When 11-year-old Crystal Grendell was called into the counselor’s office at her Searsport, Maine, elementary school in April 1991, she likely did not expect to be asked if her parents used drugs. After thinking it through — and likely following some pressure — Crystal reported that her parents smoked marijuana “once in a while.” The counselor, after pulling Crystal out of class multiple times over the next few days to inquire how she was doing, suggested Crystal go to the police station to tell Sgt. James Gillway, the school’s DARE officer, about her parents’ drug use. Crystal complied, but Gillway was too busy to see her.
The following day, Gillway, along with two other DARE officers, came to the school to interrogate Crystal about her parents’ drug habits. Playing on the trust that DARE officers had worked to facilitate with students through their role as teachers of the DARE curriculum — Crystal later recalled, “For an officer, I thought he was pretty cool” — Gillway told her that if she “cooperated” by informing him about her parents’ drug habits, there would be no consequences. Gillway, Crystal recalled, continued with a hardly veiled threat, telling Crystal that if she did not “cooperate” by snitching on her parents’ use of marijuana, both Crystal and her parents “would be ‘in a lot of trouble.’ ” Gillway concluded with a warning. He told Crystal not to tell her parents about their meeting because “often parents beat their children after the children talk to police.”
After Crystal complied, the officers pushed Crystal for information about her parents’ schedules and the layout of the house, and told her that police would go to her house to look for drugs. That afternoon, the police raided her home, arrested her parents, and took Crystal and her younger sister to a distant relative’s house — having neglected to make plans for the girls following the raid. ...
THE POLICE PROBLEM
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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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.
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RULES
① Real-life decorum is expected. Please don't say things only a child or a jackass would say in person.
② If you're here to support the police, you're trolling. Please exercise your right to remain silent.
③ Saying ~~cops~~ ANYONE should be killed lowers the IQ in any conversation. They're about killing people; we're not.
④ 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.
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ALLIES
• r/ACAB
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INFO
• A demonstrator's guide to understanding riot munitions
• Cops aren't supposed to be smart
• 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
• When the police knock on your door
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ORGANIZATIONS
• NAACP
• National Police Accountability Project
• Vera: Ending Mass Incarceration
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Obligatory “never talk to the police” reminder. Tell your kids, too.