this post was submitted on 29 Oct 2024
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THE POLICE PROBLEM
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The police problem is that police are policed by the police. Cops are accountable only to other cops, which is no accountability at all.
99.9999% of police brutality, corruption, and misconduct is never investigated, never punished, never makes the news, so it's not on this page.
When cops are caught breaking the law, they're investigated by other cops. Details are kept quiet, the officers' names are withheld from public knowledge, and what info is eventually released is only what police choose to release — often nothing at all.
When police are fired — which is all too rare — they leave with 'law enforcement experience' and can easily find work in another police department nearby. It's called "Wandering Cops."
When police testify under oath, they lie so frequently that cops themselves have a joking term for it: "testilying." Yet it's almost unheard of for police to be punished or prosecuted for perjury.
Cops can and do get away with lawlessness, because cops protect other cops. If they don't, they aren't cops for long.
The legal doctrine of "qualified immunity" renders police officers invulnerable to lawsuits for almost anything they do. In practice, getting past 'qualified immunity' is so unlikely, it makes headlines when it happens.
All this is a path to a police state.
In a free society, police must always be under serious and skeptical public oversight, with non-cops and non-cronies in charge, issuing genuine punishment when warranted.
Police who break the law must be prosecuted like anyone else, promptly fired if guilty, and barred from ever working in law-enforcement again.
That's the solution.
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Yeah that made me have a thought. John Oliver did an episode on "stand your ground" ages ago, and reading that guy's message, asking "what he can do", I'm forced to conclude that for him, in the US, in that situation, it would probably be best to get a gun himself and the next time the guy does something like this, just two to the chest.
Seeing he has a restraining order and whatnot previous things, probably should be somewhat of an easy case to defend as self-defense, right? Unless it's just even fucking sadder, and it is just because he's black and he'd just end up imprisoned for murder.
God the world is shit nowadays where shall we congregate a force to have a teensy weensy global revolution?
Unfortunately, that would probably just result in him drowning in legal fees. Killing someone, even if it is completely justifiable in self-defense, is extremely expensive. Like, 6 figures expensive. That said, this man is going to fucking kill him so....also I guess even if he doesn't, now he has medical fees anyway.
Jesus Christ what an all around fucked situation :(
"Imprisoned for murder" might still be on the optimistic side of potential outcomes... He could well be murdered himself, by the police, in reponse to what you and I see as self-defense. (I am guessing from the "in the US" part of your comment and other context that you aren't from here, and may not be aware of the history of institutionalized racism that would make any interaction with the police potentially dangerous for him. Forgive me if I have erred there.)
Imprisoned for self defense while black.
It's a similar problem as driving while black, walking while black, etc...
You're so loud ghe whole (Western) world knows most about your business.
You are right of course, and any interaction with police could be dangerous. But if he just shoots the guy, then calls the authorities while clearly laying his weapon far away from him and being on his knees with his hands on his head, there shouldn't be an excuse for the cops to murder him.
But an alarming amount of things I've thought would never happen with the police have happened. Both in the US and here in Finland. Now I don't need to be afraid of getting murdered, but the abuse still didn't feel good.
MN is not a stand your ground state. If you are threatened in public then you have a duty to retreat if able. However, MN is a castle doctrine state so if someone threatens you on your property then you are perfectly clear to use any reasonable means up to and including lethal force to defend yourself and your property. So your initial idea only works in MN if the threat took place on his own property of if he is unable to get away from the threat.
No offense, but they really did cover that quite a lot better on Last Week Tonight.
The episode is called "stand your ground laws", and believe it or not, it talks about things related to the laws. Like which states do what.
Perhaps take a gander https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vTF-Kz_7L0c
Agree. It's even on camera (assuming this goes down in the front yard)
Doesn't require stand your ground, unless you could reasonably flee the attacker. If they've got a gun it's not too hard to argue that you couldn't reasonably flee or they'd shoot you in the back.
Stand your ground just removes the duty to try to get away from an attacker if possible, and is only the law in some states.
Though not required for this situation, stand your ground laws have a big effect. When no such law exists, you're definitely going to be the subject of a homicide investigation and may get charged and have to get a jury to acquit. When those laws do exist, the police won't bother investigating and the DA won't bring charges in many cases. In states like Texas or Florida, pretty much all you have to do is be on your property or say you felt threatened and shot first and you're free to go.
The episode covered all that in detail, yes.
They give pretty good background and wider context, so...