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‘Testilying’ by Police: A Stubborn Problem

436 points by anarbadalov 9y ago

dclowd9901 9y ago
It's not "testilying" it's fucking perjury. There's nothing about this that should be made cute.
zerocrates 9y ago
"Testilying" is a fun, cute name for the crime of perjury.
- mfoy_ 9y ago
  Seriously. Rock solid evidence that directly contradicts your sworn testimony? That's perjury. That's a crime.
  - IncRnd 9y ago
    And, what does the quoted officer say in the story about lying under oath? "Behind closed doors, we call it testilying," a New York City police officer, Pedro Serrano, said in a recent interview, echoing a word that officers coined at least 25 years ago. "You take the truth and stretch it out a little bit." An officer lying under oath in order to sway a verdict calls into question every single police report or court testimony from that officer. You're absolutely correct. This is extremely serious.
    - LordKano 9y ago
      You're absolutely correct. This is extremely serious. And it's extremely common.
    - JumpCrisscross 9y ago
      > An officer lying under oath in order to sway a verdict calls into question every single police report or court testimony from that officer Are there public databases that track dishonest officers? That could be incredibly helpful to defence lawyers.
      - s73v3r_ 9y ago
        Not always public, but a lot of DAs have lists of officers who's testimony was not legit, and so they were meant to be kept away.
      - IncRnd 9y ago
        Unfortunately, I am unaware of any of those. It stands to reason that police officers speaking openly in this manner about lying under oath don't face repercussions and consequently don't get tracked much.
      - throwawaycop 9y ago
        That’s easy: if they have a badge, they can’t be trusted. Don’t talk to the cops. Ever.
      - Cyberdog 9y ago
        If they're an officer, they're dishonest. Even if it may not be technically true, it's safe for the general public to assume this.
        s73v3r_ 9y ago
        The point of such a database would be to bring to light specific cases, so actions can be taken against the officers in question.
      - adrianratnapala 9y ago
        Can one be started? Sub-questions include: 1. Are public court-records complete enough to show it? 2. Is it a judgment-call whether a given record shows it? 3. How would list-makers avoid charges of defamation? 4. How do they prevent spam?
        mLuby 9y ago
        I assume such a list would have rows consisting of, at minimum: a. link to case's public testimony (CPT) b. text in CPT to officer's statement. c. text in CPT that contradicts the statement. (I'd love to see an example row!) 2. Innocent until proven guilty? I'd say best to start with the clear lies first to build the list's credibility. However enough borderline cases surrounding an individual or department can also be interesting. 3. Defamation requires that the statements about the person be false. Referencing court docs about what they said should obviate that concern. Maybe the trick is to bill the db as a "list of inconsistencies" rather than outright lies. 4. I'd be more concerned about DoS attack rather than spam.
  - wl 9y ago
    It's not perjury unless it's willful. I have no doubt that some of these inconsistencies (most?) are deliberate, but human memory is often pretty terrible. Good luck proving that the officer was deliberately not telling the truth.
    - dclowd9901 9y ago
      How about making it a crime to misremember? Sure would make you think twice before you testified something as fact. Human memory is _very_ fallible. Time we started treating it that way.
      - milesokeefe 9y ago
        Under that law, very few sane people would testify at all.
        dclowd9901 9y ago
        Great. Most testimonies are probably fallacious anyway.
    - cstoner 9y ago
      Well, usually this comes from written statements right after the event right? It's not like there's a several week gap between the event and the report.... right?
    - michaelmrose 9y ago
      Unless you suffer from a mental disease your memory isn't that bad. Small inconsistencies aren't really the issue.
  - philwelch 9y ago
    Choking people to death on the street for selling loose cigarettes is a crime, too.
- turc1656 9y ago
  Beat me to it. Was just about to write the same exact thing. If we common peasants lie on the stand they have no problem calling it what it is. If one of the anointed does it, it's called "testilying" or, my personal favorite, "misremembering". Sure, memory is pretty faulty, but not in the way these cops "misremember".
  - Waterluvian 9y ago
    Misremembering is one of those things that can get you crucified by the FBI or other police. And they often try to make you do it. https://www.popehat.com/2017/12/04/everybody-lies-fbi-edition/ https://www.popehat.com/2017/12/04/everybody-lies-fbi-editio...
    - turc1656 9y ago
      Yes, that's precisely why you should never, ever, ever talk to the cops: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-7o9xYp7eE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-7o9xYp7eE I love that video. That first speaker really spells everything out in a concise and easily comprehensible way of how you can and will be fucked (if you are the prime suspect) if you open your mouth, innocent or not.
      - gowld 9y ago
        The first speaker is a lawyer. Then the second lawyer, a cop, says essentially "he's right. but you should trust our (cops') judgment, we are trying to help."
        AFNobody 9y ago
        Talking to the cops when you are the victim makes sense. Otherwise, not so much.
        Waterluvian 9y ago
        Right, you have to live with some level of trust. "Hey we are looking for a guy who kidnapped a child. Have you seen a white van in this lot today? It's really important we follow up on any possible leads so anything you can remember might help!" "Sorry I won't speak to you without my lawyer present."
- chongli 9y ago
  It's a good name, though, I hope it sticks. Perjury can remain the term for the crime in general, and testilying can refer to the specific form of police officers systematically perjuring themselves for corrupt or otherwise dubious purposes.
  - adrianratnapala 9y ago
    This is right. Though nothing about the construction of the word "testilying" is specific to the police.
- paulie_a 9y ago
  It should be considered worse than perjury.
  - jopsen 9y ago
    Because a police officer is trusted to be impartial.
    - TheCoelacanth 9y ago
      Yes, it is not only perjury, it is an extreme abuse of power and it is potentially robbing someone of their freedom.
- twic 9y ago
  "'Joyrider' [1] is not a term I will allow in my station, constable. [...] Crime is crime, and should not be trivialised. What next? Are we to refer to grievous bodily harm [2] as 'fun-punching'? Assault with a deadly weapon as 'a laugh and a stab'?" Standards for comedy were much lower in the mid-'90s. [3] [1] UK slang https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joyride_(crime) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joyride_(crime) [2] UK actual crime https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grievous_bodily_harm https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grievous_bodily_harm [3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dqa6H2T4aS0&t=3m33s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dqa6H2T4aS0&t=3m33s
  - maaark 9y ago
    I've heard of the police here in Northern Ireland refer to the act of lighting bins on fire as "Recreational Vandalism". While refusing to do anything about it happening repeatedly. Makes the blood boil.
- saas_co_de 9y ago
  Funny that they are taking a dump on street level cops but don't seem too concerned about the perjury of high level officials who they publish endless editorials supporting.
- SliderUp 9y ago
  It's worse; it's a specific subset of perjury. It's lying under oath by someone in authority, who presumes greater moral weight during testifying. And that testimony is often used to get people to plea bargain when they are innocent. It should have an outsized punishment.
JudasGoat 9y ago
I have first hand experience when I tried to drive away from the police because I knew I had a warrant for my arrest. They started shooting and said I tried to run them over. There were five separate police reports with the same story. I had eye witnesses, but they were addicts like myself. So you plead guilty and go to jail.
- turc1656 9y ago
  That's truly unfortunate. But it doesn't surprise me one bit. This is how they operate. They love trumping up charges any way they can ("stop resisting!") because the more "serious" crime they stop they better they look and then they are able to get promotions. Was there any dashcam or other video evidence available? I assume not or else I imagine it would have been used.
  - jacobush 9y ago
    These things are not very reliable, break easily.
    - Buttons840 9y ago
      We'll soon have a a future where our cars have like 14 cameras and a radar and police officers will still be having trouble getting their cameras to work reliably no doubt. In my justice fantasies some smart ass company comes along to "help" the police by providing them with vests each containing 60 cameras all operating independently and unable to be turned off. The same company will "help" the police avoid complicated data maintenance issues by uploading to their secure servers. This same company would be very popular with the voting public who vote for laws that ensure police accept the "help". Just a fantasy for sure.
  - inetknght 9y ago
    Why do you imagine it would have been used? Police have a strong incentive to not provide such evidence.
    - 9y ago
StanislavPetrov 9y ago
The scandal and crimes aren't limited to the perjurious cops, but include prosecutors who fail to prosecute this perjury (and, even worse, rely on false testimony to secure convictions).
- Analemma_ 9y ago
  Yup. This is why there needs to be a law mandating that ALL allegations of police criminality are automatically, statutorily handled by a special prosecutor. District Attorneys have shown very convincingly that they absolutely cannot be trusted to investigate the misconduct of police in their jurisdiction. This is a simple change that would, overnight, completely flip the calculus of police who literally get away with murder.
  - AnimalMuppet 9y ago
    > This is why there needs to be a law mandating that ALL allegations of police criminality are automatically, statutorily handled by a special prosecutor. That lets every person arrested charge the police with something criminal, and have it taken seriously, no matter how bogus the charge. What? You thought the police practice "testilying", but the criminals don't? Now, true, some such accusations need to be taken more seriously. Not all of them, though. The prosecutors err too often on the side of the police. Erring too much on the side of the accusers is not the answer, though.
    - Analemma_ 9y ago
      This is a non-issue. District Attorneys handle this situation all the time: they get plenty of bogus cases, or cases that could be real but have flimsy evidence, and then decide which ones are solid enough to take to trial and which ones are ignored. There is no reason a standing office of a special prosecutor for police misconduct couldn't do the same thing.
    - dragonwriter 9y ago
      > That lets every person arrested charge the police with something criminal, and have it taken seriously, no matter how bogus the charge. No, it doesn't. An independent special prosecutor can brush off an allegation as not credible as easily as a police-aligned prosecutor; in principle, they won't be biased by their other prosecutions depending on the police, but they don't somehow lose the capacity for judgement along with that source of bias.
OrganicMSG 9y ago
> "Kevin Richardson, the Police Department’s top internal prosecutor, said he believed so-called testilying was nearing its end. “I think it’s a problem that’s very much largely on its way out,” he said." Very much largely? Now, without wanting to cast aspersions on a prosecutor, is this guy lying about lying?
- tomcam 9y ago
  I very much largely believe he is indeed lying about lying
- ghostbrainalpha 9y ago
  It's a problem on its way out because of the rapid adoption of body cameras on police officers. If you look at the next 25 years, not only will every cop have a camera running 24/7, but also all vehicle's including the suspect's will be recording events from multiple angles. Most homes will have cameras at the front door, and throughout the home in some form or another. Many witnessneses are already recording things through their phones. People may be wearing augmented reality style "google glasses" that can retroactively record important moments. Meaning they won't even intend to record the things that they do. Right now its possible for the police to intimidate someone who pulls out a phone and starts recording, but soon there will be just too many devices, and it will be impossible to tell what is recording. And drones... Traffic and delivery drones, can easily be rerouted during police incidents to provide overhead video feeds that help the officer, or help the court determine what happened at a later date.
  - OrganicMSG 9y ago
    People who expect to be exempted from consequences then attempt to lie about what the video represents or things that are out of frame. Until there is a culture of routine and serious consequences for police lying in court, police will continue to lie in court.
  - ilkan 9y ago
    That's hopeful... but false. If there are no consequences, then it doesn't matter whether or not they lie, does it? The accused's outcomes are +1 or -1. The officer's outcomes are +1 or 0. The rational play for the officer is to lie for the +1.
macawfish 9y ago
I have a friend who almost went to prison (24 months) for something a stranger had done because a police officer gave false testimony against him. Because my friend's public defender was overloaded with cases, bus surveillance footage corroborating my friend's defense almost didn't make it to his trial. At the very last minute, while the judge was making his final statement, my friend's public defender busted through the door with the footage. A police officer blatantly lied to get him convicted for a crime he had nothing to do with. My friend got off and the police officer blushed. Nothing else happened. The cop was never prosecuted for anything, not for perjury, not for testilying. In case you were wondering, the answer is "yes": my friend is a black male. edit: Just wanted to say that yes, these kinds of things also happen to people of all races, especially working class people.
- vkou 9y ago
  If I were ever in a jury box, I would treat police testimony as less trustworthy then that of any other witness, because there is no censure for perjury by them. Of course, this would disqualify me from ever sitting in a jury box.
  - dragonwriter 9y ago
    > Of course, this would disqualify me from ever sitting in a jury box. Probably not; I've been on a criminal jury where virtually all the testimony was from police, and the questions in voir dire wouldn't have he really revealed that attitude unless it was so extreme that the prospective juror themself felt it would prevent them from fairly evaluating the evidence.
  - phyzome 9y ago
    The ethical thing to do here, if asked whether you will treat the word of a law enforcement officer as always true, is to lie. It's along the lines of jury nullification. The people have some recourse in overriding court rules and court rulings when the court is not behaving in accordance with justice.
    - 9y ago
omegaworks 9y ago
The institution of police needs to be abolished and replaced wholesale by something better. Measures meant to temper the systemic problems in the institution put in place by the Obama administration have been ripped out[1] by the white supremacist[2] sitting in the Attorney General's seat. Their actions are counterproductive to the preservation of an integrated, fair civil society. 1. https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/department-justice-announces-changes-collaborative-reform-initiative https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/department-justice-announces-... 2. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/wp/2017/01/10/read-the-letter-coretta-scott-king-wrote-opposing-sessionss-1986-federal-nomination/?utm_term=.67bf6ef7558e https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/wp/2017/01/10/...
- ethiclub 9y ago
  I wish people had to justify downvoting with a quick comment. I presume you are being downvoted a) for the possible hyperbole of 'white supremacist' (Is Sessions a White Supremacist, or protectionist and somewhere on the nationalistic scale? Genuine question, as I am unqualified to say) and b) as it is arguably fanciful thinking to simply 'rip it out and replace it wholesale' (I would argue 'never going to happen'). To a large extent, issues posed in this thread could be solved with body cams. When all police are held more accountable in this way, are your grievances eased at all? How would you suppose a government bring about such a large upheaval when most modern politics spends its time on compromise and incremental change?
  - bllguo 9y ago
    it's not a technological issue. Does it matter if body cams exist, when the footage can easily "go missing"? When the DA and the judge are incentivized to be lenient to advance their own careers? How often do you see headlines where the police commit outrageous atrocities and get a slap on the wrist? The system is fundamentally broken. The incentive structure needs to be changed. This is a sociopolitical issue.
    - ethiclub 9y ago
      Sure, I agree with everything in your comment. I do think that technology like this will be less and less corruptible over time though - I am fairly optimistic about this use case for cameras (but also have concerns about how unpleasant jobs like teaching and policing could become if people are monitored in an authoritarian way). In terms of the system being fundamentally broken, my view is that 'ripping it out and starting again' is just not viable (esp with the US having essentially a 2 party system) - Incremental change such as introducing body cams, reducing its corruptibility, and general 'liberal' policy introduction over time is the only feasible path if relying on traditional government. This incremental change, however, is far too slow, which is why I support Ethical Capitalism to provide an alternative path, guided by 'enlightened' public demand. Which brings its own problems and exploitable weaknesses of course. >How often do you see headlines where the police commit outrageous atrocities and get a slap on the wrist? I am fairly optimistic too in this regard - People are slowly wising up to Police perjury and other indiscretions, and it is more at the forefront of people's minds than ever before. I have no justification for this optimism in this conversation though unfortunately, as it is such a large nuanced shift to examine.
binarytide 9y ago
"problem"...
Taniwha 9y ago
Really it's simple - a cop found guilty of perjury should never ever be allowed to be a cop again
- cwkoss 9y ago
  They should go to prison
  - Taniwha 9y ago
    well yes that too, but no police department should be hiring anyone who even perjures themselves a tiny amount .... the real problem here is a cultural problem within police departments and it's their civil oversight that needs to solve this
- Miner49er 9y ago
  So should a cop who murders someone, but that doesn't even happen.
cheez 9y ago
The police are 100% your enemy once they start questioning you about anything. Record, record record. Catch them in one lie, and you get off scot free. Source: been dealing with the "justice" system since I was 17, most recently last year where I recorded an agent of the court committing perjury. Yes, nothing happens to them but most importantly, they've never been able to convict me of anything.
- sigstoat 9y ago
  > The police are 100% your enemy once they start questioning you about anything. Record, record record. even better, stop talking to them. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-7o9xYp7eE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-7o9xYp7eE > Catch them in one lie, and you get off scot free. they're not leprechauns, there are no magical rules in effect.
  - cheez 9y ago
    No but you have to keep in mind the dynamics: 1) once a police officer submits or makes a knowingly false statement that results in your prosecution, exposing this taints all cases where that officer was involved which could result in retrials or dismissals. The da absolutely does not want to be responsible for this. They will drop the charges once your lawyer takes them aside after the statement has been made. Note: do not give your lawyer this evidence until the perjury has occurred. They may not be happy with you and inform the DA thus cutting you off at the knees (it's pretty incestuous at times.) Play dumb and outraged that this is happening to you. 2) a finding of perjury is rare, you're after dismissing the charges 3) nothing will happen to that officer but you may end up being considered hostile in that precinct. No doubt about it, they are the enemy when it comes to finding a scapegoat and they do it with your tax dollars. Edit: I'm unable to respond, apparently I'm commenting too much for the last hour so my response is here: Think about this regarding not trusting your own lawyer: if the case gets dropped, the attorney makes no more in fees. If that evidence is neutered, it needs to go to trial. Trust no one. I'm a very hard looking guy (hard life but I'm really quite soft) and most people think I'm guilty of everything. Add that I am not white, don't look rich, and it's a recipe for distrust on sight. Even when faced with evidence, I've had people continue to lie as if admitting that I'm innocent would cause a tear in the fabric of the universe.
dahdum 9y ago
If you're wondering how California deals with this...poorly. http://www.latimes.com/local/la-me-sheriff-brady-list-20171208-htmlstory.html http://www.latimes.com/local/la-me-sheriff-brady-list-201712... "California is among 22 states that keep officer discipline from the public, but it is the only one that blocks prosecutors from seeing entire police personnel files."
darawk 9y ago
Why is there no baseline mentioned here? This is something that really bothers me about reporting these days. How much is 25 times? Is that a lot? I have no way of knowing. What kind of rate does that imply? How much should I discount police testimony given that information? If it's 25 out of 100, that's really bad. If it's 25 out of 100,000 - maybe it's not that pervasive a problem.
- berbec 9y ago
  That does raise an interesting question: How many innocents convicted, due to institutionalized, consequence-free perjury, is too many? If you think 25 out of 100,000 isn't "that pervasive a problem", thank your lucky stars you're not one of those 25.
  - darawk 9y ago
    In a perfect world, sure. But in the actual world that we live in, reducing false convictions to zero is not realistic. So we have to look for areas where investing our resources in fixing a problem will have a comparatively large beneficial impact. If it's 25/100, there's a lot to be gained there. If it's 25/100,000, there isn't.
leot 9y ago
Should the enforcement of rules be stricter or less strict when applied to those responsible for enforcing the rules?
mirimir 9y ago
> "Remember that the utilization of SOD [information obtained from the NSA] cannot be revealed or discussed in any investigative function," a document presented to agents reads. The document specifically directs agents to omit the SOD's involvement from investigative reports, affidavits, discussions with prosecutors and courtroom testimony. Agents are instructed to then use "normal investigative techniques to recreate the information provided by SOD." [aka parallel construction] http://www.reuters.com/article/us-dea-sod-idUSBRE97409R20130805 http://www.reuters.com/article/us-dea-sod-idUSBRE97409R20130... That is, they are instructed to testilie.
phkahler 9y ago
"Police lying raises the likelihood that the innocent end up in jail — and that as juries and judges come to regard the police as less credible, or as cases are dismissed when the lies are discovered, the guilty will go free." I'm not sure why the police protect each other when there is wrongdoing. When that stuff eventually comes to light it reflects badly on the entire group. Sure, we can tell people it's just a few bad apples, but that doesn't really hold up when the group continues to support bad apples. They're being complicit.
- mlillie 9y ago
  Really? Some 75% of Americans have "a great deal of respect" for the police. Sounds like the lying and getting away with it is working out just fine for their public perception. http://news.gallup.com/poll/196610/americans-respect-police-surges.aspx http://news.gallup.com/poll/196610/americans-respect-police-...
Animats 9y ago
Most companies fire about 2%-4% of their work force a year for cause. Most police departments don't.
- nyolfen 9y ago
  one of the few bastions of unions left in america
  - javajosh 9y ago
    Not sure why this was down-voted; the police unions are a HUGE reason that police don't get fired, and even when they do, they get hired in another county or state.
ChuckMcM 9y ago
This is perhaps the single biggest thorn in my sister-in-law's life. She is a public defender in Marin County. I feel if we could make the number of times an officer was found to testify to something that was shown to be a lie, was submittable as evidence in rebuttal to all of their testimony, it would quickly make bad officers unable to participate in the justice system. I would hope that an officer that cannot make arrests because their testimony will always be stained in court will find themselves out of a job.
- awakeasleep 9y ago
  http://invisible.institute http://invisible.institute is working on this in Chicago and i know there is another project working on it in NYC
  - Flenser 9y ago
    Specifically this project: https://invisible.institute/police-data/ https://invisible.institute/police-data/ Data here: https://github.com/invinst/chicago-police-data https://github.com/invinst/chicago-police-data
- javajosh 9y ago
  This is a policy change that I fully support. Is this a county-, city-, or state-level change? What does your sister-in-law need?
daniel_iversen 9y ago
Holy crap the US always scares me with this sort of insane stuff going on. How do regular Americans feel about this sort of thing?
- berbec 9y ago
  The vast majority are glad this institutionalized perjury hasn't gotten us arrested yet. Many are terrified of any interaction with the police. The remaining Americans are criminals and therfore hold opinions which do not matter to the rest of the country.
- slowmotiony 9y ago
  Oh yeah, US is so bad, lying cops would never exist in Europe or Africa or Asia right?
  - esarbe 9y ago
    Can't comment on Asia. But in Europe; not like this. Especially in Germany the the police (not 'law enforcement') is held to a much higher standard.
  - fsloth 9y ago
    Where I live (Finland) cops would have very little incentive to lie. We are brought up to treat each other in an egalitarian way, and that transcends most levels of our society. For example, in Turku stabbing[0] the police did not attempt to kill the suspect but to incapacitate him with as little force as possible. It's about how they are trained. Police are quite respected, and not feared by anyone here. Justice system is not about punishment, but about providing as low level as possible downside to illegal actions. So it's set up more like a statistical tool than like a personal punishment scheme. Yes, small country, homogenous culture, etc. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017_Turku_stabbing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017_Turku_stabbing Edit: I have to add, that while the general standards seem to be quite high, individual officers are not incorruptible. A head of drug enforcement was recently jailed for basically corruption. But the fact that anyone can be deposed if found wanting is perhaps a signal about the self repair in the system - individuals are corruptible, but the system and norms aren't. At least for the moment. Yes, a single officer might lie if bucketloads of euros are at stake, but a random officer would generally not lie for leisure. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jari_Aarnio https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jari_Aarnio
tyingq 9y ago
I expect some controversy for this observation, but jobs that come with power over other people (like being a police officer) seem to attract a disproportionate ratio of assholes. I have no doubt there are good cops. But the nature of the job makes it appealing to a certain audience.
- ncallaway 9y ago
  It baffles me that jobs with more power over people, tend to come with more protection for abusing that power. The more power a job holds, the higher a standard of conduct necessary and the higher the punishment and enforcement for abuse should be.
  - tyingq 9y ago
    I spent some time in the US military in the 80's and 90's, and it was similar to the situation with cops. It did seem to improve after the infamous "tailhook" scandal, but I suspect it's still bad. "Absolute power corrupts absolutely" seems unavoidable. Human nature is what it is.
draw_down 9y ago
Cops can do what they want in America. They might not feel that way about it of course ("I have to wear a body camera and I'm not supposed to beat people up for being gay"), but it's basically true.
emodendroket 9y ago
"Testilying" seems like a cutesy neologism for perjury.
maxxxxx 9y ago
I don't understand why lying in court by cops is not being treated as one of the worst offenses they could make. Cops are entrusted with the use of potentially lethal force so they should be held to the highest standard. There is no excuse for lying. It's the same for judges taking bribes. If you can't trust the legal system then a democratic state can't work properly.
ppbutt 9y ago
How do you all bypass these horrendous paywalls?
throwawaymanbot 9y ago
How do we empower cops to be honest? Why do we empower them to allow such misbehavior?
kakarot 9y ago
I had 6 or so different police officers testify against me during trial. Everyone of them told a different story, and the stories told did not corroborate with the evidence. Even so, I received the stiffest possible penalty, 6mos jail and thousands in fees. The judge said his conviction was based on the fact that he "thought I was lying". My life has been severely impacted by this wrongful conviction. This issue runs deeper than lying police. When the DA and court system are in on it too, there is no hope.
stevenwoo 9y ago
Got thrown off the prospective jury pool in Palo Alto when I said "it depends" when the prosecutor asked me who's word I would trust between a police officer and an ordinary citizen. There was no physical evidence and it was going to be a she said/he said case. She said I must have a chip on my shoulder.
- justin66 9y ago
  I don't have extensive experience with this but I've served on a jury and have been rejected for service. My sense is that they'll look for the ideal, pliant juror throughout the day but might gradually ease up as the pool gets depleted.
mnm1 9y ago
It's insane that we hold police to lower standards than everyone else rather than higher. We let them get away with lying and murder because a majority of society are what, too scared of dark-skinned people? Absolutely fucking insane. This situation will never change until there are real consequences. These officers should be fired, stripped of their benefits, and sent to jail with the criminals they probably lied to put in there. But they won't because as the article says, the "justice" system doesn't care. Justice my ass.
merraksh 9y ago
Mandatory "Don't talk to the police" link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-7o9xYp7eE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-7o9xYp7eE Thanks to user turc1656 for re-posting it, can't stress enough how relevant this is.
- ptr_void 9y ago
  In practice, that might get you more in trouble. I like to think LEO as well connected gang members. One should generally do what they tell you to not make them angry in any way. And after the interaction is over, one can think about taking legal action if necessary. Some sort of on person hidden video recorder would be better, as LEO can make up charges or plant things, but that's too much annoyance for normal people, so complying to whatever the ask is the best option. If you want to assert your right that might upset police, camera whose memory can't be destroyed easily is a must if you don't want to end up in prison.
krylon 9y ago
Unfortunately, this problem is not entirely unknown in Germany, too. I have no idea how common it is, but there was one well-publicized case where somebody got beaten up by the police at a demonstration. The police claimed the man had insulted and attacked the officers and then resisted arrest. Video evidence the police had went missing mysteriously, but then volunteers started sending in the videos of the incident they had recorded, and the Chaos Computer Club (at least I think it was them) correlated all the recordings. The resulting video clearly told a very different story from the one the police had told. And I doubt this is an "isolated incident". When you cannot police officers to tell the truth about how they use the power given to them by the state, how can you trust them at all? And just to be clear, my mother is a retired police officer, married to another retired police officers, so I have met my share of police officers, and all the ones I have met were decent people who valued honesty highly. But that makes the fact the police as a whole is willing to tolerate such behavior all the more troubling.
- ender89 9y ago
  The problem with police officers lying like this is that it colors all other police interactions as suspect. If the police were smart, they'd turn these sort of people out rather than close ranks.
smsm42 9y ago
Leave it to the NYT to write a long piece about the police abuse and not mention the police unions, whose vast political powers are the main force behind the fact that it is so hard to prosecute police abuse, even by a single word.
RickJWag 9y ago
Are there bad cops? Sure. But most police are honest. They work a dangerous job, at low pay, and with a mostly ungrateful public. These days, they are a political football with a powerful press working against them. I'm glad cops are there. It'll be a bad day when the 'Ferguson effect' becomes amplified.

436 points by anarbadalov 9y ago

dclowd9901 9y ago

It's not "testilying" it's fucking perjury. There's nothing about this that should be made cute.

zerocrates 9y ago

"Testilying" is a fun, cute name for the crime of perjury.

mfoy_ 9y ago
Seriously. Rock solid evidence that directly contradicts your sworn testimony? That's perjury. That's a crime.
- IncRnd 9y ago
  And, what does the quoted officer say in the story about lying under oath? "Behind closed doors, we call it testilying," a New York City police officer, Pedro Serrano, said in a recent interview, echoing a word that officers coined at least 25 years ago. "You take the truth and stretch it out a little bit." An officer lying under oath in order to sway a verdict calls into question every single police report or court testimony from that officer. You're absolutely correct. This is extremely serious.
  - LordKano 9y ago
    You're absolutely correct. This is extremely serious. And it's extremely common.
  - JumpCrisscross 9y ago
    > An officer lying under oath in order to sway a verdict calls into question every single police report or court testimony from that officer Are there public databases that track dishonest officers? That could be incredibly helpful to defence lawyers.
    - s73v3r_ 9y ago
      Not always public, but a lot of DAs have lists of officers who's testimony was not legit, and so they were meant to be kept away.
    - IncRnd 9y ago
      Unfortunately, I am unaware of any of those. It stands to reason that police officers speaking openly in this manner about lying under oath don't face repercussions and consequently don't get tracked much.
    - throwawaycop 9y ago
      That’s easy: if they have a badge, they can’t be trusted. Don’t talk to the cops. Ever.
    - Cyberdog 9y ago
      If they're an officer, they're dishonest. Even if it may not be technically true, it's safe for the general public to assume this.
      - s73v3r_ 9y ago
        The point of such a database would be to bring to light specific cases, so actions can be taken against the officers in question.
    - adrianratnapala 9y ago
      Can one be started? Sub-questions include: 1. Are public court-records complete enough to show it? 2. Is it a judgment-call whether a given record shows it? 3. How would list-makers avoid charges of defamation? 4. How do they prevent spam?
      - mLuby 9y ago
        I assume such a list would have rows consisting of, at minimum: a. link to case's public testimony (CPT) b. text in CPT to officer's statement. c. text in CPT that contradicts the statement. (I'd love to see an example row!) 2. Innocent until proven guilty? I'd say best to start with the clear lies first to build the list's credibility. However enough borderline cases surrounding an individual or department can also be interesting. 3. Defamation requires that the statements about the person be false. Referencing court docs about what they said should obviate that concern. Maybe the trick is to bill the db as a "list of inconsistencies" rather than outright lies. 4. I'd be more concerned about DoS attack rather than spam.
- wl 9y ago
  It's not perjury unless it's willful. I have no doubt that some of these inconsistencies (most?) are deliberate, but human memory is often pretty terrible. Good luck proving that the officer was deliberately not telling the truth.
  - dclowd9901 9y ago
    How about making it a crime to misremember? Sure would make you think twice before you testified something as fact. Human memory is _very_ fallible. Time we started treating it that way.
    - milesokeefe 9y ago
      Under that law, very few sane people would testify at all.
      - dclowd9901 9y ago
        Great. Most testimonies are probably fallacious anyway.
  - cstoner 9y ago
    Well, usually this comes from written statements right after the event right? It's not like there's a several week gap between the event and the report.... right?
  - michaelmrose 9y ago
    Unless you suffer from a mental disease your memory isn't that bad. Small inconsistencies aren't really the issue.
- philwelch 9y ago
  Choking people to death on the street for selling loose cigarettes is a crime, too.
turc1656 9y ago
Beat me to it. Was just about to write the same exact thing. If we common peasants lie on the stand they have no problem calling it what it is. If one of the anointed does it, it's called "testilying" or, my personal favorite, "misremembering". Sure, memory is pretty faulty, but not in the way these cops "misremember".
- Waterluvian 9y ago
  Misremembering is one of those things that can get you crucified by the FBI or other police. And they often try to make you do it. https://www.popehat.com/2017/12/04/everybody-lies-fbi-edition/ https://www.popehat.com/2017/12/04/everybody-lies-fbi-editio...
  - turc1656 9y ago
    Yes, that's precisely why you should never, ever, ever talk to the cops: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-7o9xYp7eE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-7o9xYp7eE I love that video. That first speaker really spells everything out in a concise and easily comprehensible way of how you can and will be fucked (if you are the prime suspect) if you open your mouth, innocent or not.
    - gowld 9y ago
      The first speaker is a lawyer. Then the second lawyer, a cop, says essentially "he's right. but you should trust our (cops') judgment, we are trying to help."
      - AFNobody 9y ago
        Talking to the cops when you are the victim makes sense. Otherwise, not so much.
        Waterluvian 9y ago
        Right, you have to live with some level of trust. "Hey we are looking for a guy who kidnapped a child. Have you seen a white van in this lot today? It's really important we follow up on any possible leads so anything you can remember might help!" "Sorry I won't speak to you without my lawyer present."
chongli 9y ago
It's a good name, though, I hope it sticks. Perjury can remain the term for the crime in general, and testilying can refer to the specific form of police officers systematically perjuring themselves for corrupt or otherwise dubious purposes.
- adrianratnapala 9y ago
  This is right. Though nothing about the construction of the word "testilying" is specific to the police.
paulie_a 9y ago
It should be considered worse than perjury.
- jopsen 9y ago
  Because a police officer is trusted to be impartial.
  - TheCoelacanth 9y ago
    Yes, it is not only perjury, it is an extreme abuse of power and it is potentially robbing someone of their freedom.
twic 9y ago
"'Joyrider' [1] is not a term I will allow in my station, constable. [...] Crime is crime, and should not be trivialised. What next? Are we to refer to grievous bodily harm [2] as 'fun-punching'? Assault with a deadly weapon as 'a laugh and a stab'?" Standards for comedy were much lower in the mid-'90s. [3] [1] UK slang https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joyride_(crime) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joyride_(crime) [2] UK actual crime https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grievous_bodily_harm https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grievous_bodily_harm [3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dqa6H2T4aS0&t=3m33s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dqa6H2T4aS0&t=3m33s
- maaark 9y ago
  I've heard of the police here in Northern Ireland refer to the act of lighting bins on fire as "Recreational Vandalism". While refusing to do anything about it happening repeatedly. Makes the blood boil.
saas_co_de 9y ago
Funny that they are taking a dump on street level cops but don't seem too concerned about the perjury of high level officials who they publish endless editorials supporting.
SliderUp 9y ago
It's worse; it's a specific subset of perjury. It's lying under oath by someone in authority, who presumes greater moral weight during testifying. And that testimony is often used to get people to plea bargain when they are innocent. It should have an outsized punishment.

JudasGoat 9y ago

I have first hand experience when I tried to drive away from the police because I knew I had a warrant for my arrest. They started shooting and said I tried to run them over. There were five separate police reports with the same story. I had eye witnesses, but they were addicts like myself. So you plead guilty and go to jail.

turc1656 9y ago
That's truly unfortunate. But it doesn't surprise me one bit. This is how they operate. They love trumping up charges any way they can ("stop resisting!") because the more "serious" crime they stop they better they look and then they are able to get promotions. Was there any dashcam or other video evidence available? I assume not or else I imagine it would have been used.
- jacobush 9y ago
  These things are not very reliable, break easily.
  - Buttons840 9y ago
    We'll soon have a a future where our cars have like 14 cameras and a radar and police officers will still be having trouble getting their cameras to work reliably no doubt. In my justice fantasies some smart ass company comes along to "help" the police by providing them with vests each containing 60 cameras all operating independently and unable to be turned off. The same company will "help" the police avoid complicated data maintenance issues by uploading to their secure servers. This same company would be very popular with the voting public who vote for laws that ensure police accept the "help". Just a fantasy for sure.
- inetknght 9y ago
  Why do you imagine it would have been used? Police have a strong incentive to not provide such evidence.
  - 9y ago

StanislavPetrov 9y ago

The scandal and crimes aren't limited to the perjurious cops, but include prosecutors who fail to prosecute this perjury (and, even worse, rely on false testimony to secure convictions).

Analemma_ 9y ago
Yup. This is why there needs to be a law mandating that ALL allegations of police criminality are automatically, statutorily handled by a special prosecutor. District Attorneys have shown very convincingly that they absolutely cannot be trusted to investigate the misconduct of police in their jurisdiction. This is a simple change that would, overnight, completely flip the calculus of police who literally get away with murder.
- AnimalMuppet 9y ago
  > This is why there needs to be a law mandating that ALL allegations of police criminality are automatically, statutorily handled by a special prosecutor. That lets every person arrested charge the police with something criminal, and have it taken seriously, no matter how bogus the charge. What? You thought the police practice "testilying", but the criminals don't? Now, true, some such accusations need to be taken more seriously. Not all of them, though. The prosecutors err too often on the side of the police. Erring too much on the side of the accusers is not the answer, though.
  - Analemma_ 9y ago
    This is a non-issue. District Attorneys handle this situation all the time: they get plenty of bogus cases, or cases that could be real but have flimsy evidence, and then decide which ones are solid enough to take to trial and which ones are ignored. There is no reason a standing office of a special prosecutor for police misconduct couldn't do the same thing.
  - dragonwriter 9y ago
    > That lets every person arrested charge the police with something criminal, and have it taken seriously, no matter how bogus the charge. No, it doesn't. An independent special prosecutor can brush off an allegation as not credible as easily as a police-aligned prosecutor; in principle, they won't be biased by their other prosecutions depending on the police, but they don't somehow lose the capacity for judgement along with that source of bias.

OrganicMSG 9y ago

> "Kevin Richardson, the Police Department’s top internal prosecutor, said he believed so-called testilying was nearing its end. “I think it’s a problem that’s very much largely on its way out,” he said." Very much largely? Now, without wanting to cast aspersions on a prosecutor, is this guy lying about lying?

tomcam 9y ago
I very much largely believe he is indeed lying about lying
ghostbrainalpha 9y ago
It's a problem on its way out because of the rapid adoption of body cameras on police officers. If you look at the next 25 years, not only will every cop have a camera running 24/7, but also all vehicle's including the suspect's will be recording events from multiple angles. Most homes will have cameras at the front door, and throughout the home in some form or another. Many witnessneses are already recording things through their phones. People may be wearing augmented reality style "google glasses" that can retroactively record important moments. Meaning they won't even intend to record the things that they do. Right now its possible for the police to intimidate someone who pulls out a phone and starts recording, but soon there will be just too many devices, and it will be impossible to tell what is recording. And drones... Traffic and delivery drones, can easily be rerouted during police incidents to provide overhead video feeds that help the officer, or help the court determine what happened at a later date.
- OrganicMSG 9y ago
  People who expect to be exempted from consequences then attempt to lie about what the video represents or things that are out of frame. Until there is a culture of routine and serious consequences for police lying in court, police will continue to lie in court.
- ilkan 9y ago
  That's hopeful... but false. If there are no consequences, then it doesn't matter whether or not they lie, does it? The accused's outcomes are +1 or -1. The officer's outcomes are +1 or 0. The rational play for the officer is to lie for the +1.

macawfish 9y ago

I have a friend who almost went to prison (24 months) for something a stranger had done because a police officer gave false testimony against him. Because my friend's public defender was overloaded with cases, bus surveillance footage corroborating my friend's defense almost didn't make it to his trial. At the very last minute, while the judge was making his final statement, my friend's public defender busted through the door with the footage. A police officer blatantly lied to get him convicted for a crime he had nothing to do with. My friend got off and the police officer blushed. Nothing else happened. The cop was never prosecuted for anything, not for perjury, not for testilying. In case you were wondering, the answer is "yes": my friend is a black male. edit: Just wanted to say that yes, these kinds of things also happen to people of all races, especially working class people.

vkou 9y ago
If I were ever in a jury box, I would treat police testimony as less trustworthy then that of any other witness, because there is no censure for perjury by them. Of course, this would disqualify me from ever sitting in a jury box.
- dragonwriter 9y ago
  > Of course, this would disqualify me from ever sitting in a jury box. Probably not; I've been on a criminal jury where virtually all the testimony was from police, and the questions in voir dire wouldn't have he really revealed that attitude unless it was so extreme that the prospective juror themself felt it would prevent them from fairly evaluating the evidence.
- phyzome 9y ago
  The ethical thing to do here, if asked whether you will treat the word of a law enforcement officer as always true, is to lie. It's along the lines of jury nullification. The people have some recourse in overriding court rules and court rulings when the court is not behaving in accordance with justice.
  - 9y ago

omegaworks 9y ago

The institution of police needs to be abolished and replaced wholesale by something better. Measures meant to temper the systemic problems in the institution put in place by the Obama administration have been ripped out[1] by the white supremacist[2] sitting in the Attorney General's seat. Their actions are counterproductive to the preservation of an integrated, fair civil society. 1. https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/department-justice-announces-changes-collaborative-reform-initiative https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/department-justice-announces-... 2. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/wp/2017/01/10/read-the-letter-coretta-scott-king-wrote-opposing-sessionss-1986-federal-nomination/?utm_term=.67bf6ef7558e https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/wp/2017/01/10/...

ethiclub 9y ago
I wish people had to justify downvoting with a quick comment. I presume you are being downvoted a) for the possible hyperbole of 'white supremacist' (Is Sessions a White Supremacist, or protectionist and somewhere on the nationalistic scale? Genuine question, as I am unqualified to say) and b) as it is arguably fanciful thinking to simply 'rip it out and replace it wholesale' (I would argue 'never going to happen'). To a large extent, issues posed in this thread could be solved with body cams. When all police are held more accountable in this way, are your grievances eased at all? How would you suppose a government bring about such a large upheaval when most modern politics spends its time on compromise and incremental change?
- bllguo 9y ago
  it's not a technological issue. Does it matter if body cams exist, when the footage can easily "go missing"? When the DA and the judge are incentivized to be lenient to advance their own careers? How often do you see headlines where the police commit outrageous atrocities and get a slap on the wrist? The system is fundamentally broken. The incentive structure needs to be changed. This is a sociopolitical issue.
  - ethiclub 9y ago
    Sure, I agree with everything in your comment. I do think that technology like this will be less and less corruptible over time though - I am fairly optimistic about this use case for cameras (but also have concerns about how unpleasant jobs like teaching and policing could become if people are monitored in an authoritarian way). In terms of the system being fundamentally broken, my view is that 'ripping it out and starting again' is just not viable (esp with the US having essentially a 2 party system) - Incremental change such as introducing body cams, reducing its corruptibility, and general 'liberal' policy introduction over time is the only feasible path if relying on traditional government. This incremental change, however, is far too slow, which is why I support Ethical Capitalism to provide an alternative path, guided by 'enlightened' public demand. Which brings its own problems and exploitable weaknesses of course. >How often do you see headlines where the police commit outrageous atrocities and get a slap on the wrist? I am fairly optimistic too in this regard - People are slowly wising up to Police perjury and other indiscretions, and it is more at the forefront of people's minds than ever before. I have no justification for this optimism in this conversation though unfortunately, as it is such a large nuanced shift to examine.

binarytide 9y ago

"problem"...

Taniwha 9y ago

Really it's simple - a cop found guilty of perjury should never ever be allowed to be a cop again

cwkoss 9y ago
They should go to prison
- Taniwha 9y ago
  well yes that too, but no police department should be hiring anyone who even perjures themselves a tiny amount .... the real problem here is a cultural problem within police departments and it's their civil oversight that needs to solve this
Miner49er 9y ago
So should a cop who murders someone, but that doesn't even happen.

cheez 9y ago

The police are 100% your enemy once they start questioning you about anything. Record, record record. Catch them in one lie, and you get off scot free. Source: been dealing with the "justice" system since I was 17, most recently last year where I recorded an agent of the court committing perjury. Yes, nothing happens to them but most importantly, they've never been able to convict me of anything.

sigstoat 9y ago
> The police are 100% your enemy once they start questioning you about anything. Record, record record. even better, stop talking to them. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-7o9xYp7eE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-7o9xYp7eE > Catch them in one lie, and you get off scot free. they're not leprechauns, there are no magical rules in effect.
- cheez 9y ago
  No but you have to keep in mind the dynamics: 1) once a police officer submits or makes a knowingly false statement that results in your prosecution, exposing this taints all cases where that officer was involved which could result in retrials or dismissals. The da absolutely does not want to be responsible for this. They will drop the charges once your lawyer takes them aside after the statement has been made. Note: do not give your lawyer this evidence until the perjury has occurred. They may not be happy with you and inform the DA thus cutting you off at the knees (it's pretty incestuous at times.) Play dumb and outraged that this is happening to you. 2) a finding of perjury is rare, you're after dismissing the charges 3) nothing will happen to that officer but you may end up being considered hostile in that precinct. No doubt about it, they are the enemy when it comes to finding a scapegoat and they do it with your tax dollars. Edit: I'm unable to respond, apparently I'm commenting too much for the last hour so my response is here: Think about this regarding not trusting your own lawyer: if the case gets dropped, the attorney makes no more in fees. If that evidence is neutered, it needs to go to trial. Trust no one. I'm a very hard looking guy (hard life but I'm really quite soft) and most people think I'm guilty of everything. Add that I am not white, don't look rich, and it's a recipe for distrust on sight. Even when faced with evidence, I've had people continue to lie as if admitting that I'm innocent would cause a tear in the fabric of the universe.

dahdum 9y ago

If you're wondering how California deals with this...poorly. http://www.latimes.com/local/la-me-sheriff-brady-list-20171208-htmlstory.html http://www.latimes.com/local/la-me-sheriff-brady-list-201712... "California is among 22 states that keep officer discipline from the public, but it is the only one that blocks prosecutors from seeing entire police personnel files."

darawk 9y ago

Why is there no baseline mentioned here? This is something that really bothers me about reporting these days. How much is 25 times? Is that a lot? I have no way of knowing. What kind of rate does that imply? How much should I discount police testimony given that information? If it's 25 out of 100, that's really bad. If it's 25 out of 100,000 - maybe it's not that pervasive a problem.

berbec 9y ago
That does raise an interesting question: How many innocents convicted, due to institutionalized, consequence-free perjury, is too many? If you think 25 out of 100,000 isn't "that pervasive a problem", thank your lucky stars you're not one of those 25.
- darawk 9y ago
  In a perfect world, sure. But in the actual world that we live in, reducing false convictions to zero is not realistic. So we have to look for areas where investing our resources in fixing a problem will have a comparatively large beneficial impact. If it's 25/100, there's a lot to be gained there. If it's 25/100,000, there isn't.

leot 9y ago

Should the enforcement of rules be stricter or less strict when applied to those responsible for enforcing the rules?

mirimir 9y ago

> "Remember that the utilization of SOD [information obtained from the NSA] cannot be revealed or discussed in any investigative function," a document presented to agents reads. The document specifically directs agents to omit the SOD's involvement from investigative reports, affidavits, discussions with prosecutors and courtroom testimony. Agents are instructed to then use "normal investigative techniques to recreate the information provided by SOD." [aka parallel construction] http://www.reuters.com/article/us-dea-sod-idUSBRE97409R20130805 http://www.reuters.com/article/us-dea-sod-idUSBRE97409R20130... That is, they are instructed to testilie.

phkahler 9y ago

"Police lying raises the likelihood that the innocent end up in jail — and that as juries and judges come to regard the police as less credible, or as cases are dismissed when the lies are discovered, the guilty will go free." I'm not sure why the police protect each other when there is wrongdoing. When that stuff eventually comes to light it reflects badly on the entire group. Sure, we can tell people it's just a few bad apples, but that doesn't really hold up when the group continues to support bad apples. They're being complicit.

mlillie 9y ago
Really? Some 75% of Americans have "a great deal of respect" for the police. Sounds like the lying and getting away with it is working out just fine for their public perception. http://news.gallup.com/poll/196610/americans-respect-police-surges.aspx http://news.gallup.com/poll/196610/americans-respect-police-...

Animats 9y ago

Most companies fire about 2%-4% of their work force a year for cause. Most police departments don't.

nyolfen 9y ago
one of the few bastions of unions left in america
- javajosh 9y ago
  Not sure why this was down-voted; the police unions are a HUGE reason that police don't get fired, and even when they do, they get hired in another county or state.

ChuckMcM 9y ago

This is perhaps the single biggest thorn in my sister-in-law's life. She is a public defender in Marin County. I feel if we could make the number of times an officer was found to testify to something that was shown to be a lie, was submittable as evidence in rebuttal to all of their testimony, it would quickly make bad officers unable to participate in the justice system. I would hope that an officer that cannot make arrests because their testimony will always be stained in court will find themselves out of a job.

awakeasleep 9y ago
http://invisible.institute http://invisible.institute is working on this in Chicago and i know there is another project working on it in NYC
- Flenser 9y ago
  Specifically this project: https://invisible.institute/police-data/ https://invisible.institute/police-data/ Data here: https://github.com/invinst/chicago-police-data https://github.com/invinst/chicago-police-data
javajosh 9y ago
This is a policy change that I fully support. Is this a county-, city-, or state-level change? What does your sister-in-law need?

daniel_iversen 9y ago

Holy crap the US always scares me with this sort of insane stuff going on. How do regular Americans feel about this sort of thing?

berbec 9y ago
The vast majority are glad this institutionalized perjury hasn't gotten us arrested yet. Many are terrified of any interaction with the police. The remaining Americans are criminals and therfore hold opinions which do not matter to the rest of the country.
slowmotiony 9y ago
Oh yeah, US is so bad, lying cops would never exist in Europe or Africa or Asia right?
- esarbe 9y ago
  Can't comment on Asia. But in Europe; not like this. Especially in Germany the the police (not 'law enforcement') is held to a much higher standard.
- fsloth 9y ago
  Where I live (Finland) cops would have very little incentive to lie. We are brought up to treat each other in an egalitarian way, and that transcends most levels of our society. For example, in Turku stabbing[0] the police did not attempt to kill the suspect but to incapacitate him with as little force as possible. It's about how they are trained. Police are quite respected, and not feared by anyone here. Justice system is not about punishment, but about providing as low level as possible downside to illegal actions. So it's set up more like a statistical tool than like a personal punishment scheme. Yes, small country, homogenous culture, etc. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017_Turku_stabbing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017_Turku_stabbing Edit: I have to add, that while the general standards seem to be quite high, individual officers are not incorruptible. A head of drug enforcement was recently jailed for basically corruption. But the fact that anyone can be deposed if found wanting is perhaps a signal about the self repair in the system - individuals are corruptible, but the system and norms aren't. At least for the moment. Yes, a single officer might lie if bucketloads of euros are at stake, but a random officer would generally not lie for leisure. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jari_Aarnio https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jari_Aarnio

tyingq 9y ago

I expect some controversy for this observation, but jobs that come with power over other people (like being a police officer) seem to attract a disproportionate ratio of assholes. I have no doubt there are good cops. But the nature of the job makes it appealing to a certain audience.

ncallaway 9y ago
It baffles me that jobs with more power over people, tend to come with more protection for abusing that power. The more power a job holds, the higher a standard of conduct necessary and the higher the punishment and enforcement for abuse should be.
- tyingq 9y ago
  I spent some time in the US military in the 80's and 90's, and it was similar to the situation with cops. It did seem to improve after the infamous "tailhook" scandal, but I suspect it's still bad. "Absolute power corrupts absolutely" seems unavoidable. Human nature is what it is.

draw_down 9y ago

Cops can do what they want in America. They might not feel that way about it of course ("I have to wear a body camera and I'm not supposed to beat people up for being gay"), but it's basically true.

emodendroket 9y ago

"Testilying" seems like a cutesy neologism for perjury.

maxxxxx 9y ago

I don't understand why lying in court by cops is not being treated as one of the worst offenses they could make. Cops are entrusted with the use of potentially lethal force so they should be held to the highest standard. There is no excuse for lying. It's the same for judges taking bribes. If you can't trust the legal system then a democratic state can't work properly.

ppbutt 9y ago

How do you all bypass these horrendous paywalls?

throwawaymanbot 9y ago

How do we empower cops to be honest? Why do we empower them to allow such misbehavior?

kakarot 9y ago

I had 6 or so different police officers testify against me during trial. Everyone of them told a different story, and the stories told did not corroborate with the evidence. Even so, I received the stiffest possible penalty, 6mos jail and thousands in fees. The judge said his conviction was based on the fact that he "thought I was lying". My life has been severely impacted by this wrongful conviction. This issue runs deeper than lying police. When the DA and court system are in on it too, there is no hope.

stevenwoo 9y ago

Got thrown off the prospective jury pool in Palo Alto when I said "it depends" when the prosecutor asked me who's word I would trust between a police officer and an ordinary citizen. There was no physical evidence and it was going to be a she said/he said case. She said I must have a chip on my shoulder.

justin66 9y ago
I don't have extensive experience with this but I've served on a jury and have been rejected for service. My sense is that they'll look for the ideal, pliant juror throughout the day but might gradually ease up as the pool gets depleted.

mnm1 9y ago

It's insane that we hold police to lower standards than everyone else rather than higher. We let them get away with lying and murder because a majority of society are what, too scared of dark-skinned people? Absolutely fucking insane. This situation will never change until there are real consequences. These officers should be fired, stripped of their benefits, and sent to jail with the criminals they probably lied to put in there. But they won't because as the article says, the "justice" system doesn't care. Justice my ass.

merraksh 9y ago

Mandatory "Don't talk to the police" link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-7o9xYp7eE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-7o9xYp7eE Thanks to user turc1656 for re-posting it, can't stress enough how relevant this is.

ptr_void 9y ago
In practice, that might get you more in trouble. I like to think LEO as well connected gang members. One should generally do what they tell you to not make them angry in any way. And after the interaction is over, one can think about taking legal action if necessary. Some sort of on person hidden video recorder would be better, as LEO can make up charges or plant things, but that's too much annoyance for normal people, so complying to whatever the ask is the best option. If you want to assert your right that might upset police, camera whose memory can't be destroyed easily is a must if you don't want to end up in prison.

krylon 9y ago

Unfortunately, this problem is not entirely unknown in Germany, too. I have no idea how common it is, but there was one well-publicized case where somebody got beaten up by the police at a demonstration. The police claimed the man had insulted and attacked the officers and then resisted arrest. Video evidence the police had went missing mysteriously, but then volunteers started sending in the videos of the incident they had recorded, and the Chaos Computer Club (at least I think it was them) correlated all the recordings. The resulting video clearly told a very different story from the one the police had told. And I doubt this is an "isolated incident". When you cannot police officers to tell the truth about how they use the power given to them by the state, how can you trust them at all? And just to be clear, my mother is a retired police officer, married to another retired police officers, so I have met my share of police officers, and all the ones I have met were decent people who valued honesty highly. But that makes the fact the police as a whole is willing to tolerate such behavior all the more troubling.

ender89 9y ago
The problem with police officers lying like this is that it colors all other police interactions as suspect. If the police were smart, they'd turn these sort of people out rather than close ranks.

smsm42 9y ago

Leave it to the NYT to write a long piece about the police abuse and not mention the police unions, whose vast political powers are the main force behind the fact that it is so hard to prosecute police abuse, even by a single word.

RickJWag 9y ago

Are there bad cops? Sure. But most police are honest. They work a dangerous job, at low pay, and with a mostly ungrateful public. These days, they are a political football with a powerful press working against them. I'm glad cops are there. It'll be a bad day when the 'Ferguson effect' becomes amplified.