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
view the rest of the comments
I don't know man, I'm all for police oversight, but this isn't a great example. This dude is running around a neighbourhood with a gun. Who says he doesn't go into one of those houses and some innocent person gets hurt.
The cop yelled at him to drop the gun and stop running, he didn't.
The part of them trying to cover it up after is shitty, but the action itself I can't really take the criminal's side. Again, image that's my neighbour with my kids playing in the area, I don't want some lunatic running around with a gun.
I realise what sub I'm in, and this isn't a popular opinion and that's fine. We need police reform, but this isn't a good example.
When people jump on everything with the same fervor it weakens your case because people start tuning you out.
You can't go by what if. I'm so tired of people defending their stance because of whataboutism. It's a shitty argument. Dude was literally running for his life. I will be honest, I don't know the full extent of the situation yet, but I do agree with you that people shouldn't just jump on the bandwagon just because a cop shot someone. But just looking at the video, I don't see why this kid was shot. Did the kid shoot at the officer? Did the kid threaten the officer's life? Those are the questions I don't know.
Should I fear for my life just because I am carrying a gun? I live in an open carry state. I don't carry anymore, but I see plenty of people walking around with a weapon. my first thought isn't that the person is a criminal just because they carry and I really don't have much thought about it at all.
My views on this are still neutral until I know more information, but please don't go on about whataboutism.
The guy that got shot was part of a car chase that switched to a foot chase after the cars tire blew out. The guy didn't just walk down the road with a gun. In the video you can also see the guy making a strange movement with the gun just before the cop shot. It most likely was to throw the gun away but the cop couldn't have known that. And given the overall circumstances shooting at this point seems reasonable.
But the cop is still a piece of shit that shouldn't have been a cop by this point anymore. He is a cop since 2018 and has been involved in now 5 shootings (far higher than the average). And he was part of the badge bending scandal. Where cops bent the tips of their badge to mark fatal shootings. Any cop who does that, shouldn't be a cop.
Luckily the guy survived, unfortunately the cop will stay a cop.
He threw a gun away right in front of the cop. It would be a weird move to throw one away and shoot with the other one.
In the same comment where you suggest people stop going by what if, you say:
You’re making a stance based on your admitted lack of information, and a single video that doesn’t show the whole story.
"We don't have enough information" is a perfectly valid stance to take when you lack information.
It should in fact be the default stance to take when lacking information.