this post was submitted on 22 Dec 2023
114 points (96.7% liked)

THE POLICE PROBLEM

3820 readers
156 users here now

    The police problem is that police are policed by the police. Cops are accountable only to other cops, which is no accountability at all.

    99.9999% of police brutality, corruption, and misconduct is never investigated, never punished, never makes the news, so it's not on this page.

    When cops are caught breaking the law, they're investigated by other cops. Details are kept quiet, the officers' names are withheld from public knowledge, and what info is eventually released is only what police choose to release — often nothing at all.

    When police are fired — which is all too rare — they leave with 'law enforcement experience' and can easily find work in another police department nearby. It's called "Wandering Cops."

    When police testify under oath, they lie so frequently that cops themselves have a joking term for it: "testilying." Yet it's almost unheard of for police to be punished or prosecuted for perjury.

    Cops can and do get away with lawlessness, because cops protect other cops. If they don't, they aren't cops for long.

    The legal doctrine of "qualified immunity" renders police officers invulnerable to lawsuits for almost anything they do. In practice, getting past 'qualified immunity' is so unlikely, it makes headlines when it happens.

    All this is a path to a police state.

    In a free society, police must always be under serious and skeptical public oversight, with non-cops and non-cronies in charge, issuing genuine punishment when warranted.

    Police who break the law must be prosecuted like anyone else, promptly fired if guilty, and barred from ever working in law-enforcement again.

    That's the solution.

♦ ♦ ♦

Our definition of ‘cops’ is broad, and includes prison guards, probation officers, shitty DAs and judges, etc — anyone who has the authority to fuck over people’s lives, with minimal or no oversight.

♦ ♦ ♦

RULES

Real-life decorum is expected. Please don't say things only a child or a jackass would say in person.

If you're here to support the police, you're trolling. Please exercise your right to remain silent.

Saying ~~cops~~ ANYONE should be killed lowers the IQ in any conversation. They're about killing people; we're not.

Please don't dox or post calls for harassment, vigilantism, tar & feather attacks, etc.

Please also abide by the instance rules.

It you've been banned but don't know why, check the moderator's log. If you feel you didn't deserve it, hey, I'm new at this and maybe you're right. Send a cordial PM, for a second chance.

♦ ♦ ♦

ALLIES

!abolition@slrpnk.net

!acab@lemmygrad.ml

r/ACAB

r/BadCopNoDonut/

Randy Balko

The Civil Rights Lawyer

The Honest Courtesan

Identity Project

MirandaWarning.org

♦ ♦ ♦

INFO

A demonstrator's guide to understanding riot munitions

Adultification

Cops aren't supposed to be smart

Don't talk to the police.

Killings by law enforcement in Canada

Killings by law enforcement in the United Kingdom

Killings by law enforcement in the United States

Know your rights: Filming the police

Three words. 70 cases. The tragic history of 'I can’t breathe' (as of 2020)

Police aren't primarily about helping you or solving crimes.

Police lie under oath, a lot

Police spin: An object lesson in Copspeak

Police unions and arbitrators keep abusive cops on the street

Shielded from Justice: Police Brutality and Accountability in the United States

So you wanna be a cop?

When the police knock on your door

♦ ♦ ♦

ORGANIZATIONS

Black Lives Matter

Campaign Zero

Innocence Project

The Marshall Project

Movement Law Lab

NAACP

National Police Accountability Project

Say Their Names

Vera: Ending Mass Incarceration

 

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
top 10 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] Th4tGuyII@kbin.social 27 points 2 years ago (2 children)

Genuinely fuck thise Jurors...

How can you have nearly all of the available evidence contradict police testimony, including video evidence that clearly points towards them being guilty, and then just decide that they're clearly not guilty anyways?

It feels like a perversion of the law that these officers were able to assault and kill a man in broad daylight, who had (at the time) done nothing wrong short of talking to the police officers, and justify it based on the guy's past crimes.

[–] themeatbridge@lemmy.world 19 points 2 years ago (1 children)

“The biggest reason why I personally think this jury found reasonable doubt is because the defense was essentially allowed to put Manny Ellis on trial,” Ericksen said via email. “The defense attorneys were allowed to dredge up Manny’s past and repeat to the jury again and again Manny’s prior arrests in 2015 and 2019. That unfairly prejudiced jurors against Manny.”

Fuck the judge who allowed this, too.

[–] Th4tGuyII@kbin.social 3 points 2 years ago

Exactly. They allowed the police to air out the man's dirty laundry when he couldn't defend himself anymore, and used it to justify his murder. Sickening

Well they're just telling everyone it's legal to do now, so if that's the case... I hope they're prepared.

[–] TWeaK@lemm.ee 18 points 2 years ago (1 children)

It's baffling that the jurors saw reasonable doubt when all the witness and video evidence showed otherwise.

[–] snooggums@kbin.social 5 points 2 years ago (1 children)

People in general just want to believe that the police have a hard job and want to blame the people they murder. They will look for any excuse to give them a pass.

[–] LowtierComputer@lemmy.world 7 points 2 years ago

It doesn't help that the judge allowed all the information on his previous charges and sad past to be repeated over and over.

Americans have a fetish for punishing ex-criminals.

[–] be_excellent_to_each_other@kbin.social 7 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

“The only response at that point that I could think of is, ‘If you can talk to me, you can still breathe,’” Rankine said in testimony.

How was this allowed to stand unchallenged? This is patently false, and everyone should know it by now, especially cops.

[–] gregorum@lemm.ee 6 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

Oh, great, we gotta do all this shit again

[–] weariedfae@lemmy.world 3 points 2 years ago

Welp, at least Bobby Ferg tried.