled that the police report was a complete lie, but refused to prosecute anyone, not even the policemen that wrote the false report. https://www.lemonde.fr/societe/article/2009/01/24/l-etonnant...
You are linking two separate issues through correlation and implying causation, which is a fallacy.
I'm black, I've had my share of "random" unfair and plain scary interactions with police, but until people actually begun seeing the proof I would always get variations of "A cop would not behave that way, you must have been doing something" from acquaintances (almost always white).
This is SARCASM
Rodney King? And the subsequent LA riots in K-Town come to mind, where they arrested the Korean merchant owners defending their homes, busniesses and property.
I think you need to understand that this is systemic, Police officers are vetted and no longer considered if they have High IQs, and the courts allow this:
https://abcnews.go.com/US/court-oks-barring-high-iqs-cops/st...
Think about the implications you have with just 20 years of such low barriers of entry, and the ramped up militarization of police and its tactics?
In this world, none of us are blameless victims.
Yes, me too.
But this is not responsive to my comment and if you feel that it is, maybe you're not familiar with the full series of events that night? I recommend the documentary LA 92.
> In this world, none of us are blameless victims.
Um, sure, in some abstract sense.
But in a very specific and real sense, Rodney King was less blameless than most of us.
* He was speeding while driving drunk, endangering others;
* he failed to pull over when the police initially indicated he should (a non-violent authority granted to police by the state to enforce traffic laws);
* he attempted to outrun LAPD by driving at high speeds through neighborhoods (in an attempt to avoid parole violation for previous robbery), further endangering others;
* and finally after the chase was stopped, and he was out of the car on the ground, he attempted to get up and fight the police officers arresting him several times.
* Here is where the the Holliday video starts.
* Police first use violence against Mr. King: they taser him when he first gets up off the ground, refusing police direction to stay on the ground.
* He gets off the ground again and attempts to attack a cop (Powell).
* Here's the beginning of the video cut that KTLA broadcast. Notably, it's missing the part where he tried to attack Powell.
* Police again use violence in self-defense.
* He continues to refuse to submit to arrest and attempts to stand repeatedly. Police continue to use violence.
* At some point the violence was no longer necessary to keep him detained and allow an officer to safely handcuff him, but continued despite that.
That last bullet is unacceptable! I don't dispute that. But Rodney King meets your bar for actively hurting others justifying government violence.
Yes, people shouldn't have to be blameless to avoid government violence. But it is a much more compelling demonstration of the problem when the victims are blameless. There are so many other recorded incidents of excessive police force with less problematic victims.
- how many people don't vote because it's a rigged sham that's setup to benefit the Property party, not the people
- how poor and how close to homelessness most average people are
- how corrupt and unaccountable the police are
- the nation with the highest incarceration rate except Seychelles, for-profit prisons, and the legal slavery loophole exploited by corporations
- a nation without a viable healthcare or mental healthcare system
- a nation that gives public commons and public services over to for-profit corporations
The revolution is that much closer because the US has been gradually becoming a banana republic failed state for at least 50 years, if not 70.
Not that it's ever accomplished anything.
So now I basically focus on passive resistance.
If you don’t vote, you don’t have a say.
These police officers plant drugs on the poor guy's car, they then take him out. He wasn't even the driver BTW.
Because he asks them to be careful of his recently stitched up stab wound the officers decide to toss him on the ground breaking open his stitches and causing him medical problems.
Then, they hold him for two weeks because of course he can't pay bail.
When it comes to light that the officers planted the evidence... mind you, not because the department handed over the footage, but because a non-profit got their hands on it... the case gets dropped.
The officers walk away with no punishment and the man got nothing for the two weeks he had to spend with ouy of a job and for his new medical expenses.
Is there a way to just start over when it comes to policing in America? Stories like these make me think that our problems are so deeply rooted that this is the only way to resolve them.
So doesn't that get reversed, once it's clear that the cops planted drugs on him?
Or what, does he get charged with perjury over his plea bargain?
Reasonable in the sense of "in a just world, it would be a good idea"? OK.
Reasonable in the sense of "in this world, it's a good idea"? Absolutely not. It gets you physically hammered to whatever degree they decide is necessary to get you to the point where you don't (or can't) resist any longer. And then it gets you charged with resisting arrest.
And if you're going to say that, even if it's a bad idea in this world, it's the only way to move is toward that more ideal world, I would say that it does not seem to be having any effect whatsoever in doing so.
What's your point here? Isn't planting evidence also illegal? The problem is that, well, the law is expensive, slow, and tiresome, and there's an inherent power imbalance.
The topic here revolves around how law enforcement officers are able to act with impunity.
So is planting drugs, and obviously the law's not being enforced.
> Not all cops are dirty.
Of course not. But that doesn't make OP's comment "he'll probably be subject to threats to his person, property, and family from dirty cops" less true.
The police are a fraternity. They have a code. At worst, they actively protect and cover up bad actors. At best, they just don't report it. That's why you rarely hear about officers being whistleblowers, or departments doing internal investigations and finding wrongdoing. Things rarely gets past the blue wall.
Policing in America is fundamentally broken, from urban areas where people are framed, to rural areas where people are robbed.
This doesn't mean that all police are bad, but the culture around policing certainly seems bad.
> So no, it's not likely.
Has it occured to you that if cops have been convicted for such things it's because they have at some point engaged in such behavior? Sure, it would be foolish to do so given the risks of getting caught, and yet you could say the same thing about every cop ever convicted of a crime.
Ideally, we should legalize victimless "crimes" like drug possession. If there isn't a clear victim, it shouldn't be illegal. That alone might be enough to refocus police departments on their proper role in society. But in the meantime, we should aggressively prosecute crimes like these.
Is that ethical ?
Frank Serpico and Adrian Schoolcraft.
Two cops who tried to expose corruption.
Serpico got shot in the face in an arrest attempt with the other officers doing nothing even refusing to call it in.
Schoolcraft was forcibly admitted into a psychiatric institution to discredit him.
Furthermore, ifwhen they win, the money paid out as settlement/judgement comes from local taxpayers via the city, not the cop. It’s not legally possible to sue an individual cop for violating your rights, so the individual cop in question suffers no real consequences.
There is also the history of the incredibly harsh retaliation by other cops against people who bring evidence to light against cops:
https://www.theverge.com/2019/3/13/18253848/eric-garner-foot...
Are police protected by law from coming under charges such as assault, kidnapping, breaking and entering, manslaughter, etc, if those things are done in the course of duty? - Yes
Are police required to follow certain regulations in order to retain those legal protections? - Yes
Do those regulations allow for drugs to be intentionally planted, then used as false evidence for an arrest? - No
Were these officers under special legal protection during this arrest? - No
Was this arrest legal? - No
Are these officers solely liable for their actions, as any other person would be? - Yes
Did they assault and kidnap a man, then perjure themselves on a legal document? - Yes
Is the State District Attorney required to press criminal charges against them? - Yes
Are they required to be tried in front of a jury of 12 other citizens? - Yes
There is, but it’s mighty illegal.
This has too much media attention, I doubt they'll get away with no charges for long, but it might take them some time to get to the point of charging them.
Ideally this would stay in the news until such time as the officers responsible were permanently removed from the force. They should never be permitted to be cops again and they should spend a long time behind bars as well.
The EU is just not free enough, or something:
"Unfortunately, our website is currently unavailable in most European countries. We are engaged on the issue and committed to looking at options that support our full range of digital offerings to the EU market. We continue to identify technical compliance solutions that will provide all readers with our award-winning journalism."
That would be a mistake.
I think it would be a mistake because if you have LEO who are disarmed, then criminals may be emboldened and LEO wouldn’t be able to defend themselves in the situations where they need to do so. We can’t both be advocating for better police training, police with all psychology degrees as a minimum, and then also saying we wouldn’t trust them to be armed.
> then criminals may be emboldened and LEO wouldn’t be able to defend themselves in the situations where they need to do so
I hear arguments like this in the USA a lot, but it doesn't seem to be a major issue in the rest of the world. I suspect it's another talking point that assumes certain conditions as universal that are very unusual and strange.
However, and that's the difference here, none of them EVER shot a weapon outside of training/shooting ranges. You don't even lose a bullet, because you have to file a report for every one that's missing from your arsenal. I've heard several german cops state that they're sure they're done with being a police officer if they would ever have to shoot someone.
They may not like what they'd have to do in lieu of just shooting an alleged suspect, but that's different from it being less effective.
Also we need to ensure cops like these are only given 1 single chance and when they go under scrutiny the 2nd time no paid leave. No exceptions. The law matters more than protecting scumbags.
Course if you are caught as a officer interfering with the law you should be charged of the same crime in addition to what anybody else would be charged of for doing the same.
There were 3 officers. One was being a real dick. Was asking me all sorts of questions unrelated to the traffic stop, like why am I here, where do I work, etc. Told him it was non of his business. Then, he threatened to arrest me. Told him I'm not answering any more questions without a lawyer present. He went back to the van to write up the ticket. The other 2 officers apologized to me, but did nothing to stop the ticket.
They were trying to get me to admit I was trying to score drugs. I was just on my way to school to take a final.
Tldr; white college student with out of state plates is profiled in a poor black neighborhood known for dealing druga on his way to take a final.And, no, I didnt fight it. It would have been my word against 3 cops. The only way I could have won is if all 3 cops didn't show up to court. Repercussions of pleading np contest are far less than pleading not guilty and losing in Illinois.
if the government were promoting justice and protecting rights, that would be one thing, but in cases like this, it is not.
1) The entrenched power structures will be most able to abuse this technology, as they have the social structure through which the technology acts on their side, and
2)The lack of any authority, central or otherwise, makes the importance of these soft and constructed parameters even more important, not less. If you're betting on anarchy sorting more effectively because you think authority distorts a natural balance, that's probably not the case. When you remove the tentpole, you're not freed from the tent, it just collapses on top of you with all its weight. Everyone needs to have their personal pillars ready.
RE #2: I'm not betting on anarchy, but on the emergence of form of a way of organization that is able to operate with bit of disregard of entrenched power structures by co-opting those who work for them yet don't feel they receive enough benefits from the current situation to uphold a particular institutions beliefs, and willing to explore the horizon for more options. The tent-pole isn't something necessary to remove, and it's not necessarily desired remove because it allows for those who lack will to purse any other way to rely on its existence for shelter, while others can simply walk out the tent, and construct/decommission a structure that which they choose for any particular ends, and walk in/out of the tent and leverage its resources as it sees fit and work with others who share similar goals against those can not imagine any other way of being. I think a good example of this is with regards to academics and shared credential usage that enables sci-hub. I see a similar situation unfolding in banking right now.
Sounds like a religion.
>while others can simply walk out the tent, and construct/decommission a structure that which they choose for any particular ends, and walk in/out of the tent and leverage its resources as it sees fit and work with others who share similar goals against those can not imagine any other way of being. I think a good example of this is with regards to academics and shared credential usage that enables sci-hub. I see a similar situation unfolding in banking right now.
The problem with this is that the people who are privileged to be able to walk in and out tend to feel entitled to the tent because they have access, but not obligated because "they can leave any time," not observing that their lifestyle still requires the tent and the people living under it.
Well one major difference is that I don't think it has to become true, but I'm benefiting from the decaying and over leveraged status quo globally, and will continue to do so if it gets worse. If things get better, I still win, but just less so. If this framework of allocating resources (time/money/effort) now under my control is a religion, then so be it.
>The problem with this is that the people who are privileged to be able to walk in and out tend to feel entitled to the tent because they have access, but not obligated because "they can leave any time," not observing that their lifestyle still requires the tent and the people living under it.
You can't force people into obligation, there must be agreed upon terms, which are always up for negotiation despite what people may say (not saying that some/most people wont just bend over to such obligations out of some kind of perceived higher morality [at least higher signaled morality, their actions/inaction might speak otherwise])… one doesn't have to out run the bear, just the person next to them who has their hands in their ears about the possibilities and configurations the state of things can take (who may or may not have the resources to maintain [or have to spend more and more resources to maintain something falling apart]) and does nothing different.
If the tent falls down or degrades, the person who was betting on it and the implications, or positioned for it happening is going be better prepared more often then not (unless one happens to think that were all gonna die anyways, so better not do anything new that could arise from the ashes). If that is privileged, then sure. Nothing was ever fair, and let us not pretend that compelling everyone into tent and staying there indefinitely because "obligations" is fair either.
Yeah, that's what I'm afraid of. That's, like, the worst aspect of religions. It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy of hoping for/boosting Armageddon because you're convinced you got it figured out and know how to come out on top.
>You can't force people into obligation
Of course you can. Lock them out or lock them in. In fact, that's the perfect way to deal with those who are trying to play both sides: make them choose. That makes it a lot easier to determine what needs to be done vis a vis the tent. The worst thing these privileged people can do is to draw attention to that privilege, then, because it welcomes intervention. Their behavior becomes self-regulating in this way.
Well I don't know if I'll come out on top, but it works for me and my family. I'm just not about to pray to tent gods to figure out how to fix things and hope for me to engage in current alter praying (and accept getting molested by the tent priests) to perpetuate something I see falling apart, without at least hedging my risks. You're afraid, and I'm not, that's the difference.
>Of course you can. Lock them out or lock them in. In fact, that's the perfect way to deal with those who are trying to play both sides: make them choose.
If only things were that simple, seeing as these are the people of any given society that are keeping it running, define how things operate, discover things, and execute on the supposed will of the larger society. You are essentially asking for the masses of people who don't understand, to try to create a system of rules regarding systems these people create/keep running. It's a cat and mouse game agaisnt people who only see and rely on tent (and whose ideas on the tent existence are mostly immutable) and can't think beyond (out of laziness,fear, or whatever contrived excuse).
> The worst thing these privileged people can do is to draw attention to that privilege, then, because it welcomes intervention.
Have you ever tried to explain domain knowledge to someone outside of the domain? For them to even get upset to even create some kind of intervention, they would first have to understand how things work (and not how they want things to work), then how to mitigate against it (and that is assuming that what is being exploited isn't fundamental to their tent even standing up) From the perspective of the privileged, the worst thing that these privilege people can do is not engaging in the privilege… to operate solely in the banality of the the tent… death is preferable to the perceived insanity of the tent believers, whether society provides such death or if inflicted upon the self makes no difference, the tent believers still have to deal with such things that do not matter to the dead.
> Their behavior becomes self-regulating in this way.
Only against their peers who have a mutual self interest of taking advantage of the privilege (as long as they also maintain and grow their understanding of how things work and are evolving), not from those who can barely understand how to keep the tent propped up or if its even worth the socioeconomic costs to keep it propped up (or pretend like there are none lol), and want to keep it the same way forever into the future… amen lol
I'm afraid this would be a beginning, not a start over, because what you're describing is technically not meeting the definition of a democratic "police".
As a foreign observer, were this my country— I'd feel in presence of an occupying force, whose master and goals are unclear but randomly hostile.
Apparently they do worship the god "prison", feeding it as many people as possible, in the worst shape possible¹.
These is emphatically not the behavior of a group whose ultimate responsibility is to citizens. It is not worthy, ethically or technically, of the name police. There are other (notably italian) words to qualify such practices.
____
1: I know it's a caricature, but frankly the notion of "police" in the USA is itself but a sorry caricature, compared to any other modern rich country. Citizen-police interactions too often devolve into quasi-dystopian (certainly authoritarian) situations, straight from the 1980s of Orwell where words and actions are so twisted they no longer make any sense.
Stories like this make you wonder if they're right.
Text of the 13th amendment of the United States Constitution, Section 1 (emphasis mine):
> Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.
It's really not pushing it when it says so right there.
If a cop plants drugs/evidence on you, how do you fight the charge without video proof? Especially if another cop or the cop's partner backs up the "planter"?
People programmed to trust cops, so your word vs 2+ cops would mean nothing. You are entirely at the mercy of corrupt cops, corrupt prosecutors, corrupt system. Lets be honest here, most of us here would take the cops' side without the video proof.
Essentially, your best bet is to plead guilty to lesser charges. But your criminal record will be an albatross around your neck and ruin your life.
Over-policing and mass-incarceration in America are about to produce a massive, preventable loss of life.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-51947802
> But your criminal record will be an albatross around your neck and ruin your life.
It rather limits one to criminal careers.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-FENubmZGj8
However, since I'm white and relatively well off, I'll try my chances with talking my way out of the search.
You uh... Really think that's gonna work? At all?
https://www.reddit.com/r/ProtectAndServe/comments/fl57x6/nyp...
the other validation of all those arrests and prison population records, many of them simply took the plea deal or violated parole where anything from any minor infraction to exercising a freedom you already have such as staying out after a certain hour imprisons them for the original length of the sentence
the other validation is all the violent crime stats, which comes from communities demanding certain areas are policed, based on the images of 90% non-arrests already burned into their mind
all while all the minorities have been trying to say this is exactly what has been happening while the majority power remains in actual and intentional denial, now relying solely on an unquantifiable comfort that this is statistically rare, because it has to be, .... right?
Not only he was setting people up, but he was specifically setting up black people. So fucked up.
And it's gotten far, far worse over the years. Dick Wolf's "Law & Order" (1990) sometimes had rather subtle corruption, while his "Chicago P.D." (2014) makes torture a primary investigative method in every episode. Even in the rare case where a corrupt cop is taken down on TV, it's done by a slightly less corrupt cop.
Is it any surprise that we see issues with police in real life, when our entertainment has normalized much more brutal behavior? There's a huge discrepancy here. In the fictional world, torture works, and corruption always ends up being justified.
I love a good crime story, but all I see today is producers competing for who can be the most outrageous.