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This sounds good but the only way to actually fix the problem is to hold individual police officers criminally liable. Currently they avoid criminal liability

This sounds good but the only way to actually fix the problem is to hold individual police officers criminally liable. Currently they avoid criminal liability in a number of ways: - They are never arrested - other police simply fail to arrest them - They are never indicted - DAs across the country are extremely reluctant to press charges - Charges are dropped by grand juries - in some states, like NY, all felonies must be confirmed or dropped by a grand jury unless the defendant waived their right. A DA has full power to effectively force a drop by portraying a weak case to a completely secret grand jury, publicly washing their hands of the decision while still getting the result they want. Then, when a DA is elected who actually says they will hold police accountable they often simply will not (as in Jackie Lacey, Los Angeles’ previous DA) or if they make basically any strides toward actually investigating police they will be stonewalled and face a recall with support from the local PD and/or SD (as in LA’s current DA, George Gascon). Police are given unbelievable rights: we will see over and over again that officers with complaints will never actually see them investigated and even sustained complaints have barely any consequences. Additionally if they are implicated in a serious crime on the job they often have union rules barring them from being interviewed / interrogated until after a cooling period (this blew my mind). Compare this to basically any other profession, even so much as yelling at a client or failing to help customer who asked would be a final strike almost anywhere else. The biggest problem may be that the US justice system is so unbelievably cruel that police refuse to ever put one of their own through that type of hell.

StreamBright 6y ago
> to hold individual police officers criminally liable. Under qualified immunity that most police officers have this is not going to happen. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qualified_immunity#Police_brutality https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qualified_immunity#Police_brut...
- stefan_ 6y ago
  Qualified immunity is for civil cases, it has nothing to do with criminal.
- tehwebguy 6y ago
  As another reply mentioned QI is not connected to criminal liability (only civil), and it’s also a bit of a red herring. In my opinion it’s vital that when an agent of the state (police officer) deprives someone of civil rights that the maximum possible restitution is not limited by their net worth or professional insurance carrier’s cap (which to my knowledge is not a thing for cops, but it is often suggested here).
- deleted 6y ago
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deleted 6y ago
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darksaints 6y ago
I agree 100% with everything you've said, and yet I still think those reforms would fail to effect change under current circumstances. Because current police culture basically says "Let me do my job however I want, without consequences, or I just won't do my job". And it has already started to show, with major police departments like Minneapolis, Chicago, Boston, NYC, and Seattle effectively pulling a depolicing strike in response to criticism and legislative action trying to hold them responsible for their failings. What you've prescribed would have prevented this from becoming a problem in the first place, but it can't do much anymore, because the prevalent police culture in the US will punish the public for punishing the police. And we've allowed this to happen to us. At this point, nobody knows what can actually fix the problem, but I'm increasingly inclined to think that firing them all, potentially imprisoning large quantities of them, and starting over from scratch, would be the only thing that works. Which is mind-blowing...it is practically an admission that even though we're a wealthy country, in terms of rule of law, we're not much different from a 3rd world failed state like Venezuela or Myanmar.
- croissants 6y ago
  > we're not much different from a 3rd world failed state like Venezuela In 2016, Venezuela's murder rate was well over 50 per 100,000, and the USA's murder rate was slightly over 5 per 100,000 [1]. This gap is pretty consistent. [1] https://dataunodc.un.org/crime/intentional-homicide-victims https://dataunodc.un.org/crime/intentional-homicide-victims
- ErikVandeWater 6y ago
  > ...effectively pulling a depolicing strike in response to criticism and legislative action trying to hold them responsible for their failings. That is a vast overgeneralization. Check out how many extreme repeat offenders are immediately released without punishment: https://youtu.be/bpAi70WWBlw?t=496 https://youtu.be/bpAi70WWBlw?t=496 Seattle Police officers are literally reduced to _bribing criminals with candy_: https://youtu.be/bpAi70WWBlw?t=865 https://youtu.be/bpAi70WWBlw?t=865
  - darksaints 6y ago
Shivetya 6y ago
- Eliminate police unions (get teachers unions too as they also cover up some serious crimes against children and have even more means to prevent it ever being published) - Eliminate pay to union members by the government while performing union duties; they actually require the state pay members salaries and bonus money will performing many union duties, go look it up. - Eliminate law enforcement officer bill of rights" (LEOBOR) style legislation - Require all misconduct records any public employee to be published and easily and freely queried - All investigations must not reveal who is filing the complaint nor witnesses to the officer or anyone not in the investigation, releasing this information should be a Federal offense - Cities, State, and localities, must be liable even if the officer is off duty and the misconduct includes use of their issued firearm or other accouterments - Qualified Immunity language must be modified to remove clearly established clause (QI started as a carve out from Civil Rights law but clearly has expanded) - With regards to QI and civil suits. At no time if a government agency or member pays out can they include the qualifier boilerplate language that explicitly denies that the municipality or the officer accept any blame for the incident." - three strikes and your out requirement with no future employment by any similar agency in the country. three strikes rule not to be used with any loss of life misconduct. That is one and out if not resulting in criminal prosecution You are not going to get anywhere while public sector unions exist for public employees. Even if you somehow managed to rid yourself of the police union the others would simply be used to pressure politicians. I am all for banning public sector unions from expending any money on political activity under the idea that they are spending public money to do so.
eagsalazar2 6y ago
This is really not getting at the root of the problem (not saying we shouldn't also do this). Police are trained to see citizens as enemies and to see themselves as "warriors". The specific tactics they utilize are tactics they have been trained to use and/or are widely used in practice so new recruits are immersed in a culture where these things are the norm. Additionally the reason cops get away with things in all the ways you list above are because of unions and lack of independent accountability. Persecuting individual officers for doing the job they were trained to do actual inflames the problem because they already see themselves as the victims (that is crazy, but it is 100% true they feel this way). Of course individuals play a large role but focusing on charging officers isn't likely to be an effective strategy for changing things. A much better strategy would be to take officers themselves out of the blame/change equation. They get the most political sympathy so going at them increases divisions and decreases likelihood of any compromise. What's needed to to change police training, yes add independent accountability, and change the charter of police forces by breaking away social services to take over most calls that don't involve felony crimes or immediate life dangers.
- dillondoyle 6y ago
  I agree with most of this but I also think it leaves out a huge piece of the puzzle: systemic racism. Which obviously doesn't have an easy solution. Maybe mandating more diverse forces, that officers actually live in their city, and training/culture accountability from the top down (that unions can't block).
  - alexashka 6y ago
    I don't know why you think racism is a 'huge' piece of the puzzle. You may be surprised to find out there exist countries other than USA that have far worse corruption and abuse at all levels of society that have nothing to do with race.
    - dillondoyle 6y ago
      yeah sure. but that has nothing to do with reforming racist US police forces

StreamBright 6y ago

> to hold individual police officers criminally liable. Under qualified immunity that most police officers have this is not going to happen. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qualified_immunity#Police_brutality https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qualified_immunity#Police_brut...

stefan_ 6y ago
Qualified immunity is for civil cases, it has nothing to do with criminal.
tehwebguy 6y ago
As another reply mentioned QI is not connected to criminal liability (only civil), and it’s also a bit of a red herring. In my opinion it’s vital that when an agent of the state (police officer) deprives someone of civil rights that the maximum possible restitution is not limited by their net worth or professional insurance carrier’s cap (which to my knowledge is not a thing for cops, but it is often suggested here).
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

darksaints 6y ago

I agree 100% with everything you've said, and yet I still think those reforms would fail to effect change under current circumstances. Because current police culture basically says "Let me do my job however I want, without consequences, or I just won't do my job". And it has already started to show, with major police departments like Minneapolis, Chicago, Boston, NYC, and Seattle effectively pulling a depolicing strike in response to criticism and legislative action trying to hold them responsible for their failings. What you've prescribed would have prevented this from becoming a problem in the first place, but it can't do much anymore, because the prevalent police culture in the US will punish the public for punishing the police. And we've allowed this to happen to us. At this point, nobody knows what can actually fix the problem, but I'm increasingly inclined to think that firing them all, potentially imprisoning large quantities of them, and starting over from scratch, would be the only thing that works. Which is mind-blowing...it is practically an admission that even though we're a wealthy country, in terms of rule of law, we're not much different from a 3rd world failed state like Venezuela or Myanmar.

croissants 6y ago
> we're not much different from a 3rd world failed state like Venezuela In 2016, Venezuela's murder rate was well over 50 per 100,000, and the USA's murder rate was slightly over 5 per 100,000 [1]. This gap is pretty consistent. [1] https://dataunodc.un.org/crime/intentional-homicide-victims https://dataunodc.un.org/crime/intentional-homicide-victims
ErikVandeWater 6y ago
> ...effectively pulling a depolicing strike in response to criticism and legislative action trying to hold them responsible for their failings. That is a vast overgeneralization. Check out how many extreme repeat offenders are immediately released without punishment: https://youtu.be/bpAi70WWBlw?t=496 https://youtu.be/bpAi70WWBlw?t=496 Seattle Police officers are literally reduced to _bribing criminals with candy_: https://youtu.be/bpAi70WWBlw?t=865 https://youtu.be/bpAi70WWBlw?t=865
- darksaints 6y ago

Shivetya 6y ago

- Eliminate police unions (get teachers unions too as they also cover up some serious crimes against children and have even more means to prevent it ever being published) - Eliminate pay to union members by the government while performing union duties; they actually require the state pay members salaries and bonus money will performing many union duties, go look it up. - Eliminate law enforcement officer bill of rights" (LEOBOR) style legislation - Require all misconduct records any public employee to be published and easily and freely queried - All investigations must not reveal who is filing the complaint nor witnesses to the officer or anyone not in the investigation, releasing this information should be a Federal offense - Cities, State, and localities, must be liable even if the officer is off duty and the misconduct includes use of their issued firearm or other accouterments - Qualified Immunity language must be modified to remove clearly established clause (QI started as a carve out from Civil Rights law but clearly has expanded) - With regards to QI and civil suits. At no time if a government agency or member pays out can they include the qualifier boilerplate language that explicitly denies that the municipality or the officer accept any blame for the incident." - three strikes and your out requirement with no future employment by any similar agency in the country. three strikes rule not to be used with any loss of life misconduct. That is one and out if not resulting in criminal prosecution You are not going to get anywhere while public sector unions exist for public employees. Even if you somehow managed to rid yourself of the police union the others would simply be used to pressure politicians. I am all for banning public sector unions from expending any money on political activity under the idea that they are spending public money to do so.

eagsalazar2 6y ago

This is really not getting at the root of the problem (not saying we shouldn't also do this). Police are trained to see citizens as enemies and to see themselves as "warriors". The specific tactics they utilize are tactics they have been trained to use and/or are widely used in practice so new recruits are immersed in a culture where these things are the norm. Additionally the reason cops get away with things in all the ways you list above are because of unions and lack of independent accountability. Persecuting individual officers for doing the job they were trained to do actual inflames the problem because they already see themselves as the victims (that is crazy, but it is 100% true they feel this way). Of course individuals play a large role but focusing on charging officers isn't likely to be an effective strategy for changing things. A much better strategy would be to take officers themselves out of the blame/change equation. They get the most political sympathy so going at them increases divisions and decreases likelihood of any compromise. What's needed to to change police training, yes add independent accountability, and change the charter of police forces by breaking away social services to take over most calls that don't involve felony crimes or immediate life dangers.

dillondoyle 6y ago
I agree with most of this but I also think it leaves out a huge piece of the puzzle: systemic racism. Which obviously doesn't have an easy solution. Maybe mandating more diverse forces, that officers actually live in their city, and training/culture accountability from the top down (that unions can't block).
- alexashka 6y ago
  I don't know why you think racism is a 'huge' piece of the puzzle. You may be surprised to find out there exist countries other than USA that have far worse corruption and abuse at all levels of society that have nothing to do with race.
  - dillondoyle 6y ago
    yeah sure. but that has nothing to do with reforming racist US police forces