Police have a monopoly on legal violence and Society act like their words are more trustworthy in a courtroom. It is not acceptable that it is not counterbalance by a high level standard and scrutiny. Police work is difficult and I admire people that have commitment to protect and serve but we can't give a blank check or a get out of jail free card for criminal or unethical conduct.
I think we see in a lot of communities that the police and other public worker are no more trusted and I think we will see the raise of alternative actors to fulfill the gap. Such actor could be criminal groups like mafia and terrorist group that then can use this to build up their base.
So I think it is immoral to allow this and I think it's stupid in Machiavellian or realpolitik way.
> I think we will see the raise of alternative actors to fulfill the gap. Such actor could be criminal groups like mafia
Isn't this one of the reasons for the huge proliferation of gangs? Certain communities know that the police won't help them, so they establish their own organization.
A lot of progressives were pro-body-cam in the wake of Black Lives Matter protests but from my view, unless they are accompanied by very strict protocol rules (probably at the state or federal level) they simply increase officer optionality.
If the officer can decide what to record, what to to submit in a report, if the lens is dirty or covered, etc... it really is very tempting.
They certainly have helped cops put away very bad people and they certainly have put pressure on cops to follow official protocol but they're not a panacea if not regulated tightly. For example look at the protocol proposals of Campaign Zero here: https://www.joincampaignzero.org/film-the-police
IIRC the Campaign Zero people were talking about this right at the start. Letting possible perps view the footage to get their story straight is particularly egregious.
I come from a developing country where we know the police are corrupt. And all our elders tell us that if the cops ask you to open your car boot you get out of the car and open it for them so that the police don't get a chance to plant evidence (mostly to blackmail and get bribes). The only difference I see is that American cops do it to pad up their arrest numbers and shows that performance based policing without concrete controls is useless.
Private prisons also need constant influx of inmates to keep profits high, therefore the system has no incentives to lower the crime rate. If there are not enough new criminals, they must be created, and planting evidence is one way of achieving that goal.
American cops do it to pad up their arrest numbers
It always throws up a red flag for me when someone asserts that they know the motivations for another's actions.
I make no bones about the claim that many cops are crooked - I've personally been wronged by them, and witnessed it happening to others, to know that's not the case.
But I think that there's an alternative explanation for the kind of dishonesty we're talking about beyond base greed. It seems likely to me that many of these cops really believe that the people they're framing are in the wrong, but that the system has failed. In their minds, that we let people off on a technicality, or prevent the cops from doing the kind of searching that they believe is necessary, proves that the system is standing in the way of effective policing. So they take it on themselves to fix the bug in the system by circumventing those protections.
Not only have I experienced this as a drug...nerd with black friends, but I've even seen a police officer defer blame for a one-hitter found underneath a seat of a car we occupied pinned on the only black occupant, the irony was that it was neither of ours, but the drivers.
This happened about 10 years ago in Arizona while I was in high school. As I sat in the back of a police car with my black friend, the officer asked whos pipe it was. Our silence got him automatically assigned blame.
I'll never forget the pudgy officer who took in our silence, looked directly at Josiah and said "well, you will probably be blamed for it." He then closed the door and shortly afterwards I was uncuffed and Josiah was taken away on bullshit charges none of us had the balls to take the rap for.
The deck is stacked. In my new town with new black friends they cannot believe that police don't even look at the car when I'm driving.
Regardless of the occupants or color of the occupants, a car with a handicap plate with a young white man driving is apparently not in the profiling training.
Not just in America I'm afraid. I live in The Netherlands, and see this hppening at large scale against any non-white people.
As a white male I feel that all I can do is to share this injustice all I can and hope others will become aware (which so far sadly seems not to really happen).
>At some point in the (very) near future, we'll all be forced to realize that the deck is stacked against you if you're black in America.
Why did you pick race instead of gender? The justice system is far more sexist than racist, and if our society won't come to terms with how far the legal system is stacked against men, why would it ever come to terms with how far it is stacked against minorities?
The solution for officers not wearing/messing around with their cams is simple: require full-on bodycams, and if there is even the slightest allegation of police misconduct - either the officer has his bodycam enabled, or guilt is automatically assumed.
In my view, that doesn't go far enough. One officer is suspended and two others are on administrative duty. This is for planting drugs on at least one individual, with 34 cases connected to these officers being dismissed. Think of how those lives would have been affected had this footage not surfaced.
Officers, regardless of how many witnesses there are or how much footage there is, get away with so much that it's ridiculous.
We see this in so many different facets of life: police cars crashing into others while driving without a siren on and then blaming the crash on the victim (https://www.chicagoreader.com/chicago/zidek-cpd-police-cycli... this also happened to my uncle); civil forfeiture, which I consider to be blatant robbery; near-literal executions, both witnessed and caught on video, of people, pets, children, etc. during traffic stops or raids; trigger-happy police officers shooting randomly at people, and facing no consequences for this (http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-no-charges-lapd-... and now this case where they're planting drugs to get someone arrested. You have to ask, how many times have officers done this and gotten away with it? Of the 2.2+ MILLION people in prison/jail, how many are there for false reasons?
My opinion is that the public holds police officers to such a high esteem that the police are basically able to get away with whatever they want. That whole image of "they're protecting us and putting their lives on the line" needs to go away so we can finally start prosecuting these criminals.
I understand that there are a lot of good people on the police force, but enough's enough. Start jailing police officers. No more "administrative duty," no more suspensions.
A lot of office malfeasance of what we take for it can be dismissed under Qualified Immunity by courts and is regularly done so. There was a recent case where a criminalist who falsely testified in a case gets Qualified Immunity. How do we act in the face of that?
We work in a society where the government authority is always right. doesn't really matter your color, even I was military we were told if brought up for even a traffic offense to never imply the arresting officer was wrong, just explain why we were not at fault.
So with regards to camera. In a one vs one encounter the camera must be active and recording unless damaged by the perpetrator and even then the record should be easily destroyed. So while a camera could possibly be damaged during a scuffle it should so this event.
Hence, if no video then no crime unless it can be proven that all available recording devices were disabled through an act of god. No officer should be permitted out of station without having another party verify all recording gear is in working order, same for the cars. Simply put, we force them to never enter the public unless their recording gear is function and soon as a fault is detected it must be remedied then.
Then make it a federal offense for disabling or even turning off any recording device. It has to be federal. we back it up not with fines but termination and jail time. We can give the cops a three strikes and your out.
last note (did not have time to write a short reply) is that we must prevent law enforcement officers fired in one locale from simply getting hired in another
I like how your response to some police officers assuming the guilt of everyone they interact with is codifying the assumption of officer misconduct. The presumption of one's innocence doesn't end because of their occupation.
Yeah, I've seen this happen with a good friend of mine I went to high school with. Super good guy, nerdy, smart, always wanted to be a police officer- hated the corruption, wanted to make a difference right? In the 10 years he's been on the force he's gone from beat cop to detective to State FBI Special Agent, and his thinking (illustrated on Facebook) has gone from blasting NWA's "F&$K The Police" to posting pictures of himself all suited up in his FBI gear complete with skull and crossbones patch running around in the woods "Looking for perps". He's got gold skull and crossbones grips on his service weapon. In his mind it's all "Ninjas and Pirates" but that, coupled with his descent into the thinking that "If you weren't guilty, you wouldn't run, and if you aren't guilty, you have nothing to fear from the police" is scary.
Not much is going to change. The police can do this because they are represented by a union. And those unions are allied with other unions and together they dominate the Democratic Party. So the Democrats won't do anything about police abuse of power. Of course, Republicans won't because they like to be seen as 'tough on crime.' Since neither political party is capable of challenging the police unions nothing it likely to change.
> The [video of manufacturing evidence] one is from Pueblo, Colorado, in which an officer staged a drug-find in a vehicle. Charges were dismissed against the suspect, but no public action was taken against Pueblo Police Department Officer Seth Jensen.
I never understood how it was legal for these officers to carry drugs around (in their pockets? trunk?) for the purposes of planting evidence.
Shouldn't they face possession charges? Unless they are transporting newly acquired evidence that is associated with a documented investigation to the police station for storage they shouldn't be allowed to carry drugs around.
The Wire's creators were a local reporter and a former cop, and the series is praised for its realism, so there's nothing odd about that: their series was just about problems that existed in real-life Baltimore.
If anything, they only made these issues better known through their work.
I mean, that police department has had more than it's share of incidents and crime in general is still a major problem in that city. Not too surprising.
[+] [-] DomreiRoam|8 years ago|reply
I think we see in a lot of communities that the police and other public worker are no more trusted and I think we will see the raise of alternative actors to fulfill the gap. Such actor could be criminal groups like mafia and terrorist group that then can use this to build up their base.
So I think it is immoral to allow this and I think it's stupid in Machiavellian or realpolitik way.
[+] [-] pavel_lishin|8 years ago|reply
Isn't this one of the reasons for the huge proliferation of gangs? Certain communities know that the police won't help them, so they establish their own organization.
[+] [-] cryoshon|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] po|8 years ago|reply
If the officer can decide what to record, what to to submit in a report, if the lens is dirty or covered, etc... it really is very tempting.
They certainly have helped cops put away very bad people and they certainly have put pressure on cops to follow official protocol but they're not a panacea if not regulated tightly. For example look at the protocol proposals of Campaign Zero here: https://www.joincampaignzero.org/film-the-police
[+] [-] moomin|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] xbmcuser|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] squarefoot|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] CWuestefeld|8 years ago|reply
It always throws up a red flag for me when someone asserts that they know the motivations for another's actions.
I make no bones about the claim that many cops are crooked - I've personally been wronged by them, and witnessed it happening to others, to know that's not the case.
But I think that there's an alternative explanation for the kind of dishonesty we're talking about beyond base greed. It seems likely to me that many of these cops really believe that the people they're framing are in the wrong, but that the system has failed. In their minds, that we let people off on a technicality, or prevent the cops from doing the kind of searching that they believe is necessary, proves that the system is standing in the way of effective policing. So they take it on themselves to fix the bug in the system by circumventing those protections.
[+] [-] Allower|8 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] 1dundundun|8 years ago|reply
It's just one of those inconvenient truths.
[+] [-] oxide|8 years ago|reply
This happened about 10 years ago in Arizona while I was in high school. As I sat in the back of a police car with my black friend, the officer asked whos pipe it was. Our silence got him automatically assigned blame.
I'll never forget the pudgy officer who took in our silence, looked directly at Josiah and said "well, you will probably be blamed for it." He then closed the door and shortly afterwards I was uncuffed and Josiah was taken away on bullshit charges none of us had the balls to take the rap for.
The deck is stacked. In my new town with new black friends they cannot believe that police don't even look at the car when I'm driving.
Regardless of the occupants or color of the occupants, a car with a handicap plate with a young white man driving is apparently not in the profiling training.
[+] [-] bjpbakker|8 years ago|reply
As a white male I feel that all I can do is to share this injustice all I can and hope others will become aware (which so far sadly seems not to really happen).
[+] [-] BearGoesChirp|8 years ago|reply
Why did you pick race instead of gender? The justice system is far more sexist than racist, and if our society won't come to terms with how far the legal system is stacked against men, why would it ever come to terms with how far it is stacked against minorities?
[+] [-] mschuster91|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lovehashbrowns|8 years ago|reply
Officers, regardless of how many witnesses there are or how much footage there is, get away with so much that it's ridiculous.
We see this in so many different facets of life: police cars crashing into others while driving without a siren on and then blaming the crash on the victim (https://www.chicagoreader.com/chicago/zidek-cpd-police-cycli... this also happened to my uncle); civil forfeiture, which I consider to be blatant robbery; near-literal executions, both witnessed and caught on video, of people, pets, children, etc. during traffic stops or raids; trigger-happy police officers shooting randomly at people, and facing no consequences for this (http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-no-charges-lapd-... and now this case where they're planting drugs to get someone arrested. You have to ask, how many times have officers done this and gotten away with it? Of the 2.2+ MILLION people in prison/jail, how many are there for false reasons?
My opinion is that the public holds police officers to such a high esteem that the police are basically able to get away with whatever they want. That whole image of "they're protecting us and putting their lives on the line" needs to go away so we can finally start prosecuting these criminals.
I understand that there are a lot of good people on the police force, but enough's enough. Start jailing police officers. No more "administrative duty," no more suspensions.
[+] [-] Shivetya|8 years ago|reply
We work in a society where the government authority is always right. doesn't really matter your color, even I was military we were told if brought up for even a traffic offense to never imply the arresting officer was wrong, just explain why we were not at fault.
So with regards to camera. In a one vs one encounter the camera must be active and recording unless damaged by the perpetrator and even then the record should be easily destroyed. So while a camera could possibly be damaged during a scuffle it should so this event.
Hence, if no video then no crime unless it can be proven that all available recording devices were disabled through an act of god. No officer should be permitted out of station without having another party verify all recording gear is in working order, same for the cars. Simply put, we force them to never enter the public unless their recording gear is function and soon as a fault is detected it must be remedied then.
Then make it a federal offense for disabling or even turning off any recording device. It has to be federal. we back it up not with fines but termination and jail time. We can give the cops a three strikes and your out.
last note (did not have time to write a short reply) is that we must prevent law enforcement officers fired in one locale from simply getting hired in another
[+] [-] pc86|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kelvin0|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sageabilly|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tryitnow|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] honestoHeminway|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] w458cmau|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kikimaru|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sebleon|8 years ago|reply
Sigh.
[+] [-] metaobject|8 years ago|reply
Shouldn't they face possession charges? Unless they are transporting newly acquired evidence that is associated with a documented investigation to the police station for storage they shouldn't be allowed to carry drugs around.
[+] [-] sogen|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Hasknewbie|8 years ago|reply
If anything, they only made these issues better known through their work.
[+] [-] tnecniv|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] MrBlue|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] BoratObama|8 years ago|reply