I think it's time we recognized that we are essentially second class citizens, after police.
They are consistently able to commit crimes without being prosecuted. They can use their position and influence to target and harass their personal enemies. When they are prosecuted for a crime, the sentencing is consistently far less than a non-LEO offender's.
And there's no more recourse for us. When a police officer shows up, there's nothing you can do, and no way to predict what will happen. If they're in the mood, you can be beaten, pepper sprayed, tazed, bitten, or shot, for any offense no matter how minor or imagined.
Agreed. Though I'm tempted to say that this problem isn't getting worse and that our awareness is only becoming more acute, the existence of digital information increases the potential for abuses of power. (No specific cases come to mind at the moment, but I'd wager that it happens more than occasionally.)
Davis’s termination came less than two weeks after top IPRA officials, evaluating Davis’s job performance, accused him of “a clear bias against the police” and called him “the only supervisor at IPRA who resists making requested changes as directed by management in order to reflect the correct finding with respect to OIS,” as officer-involved shootings are known in the agency.
Since its 2007 creation, IPRA has investigated nearly 400 civilian shootings by police and found one to be unjustified.
Reading about the internal administrative process in large municipal governments is like learning about business in an alien culture.
I can't imagine a healthy, successful organization of any kind making such an inane and chilling statement:
> The spokesman said there would be no interview and sent this statement: “This is a personnel matter that would be inappropriate to address through the media, though the allegations are baseless and without merit. IPRA is committed to conducting fair, unbiased, objective, thorough and timely investigations of allegations of police misconduct and officer-involved shootings.”
> The performance evaluation covered 19 months and concluded that Davis “displays a complete lack of objectivity combined with a clear bias against the police in spite of his own lengthy police career.”
I think I speak for all Chicagoans when I say "what were you expecting?" This is in a state where of our last seven governors, FOUR ended up in prison. That's a whopping 57%. There's a joke that our politicians have an "orange parachute" when they leave their jobs.
When you add in all the other police issues over the years, you end up with not a single Chicagoan surprised at this outcome. The state and the city are corrupt beyond belief.
Despite the cost to the tax payer, I'd love to see this guy sue the crap out of everyone involved. Of course, that's a risky move because you know, something could happen to him.
Lotta people here talking like they understand Chicago politics.
The people who investigate these incidents were appointed to investigate them because City and State agree'd that CPD was unwilling to investigate the misdeeds of their department.
So they setup an Independent review board. Which sounds nice and independent but...(Mayor and CPD friends filled it with former CPD brass or family of former CPD or former consultants to CPD)
Now they are firing investigators because they don't give reports that appease the department.
This is just another feather in the hat of police corruption rolling thru Chicago.
Even though liberals will deny this, the main issue here is that police unions are completely out of control and have this kind of power. The Independent Police Review Authority is full of union stooges, ex-cops, etc and is designed to protect cops.
The real question is when will we start having the political will to question public sector unions? They seem to only make city services more expensive, more corrupt, and in the case of cops, lead to legalized murder.
Decent piece on how this board and the union work to protect bad cops. You just can't expect the police to police themselves.
Now a WBEZ investigation raises questions about just how independent the agency is. City records obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request show that IPRA’s management now includes six former cops — officials who have spent most of their career in sworn law enforcement. Those include the agency’s top three leaders.
I see no problem with having a police union who considers it their job to aggressively advocate for their membership. That's what unions are for, and frankly most types of workers would be better off with an organization on their side who would advocate tirelessly for them.
I also think accused criminals should have an organization that advocates for them. We can call them public defenders. And so on.
The problem isn't that there is a police union, or even that it's an effective or powerful one, it's that the union should not be in the business of overseeing misconduct investigations, except in a clearly understood adversarial role as an advocate for the accused.
You can throw out insults to liberals and insert your preconceived bias against public sector unions all you want if it serves your political agenda, but at the end of the day nobody rational is arguing in favor of this system, liberals especially so.
I'm always impressed when people make cogent points, but then go out of their way to ensure nobody listens by gratuitously insulting most of their audience.
This blanket assumption is probably why you're being down-voted. The easiest way to avoid this is by supporting your statements with as many facts as possible.
A simple google search proved that this is not at all the case, for example, and that Republicans show much stronger support of police unions.
The performance evaluation covered 19 months and concluded that Davis “displays a complete lack of objectivity combined with a clear bias against the police in spite of his own lengthy police career.”
My favorite part: Through most of his IPRA tenure, Davis’s performance evaluations showered him with praise. They called him an “effective leader” and “excellent team player.” The final evaluation, issued June 26, said he “is clearly not a team player.”
First, a chief of police was interviewed on CBS News a while back. He said there are thousands upon thousands of police interactions with citizens every day but all anyone ever hears about is the one bad one that happened one time.
Second, and this might sound off-topic but I hope you get my point. I was helping a guy move, a few months back, along with one of his friends who's a rookie cop. This took place over several days. Each day, we rode in a truck a coule of miles and, along the way, he would occasionally say, "Expired plates. Expired plates." cause we couldn't go a mile without him finding one. And not just by a month or so but, in one case it was almost a year.
Which brought up racial profiling, as you could imagine. He said, "There is no race indicator on a radar gun." And "When I see something go wrong and I light it up, I can't tell who I'm pulling over, much less what race they are, until I get out of the car. And I don't care. You could look at my ticketing and arrests for the few months I've been on the job and say I do racial profiling cause most of them are [insert what you know it is] cause, from what I can tell, most of them do the things that get them tickets or arrested and put in jail."
I think of that every time I see an article, here on HN, and the comments by people trying to blame the cops for everything as if they're against us.
EDIT: As I pointed out, right away, the first two commenters entirely missed my point.
We tend not to hear about the thousands of airline flights a day that don't crash, either. That doesn't mean for a second that we should just shrug and resign ourselves plane crashes.
And even that analogy is flawed, because it's unambiguous that at least some of these "bad cop" interactions involve deliberate malfeasance on the part of the cop. When was the last time the pilot intentionally crashed their plane?
It turns out, some cops are bad actors. They're the ones we should be hearing about. And we should also be hearing about it when their departments pull shit like TFA: firing the investigator who says their shoots were bad, for not altering his findings to suit their narrative.
That is, in edge cases like a bit of swerving, 10 over the limit, newly expired tags, etc; police will look at the car and what they can tell about who is driving it and where they are to determine if they pull over or not.
A cop told me this directly. I don't remember his exact conditions – but they included things like a young guy driving a real nice car or a car that seem like maybe it was his mother's or a really beat up car. You're a lot less likely to get pulled over if you're driving a mid-priced sedan.
---
In America police kill about 1000 people per year. There's no hard number because there are no official statistics kept – that's telling in itself.
Thousands and thousands of police interactions each day, and each day about three of those ends up with somebody dead. The police in this country are undertrained and underpaid. The stupidity of the populace drives them to be statistics driven, and the environment attracts hot heads who want power to the career. Once on the job the complete lack of negative feedback from internal investigations and the courts gives them god complexes and their culture becomes a cesspool of corruption and us vs. them mentality.
I've got cops in my Family... and any cop will tell you that bad cops exist.
Only with proper independent review panels can justice be served against a bad cop. I'm not necessarily "anti-cop", but I know the importance of a robust cop investigation unit.
What is your point, exactly? That we blow police misbehavior out of proportion? That systematic racial discrimination is OK because black people are the ones committing crimes anyway?
> I think of that every time I see an article, here on HN, and the comments by people trying to blame the cops for everything as if they're against us.
You are aware this is an article where the cops fired someone specifically because he said cops were at fault in numerous incidents?
This is basically a case of the police firing the auditor who found their mistakes because "he found too many".
I don't think anyone would deny that being a police officer is a difficult job. But I'm not sure how you can deny that there exists a serious problem when you compare the number of people who are killed by police in the U.S. every year against the number of police in the U.S. that are convicted of a crime for their actions. Doesn't it make you curious that the police in other western countries don't seem to have anywhere near the same number of killings per capita?
Yes, there are certainly good cops. Is anyone disputing that? The guy who was fired seem like he was one of them.
However, there are also problems with the ways in which cops are help responsible for their actions. This allows the bad and not-so-good cops to keep being cops.
The article is pointing out a problem with how this accountability is implemented in Chicago.
> EDIT: As I pointed out, right away, the first two commenters entirely missed my point.
Could you clarify what that point is exactly? As written, you seem to be saying that identifying bad actors from good actors is extremely difficult due to other factors. I agree with that if that is the point you are making.
[+] [-] Zikes|10 years ago|reply
They are consistently able to commit crimes without being prosecuted. They can use their position and influence to target and harass their personal enemies. When they are prosecuted for a crime, the sentencing is consistently far less than a non-LEO offender's.
And there's no more recourse for us. When a police officer shows up, there's nothing you can do, and no way to predict what will happen. If they're in the mood, you can be beaten, pepper sprayed, tazed, bitten, or shot, for any offense no matter how minor or imagined.
[+] [-] theseatoms|10 years ago|reply
So what can we do about it? Record the police.
EDIT: Typo..
[+] [-] ClayM|10 years ago|reply
Davis’s termination came less than two weeks after top IPRA officials, evaluating Davis’s job performance, accused him of “a clear bias against the police” and called him “the only supervisor at IPRA who resists making requested changes as directed by management in order to reflect the correct finding with respect to OIS,” as officer-involved shootings are known in the agency.
Since its 2007 creation, IPRA has investigated nearly 400 civilian shootings by police and found one to be unjustified.
[+] [-] jMyles|10 years ago|reply
"Yeah, the integration tests failed 400 times, but in all but one of them, it was the test runner that was the problem."
[+] [-] jMyles|10 years ago|reply
I can't imagine a healthy, successful organization of any kind making such an inane and chilling statement:
> The spokesman said there would be no interview and sent this statement: “This is a personnel matter that would be inappropriate to address through the media, though the allegations are baseless and without merit. IPRA is committed to conducting fair, unbiased, objective, thorough and timely investigations of allegations of police misconduct and officer-involved shootings.”
> The performance evaluation covered 19 months and concluded that Davis “displays a complete lack of objectivity combined with a clear bias against the police in spite of his own lengthy police career.”
[+] [-] bitwize|10 years ago|reply
Vogons?
[+] [-] shostack|10 years ago|reply
When you add in all the other police issues over the years, you end up with not a single Chicagoan surprised at this outcome. The state and the city are corrupt beyond belief.
Despite the cost to the tax payer, I'd love to see this guy sue the crap out of everyone involved. Of course, that's a risky move because you know, something could happen to him.
[+] [-] digitalneal|10 years ago|reply
The people who investigate these incidents were appointed to investigate them because City and State agree'd that CPD was unwilling to investigate the misdeeds of their department.
So they setup an Independent review board. Which sounds nice and independent but...(Mayor and CPD friends filled it with former CPD brass or family of former CPD or former consultants to CPD)
Now they are firing investigators because they don't give reports that appease the department.
This is just another feather in the hat of police corruption rolling thru Chicago.
[+] [-] vaadu|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rquantz|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] imglorp|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] drzaiusapelord|10 years ago|reply
The real question is when will we start having the political will to question public sector unions? They seem to only make city services more expensive, more corrupt, and in the case of cops, lead to legalized murder.
Decent piece on how this board and the union work to protect bad cops. You just can't expect the police to police themselves.
http://www.wbez.org/news/who-polices-police-chicago-its-incr...
Now a WBEZ investigation raises questions about just how independent the agency is. City records obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request show that IPRA’s management now includes six former cops — officials who have spent most of their career in sworn law enforcement. Those include the agency’s top three leaders.
[+] [-] CPLX|10 years ago|reply
I also think accused criminals should have an organization that advocates for them. We can call them public defenders. And so on.
The problem isn't that there is a police union, or even that it's an effective or powerful one, it's that the union should not be in the business of overseeing misconduct investigations, except in a clearly understood adversarial role as an advocate for the accused.
You can throw out insults to liberals and insert your preconceived bias against public sector unions all you want if it serves your political agenda, but at the end of the day nobody rational is arguing in favor of this system, liberals especially so.
[+] [-] mikeash|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mingus68040|10 years ago|reply
This blanket assumption is probably why you're being down-voted. The easiest way to avoid this is by supporting your statements with as many facts as possible.
A simple google search proved that this is not at all the case, for example, and that Republicans show much stronger support of police unions.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/12/12/the-gop-and...
This selective support among Republicans suggests that you're addressing the wrong crowd.
[+] [-] frandroid|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|10 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] unknown|10 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] backtoyoujim|10 years ago|reply
The performance evaluation covered 19 months and concluded that Davis “displays a complete lack of objectivity combined with a clear bias against the police in spite of his own lengthy police career.”
That is a serpent choking down its own tail.
[+] [-] sp332|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] justwannasing|10 years ago|reply
First, a chief of police was interviewed on CBS News a while back. He said there are thousands upon thousands of police interactions with citizens every day but all anyone ever hears about is the one bad one that happened one time.
Second, and this might sound off-topic but I hope you get my point. I was helping a guy move, a few months back, along with one of his friends who's a rookie cop. This took place over several days. Each day, we rode in a truck a coule of miles and, along the way, he would occasionally say, "Expired plates. Expired plates." cause we couldn't go a mile without him finding one. And not just by a month or so but, in one case it was almost a year.
Which brought up racial profiling, as you could imagine. He said, "There is no race indicator on a radar gun." And "When I see something go wrong and I light it up, I can't tell who I'm pulling over, much less what race they are, until I get out of the car. And I don't care. You could look at my ticketing and arrests for the few months I've been on the job and say I do racial profiling cause most of them are [insert what you know it is] cause, from what I can tell, most of them do the things that get them tickets or arrested and put in jail."
I think of that every time I see an article, here on HN, and the comments by people trying to blame the cops for everything as if they're against us.
EDIT: As I pointed out, right away, the first two commenters entirely missed my point.
[+] [-] rosser|10 years ago|reply
And even that analogy is flawed, because it's unambiguous that at least some of these "bad cop" interactions involve deliberate malfeasance on the part of the cop. When was the last time the pilot intentionally crashed their plane?
It turns out, some cops are bad actors. They're the ones we should be hearing about. And we should also be hearing about it when their departments pull shit like TFA: firing the investigator who says their shoots were bad, for not altering his findings to suit their narrative.
[+] [-] colechristensen|10 years ago|reply
That is, in edge cases like a bit of swerving, 10 over the limit, newly expired tags, etc; police will look at the car and what they can tell about who is driving it and where they are to determine if they pull over or not.
A cop told me this directly. I don't remember his exact conditions – but they included things like a young guy driving a real nice car or a car that seem like maybe it was his mother's or a really beat up car. You're a lot less likely to get pulled over if you're driving a mid-priced sedan.
---
In America police kill about 1000 people per year. There's no hard number because there are no official statistics kept – that's telling in itself.
Thousands and thousands of police interactions each day, and each day about three of those ends up with somebody dead. The police in this country are undertrained and underpaid. The stupidity of the populace drives them to be statistics driven, and the environment attracts hot heads who want power to the career. Once on the job the complete lack of negative feedback from internal investigations and the courts gives them god complexes and their culture becomes a cesspool of corruption and us vs. them mentality.
[+] [-] dragontamer|10 years ago|reply
Only with proper independent review panels can justice be served against a bad cop. I'm not necessarily "anti-cop", but I know the importance of a robust cop investigation unit.
[+] [-] mikeash|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] fweespeech|10 years ago|reply
You are aware this is an article where the cops fired someone specifically because he said cops were at fault in numerous incidents?
This is basically a case of the police firing the auditor who found their mistakes because "he found too many".
[+] [-] projectileboy|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] shkkmo|10 years ago|reply
However, there are also problems with the ways in which cops are help responsible for their actions. This allows the bad and not-so-good cops to keep being cops.
The article is pointing out a problem with how this accountability is implemented in Chicago.
So what is your point exactly?
[+] [-] _ea1k|10 years ago|reply
Could you clarify what that point is exactly? As written, you seem to be saying that identifying bad actors from good actors is extremely difficult due to other factors. I agree with that if that is the point you are making.
I think there is something else here too, though?
[+] [-] serge2k|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|10 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] unknown|10 years ago|reply
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