17 ms·

Baltimore Cops Kept Toy Guns to Plant Just in Case They Shot an Unarmed Person

minxomat 9y ago
> It is not just Baltimore cops. It is cops. They will shoot you in the face in front of your infant daughter. They will choke you to sleep for selling cigarettes. This is the tone and conclusion of this article. If you want the actual story, read the original report here: http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/crime/bs-md-ci-gun-trace-task-force-gttf-testimony-highlights-20180126-story.html http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/crime/bs-md-ci-gun...
- sho 9y ago
  > This is the tone and conclusion of this "article" Why on earth did you put "article" in quotes. Are you questioning whether it is, in fact, an article? Because that seems quite self-evident. You might disagree with it but be assured TFA is, in fact, an article and putting the word in quotes just makes it look like you don't know what quotes are for. Hint: quoting.
  - chatmasta 9y ago
    The term “article” used to refer to a piece published in a newspaper or periodical that went through a thorough drafting, editing and review process before publish. Nowadays anyone can post an article on the internet. That’s great. But because of this, the definition of “article” has become basically meaningless. An article could be entirely fact based, full of falsehoods, or misrepresent facts by mixing them with opinions. There really should be a distinction between different levels of reporting. Most of the problems cropping up these past two years can be traced to the fact that people put the same credibility in a piece by some random person on the internet as they do in one by a career journalist.
    - Judgmentality 9y ago
      > Most of the problems cropping up these past two years can be traced to the fact that people put the same credibility in a piece by some random person on the internet as they do in one by a career journalist. Citation needed.
      - chatmasta 9y ago
        For which part? Have you missed the whole “fake news” fiasco? People will upvote and share any article that reinforces their existing beliefs and world view. Rather than approaching articles with a healthy skepticism and critical thinking, many people are consuming content based on what “team” the author seems to be advocating for. Instead of asking questions like, “what is the author’s agenda?” or “does this author have a track record of reliability?”, people are asking “does this author believe the same things I do?” If the answer to that is “yes,” then not even a follow-up article from a Pulitzer Prize winner will be sufficient to discredit it for many people.
        fao_ 9y ago
        > People will upvote and share any article that reinforces their existing beliefs and world view. People do that with accredited news already. For example, in communist circles there is some groups that believe that no matter what, everything that Stalin did was justified. They will bring up no amount of obscure scholars, and disregard large amounts of citations from modern scholars and new evidence to protect this world view. The same goes for any world view. Look at all the people hoping against all evidence that bitcoin is a fad. Ultimately, people will do this no matter what quality of the evidence presented is (aside from one or two people who decide that they like X news source, there is a chance they will reverse with a citation from that news source, but no other, even if the quality of the evidence is the same). 'Fake news' existed long before it came to that name.
        Density 9y ago
        Are... tankies and bit coin bubble realists on the same page to you?
  - Chazprime 9y ago
    If it’s a Gawker-associated publication, isn’t there always a question of validity?
  - weberc2 9y ago
    Presumably to highlight the difference between real journalism and this glorified blog post. He used the quotes correctly.
- Vosporos 9y ago
  "And they will get away with it so often that we are shocked when they are indicted." You forgot that.
- pornel 9y ago
  The article is about people literally trying to get away with murder. The last two sentences are references to well-documented cases of police officers killing non-dangerous citizens. There's no reason to be polite about this.
  - ckastner 9y ago
    The article is about a sub-group of these people, but the tone to me as well was one of sweeping generalizations. Edit (instead of replying to all of the individual replies): I'll be the first to acknowledge that there are systemic problems in police forces worldwide, just like there are systemic problems in any large organization, especially one endowed which so much executive power. However, any argument that paints a picture of "uniform equals bad" is, in my opinion, not only delusional, but is also a severe injustice to the good apples in public service, that is: in service to the public.
    - OldGuuuuy 9y ago
      Ahh the bad apple defence.
    - mikepurvis 9y ago
      Any member of the force, its leadership, or the surrounding politicians who is not 100% supporting the investigation and calling for heads to roll, is complicit. If that's a large enough group, then a sweeping generalization is absolutely warranted. "Bad apple" arguments only work if there's actual evidence of "good apples" working to expel the bad ones.
      - weberc2 9y ago
        There's no evidence that even 1% of all police are complicit. What is your standard for "large enough"?
        mikepurvis 9y ago
        Is there evidence of 99% of supposedly non-complicit officers standing with victims, insisting on justice for those guilty? Because that's the standard I'm calling for.
- talldan 9y ago
  The author is citing real events. When some cops are corrupt, does it matter that the rest might be decent? An individual police officer represents the entire force. They wear the colours and the badge as a representative of the whole establishment. Would you call the police if you knew there were such troubling corruption issues? It would definitely make me think twice - you just don't know which officer will turn up. Zero tolerance is the only way forwards when it comes to this, otherwise the few destroy trust for the masses.
  - weberc2 9y ago
    > When some cops are corrupt, does it matter that the rest might be decent? Yes. Of course it matters.
    - talldan 9y ago
      And what's your argument?
      - weberc2 9y ago
        Generalizing a huge population on the basis of a tiny, curated group invites bad policy and general ignorance.
        talldan 9y ago
        I agree with that. There are always shades of grey to every argument. However the point that I'm trying to make (maybe badly) is that the Police are different to most other organisations. They're probably closest to healthcare in that the population, or maybe even distinct communities of a country needs to be able to trust the entire police force has its interest at heart. From an outside perspective, this is failing in a bad way in the US. It is more than likely the actions of a few that is causing it. That failure has bad repercussions, things get worse because people start taking justice into their own hands ... it leads to riots, clashes and worse. That's why you can never tolerate any corruption in a justice system. I've witnessed first hands the riots here in London that resulted from questionable Police actions (we still don't know the full story of those events). It feels like society is crumbling when things get that bad.
wallace_f 9y ago
I recently learned that the homicide rate in Japan is lower than the rate at which police are killing people in the US.
- Judgmentality 9y ago
  Japanese crime statistics are probably not very reliable. http://articles.latimes.com/2007/nov/09/world/fg-autopsy9 http://articles.latimes.com/2007/nov/09/world/fg-autopsy9
  - onion2k 9y ago
    Statistics on killings by US police officers may not be very reliable either. https://psmag.com/social-justice/how-many-people-are-killed-by-police-in-the-united-states https://psmag.com/social-justice/how-many-people-are-killed-...
  - wallace_f 9y ago
    Well what about the Innocence Project and all the false narratives it has uncovere? Do some web searches around this kind of stuff and I think the US crime statistics also become similarly unreliable. Maybe look up Ken Dilanian, Gary Webb, Steven Avery, Michael Hastings, etc. Our policing force also has corruption and its share of false narratives. There are a lot of cases like this.
- jopsen 9y ago
  In Europe most countries count the number of bullets fired by police, not just the number of bodies disposed.
  - stevekemp 9y ago
    Indeed, leading to headlines like this one "Finnish police fired guns only six times in 2013" Frustratingly I can't find anything more recent, because I'm sure I read that last year, or the year before, we were down to one round fired.
daedlanth 9y ago
Our US society is sick beyond belief.
- squarefoot 9y ago
  The problem goes way beyond the US borders, and is a clear sign of corruption among the ruling class. When a cop is acquitted for murdering some innocent thanks to some intervention form above, he could become in the future a pawn of a private army for whoever was helping him/her from above. Suppose you're a high profile politician who needs some dirty job to be done, who would you trust more, some thugs recruited around or ex cops who don't serve jail time because of you?
  - chmod775 9y ago
    > The problem goes way beyond the US borders Name one more western first world country besides the US, where cops shooting someone is hardly news. And no, the problem probably isn't guns. In the US there's about 1 gun per resident, Germany 0.3, UK 0.06, and Canada 0.3. Meanwhile there were about 987 fatal shootings by cops in the US in 2016, compared to 13 in Germany, 4 in the UK, and 9 in Canada. Even adjusting these numbers for population and number of guns per resident, you will still be off by an order of magnitude.
    - GrantSolar 9y ago
      >And no, the problem probably isn't guns. The biggest factors do revolve around guns though. Not just numbers, but the culture which feeds into itself and the perception that guns are not a problem, but a solution ("The only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun"). Of course, this then provokes a "Have-a-go-Harry" take on confrontation where people who are woefully ill-equipped to deal with a situation attempt to do so. The lack of training, the fetishisation of guns, and the sheer number of guns are all extremely significant factors in gun crime. Take away any one of these and the rate of gun crime would drop significantly. Unfortunately, any solution has to work within the framework of "no further regulation" to even get close to implementation which rules out swathes of methods
jopsen 9y ago
Why not clean house? At this point I can't imagine the local community, particularly minorities, have any trust in the authorities. Isn't that failure, why not train a new police force with new uniforms and then phase out the old?
- arethuza 9y ago
  That's pretty much what happened in Northern Ireland as part of the Good Friday Agreement: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Police_Service_of_Northern_Ireland https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Police_Service_of_Northern_Ire...
  - pjc50 9y ago
    Hmm. Population of NI: 1.8m. Population of Baltimore: 600k (declining! as shown by a helpful google graph). So NI is three Baltimores. Worst year of Troubles: 1972, 479 troubles-related deaths. I'm unclear as to whether that includes "background" non-political crime, so I'll round it up to 500 (current NI murder rate is about 1/100k pop). Current Baltimore murder rate: 373 in 2017. Murder rate for three Baltimores: 1119. That makes today's Baltimore twice as lethal as Troubles NI, with all its carbombs and troops on the streets. It's a mess that to me would seem to warrant national intervention. https://www.economist.com/news/united-states/21724399-america-gets-safer-marylands-biggest-city-does-not-crime-and-despair-baltimore https://www.economist.com/news/united-states/21724399-americ...
    - duncanawoods 9y ago
      That is a fascinating comparison but one aspect that may not make it a fair is comparing NI region vs. city. It would be interesting to compare just Belfast to Baltimore because thats where the majority of deaths happened. edit: add a dodgy esimation Belfast poulation in 70's: 431k % of troubles deaths in Belfast : 43% => murder rate: 479 * 0.43 / 431 = 44 homicides per 100k But as you note, the NI figures is only the political murders so it can only really be compared against a similar subset of Baltimore homicides e.g. "gang violence".
- 9y ago
nukeop 9y ago
This isn't a problem with cops, or blacks, or whites, or anything like that. This is a problem with the USA. In some countries the entire police force of the country combined uses fewer bullets per year than the average police officer in the States. The homicide rates can be 40 times smaller in European countries than there. There's just something fundamentally wrong with that country and it would be a mistake to attribute it to something simple like race relations.
- mikepurvis 9y ago
  It's insane seeing videos of routine traffic stops in the US where both officers leap from their vehicle with guns drawn, ready to escalate the situation at the slightest provocation. Future, more civilized, societies will one day study the ruins of America with bafflement. Like, what were they thinking? Was this what liberty was to them?
  - coolso 9y ago
    > It's insane seeing videos of routine traffic stops in the US where both officers leap from their vehicle with guns drawn, ready to escalate the situation at the slightest provocation. Routine traffic stops, or felony traffic stops? I've never heard of that happening for the former, although there may be a few examples out there, but it's far from the norm. But that is indeed normal for a felony traffic stop, like when pulling over a stolen car, or after chasing a suspect from the scene of a crime, or if the car waited a really long time to pull over, or if an outstanding warrant was found when they ran the plates.
    - nukeop 9y ago
      In civilized countries the cops do not expect everyone to carry a loaded firearm.
- mclightning 9y ago
  1 - In most european countries, you are not allowed to carry weapons. 2 - European countries are very small in population in comparison to US.
thriftwy 9y ago
Should not police departments have something like internal investigations department to catch things like these before public have to be involved?
- rsynnott 9y ago
  I always suspect that a big part of the problem with the US police system is that it's made up of loads of regional forces. In countries with national forces, internal investigations are easier; just bring in people from the other side of the country, who have no particular loyalty to the people they're investigating.
- lucozade 9y ago
  In this particular case, it appears that some of the wrongdoing involved a lieutenant in Internal Affairs. So yes, they do have internal investigations departments. See Day 2 of [0]. [0] http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/crime/bs-md-ci-gun-trace-task-force-gttf-testimony-highlights-20180126-story.html http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/crime/bs-md-ci-gun...
ralusek 9y ago
Body cams on police and actual consequences for misconduct. Some of the videos of people (of all colors) being unlawfully murdered have led to absolutely zero consequence for those responsible. Those with authority granted by the public should have HIGHER accountability and more severe consequences, not be able to subvert them altogether. It's not difficult to imagine the level of misconduct that is likely occurring in the cases where no video evidence is even available. And while the racial component of police shootings has been portrayed in a way which differs sharply from the actual data on race/crime/police lethal force, there IS still some element of uncertainty in the exact figures. The fact that there is any uncertainty at all in police killings being reported correctly is absolutely INSANE to me. This is not an area where we can have sloppy data. If a government agent is responsible for the death of a citizen, it is unacceptable that we not have a very clear record of all surrounding circumstance.
- richmarr 9y ago
  Absolutely agree on both counts. Holding public office is a privilege that rightly should come with a different threshold of privacy/transparency. And yes, no nation is taking the issue of police conduct seriously if it's not even recording wrongful death consistently and reliably. Some colleagues ran a trial on body cameras and found improved metrics, particularly around stop-and-search. The success rate of stop and search increased, officers reported feeling safer. They also noted an increase in allegations but I don't think dug into that as much as they wanted to (it may be an area where the behaviour feedback loop was slow enough to need a longer study duration). http://www.behaviouralinsights.co.uk/trial-results/measuring-the-impact-of-body-worn-video-cameras-on-police-behaviour-and-criminal-justice-outcomes/ http://www.behaviouralinsights.co.uk/trial-results/measuring...
- mathattack 9y ago
  The price for this should be massive. Doing this once or twice corrupts the justice system and destroys public trust in police. This invites gangs to become the law and order. Look how that’s worked out in Chicago.
  - deleted 9y ago
NiklasMort 9y ago
I am so happy I don't live in the "land of the free", seems like one dark and dangerous country.
- kelvin0 9y ago
  Well you're free to buy as many guns as possible. Don't know if there is much freedom left besides that.
- sheraz 9y ago
  Sure, if you only ever consume terrible news then it would seem that way. I can cast sweden in a similar light. Or even Disneys magic kingdom.
  - NiklasMort 9y ago
    I am very aware of that but overall it still looks like it if you have a look at all topics, personal stories and experiences etc. I'd be rather fearful to go the the US, starts at the border, then their cities and then I'd be fearful of their police. Not to mention all the other issues this country seems to have. The poverty in the USA is worse than in some ex 2nd world countries, so bad that even the UN called upon it.
    - sheraz 9y ago
      How many hundreds of thousands pass through American borders with little hassle every day? That is not news (but maybe it should be as well). Also, one cannot paint with such a wide brush as "The USA." It is the same mistake as any American visiting London, Paris, and Berlin -- and then saying they have seen "Europe." They didn't see Europe -- they saw globalized mega-regions that happened to be located on the European continent. Unfortunately, Baltimore is an outlier when it comes to violent crime, corruption, and poverty. It is an urban center in decline and in need of all kinds of help. (This is where I stop, else it becomes political very quickly). Compare Baltimore to places like Denver, Dallas, or Phoenix, and you will see very different cities. The US is huge in geography, population, and economics. Pinpointing an outlier and concluding that the entire country is poor and dangerous does not make for constructive conversation. We would do ourselves a favor to talk more about the specific problems Baltimore faces, and then look at the broader American context to see which sister similar cities have tackled similar problems.
tobyhinloopen 9y ago
Ignoring the content of the article, why are so many articles on sites like these written so "weird"? There is lots of text and it seems there is very little actual content. It is like only a few lines actually have something to say, but the rest is just filler content. It is like someone wrote an article of a few lines, and someone else just extended it with random sentences to fill a page. To make matters worse, usually the page is also polluted with advertisements and referencing articles in between paragraphs.
- chatmasta 9y ago
  Because the article is not a primary source, and it’s published on a website that rarely if ever “breaks” a story. The only way for the site to stay in business is to publish glorified rewordings of whatever primary source published a set of facts today. The further you get from the primary source, the more “filler” content is required to justify yet another piece about the same subject.
- ZeroGravitas 9y ago
  Are you talking about this specific article? I thought it was unusually factually dense for a blog site, since it is in effect a tl;dr of another, very meaty story.
- zaroth 9y ago
  Because this is a shit article pushing a political agenda with absurd rhetoric pandering to a niche that happens to be prevalent on HN? After reading the last paragraph, I went straight for the flag button; "It is not just Baltimore cops. It is cops. They will shoot you in the face in front of your infant daughter. They will choke you to sleep for selling cigarettes. They will shoot you in the back for walking away. And they will get away with it so often that we are shocked when they are indicted."
  - andrepd 9y ago
    You seem outraged, but is anything they said wrong?
jagtesh 9y ago
I'm glad the cops in Toronto are paid extremely well. A Constable can earn $90k. There's less likelihood of a cop going to such extents if they don't need to. Of course that's not the only reason, but is likely part of the solution.
- Clubber 9y ago
  Police in big cities get paid well to. Its the FOP union. Cops in my mid sized city make over $100K after 10 years. That's with full health and pension.
fsloth 9y ago
So basically the system is built so that officers can steal from suspects if the money they have is acquired through illegal means. Is there a racial subtext here? Obviously this could not continue unless a significant portion of the police community was fine with it. What's the common police officers pay in Baltimore? How long are they trained? Are they trained professionals (lots of training) or just thugs with guns (very little training)? I have no experience in this field but I would guess they have a low pay (financial incentive) and very little training (leading to lack of professionalism). Is it so?
rburhum 9y ago
Although this is a topic that is easy to get angry about, I can't honestly trust anything that I read from theroot.com since I have seen many articles that are just racially charged and completely biased. Just a few days ago, they posted something about the ousting of London Breed here in SF (https://www.theroot.com/london-breed-had-a-clean-shot-at-becoming-san-francisco-1822369280 https://www.theroot.com/london-breed-had-a-clean-shot-at-bec...). The problem with that article, is that it blames the ousting purely on racial issues. I feel neutral against London Breed, but I have several SF teacher friends that straight out don't like her. Why? Not because of the color of her skin, but because of some policies that she was supporting. Long story short, the teachers union had a deal with the city to finally get a super crappy raise amount. Something was better than nothing (I still think they are completely underpaid), but to add insult to injury, the raise was dependent on a new property tax to be passed. Since the new property tax is not popular for various valid reasons, London Breed had the bright idea to tell the teachers that "if they wanted the raise", they "had better go out and campaign". This ended up being completely unpopular with the teachers. Stuff like this is IMHO why she lost support. Of course, it is easier to tell a story that she got ousted because she is a woman of color that got knocked out by the rich white man... zero mention of any of these issues. That to me is theroot.com, so I can't take it seriously. Just another Fox News.
- Jotra7 9y ago
  Wonder if you're a well off white dude...
- epmaybe 9y ago
  someone above posted a link to the baltimore sun that just presents the evidence. Let me know what you think of it: http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/crime/bs-md-ci-gun-trace-task-force-gttf-testimony-highlights-20180126-story.html http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/crime/bs-md-ci-gun...
  - rburhum 9y ago
    Yeah this really sucks and really messed up. This source is far more legit.
RickJWagner 9y ago
For those in countries outside the USA-- please be assured this is sensationalist rubbish. Cops are the most under-payed, overworked, least respected workers in the country. They put their lives on the line every day and have to put up with hostile press. They are told to wear body cameras, then are told to take them off when the results are not to the liking of the agitators. Cops are simply a political football, and it is disgusting. They are public servants.
- smcl 9y ago
  So are you saying cops weren't planting toy guns, and the story is false? Or are you saying that they're excused from behaviour like this because they have a hard job?
- lucozade 9y ago
  Tone aside, most of this is from the transcripts of an on-going court case. And although some of the witnesses are highly dubious, most of these accounts have come from police officers who are testifying. So yeah, they might be lying under oath but I'm not sure that helps your point much.
- corecoder 9y ago
  > They put their lives on the line every day They also put other people's lives on the line every day.
- Clubber 9y ago
  I think you meant to say teachers. Cops in my town get over $100K after 10 years with full health an pension. My neighbor cops down the street put their kids in private school. The FOP is a powerful union. Hackers released a bunch of FOP/city contracts a few years ago across the country.
cafard 9y ago
"Throw-away pieces", i.e. real guns that could be used for such a purpose were spoken off long ago.
andrewjl 9y ago
The Wire needs to do a new season and incorporate this. Truth is stranger than fiction.

> It is not just Baltimore cops. It is cops. They will shoot you in the face in front of your infant daughter. They will choke you to sleep for selling cigarettes. This is the tone and conclusion of this article. If you want the actual story, read the original report here: http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/crime/bs-md-ci-gun-trace-task-force-gttf-testimony-highlights-20180126-story.html http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/crime/bs-md-ci-gun...

sho 9y ago
> This is the tone and conclusion of this "article" Why on earth did you put "article" in quotes. Are you questioning whether it is, in fact, an article? Because that seems quite self-evident. You might disagree with it but be assured TFA is, in fact, an article and putting the word in quotes just makes it look like you don't know what quotes are for. Hint: quoting.
- chatmasta 9y ago
  The term “article” used to refer to a piece published in a newspaper or periodical that went through a thorough drafting, editing and review process before publish. Nowadays anyone can post an article on the internet. That’s great. But because of this, the definition of “article” has become basically meaningless. An article could be entirely fact based, full of falsehoods, or misrepresent facts by mixing them with opinions. There really should be a distinction between different levels of reporting. Most of the problems cropping up these past two years can be traced to the fact that people put the same credibility in a piece by some random person on the internet as they do in one by a career journalist.
  - Judgmentality 9y ago
    > Most of the problems cropping up these past two years can be traced to the fact that people put the same credibility in a piece by some random person on the internet as they do in one by a career journalist. Citation needed.
    - chatmasta 9y ago
      For which part? Have you missed the whole “fake news” fiasco? People will upvote and share any article that reinforces their existing beliefs and world view. Rather than approaching articles with a healthy skepticism and critical thinking, many people are consuming content based on what “team” the author seems to be advocating for. Instead of asking questions like, “what is the author’s agenda?” or “does this author have a track record of reliability?”, people are asking “does this author believe the same things I do?” If the answer to that is “yes,” then not even a follow-up article from a Pulitzer Prize winner will be sufficient to discredit it for many people.
      - fao_ 9y ago
        > People will upvote and share any article that reinforces their existing beliefs and world view. People do that with accredited news already. For example, in communist circles there is some groups that believe that no matter what, everything that Stalin did was justified. They will bring up no amount of obscure scholars, and disregard large amounts of citations from modern scholars and new evidence to protect this world view. The same goes for any world view. Look at all the people hoping against all evidence that bitcoin is a fad. Ultimately, people will do this no matter what quality of the evidence presented is (aside from one or two people who decide that they like X news source, there is a chance they will reverse with a citation from that news source, but no other, even if the quality of the evidence is the same). 'Fake news' existed long before it came to that name.
        Density 9y ago
        Are... tankies and bit coin bubble realists on the same page to you?
- Chazprime 9y ago
  If it’s a Gawker-associated publication, isn’t there always a question of validity?
- weberc2 9y ago
  Presumably to highlight the difference between real journalism and this glorified blog post. He used the quotes correctly.
Vosporos 9y ago
"And they will get away with it so often that we are shocked when they are indicted." You forgot that.
pornel 9y ago
The article is about people literally trying to get away with murder. The last two sentences are references to well-documented cases of police officers killing non-dangerous citizens. There's no reason to be polite about this.
- ckastner 9y ago
  The article is about a sub-group of these people, but the tone to me as well was one of sweeping generalizations. Edit (instead of replying to all of the individual replies): I'll be the first to acknowledge that there are systemic problems in police forces worldwide, just like there are systemic problems in any large organization, especially one endowed which so much executive power. However, any argument that paints a picture of "uniform equals bad" is, in my opinion, not only delusional, but is also a severe injustice to the good apples in public service, that is: in service to the public.
  - OldGuuuuy 9y ago
    Ahh the bad apple defence.
  - mikepurvis 9y ago
    Any member of the force, its leadership, or the surrounding politicians who is not 100% supporting the investigation and calling for heads to roll, is complicit. If that's a large enough group, then a sweeping generalization is absolutely warranted. "Bad apple" arguments only work if there's actual evidence of "good apples" working to expel the bad ones.
    - weberc2 9y ago
      There's no evidence that even 1% of all police are complicit. What is your standard for "large enough"?
      - mikepurvis 9y ago
        Is there evidence of 99% of supposedly non-complicit officers standing with victims, insisting on justice for those guilty? Because that's the standard I'm calling for.
talldan 9y ago
The author is citing real events. When some cops are corrupt, does it matter that the rest might be decent? An individual police officer represents the entire force. They wear the colours and the badge as a representative of the whole establishment. Would you call the police if you knew there were such troubling corruption issues? It would definitely make me think twice - you just don't know which officer will turn up. Zero tolerance is the only way forwards when it comes to this, otherwise the few destroy trust for the masses.
- weberc2 9y ago
  > When some cops are corrupt, does it matter that the rest might be decent? Yes. Of course it matters.
  - talldan 9y ago
    And what's your argument?
    - weberc2 9y ago
      Generalizing a huge population on the basis of a tiny, curated group invites bad policy and general ignorance.
      - talldan 9y ago
        I agree with that. There are always shades of grey to every argument. However the point that I'm trying to make (maybe badly) is that the Police are different to most other organisations. They're probably closest to healthcare in that the population, or maybe even distinct communities of a country needs to be able to trust the entire police force has its interest at heart. From an outside perspective, this is failing in a bad way in the US. It is more than likely the actions of a few that is causing it. That failure has bad repercussions, things get worse because people start taking justice into their own hands ... it leads to riots, clashes and worse. That's why you can never tolerate any corruption in a justice system. I've witnessed first hands the riots here in London that resulted from questionable Police actions (we still don't know the full story of those events). It feels like society is crumbling when things get that bad.

wallace_f 9y ago

I recently learned that the homicide rate in Japan is lower than the rate at which police are killing people in the US.

Judgmentality 9y ago
Japanese crime statistics are probably not very reliable. http://articles.latimes.com/2007/nov/09/world/fg-autopsy9 http://articles.latimes.com/2007/nov/09/world/fg-autopsy9
- onion2k 9y ago
  Statistics on killings by US police officers may not be very reliable either. https://psmag.com/social-justice/how-many-people-are-killed-by-police-in-the-united-states https://psmag.com/social-justice/how-many-people-are-killed-...
- wallace_f 9y ago
  Well what about the Innocence Project and all the false narratives it has uncovere? Do some web searches around this kind of stuff and I think the US crime statistics also become similarly unreliable. Maybe look up Ken Dilanian, Gary Webb, Steven Avery, Michael Hastings, etc. Our policing force also has corruption and its share of false narratives. There are a lot of cases like this.
jopsen 9y ago
In Europe most countries count the number of bullets fired by police, not just the number of bodies disposed.
- stevekemp 9y ago
  Indeed, leading to headlines like this one "Finnish police fired guns only six times in 2013" Frustratingly I can't find anything more recent, because I'm sure I read that last year, or the year before, we were down to one round fired.

daedlanth 9y ago

Our US society is sick beyond belief.

squarefoot 9y ago
The problem goes way beyond the US borders, and is a clear sign of corruption among the ruling class. When a cop is acquitted for murdering some innocent thanks to some intervention form above, he could become in the future a pawn of a private army for whoever was helping him/her from above. Suppose you're a high profile politician who needs some dirty job to be done, who would you trust more, some thugs recruited around or ex cops who don't serve jail time because of you?
- chmod775 9y ago
  > The problem goes way beyond the US borders Name one more western first world country besides the US, where cops shooting someone is hardly news. And no, the problem probably isn't guns. In the US there's about 1 gun per resident, Germany 0.3, UK 0.06, and Canada 0.3. Meanwhile there were about 987 fatal shootings by cops in the US in 2016, compared to 13 in Germany, 4 in the UK, and 9 in Canada. Even adjusting these numbers for population and number of guns per resident, you will still be off by an order of magnitude.
  - GrantSolar 9y ago
    >And no, the problem probably isn't guns. The biggest factors do revolve around guns though. Not just numbers, but the culture which feeds into itself and the perception that guns are not a problem, but a solution ("The only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun"). Of course, this then provokes a "Have-a-go-Harry" take on confrontation where people who are woefully ill-equipped to deal with a situation attempt to do so. The lack of training, the fetishisation of guns, and the sheer number of guns are all extremely significant factors in gun crime. Take away any one of these and the rate of gun crime would drop significantly. Unfortunately, any solution has to work within the framework of "no further regulation" to even get close to implementation which rules out swathes of methods

jopsen 9y ago

Why not clean house? At this point I can't imagine the local community, particularly minorities, have any trust in the authorities. Isn't that failure, why not train a new police force with new uniforms and then phase out the old?

arethuza 9y ago
That's pretty much what happened in Northern Ireland as part of the Good Friday Agreement: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Police_Service_of_Northern_Ireland https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Police_Service_of_Northern_Ire...
- pjc50 9y ago
  Hmm. Population of NI: 1.8m. Population of Baltimore: 600k (declining! as shown by a helpful google graph). So NI is three Baltimores. Worst year of Troubles: 1972, 479 troubles-related deaths. I'm unclear as to whether that includes "background" non-political crime, so I'll round it up to 500 (current NI murder rate is about 1/100k pop). Current Baltimore murder rate: 373 in 2017. Murder rate for three Baltimores: 1119. That makes today's Baltimore twice as lethal as Troubles NI, with all its carbombs and troops on the streets. It's a mess that to me would seem to warrant national intervention. https://www.economist.com/news/united-states/21724399-america-gets-safer-marylands-biggest-city-does-not-crime-and-despair-baltimore https://www.economist.com/news/united-states/21724399-americ...
  - duncanawoods 9y ago
    That is a fascinating comparison but one aspect that may not make it a fair is comparing NI region vs. city. It would be interesting to compare just Belfast to Baltimore because thats where the majority of deaths happened. edit: add a dodgy esimation Belfast poulation in 70's: 431k % of troubles deaths in Belfast : 43% => murder rate: 479 * 0.43 / 431 = 44 homicides per 100k But as you note, the NI figures is only the political murders so it can only really be compared against a similar subset of Baltimore homicides e.g. "gang violence".
9y ago

nukeop 9y ago

This isn't a problem with cops, or blacks, or whites, or anything like that. This is a problem with the USA. In some countries the entire police force of the country combined uses fewer bullets per year than the average police officer in the States. The homicide rates can be 40 times smaller in European countries than there. There's just something fundamentally wrong with that country and it would be a mistake to attribute it to something simple like race relations.

mikepurvis 9y ago
It's insane seeing videos of routine traffic stops in the US where both officers leap from their vehicle with guns drawn, ready to escalate the situation at the slightest provocation. Future, more civilized, societies will one day study the ruins of America with bafflement. Like, what were they thinking? Was this what liberty was to them?
- coolso 9y ago
  > It's insane seeing videos of routine traffic stops in the US where both officers leap from their vehicle with guns drawn, ready to escalate the situation at the slightest provocation. Routine traffic stops, or felony traffic stops? I've never heard of that happening for the former, although there may be a few examples out there, but it's far from the norm. But that is indeed normal for a felony traffic stop, like when pulling over a stolen car, or after chasing a suspect from the scene of a crime, or if the car waited a really long time to pull over, or if an outstanding warrant was found when they ran the plates.
  - nukeop 9y ago
    In civilized countries the cops do not expect everyone to carry a loaded firearm.
mclightning 9y ago
1 - In most european countries, you are not allowed to carry weapons. 2 - European countries are very small in population in comparison to US.

thriftwy 9y ago

Should not police departments have something like internal investigations department to catch things like these before public have to be involved?

rsynnott 9y ago
I always suspect that a big part of the problem with the US police system is that it's made up of loads of regional forces. In countries with national forces, internal investigations are easier; just bring in people from the other side of the country, who have no particular loyalty to the people they're investigating.
lucozade 9y ago
In this particular case, it appears that some of the wrongdoing involved a lieutenant in Internal Affairs. So yes, they do have internal investigations departments. See Day 2 of [0]. [0] http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/crime/bs-md-ci-gun-trace-task-force-gttf-testimony-highlights-20180126-story.html http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/crime/bs-md-ci-gun...

ralusek 9y ago

Body cams on police and actual consequences for misconduct. Some of the videos of people (of all colors) being unlawfully murdered have led to absolutely zero consequence for those responsible. Those with authority granted by the public should have HIGHER accountability and more severe consequences, not be able to subvert them altogether. It's not difficult to imagine the level of misconduct that is likely occurring in the cases where no video evidence is even available. And while the racial component of police shootings has been portrayed in a way which differs sharply from the actual data on race/crime/police lethal force, there IS still some element of uncertainty in the exact figures. The fact that there is any uncertainty at all in police killings being reported correctly is absolutely INSANE to me. This is not an area where we can have sloppy data. If a government agent is responsible for the death of a citizen, it is unacceptable that we not have a very clear record of all surrounding circumstance.

richmarr 9y ago
Absolutely agree on both counts. Holding public office is a privilege that rightly should come with a different threshold of privacy/transparency. And yes, no nation is taking the issue of police conduct seriously if it's not even recording wrongful death consistently and reliably. Some colleagues ran a trial on body cameras and found improved metrics, particularly around stop-and-search. The success rate of stop and search increased, officers reported feeling safer. They also noted an increase in allegations but I don't think dug into that as much as they wanted to (it may be an area where the behaviour feedback loop was slow enough to need a longer study duration). http://www.behaviouralinsights.co.uk/trial-results/measuring-the-impact-of-body-worn-video-cameras-on-police-behaviour-and-criminal-justice-outcomes/ http://www.behaviouralinsights.co.uk/trial-results/measuring...
mathattack 9y ago
The price for this should be massive. Doing this once or twice corrupts the justice system and destroys public trust in police. This invites gangs to become the law and order. Look how that’s worked out in Chicago.
- deleted 9y ago

NiklasMort 9y ago

I am so happy I don't live in the "land of the free", seems like one dark and dangerous country.

kelvin0 9y ago
Well you're free to buy as many guns as possible. Don't know if there is much freedom left besides that.
sheraz 9y ago
Sure, if you only ever consume terrible news then it would seem that way. I can cast sweden in a similar light. Or even Disneys magic kingdom.
- NiklasMort 9y ago
  I am very aware of that but overall it still looks like it if you have a look at all topics, personal stories and experiences etc. I'd be rather fearful to go the the US, starts at the border, then their cities and then I'd be fearful of their police. Not to mention all the other issues this country seems to have. The poverty in the USA is worse than in some ex 2nd world countries, so bad that even the UN called upon it.
  - sheraz 9y ago
    How many hundreds of thousands pass through American borders with little hassle every day? That is not news (but maybe it should be as well). Also, one cannot paint with such a wide brush as "The USA." It is the same mistake as any American visiting London, Paris, and Berlin -- and then saying they have seen "Europe." They didn't see Europe -- they saw globalized mega-regions that happened to be located on the European continent. Unfortunately, Baltimore is an outlier when it comes to violent crime, corruption, and poverty. It is an urban center in decline and in need of all kinds of help. (This is where I stop, else it becomes political very quickly). Compare Baltimore to places like Denver, Dallas, or Phoenix, and you will see very different cities. The US is huge in geography, population, and economics. Pinpointing an outlier and concluding that the entire country is poor and dangerous does not make for constructive conversation. We would do ourselves a favor to talk more about the specific problems Baltimore faces, and then look at the broader American context to see which sister similar cities have tackled similar problems.

tobyhinloopen 9y ago

Ignoring the content of the article, why are so many articles on sites like these written so "weird"? There is lots of text and it seems there is very little actual content. It is like only a few lines actually have something to say, but the rest is just filler content. It is like someone wrote an article of a few lines, and someone else just extended it with random sentences to fill a page. To make matters worse, usually the page is also polluted with advertisements and referencing articles in between paragraphs.

chatmasta 9y ago
Because the article is not a primary source, and it’s published on a website that rarely if ever “breaks” a story. The only way for the site to stay in business is to publish glorified rewordings of whatever primary source published a set of facts today. The further you get from the primary source, the more “filler” content is required to justify yet another piece about the same subject.
ZeroGravitas 9y ago
Are you talking about this specific article? I thought it was unusually factually dense for a blog site, since it is in effect a tl;dr of another, very meaty story.
zaroth 9y ago
Because this is a shit article pushing a political agenda with absurd rhetoric pandering to a niche that happens to be prevalent on HN? After reading the last paragraph, I went straight for the flag button; "It is not just Baltimore cops. It is cops. They will shoot you in the face in front of your infant daughter. They will choke you to sleep for selling cigarettes. They will shoot you in the back for walking away. And they will get away with it so often that we are shocked when they are indicted."
- andrepd 9y ago
  You seem outraged, but is anything they said wrong?

jagtesh 9y ago

I'm glad the cops in Toronto are paid extremely well. A Constable can earn $90k. There's less likelihood of a cop going to such extents if they don't need to. Of course that's not the only reason, but is likely part of the solution.

Clubber 9y ago
Police in big cities get paid well to. Its the FOP union. Cops in my mid sized city make over $100K after 10 years. That's with full health and pension.

fsloth 9y ago

So basically the system is built so that officers can steal from suspects if the money they have is acquired through illegal means. Is there a racial subtext here? Obviously this could not continue unless a significant portion of the police community was fine with it. What's the common police officers pay in Baltimore? How long are they trained? Are they trained professionals (lots of training) or just thugs with guns (very little training)? I have no experience in this field but I would guess they have a low pay (financial incentive) and very little training (leading to lack of professionalism). Is it so?

rburhum 9y ago

Although this is a topic that is easy to get angry about, I can't honestly trust anything that I read from theroot.com since I have seen many articles that are just racially charged and completely biased. Just a few days ago, they posted something about the ousting of London Breed here in SF (https://www.theroot.com/london-breed-had-a-clean-shot-at-becoming-san-francisco-1822369280 https://www.theroot.com/london-breed-had-a-clean-shot-at-bec...). The problem with that article, is that it blames the ousting purely on racial issues. I feel neutral against London Breed, but I have several SF teacher friends that straight out don't like her. Why? Not because of the color of her skin, but because of some policies that she was supporting. Long story short, the teachers union had a deal with the city to finally get a super crappy raise amount. Something was better than nothing (I still think they are completely underpaid), but to add insult to injury, the raise was dependent on a new property tax to be passed. Since the new property tax is not popular for various valid reasons, London Breed had the bright idea to tell the teachers that "if they wanted the raise", they "had better go out and campaign". This ended up being completely unpopular with the teachers. Stuff like this is IMHO why she lost support. Of course, it is easier to tell a story that she got ousted because she is a woman of color that got knocked out by the rich white man... zero mention of any of these issues. That to me is theroot.com, so I can't take it seriously. Just another Fox News.

Jotra7 9y ago
Wonder if you're a well off white dude...
epmaybe 9y ago
someone above posted a link to the baltimore sun that just presents the evidence. Let me know what you think of it: http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/crime/bs-md-ci-gun-trace-task-force-gttf-testimony-highlights-20180126-story.html http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/crime/bs-md-ci-gun...
- rburhum 9y ago
  Yeah this really sucks and really messed up. This source is far more legit.

RickJWagner 9y ago

For those in countries outside the USA-- please be assured this is sensationalist rubbish. Cops are the most under-payed, overworked, least respected workers in the country. They put their lives on the line every day and have to put up with hostile press. They are told to wear body cameras, then are told to take them off when the results are not to the liking of the agitators. Cops are simply a political football, and it is disgusting. They are public servants.

smcl 9y ago
So are you saying cops weren't planting toy guns, and the story is false? Or are you saying that they're excused from behaviour like this because they have a hard job?
lucozade 9y ago
Tone aside, most of this is from the transcripts of an on-going court case. And although some of the witnesses are highly dubious, most of these accounts have come from police officers who are testifying. So yeah, they might be lying under oath but I'm not sure that helps your point much.
corecoder 9y ago
> They put their lives on the line every day They also put other people's lives on the line every day.
Clubber 9y ago
I think you meant to say teachers. Cops in my town get over $100K after 10 years with full health an pension. My neighbor cops down the street put their kids in private school. The FOP is a powerful union. Hackers released a bunch of FOP/city contracts a few years ago across the country.

cafard 9y ago

"Throw-away pieces", i.e. real guns that could be used for such a purpose were spoken off long ago.

andrewjl 9y ago

The Wire needs to do a new season and incorporate this. Truth is stranger than fiction.