This is an issue that used to go the other way. Cops would pack courtrooms full of uniformed cops to intimidate witnesses and juries. Many jurors outright just refused to convict a cop no matter the evidence because they were so pro-police. Now that it has swung the other way its suddenly a problem. We literally know that prosecutors strike black jurors off juries for no other reason than their skin color but everyone refuses to actually investigate this ****. So cops can cry me river that they think Chauvin was handled unfairly. Atleast he got good lawyers to defend him rather than being forced to defend his life with a public defender who is greatly under paid and over worked.
"Donald Trump will serve a second term as president of the United States.
It’s over."
Little Thethe Nov 19, 2020.
"Donald Trump will serve a second term as president of the United States.
It’s over."
Little Thethe Nov 19, 2020.
Elderly woman with dementia walks out of walmart without paying for her 14$ worth of items. Employees herd her back in the store where she offers to pay for the items. They refuse her money. So she leaves and walks home. She doesnt know whats going on. Cop dislocates her arm throwing her to the ground. They take her to jail where they say she has no injuries. Maybe they didnt know you say? Well at the jail they not only review the bodycam footage making fun of her but they literally point out the pop from dislocating her arm. The police department said when a complaint was raised was the first time they had heard about this incident. In the video you can clearly hear the officer say this was reported to the "blue team" which deals with noteworthy incidents officers have that gets reviewed by all levels. Early in the video you can hear/see the male officer ask the female officer if her body cam was off then fist bumps her when she says its off and they start to talk about the incident. This is why I think all law enforcement officers should be recorded and specifically it should be done without their knowledge. You would be amazed at what cops say when they think no one is listening. This cop obviously thinks he isnt being recorded so he admits several key things like he suspected she had dementia and they speculate about witnesses and how it would be bad if anyone saw what they did. Best part is them rewatching the bodycam and laughing at hurting an elderly woman. Cops are pure trash. ALL OF THEM.
"Donald Trump will serve a second term as president of the United States.
It’s over."
Little Thethe Nov 19, 2020.
goldfly (04-26-2021)
The job of a police officer attracts a disproportionate number of a certain kind of individual. People who enjoy having a little bit of power and authority and get off on abusing it. These are the Chauvins, the officers in the video of the woman with dementia, etc. They don't represent all cops and not even a majority. They do represent the vast majority of the problems though. The majority of bad experiences you've had with police are with that kind of person.
So yes, cops do have a much higher percentage of trash people than other professions as the power and authority of being a cop attracts that kind of person. But there are also people who become police because they like helping people, or because they view it as an honorable profession, or because they just want a steady paycheck and decent benefits.
Enable them to be fired without a giant settlement and you’d likely see it clean itself up.
Lawyers are leeching off everything
Ivermectin Man
"Donald Trump will serve a second term as president of the United States.
It’s over."
Little Thethe Nov 19, 2020.
"For there is always light, if only we are brave enough to see it. If only we are brave enough to be it." Amanda Gorman
"When Fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross"
https://reason.com/2021/05/10/the-fb...nest-citizens/
FBI raids a company called US private vaults which provides safety deposit boxes for people. Apparently they were involved in drugs somehow. But the FBI which didnt have a warrant for the contents of everyones deposit boxes decided to keep everyones stuff regardless of whether they had done anything wrong. One woman who had 75,000 in gold coins as retirement savings in a box had her stuff inventories by the FBI as "some coins" which could be a roll of pennies as far as anyone else knows.
The point I want to make about this is that they have to sue in federal court to get their stuff back at their own expense. That's not how it's supposed to work when something is stolen. We need a mechanism so that they can charge the individual agents responsible for theft. If they have a warrant authorizing them to take and keep the items then it shouldn't make it passed a grand jury. Federal agents act with near impunity knowing they can do whatever they want as long as they make some ridiculous argument like "well we didnt have a warrant for the contents of the boxes but we had a warrant for the shelves the boxes sat on".
"Donald Trump will serve a second term as president of the United States.
It’s over."
Little Thethe Nov 19, 2020.
https://www.wbrz.com/news/brpd-narco...with-nakamoto/
Here is a good interview with a Baton Rouge police officer who blows the lid off criminality within the department. Of things he says he witnessed.... being told to stop and search random black people with no probable cause by supervisors, stealing drugs from busts, planting drugs on people, and an arrest quote given verbally since arrest quotas are illegal.
"Donald Trump will serve a second term as president of the United States.
It’s over."
Little Thethe Nov 19, 2020.
I don’t think that’s necessarily wrong, but I think it misunderstands the percentages involved, and I think it underestimates the effect of the overall LE culture on the idealists and so-called “good apples.” I mean, there are plenty of real-world examples of this, of idealists and whistleblowers getting destroyed by their peers.
And, hey, anecdotal personal example: my brother was a cop for a few years. And, to be honest, it always bugged me—a lot—because I thought the institution was rotten, and as much as I respected his personal integrity, I feared the institution’s effect on him more than I trusted his ability to change the institution. I think my analysis was ultimately correct. His essential decency and instinct towards fairness and respect was...let’s just say...not rewarded by the institution.
And yet, after getting ground up and spit out by the community, he retained a lot of ****ty opinions he received from his LE buddies, but also got spit out of the system largely because he WAS a decent person, but that system had no room for decency.
I think the effect of the larger LE community on him was nothing but bad. But the cultish, brainwashing environment he was in had him simultaneously believing that some of the awful stuff was ok and necessary, but somehow he got squeezed out because of bull**** politics. And I’m stuck thinking, hey, buddy, you were fine the way you were, and the fact that you didn’t fit in with fascists and sadists is a point in your favor. But that’s not really the way he sees it.
But of all the dumb bull**** threads on this forum, I think that this one is the least dumb and bull****. And as much as I might have thought at times that Cajun was obsessive and crankish, I really think that this is the most important thread on this forum, and I salute him for it. It probably has the best ratio of signal to noise of any of them.
All cops aren’t by nature Chauvins, sure. But pretty much all police departments hire, promote, and encourage a culture that create and protect Chauvins. It’s ****ed. It’s truly ****ed, and it is going to take “average” people realizing that to effect any real change.
Yup.
With respect to your brother, the prevailing culture that he encountered is a tough thing to overcome. Makes me think in a lot of places there needs to be a massive amount of turnover in police departments. Sure it is enormously disruptive. But the idea is to disrupt a status quo that is very problematic.
Last edited by nsacpi; 05-13-2021 at 07:09 PM.
"I am a victim, I will tell you. I am a victim."
"I am your retribution."
The biggest reason for the problem with policing is/was the public giving them the benefit of the doubt. For so many years calling anything or anyone anti-cop was a political death sentence for that bill or person. Just common sense reforms would be labeled anti-cop and politicians would run from it. That was the reason I made this thread. Cops are human just like the rest of us and og there isnt adequate oversight and accountability you encourage criminality by police. We as a society have to understand that the most dangerous criminals are the ones with a badge and a gun. Even if cops were as morally righteous as they claim to be it would still be worth it to heavily monitor them just to root out the 1 in a million criminal cop. Just think of the damage a criminal cop can do to a person. Say he plants drugs on someone and they get 6 months in prison. How is that different than kidnapping a person and torturing them for 6 months? Atleast the kidnapper is likely to get caught. Most people framed by cops never have their name cleared. It's a scarlet letter they wear for the rest of their life. Not to mention the psychological damage prison does. If you think prison causes mental illness it's even worse for a person who was actually innocent.
"Donald Trump will serve a second term as president of the United States.
It’s over."
Little Thethe Nov 19, 2020.
Cops have managed to twist the accoubtability system so that it's used to get rid of cops who arent "team players". The biggest tell to me that cops arent honest actors is that cops who rat out criminal cops are viewed by cops as bad guys and not heroes. Imagine at your workplace someone steals a computer, you tell on them, then all your coworkers no longer want to work with you.
"Donald Trump will serve a second term as president of the United States.
It’s over."
Little Thethe Nov 19, 2020.
"I am a victim, I will tell you. I am a victim."
"I am your retribution."
I have that same experience of cognitive dissonance with my aforementioned brother. Obviously, he and I have VERY different outlooks about that kind of thing. And his is very much an outlier within our family. But—for reasons that would make sense only if you heard the incredibly involved backstory—he always wanted to be a cop, and be the “good guy.” Against all odds, he made it, and although I absolutely cringed internally, I was proud of him, for him. So he kept finding himself in situations where his instincts were telling him one thing and his “brothers” were telling him another. He respected my, and our father’s, opinion enough to consult us when he felt conflicted. Basically, our advice at first amounted to “respect who you are, respect others, respect your values, tell the truth.” He got to the point where his mental and physical health was compromised by the dissonance. Eventually, our advice just became “get the **** out.” But, even as he did, he didn’t really see it as a systemic failure. He just felt like he was a victim of departmental politics. But he was basically another victim of a dysfunctional and dehumanizing culture. And I say that advisedly, knowing that there are many more victims of that culture that suffered even more direct and damaging consequences.
For me, though, it’s pretty instructive, because most people of of my political persuasion can say ACAB or whatever without any real reservations. At one point, all of the sudden I had a real-world, flesh-and-blood reason to NOT think exactly what I’d thought since I became politically aware, to try to give the cops the benefit of the doubt. Hey, my brother is a cop, I know he’s a good guy, not all cops, etc. In the end, though, nothing I learned from his experience did anything to change my mind. I went from hoping he’d do good in the world to just praying he wouldn’t be the guy who pulled the trigger. Because that culture right now is every bit as bad as it’s made out to be. I’d bet it’s even worse than we know. I don’t know how to fix it, but I know it has to be fixed.