9 ms·

The NYPD kept an illegal database of juvenile fingerprints for years

138 points by jbegley 7y ago

kiliantics 7y ago
This tweet has been doing the rounds the last couple days too: https://twitter.com/StretchArmy/status/1193925862569193472 https://twitter.com/StretchArmy/status/1193925862569193472 There honestly seems to be no actual value in maintaining the NYPD force, only cost after cost. It was even demonstrated pretty clearly that they were unnecessary when they went on strike and the city kept going just fine. Why do we give these bullies so much power at such cost when we get nothing in return?
- tibbon 7y ago
  Arrest them all. And by them, I mean the NYPD. They are a menace to the public safety and peace, and they should all be on trial for misconduct, or being complicit in misconduct. Everyone who has participated and not worked to change that system is guilty.
  - lotsofpulp 7y ago
    I don't understand how with all the email evidence there should be, how is it not possible to find and prosecute the person(s) responsible for ordering an illegal act by the government.
    - La1n 7y ago
      It would be possible, but the police is not know for cooperating in investigations. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_wall_of_silence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_wall_of_silence
    - snagglegaggle 7y ago
      So, technically, the government can't do illegal things. People working for the government do illegal things, and as they are functioning outside of their commission when they commit those crimes, they are not covered by sovereign immunity. This is important to note as it makes it easy to diffuse responsibility for an act. The courts have more or less made it so that you must prove someone knew an act was outside of their commission and knew the act was illegal to get anywhere.
  - pricees 7y ago
    This isn't meant to be trolling but: why would they follow the law? No one is playing by the rules and no one is being punished. Not the politicians, not the government agencies, not the banks, not big tech, not big pharma, not the schools/teachers, not the cops, not the military. No one is being held to any kind of standard.... Luckily they make up for all of this by unfairly punishing individual citizens....without connections and who can't afford a good lawyer.
    - delfinom 7y ago
      Not to mention, alot of energy is spent demonizing other countries for corruption meanwhile we have plenty of it here. Convince the citizens that everything is great here.
      - fhood 7y ago
        New York is a special case, but one that makes me concerned about the long term viability of large cities. I would guess that NYC's corruption issues have to do with scale and wealth comparable to many states or even countries, but very little outside scrutiny compared to what most states receive.
    - hanniabu 7y ago
      The day that public awareness/perception meets current affairs will result in a very interesting time in US history.
  - turc1656 7y ago
    "Everyone who has participated and not worked to change that system is guilty." Exactly. This is my mentality and has been for years. People like to complain about the "few bad apples" that make everyone look bad. Yeah, I'll acknowledge up front that overall in the country the majority of officers probably do their job fairly well and try to obey the rules and not violate people's rights. But my real problem is that their coworkers don't do shit about it when they know those people violate the law. They don't speak up. They don't stop them. They don't want to testify or offer up any evidence. And yet how many times have we seen these big public cases where the officer in question has a history of complaints and disciplinary action against them? The difference between me and my coworkers and the police is that neither I nor anyone I work with has sworn an oath to uphold the law. So I'm not legally obligated to turn anyone in or do anything if I find out someone is breaking the law. But they are. And not only do they not do their job in that regard, they actively try to protect those people. And then they turn around and claim that the public is against them and that there is all this "us vs them" tribalism. Of course there is - they've made it that way. Do they honestly think that the general populace changed their view of the police of the past 50 years at random? A personal anecdote. I got pulled over around 2 years ago for having a headlight out. Fair enough. But the officer proceeded to make up some bullshit about how I took too long to pull over, which was nonsense. I took 20 seconds to turn over (I went back and timed it) and that was because it was a one lane road with no shoulder - I pulled into a strip mall just up the block that I knew so we didn't block the street. He used that to then claim I used that time to hide something under my seat and suspected me of drug possession. Ordered me out of the car and tried to get me to let him search the car. I refused to grant permission. He said if I didn't give it to him he'd be "forced" to call the dogs and we'd have to wait around 40 minutes because they were far away. I didn't change my tune. We waited. The officer quietly talks to the dog's handler when they show up, deliberately away from me so I can't hear him and then the dog magically indicates/hits on my driver door. Which is interesting since I don't use drugs and only my immediate family has ever been in that vehicle and none of them use drugs. They toss the car and by now I'm both irate and afraid that they might plant drugs since this is clearly bullshit. I start to tell them how I know there's no drugs in the car and it's really interesting that the dog hit on the car considering I know for a fact that there are no drugs there and they will soon find out the same. I also openly and politely ponder what a lawyer might say about them forcing me to wait 40 minutes for dogs to show up since this was after the latest ruling from the supreme court about how long reasonable stops can be for things like that. I see one of them start to think things through and realize I don't actually have drugs in the car. The search completes and they don't find anything. But they also never cite me for the headlight being out and send me on my merry way 75 minutes after being pulled over. Now the real kicker - a friend of mine is in a relationship with a state trooper. I relayed this story to him and he flat out said he would have searched my car as well. When I asked why he said "you are a white male and you were traveling in the direction of a mostly minority town with drug problems (the next town over from where I was). They probably figured you were either going there to buy or you are a seller." To which I responded, "how the hell could they conclude that since I live like 3 minutes from where they pulled me over and I was going home?" And he just said that it wouldn't have matter to him either and he would have searched my car as well.
- wpasc 7y ago
  Are you arguing that the NYPD in its entirety adds no value to quality of life in NYC? New York city has been home to organized crime in the form of the mafia and gangs, boasted a huge murder rate in the middle of the 20th century, and is the frequent target of terror threats (literally the stated target of terror groups in their own words). Yet, the NYPD adds no value?
  - Clubber 7y ago
    I would argue their value is highly inflated but that would go for any police department. The FOP is a very powerful national union who works in their own interest. Their power comes from their membership count, so it's in their interest to keep the numbers (both headcount, salaries and pension) growing indefinitely. Someone hacked and released the FOP contracts a few years ago. I took a look at the contract for my medium sized city. 10 years on the force yields officers over $100K, plus pension. It's a pretty good gig, but I'm not sure it's worth the cost. https://www.cyberdefensemagazine.com/a-fop-data-dump-leaked-online-2-5gb-of-police-contracts-and-data/ https://www.cyberdefensemagazine.com/a-fop-data-dump-leaked-... https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/feb/07/leaked-police-files-contain-guarantees-disciplinary-records-will-be-kept-secret https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/feb/07/leaked-polic...
  - jimmaswell 7y ago
    I've frequently heard mafia-run areas were much nicer to live in.
    - chachachoney 7y ago
      >> I've frequently heard mafia-run areas were much nicer to live in. Provided you weren't a minority.
      - deleted 7y ago
        [deleted]
  - jrockway 7y ago
    I think the drop in crime is more due to people not being interested in committing crimes, rather than some amazing work by the NYPD. You also have to look at external factors. People don't rob other people of their iPhones anymore because of the cloud bricking functionality. They have no resale value without the passcode.
- swebs 7y ago
  So who responded to emergencies during the strike? The state police, or did they have a contingency of NYPD still working?
  - koenigdavidmj 7y ago
    They all reported to work and responded to real crimes. They just didn’t enforce the stupid laws that only exist to bring the city money.
    - dsfyu404ed 7y ago
      I find it absolutely hilarious in a sad way that cops striking in a manner designed to undermine the government results in them acting in ways that benefit the citizenry. Too bad they don't go on strike more often.
- FireBeyond 7y ago
  Over the last ten years, NYC has averaged $1MM PER WEEK in payouts for abuse of power/force compensation. It's mind blowing.
- Aloha 7y ago
  What do you replace them with?
  - logfromblammo 7y ago
    A force that is bound by law to uphold Peelian Principles, and with a positive legal duty to assist persons in peril, to be prioritized over apprehending those who may be found breaking the laws or causing public nuisance.
pterois 7y ago
NYPD - Smart phones & who else?
turc1656 7y ago
So...as I usually ask when these sorts of things pop up - who's going to jail? Probably no one, like usual. And the NYPD has the audacity to complain about the way the general public perceives them.
- whtaverman22 7y ago
  > So...as I usually ask when these sorts of things pop up - who's going to jail? Probably someone low-level, probably someone who had almost nothing to do with actual decision-making, and most likely someone Asian -- whom all sides can agree to dislike. * case in point 1: the one person at the investment banks for 2008 who went down as a 20-something french guy, * case in point 2: the two police officers who have gone down for inappropriate shooting include one African american person and one Asian PO
- throwaway35784 7y ago
  Bullying is an epidemic in our society -- all the way to the very top of our political institution. People don't speak out because of the fear of repercussions. I spoke out. I was fired. My wages withheld. I was subsequently falsely reported to the police for criminal behavior by the corporate attorney, which is against their code of ethics -- or he lied about doing so, either way it's an ethics violation with at worst a slap on the wrist. When I reported the corporate fraud to that attorney he said he wasn't reading my emails. I said, "you know. I told you. You are complicit." He refuses to respond. I don't know where to go now. Corporate immunity. No one is held to account.
ncmncm 7y ago
So everybody who knew about it and didn't do anything is a criminal. Take their fingerprints, at least.
- Spare_account 7y ago
  Presumably it should be fingerprints and DNA into the database, plus publish their arrest records in the local newspaper
harumph 7y ago
Remember always: The US Supreme Court found that police in the United States have no obligation whatsoever to help. Anyone. Ever. The police are a criminal organization and should be treated as such.
- freeflight 7y ago
  Not being from the US that sounds rather crazy, but apparently there's some [0] truth [1] to this statement? [0] https://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/28/politics/justices-rule-police-do-not-have-a-constitutional-duty-to-protect.html https://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/28/politics/justices-rule-po... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warren_v._District_of_Columbia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warren_v._District_of_Columbia
  - iudqnolq 7y ago
    It's not completely unreasonable. Here's a quote from Warren v. District Of Columbia > A publicly maintained police force constitutes a basic governmental service provided to benefit the community at large by promoting public peace, safety and good order. The extent and quality of police protection afforded to the community necessarily depends upon the availability of public resources and upon legislative or administrative determinations concerning allocation of those resources. The public, through its representative officials, recruits, trains, maintains and disciplines its police force and determines the manner in which personnel are deployed. > At any given time, publicly furnished police protection may accrue to the personal benefit of individual citizens, but at all times the needs and interests of the community at large predominate. Private resources and needs have little direct effect upon the nature of police services provided to the public. Accordingly, courts have without exception concluded that when a municipality or other governmental entity undertakes to furnish police services, it assumes a duty only to the public at large and not to individual members of the community. Australia [0] and England [1] are roughly similar (the only countries I googled; I don't have time to google more but I'd guess almost all countries are legally or practically the same). In general in the US the courts are reluctant to second-guess police officers for decisions they might make in the moment. See also the controversial doctrine of qualified immunity that makes it much more difficult to prosecute police misconduct by saying if officers didn't know from a prior case that the exact specific thing they were about to do was illegal they can't be prosecuted. [2] > Essentially, if you want to sue a police officer who you think violated your constitutional rights, you first have to convince the court that what happened to you was so outrageous that no reasonable person could have thought it was okay. For example, according to the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit it wasn't clear in 2001 that the govt's "enhanced interrogation" of US citizens, including the following, was torture [3] > Denial of medical care for serious and potentially life-threatening ailments, including chest pain and difficulty breathing, as well as for treatment of the chronic, extreme pain caused by being forced to endure stress positions, resulting in severe and continuing mental and physical harm, pain, and profound disruption of the senses and personality. [0]: https://www.robinsongill.com.au/resource/opening-the-door-on-polices-duty-of-care/ https://www.robinsongill.com.au/resource/opening-the-door-on... [1]: http://www.lawjournals.org/download/76/2-6-32-594.pdf&sa=U&ved=2ahUKEwjrmNmn2ujlAhVxpVkKHWFYDvwQFjADegQIBhAB&usg=AOvVaw2DUCAK-d9q8JCc7K5eU5sM http://www.lawjournals.org/download/76/2-6-32-594.pdf&sa=U&v... [2]: https://www.aclu.org/blog/criminal-law-reform/reforming-police-practices/supreme-court-gives-police-green-light-shoot https://www.aclu.org/blog/criminal-law-reform/reforming-poli... [3] https://loweringthebar.net/2012/05/would-the-last-civil-right.html https://loweringthebar.net/2012/05/would-the-last-civil-righ... (this is a legal humor site, but it's by a lawyer and you can easily find a better source by googling if you want to be a spoilsport)
ebg13 7y ago
> When lawyers representing some of those youths discovered the violation, the police department dragged its feet, at first denying but eventually admitting that it was retaining prints it was supposed to have destroyed. > To date, the department has made no public admission of wrongdoing, nor has it notified the thousands of people it impacted How many cops are bastards? Every day the answer sure seems to be all of them.
- flattone 7y ago
  Seems like they have to be. How else can a person choose a role of potentially violent arbitrarily given authority over all others.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
papreclip 7y ago
>Several years ago, Bella and Lisa Freeman, director of special litigation and law reform at Legal Aid’s Juvenile Rights Practice, started to notice that some of their clients had old police contacts showing up in their rap sheets that should not have been there The whole reason this was uncovered was that many of these kids are recidivists, maybe the law is wrong >the NYPD also maintains a secretive and controversial “gang database,” which labels thousands of unsuspecting New Yorkers — almost all black or Latino youth — as “gang members” based on a set of broad and arbitrary criteria What is a gang database supposed to be based on? Gangs don't keep a signed and dated registry of their membership. >My son was fingerprinted. He’s 14. I’m scared. What does this mean for his future Means he should wear gloves the next time he commits a crime!
- Red_Leaves_Flyy 7y ago
  >What is a gang database supposed to be based on? Gangs don't keep a signed and dated registry of their membership. Investigative police work, undercover officers, corroborated witness testimony. Iow, hard evidence, with accountability and restitution when they get it wrong. if a cop goes off the books they, and everyone with knowledge of said acts, should automatically lose all protection from civil claims. Great power, etc. When the nypd gets it wrong innocent people die, go to prison, become pariahs and have no recourse against a notoriously violent, racist, and corrupt organization. The nypds rap sheet basically proves they're a gang muscling out the competition instead of actually fighting crime. Their lack of accountability, and refusal to actually purge the bad actors, only fuels the hate for them.
sasasassy 7y ago
Jesus Christ people. Let's be honest here, the NYPD kept some data, we don't even know how large, about probable criminals. Further it used some detective work to guess who belongs to gangs. These don't look like big crimes to humanity. I'd be much more worried about, you know, children under 14 committing crimes already. The lunacy of some of these commenters...
- Aloha 7y ago
  We're a nation of laws, our entire culture and system is built around rule of law. These protections exist for a reason, to protect children who are not done developing mentally, from having their acts from following them around for life. Rule of Law cuts both ways though, we don't get to just ignore laws we don't like, and the powers that be even more so cannot. If the law itself is a problem, you change the law.
  - sasasassy 7y ago
    Sure, it sucks, and the bureaucracy that is the NYPD probably means records are kept from longer than they should, and that is bad. But still, the kids data will not be used against them later on, i.e. crimes they commit at that time won't be prosecuted. Their data only helps arrest them if they actually commit a crime, so they would be the ones breaking the rule of law.
    - magduf 7y ago
      If you think the law is bad, then you should work with the government to get the law changed. Otherwise, you need to follow the law. At least, that's what the police will tell you when you break the law. So why should they get a pass? It doesn't matter if the law actually isn't useful or is causing harm; the police are more bound to follow and enforce it than anyone else. So why are you making excuses for them?
      - lmm 7y ago
        I would make excuses for anyone who violated the law while acting with good intentions. The rule of law is important. But so is having a sense of proportion about illegality.

138 points by jbegley 7y ago

This tweet has been doing the rounds the last couple days too: https://twitter.com/StretchArmy/status/1193925862569193472 https://twitter.com/StretchArmy/status/1193925862569193472 There honestly seems to be no actual value in maintaining the NYPD force, only cost after cost. It was even demonstrated pretty clearly that they were unnecessary when they went on strike and the city kept going just fine. Why do we give these bullies so much power at such cost when we get nothing in return?

tibbon 7y ago
Arrest them all. And by them, I mean the NYPD. They are a menace to the public safety and peace, and they should all be on trial for misconduct, or being complicit in misconduct. Everyone who has participated and not worked to change that system is guilty.
- lotsofpulp 7y ago
  I don't understand how with all the email evidence there should be, how is it not possible to find and prosecute the person(s) responsible for ordering an illegal act by the government.
  - La1n 7y ago
    It would be possible, but the police is not know for cooperating in investigations. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_wall_of_silence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_wall_of_silence
  - snagglegaggle 7y ago
    So, technically, the government can't do illegal things. People working for the government do illegal things, and as they are functioning outside of their commission when they commit those crimes, they are not covered by sovereign immunity. This is important to note as it makes it easy to diffuse responsibility for an act. The courts have more or less made it so that you must prove someone knew an act was outside of their commission and knew the act was illegal to get anywhere.
- pricees 7y ago
  This isn't meant to be trolling but: why would they follow the law? No one is playing by the rules and no one is being punished. Not the politicians, not the government agencies, not the banks, not big tech, not big pharma, not the schools/teachers, not the cops, not the military. No one is being held to any kind of standard.... Luckily they make up for all of this by unfairly punishing individual citizens....without connections and who can't afford a good lawyer.
  - delfinom 7y ago
    Not to mention, alot of energy is spent demonizing other countries for corruption meanwhile we have plenty of it here. Convince the citizens that everything is great here.
    - fhood 7y ago
      New York is a special case, but one that makes me concerned about the long term viability of large cities. I would guess that NYC's corruption issues have to do with scale and wealth comparable to many states or even countries, but very little outside scrutiny compared to what most states receive.
  - hanniabu 7y ago
    The day that public awareness/perception meets current affairs will result in a very interesting time in US history.
- turc1656 7y ago
  "Everyone who has participated and not worked to change that system is guilty." Exactly. This is my mentality and has been for years. People like to complain about the "few bad apples" that make everyone look bad. Yeah, I'll acknowledge up front that overall in the country the majority of officers probably do their job fairly well and try to obey the rules and not violate people's rights. But my real problem is that their coworkers don't do shit about it when they know those people violate the law. They don't speak up. They don't stop them. They don't want to testify or offer up any evidence. And yet how many times have we seen these big public cases where the officer in question has a history of complaints and disciplinary action against them? The difference between me and my coworkers and the police is that neither I nor anyone I work with has sworn an oath to uphold the law. So I'm not legally obligated to turn anyone in or do anything if I find out someone is breaking the law. But they are. And not only do they not do their job in that regard, they actively try to protect those people. And then they turn around and claim that the public is against them and that there is all this "us vs them" tribalism. Of course there is - they've made it that way. Do they honestly think that the general populace changed their view of the police of the past 50 years at random? A personal anecdote. I got pulled over around 2 years ago for having a headlight out. Fair enough. But the officer proceeded to make up some bullshit about how I took too long to pull over, which was nonsense. I took 20 seconds to turn over (I went back and timed it) and that was because it was a one lane road with no shoulder - I pulled into a strip mall just up the block that I knew so we didn't block the street. He used that to then claim I used that time to hide something under my seat and suspected me of drug possession. Ordered me out of the car and tried to get me to let him search the car. I refused to grant permission. He said if I didn't give it to him he'd be "forced" to call the dogs and we'd have to wait around 40 minutes because they were far away. I didn't change my tune. We waited. The officer quietly talks to the dog's handler when they show up, deliberately away from me so I can't hear him and then the dog magically indicates/hits on my driver door. Which is interesting since I don't use drugs and only my immediate family has ever been in that vehicle and none of them use drugs. They toss the car and by now I'm both irate and afraid that they might plant drugs since this is clearly bullshit. I start to tell them how I know there's no drugs in the car and it's really interesting that the dog hit on the car considering I know for a fact that there are no drugs there and they will soon find out the same. I also openly and politely ponder what a lawyer might say about them forcing me to wait 40 minutes for dogs to show up since this was after the latest ruling from the supreme court about how long reasonable stops can be for things like that. I see one of them start to think things through and realize I don't actually have drugs in the car. The search completes and they don't find anything. But they also never cite me for the headlight being out and send me on my merry way 75 minutes after being pulled over. Now the real kicker - a friend of mine is in a relationship with a state trooper. I relayed this story to him and he flat out said he would have searched my car as well. When I asked why he said "you are a white male and you were traveling in the direction of a mostly minority town with drug problems (the next town over from where I was). They probably figured you were either going there to buy or you are a seller." To which I responded, "how the hell could they conclude that since I live like 3 minutes from where they pulled me over and I was going home?" And he just said that it wouldn't have matter to him either and he would have searched my car as well.
wpasc 7y ago
Are you arguing that the NYPD in its entirety adds no value to quality of life in NYC? New York city has been home to organized crime in the form of the mafia and gangs, boasted a huge murder rate in the middle of the 20th century, and is the frequent target of terror threats (literally the stated target of terror groups in their own words). Yet, the NYPD adds no value?
- Clubber 7y ago
  I would argue their value is highly inflated but that would go for any police department. The FOP is a very powerful national union who works in their own interest. Their power comes from their membership count, so it's in their interest to keep the numbers (both headcount, salaries and pension) growing indefinitely. Someone hacked and released the FOP contracts a few years ago. I took a look at the contract for my medium sized city. 10 years on the force yields officers over $100K, plus pension. It's a pretty good gig, but I'm not sure it's worth the cost. https://www.cyberdefensemagazine.com/a-fop-data-dump-leaked-online-2-5gb-of-police-contracts-and-data/ https://www.cyberdefensemagazine.com/a-fop-data-dump-leaked-... https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/feb/07/leaked-police-files-contain-guarantees-disciplinary-records-will-be-kept-secret https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/feb/07/leaked-polic...
- jimmaswell 7y ago
  I've frequently heard mafia-run areas were much nicer to live in.
  - chachachoney 7y ago
    >> I've frequently heard mafia-run areas were much nicer to live in. Provided you weren't a minority.
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
- jrockway 7y ago
  I think the drop in crime is more due to people not being interested in committing crimes, rather than some amazing work by the NYPD. You also have to look at external factors. People don't rob other people of their iPhones anymore because of the cloud bricking functionality. They have no resale value without the passcode.
swebs 7y ago
So who responded to emergencies during the strike? The state police, or did they have a contingency of NYPD still working?
- koenigdavidmj 7y ago
  They all reported to work and responded to real crimes. They just didn’t enforce the stupid laws that only exist to bring the city money.
  - dsfyu404ed 7y ago
    I find it absolutely hilarious in a sad way that cops striking in a manner designed to undermine the government results in them acting in ways that benefit the citizenry. Too bad they don't go on strike more often.
FireBeyond 7y ago
Over the last ten years, NYC has averaged $1MM PER WEEK in payouts for abuse of power/force compensation. It's mind blowing.
Aloha 7y ago
What do you replace them with?
- logfromblammo 7y ago
  A force that is bound by law to uphold Peelian Principles, and with a positive legal duty to assist persons in peril, to be prioritized over apprehending those who may be found breaking the laws or causing public nuisance.

pterois 7y ago

NYPD - Smart phones & who else?

turc1656 7y ago

So...as I usually ask when these sorts of things pop up - who's going to jail? Probably no one, like usual. And the NYPD has the audacity to complain about the way the general public perceives them.

whtaverman22 7y ago
> So...as I usually ask when these sorts of things pop up - who's going to jail? Probably someone low-level, probably someone who had almost nothing to do with actual decision-making, and most likely someone Asian -- whom all sides can agree to dislike. * case in point 1: the one person at the investment banks for 2008 who went down as a 20-something french guy, * case in point 2: the two police officers who have gone down for inappropriate shooting include one African american person and one Asian PO
throwaway35784 7y ago
Bullying is an epidemic in our society -- all the way to the very top of our political institution. People don't speak out because of the fear of repercussions. I spoke out. I was fired. My wages withheld. I was subsequently falsely reported to the police for criminal behavior by the corporate attorney, which is against their code of ethics -- or he lied about doing so, either way it's an ethics violation with at worst a slap on the wrist. When I reported the corporate fraud to that attorney he said he wasn't reading my emails. I said, "you know. I told you. You are complicit." He refuses to respond. I don't know where to go now. Corporate immunity. No one is held to account.

ncmncm 7y ago

So everybody who knew about it and didn't do anything is a criminal. Take their fingerprints, at least.

Spare_account 7y ago
Presumably it should be fingerprints and DNA into the database, plus publish their arrest records in the local newspaper

harumph 7y ago

Remember always: The US Supreme Court found that police in the United States have no obligation whatsoever to help. Anyone. Ever. The police are a criminal organization and should be treated as such.

freeflight 7y ago
Not being from the US that sounds rather crazy, but apparently there's some [0] truth [1] to this statement? [0] https://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/28/politics/justices-rule-police-do-not-have-a-constitutional-duty-to-protect.html https://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/28/politics/justices-rule-po... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warren_v._District_of_Columbia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warren_v._District_of_Columbia
- iudqnolq 7y ago
  It's not completely unreasonable. Here's a quote from Warren v. District Of Columbia > A publicly maintained police force constitutes a basic governmental service provided to benefit the community at large by promoting public peace, safety and good order. The extent and quality of police protection afforded to the community necessarily depends upon the availability of public resources and upon legislative or administrative determinations concerning allocation of those resources. The public, through its representative officials, recruits, trains, maintains and disciplines its police force and determines the manner in which personnel are deployed. > At any given time, publicly furnished police protection may accrue to the personal benefit of individual citizens, but at all times the needs and interests of the community at large predominate. Private resources and needs have little direct effect upon the nature of police services provided to the public. Accordingly, courts have without exception concluded that when a municipality or other governmental entity undertakes to furnish police services, it assumes a duty only to the public at large and not to individual members of the community. Australia [0] and England [1] are roughly similar (the only countries I googled; I don't have time to google more but I'd guess almost all countries are legally or practically the same). In general in the US the courts are reluctant to second-guess police officers for decisions they might make in the moment. See also the controversial doctrine of qualified immunity that makes it much more difficult to prosecute police misconduct by saying if officers didn't know from a prior case that the exact specific thing they were about to do was illegal they can't be prosecuted. [2] > Essentially, if you want to sue a police officer who you think violated your constitutional rights, you first have to convince the court that what happened to you was so outrageous that no reasonable person could have thought it was okay. For example, according to the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit it wasn't clear in 2001 that the govt's "enhanced interrogation" of US citizens, including the following, was torture [3] > Denial of medical care for serious and potentially life-threatening ailments, including chest pain and difficulty breathing, as well as for treatment of the chronic, extreme pain caused by being forced to endure stress positions, resulting in severe and continuing mental and physical harm, pain, and profound disruption of the senses and personality. [0]: https://www.robinsongill.com.au/resource/opening-the-door-on-polices-duty-of-care/ https://www.robinsongill.com.au/resource/opening-the-door-on... [1]: http://www.lawjournals.org/download/76/2-6-32-594.pdf&sa=U&ved=2ahUKEwjrmNmn2ujlAhVxpVkKHWFYDvwQFjADegQIBhAB&usg=AOvVaw2DUCAK-d9q8JCc7K5eU5sM http://www.lawjournals.org/download/76/2-6-32-594.pdf&sa=U&v... [2]: https://www.aclu.org/blog/criminal-law-reform/reforming-police-practices/supreme-court-gives-police-green-light-shoot https://www.aclu.org/blog/criminal-law-reform/reforming-poli... [3] https://loweringthebar.net/2012/05/would-the-last-civil-right.html https://loweringthebar.net/2012/05/would-the-last-civil-righ... (this is a legal humor site, but it's by a lawyer and you can easily find a better source by googling if you want to be a spoilsport)

ebg13 7y ago

> When lawyers representing some of those youths discovered the violation, the police department dragged its feet, at first denying but eventually admitting that it was retaining prints it was supposed to have destroyed. > To date, the department has made no public admission of wrongdoing, nor has it notified the thousands of people it impacted How many cops are bastards? Every day the answer sure seems to be all of them.

flattone 7y ago
Seems like they have to be. How else can a person choose a role of potentially violent arbitrarily given authority over all others.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]

papreclip 7y ago

>Several years ago, Bella and Lisa Freeman, director of special litigation and law reform at Legal Aid’s Juvenile Rights Practice, started to notice that some of their clients had old police contacts showing up in their rap sheets that should not have been there The whole reason this was uncovered was that many of these kids are recidivists, maybe the law is wrong >the NYPD also maintains a secretive and controversial “gang database,” which labels thousands of unsuspecting New Yorkers — almost all black or Latino youth — as “gang members” based on a set of broad and arbitrary criteria What is a gang database supposed to be based on? Gangs don't keep a signed and dated registry of their membership. >My son was fingerprinted. He’s 14. I’m scared. What does this mean for his future Means he should wear gloves the next time he commits a crime!

Red_Leaves_Flyy 7y ago
>What is a gang database supposed to be based on? Gangs don't keep a signed and dated registry of their membership. Investigative police work, undercover officers, corroborated witness testimony. Iow, hard evidence, with accountability and restitution when they get it wrong. if a cop goes off the books they, and everyone with knowledge of said acts, should automatically lose all protection from civil claims. Great power, etc. When the nypd gets it wrong innocent people die, go to prison, become pariahs and have no recourse against a notoriously violent, racist, and corrupt organization. The nypds rap sheet basically proves they're a gang muscling out the competition instead of actually fighting crime. Their lack of accountability, and refusal to actually purge the bad actors, only fuels the hate for them.

sasasassy 7y ago

Jesus Christ people. Let's be honest here, the NYPD kept some data, we don't even know how large, about probable criminals. Further it used some detective work to guess who belongs to gangs. These don't look like big crimes to humanity. I'd be much more worried about, you know, children under 14 committing crimes already. The lunacy of some of these commenters...

Aloha 7y ago
We're a nation of laws, our entire culture and system is built around rule of law. These protections exist for a reason, to protect children who are not done developing mentally, from having their acts from following them around for life. Rule of Law cuts both ways though, we don't get to just ignore laws we don't like, and the powers that be even more so cannot. If the law itself is a problem, you change the law.
- sasasassy 7y ago
  Sure, it sucks, and the bureaucracy that is the NYPD probably means records are kept from longer than they should, and that is bad. But still, the kids data will not be used against them later on, i.e. crimes they commit at that time won't be prosecuted. Their data only helps arrest them if they actually commit a crime, so they would be the ones breaking the rule of law.
  - magduf 7y ago
    If you think the law is bad, then you should work with the government to get the law changed. Otherwise, you need to follow the law. At least, that's what the police will tell you when you break the law. So why should they get a pass? It doesn't matter if the law actually isn't useful or is causing harm; the police are more bound to follow and enforce it than anyone else. So why are you making excuses for them?
    - lmm 7y ago
      I would make excuses for anyone who violated the law while acting with good intentions. The rule of law is important. But so is having a sense of proportion about illegality.