5 ms·

Sounds like more evidence the police are an officially endorsed criminal gang. That seems like the source of the problem, and not solving that is just a bandai

Sounds like more evidence the police are an officially endorsed criminal gang. That seems like the source of the problem, and not solving that is just a bandaid.

JumpCrisscross 3y ago
> not solving that is just a bandaid I think the framing is silly, but in the spirit of argument, let’s accept it. What is the solution? (To me, it implies disbanding the police, which is not something most people want for obvious reasons.)
- _heimdall 3y ago
  There are likely changes to incentives that could be made without disbanding or refunding the police. Today police, DAs, and judges are all incentivized to close as many big cases as possible. We need these people to be motivated to actually protect the public and help those in need. Police funding, promotions, and recognition could be realigned to much better promote a policing system that focus on actually serving the public rather than catching and punishing as many people as possible.
- tl 3y ago
  I can't believe we're having this discussion either. Force cops to follow rules, full stop. We know that police misconduct begets more misconduct [1], and it works in both directions. When officers start losing their badge or their pension for cutting corners, they'll stop cutting corners. [1]: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/2378023119879798 https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/23780231198797...
  - bloomingeek 3y ago
    Absolutely, cops have to be held to a higher standard. This so called "peace officer" was stopped from trying to draw the blood from the unconscious person! Then he has the gall to arrest the nurse who told him he had no right! Then, instead of taking responsibility for his actions, he blames the system! https://www.sltrib.com/news/2019/10/12/ex-salt-lake-city-officer/ https://www.sltrib.com/news/2019/10/12/ex-salt-lake-city-off... https://www.sltrib.com/news/politics/2019/08/28/police-officer-who/ https://www.sltrib.com/news/politics/2019/08/28/police-offic... https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/11/01/561337106/utah-nurse-arrested-for-doing-her-job-reaches-500-000-settlement https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/11/01/561337106...
    - monkaiju 3y ago
      https://app.copdb.org/incidents/2ea95420-2070-4c9d-8e72-f1c68fe11359 https://app.copdb.org/incidents/2ea95420-2070-4c9d-8e72-f1c6...
    - FireBeyond 3y ago
      Cops in that case were desperate to move liability for an MVA from their buddy who was off-duty and drunk to the other party in the collision, hoping to find that he had anything in his system that they could point to as a contributing, if not causing, factor (because let's face it, if they were willing to do that, I'm sure they'd also be entirely willing to let their buddy sleep it off a few hours before doing his draw so his numbers weren't problematic - I mean, the guy he killed isn't going to be able to testify against him).
      - brewdad 3y ago
        So how many of these cops faced a punishment beyond an unplanned paid vacation?
        FireBeyond 3y ago
        Fairly predictable. Detective Jeff Payne was fired by SLC PD, remained unapologetic. Went to the next county north and hired at the County Jail. He then sued SLC and the PD for wrongful termination, arguing that his bodycam footage was misleading and that he was following direction of a supervisor.
- ilovetux 3y ago
  I don't know why it needs to be so drastic. We could start by enforcing the 4th amendment. Then we could actually hold officers accountable for their actions. Qualified immunity should be scaled back drastically and any LEO which violates the law should have a multiplier applied to the sentencing guidelines for any convictions against them.
  - kube-system 3y ago
    The 4th amendment doesn't prohibit others from volunteering information about you.
    - avery17 3y ago
      Perhaps it should in circumstances such as private medical information or any private information. We need digital privacy laws badly.
      - kube-system 3y ago
        I think digital privacy would be much better handled by regular laws, not a constitutional amendment.
        ilovetux 3y ago
        I disagree. I think if it's not in the form of a constitutional amendment, then we will be constantly at risk of having it repealed or lessened or made irrelevant by superseding laws. I understand that we can not go around amending the constitution on a whim, but these topics are so young that we cannot foresee all the possible ramifications of any law that we try to pass but at the same time they are too important to not take action. A simple, easy-to-understand constitutional mandate such as "no law shall be passed that infringes on a citizens right to digital privacy" would be the ideal solution. After that, courts can be used to iron out the details and set precedence.
        kube-system 3y ago
- bonton89 3y ago
  Just require police to carry liability insurance so their misconduct is paid for by the insurance. If all insurance carriers drop them they cannot do police work anymore. You can even give them a raise to cover the extra insurance. Then the government would have to keep paying out for misconduct and the worst offenders would at least get booted out of the profession. A national law would work best but even state laws would be effective.
  - guitarbill 3y ago
    Why would you make the government pay out? Make the police unions provide that insurance.
    - bonton89 3y ago
      One of my classic typos. I mean the government would NOT have to payout, the insurance company would.
      - creer 3y ago
        Who do you suggest would pay the insurance premiums? Besides monetary compensation is not the solution in lawlessness and bullying.
        voltaireodactyl 3y ago
        It sounds like they’re suggesting it work similarly to malpractice insurance for doctors.
  - gosub100 3y ago
    yeah, a profit-based system. I like it. Then the police should check your ID and insurance when they respond to your call and if you don't pay into the system, you don't get protection. Efficient markets and all :)
  - avs733 3y ago
    >Just require police to carry liability insurance so their misconduct is paid for by the insurance I consistently and strongly disagree with this. The police are a manifestation of our society. When they do bad things they do so in our name - whether or not you want them to do it. We have created a law enforcement structure that empowers these abuses to happen. Transferring the cost to them for acting the way society wants them to act is not the answer. We bear that responsibility and should bear that cost.
- tristor 3y ago
  The police don’t behave this way in most other wealthy countries. For reasons that aren’t relevant context, I have had encounters with the police multiple times in the US and in numerous countries abroad and the difference in behavior is stark and clear. The FBI presumably has the responsibility and authority to police sheriffs departments and police departments that aren’t behaving appropriately, and the FBI is part of the Executive Branch. It would be relatively straightforward for the President to task resources to focus on this specific problem and ask the DoJ to focus on prosecuting civil rights cases. Elsewhere someone suggest a privacy amendment to the Constitution, we already have that and it’s the 4th amendment. We don’t need more legal protections, we need to actually hold police officers and departments accountable. We need to enforce the laws we already have, most importantly the Constitution, against officers and end effectively limitless immunity. We also need to raise hiring standards. The minimum standard to be a police officer in most civilized countries is similar to our requirements for FBI agents. Most police officers on duty in the US are uneducated, ignorant, and stupid so it is not a surprise that belligerent behavior is the norm. Only in the US did we actually have police departments placing a cap on the IQ of incoming officers. Only in the US do we have no national requirement for someone to serve as an officer. Some cities require a certification or attendance to a police academy, but there’s no national standard. Only in the US is the average cop your high school bully given a gun and a badge. There’s a lot more that could be done here. Hell, it doesn’t even have to be blue-tinted government action, it could be red-tinted government inaction by getting prosecutors to defect from the gang and uphold the right of self defense, correctly aligned to the actual law, in matters involving the police. It is legal under the letter and color of law to use lethal force to defend yourself against unlawful conduct by the police, most especially if they are attempting to use unlawful force or make an unlawful arrest, however as a practical matter prosecutors are in the gang and will “back the blue” no matter what. We could easily make even the idiots we hire as cops think twice before busting down a door without a warrant, announcing their purpose, or just plain knocking first. What I am very clearly not saying is any such stupidity as “disband the police”. In a well functioning society, the police serve a valuable purpose. We are not currently a well functioning society, and part of why is because the police operate like thugs.
  - giraffe_lady 3y ago
- jMyles 3y ago
  > which is not something most people want for obvious reasons Is this true? On sufficiently long time scales, do you really think that most people continue to imagine / desire law enforcement and public safety being mashed into the same entity(ies), and for those entities to be state agencies? My sense is that most people recognize that this is a temporary phenomenon. For advocates of slavery (including the current plantation-masquerading-as-corrections regime), police are of course necessary, because slavery is only economically feasible in the presence of this subsidy (which is how the current framework of police began in the USA in the first place). But if we imagine something only slightly more utopian, like restorative and rehabilitative justice that isn't designed as a profit generator, empowered by a sufficiently democratic and highly sensitive internet, then it becomes easy to imagine relieving the police of their duties and moving to more mature and stable systems of public safety.
- creer 3y ago
  Stop raising a country on winning at all costs at sports? The jocks in the police are just carrying on with their game. For people following in a different land, US kids are raised worshipping winning and (american) football and baseball players. And mostly in that world, winning is what matters - for individuals and for the team. Fair play is a british kind of nonsense, so is the spirit of the rules. And cheating is a means to an end (getting caught is a problem: you have let your team down). When that becomes a problem the rules are touched up so that "everyone is a winner" - but winning is still the point and anyway the kids know this is BS and that they have lost. I caricature a little but only a little. American cops are THAT. They are there to win and everything else is for the losers. They are still playing their game - and their team.
- SauciestGNU 3y ago
  Something I've been thinking about recently is making it specifically a crime for police to break laws in the absence of exigent circumstances, and then have exigency investigations for everything from police assaults (so-called "use of force incidents") to unlawfully parked patrol vehicles. Police should be held to the absolute highest standard of lawfulness, and there need to be harsh consequences for any abuse of power.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

Sounds like more evidence the police are an officially endorsed criminal gang. That seems like the source of the problem, and not solving that is just a bandaid.

JumpCrisscross 3y ago

> not solving that is just a bandaid I think the framing is silly, but in the spirit of argument, let’s accept it. What is the solution? (To me, it implies disbanding the police, which is not something most people want for obvious reasons.)

_heimdall 3y ago
There are likely changes to incentives that could be made without disbanding or refunding the police. Today police, DAs, and judges are all incentivized to close as many big cases as possible. We need these people to be motivated to actually protect the public and help those in need. Police funding, promotions, and recognition could be realigned to much better promote a policing system that focus on actually serving the public rather than catching and punishing as many people as possible.
tl 3y ago
I can't believe we're having this discussion either. Force cops to follow rules, full stop. We know that police misconduct begets more misconduct [1], and it works in both directions. When officers start losing their badge or their pension for cutting corners, they'll stop cutting corners. [1]: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/2378023119879798 https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/23780231198797...
- bloomingeek 3y ago
  Absolutely, cops have to be held to a higher standard. This so called "peace officer" was stopped from trying to draw the blood from the unconscious person! Then he has the gall to arrest the nurse who told him he had no right! Then, instead of taking responsibility for his actions, he blames the system! https://www.sltrib.com/news/2019/10/12/ex-salt-lake-city-officer/ https://www.sltrib.com/news/2019/10/12/ex-salt-lake-city-off... https://www.sltrib.com/news/politics/2019/08/28/police-officer-who/ https://www.sltrib.com/news/politics/2019/08/28/police-offic... https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/11/01/561337106/utah-nurse-arrested-for-doing-her-job-reaches-500-000-settlement https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/11/01/561337106...
  - monkaiju 3y ago
    https://app.copdb.org/incidents/2ea95420-2070-4c9d-8e72-f1c68fe11359 https://app.copdb.org/incidents/2ea95420-2070-4c9d-8e72-f1c6...
  - FireBeyond 3y ago
    Cops in that case were desperate to move liability for an MVA from their buddy who was off-duty and drunk to the other party in the collision, hoping to find that he had anything in his system that they could point to as a contributing, if not causing, factor (because let's face it, if they were willing to do that, I'm sure they'd also be entirely willing to let their buddy sleep it off a few hours before doing his draw so his numbers weren't problematic - I mean, the guy he killed isn't going to be able to testify against him).
    - brewdad 3y ago
      So how many of these cops faced a punishment beyond an unplanned paid vacation?
      - FireBeyond 3y ago
        Fairly predictable. Detective Jeff Payne was fired by SLC PD, remained unapologetic. Went to the next county north and hired at the County Jail. He then sued SLC and the PD for wrongful termination, arguing that his bodycam footage was misleading and that he was following direction of a supervisor.
ilovetux 3y ago
I don't know why it needs to be so drastic. We could start by enforcing the 4th amendment. Then we could actually hold officers accountable for their actions. Qualified immunity should be scaled back drastically and any LEO which violates the law should have a multiplier applied to the sentencing guidelines for any convictions against them.
- kube-system 3y ago
  The 4th amendment doesn't prohibit others from volunteering information about you.
  - avery17 3y ago
    Perhaps it should in circumstances such as private medical information or any private information. We need digital privacy laws badly.
    - kube-system 3y ago
      I think digital privacy would be much better handled by regular laws, not a constitutional amendment.
      - ilovetux 3y ago
        I disagree. I think if it's not in the form of a constitutional amendment, then we will be constantly at risk of having it repealed or lessened or made irrelevant by superseding laws. I understand that we can not go around amending the constitution on a whim, but these topics are so young that we cannot foresee all the possible ramifications of any law that we try to pass but at the same time they are too important to not take action. A simple, easy-to-understand constitutional mandate such as "no law shall be passed that infringes on a citizens right to digital privacy" would be the ideal solution. After that, courts can be used to iron out the details and set precedence.
        kube-system 3y ago
bonton89 3y ago
Just require police to carry liability insurance so their misconduct is paid for by the insurance. If all insurance carriers drop them they cannot do police work anymore. You can even give them a raise to cover the extra insurance. Then the government would have to keep paying out for misconduct and the worst offenders would at least get booted out of the profession. A national law would work best but even state laws would be effective.
- guitarbill 3y ago
  Why would you make the government pay out? Make the police unions provide that insurance.
  - bonton89 3y ago
    One of my classic typos. I mean the government would NOT have to payout, the insurance company would.
    - creer 3y ago
      Who do you suggest would pay the insurance premiums? Besides monetary compensation is not the solution in lawlessness and bullying.
      - voltaireodactyl 3y ago
        It sounds like they’re suggesting it work similarly to malpractice insurance for doctors.
- gosub100 3y ago
  yeah, a profit-based system. I like it. Then the police should check your ID and insurance when they respond to your call and if you don't pay into the system, you don't get protection. Efficient markets and all :)
- avs733 3y ago
  >Just require police to carry liability insurance so their misconduct is paid for by the insurance I consistently and strongly disagree with this. The police are a manifestation of our society. When they do bad things they do so in our name - whether or not you want them to do it. We have created a law enforcement structure that empowers these abuses to happen. Transferring the cost to them for acting the way society wants them to act is not the answer. We bear that responsibility and should bear that cost.
tristor 3y ago
The police don’t behave this way in most other wealthy countries. For reasons that aren’t relevant context, I have had encounters with the police multiple times in the US and in numerous countries abroad and the difference in behavior is stark and clear. The FBI presumably has the responsibility and authority to police sheriffs departments and police departments that aren’t behaving appropriately, and the FBI is part of the Executive Branch. It would be relatively straightforward for the President to task resources to focus on this specific problem and ask the DoJ to focus on prosecuting civil rights cases. Elsewhere someone suggest a privacy amendment to the Constitution, we already have that and it’s the 4th amendment. We don’t need more legal protections, we need to actually hold police officers and departments accountable. We need to enforce the laws we already have, most importantly the Constitution, against officers and end effectively limitless immunity. We also need to raise hiring standards. The minimum standard to be a police officer in most civilized countries is similar to our requirements for FBI agents. Most police officers on duty in the US are uneducated, ignorant, and stupid so it is not a surprise that belligerent behavior is the norm. Only in the US did we actually have police departments placing a cap on the IQ of incoming officers. Only in the US do we have no national requirement for someone to serve as an officer. Some cities require a certification or attendance to a police academy, but there’s no national standard. Only in the US is the average cop your high school bully given a gun and a badge. There’s a lot more that could be done here. Hell, it doesn’t even have to be blue-tinted government action, it could be red-tinted government inaction by getting prosecutors to defect from the gang and uphold the right of self defense, correctly aligned to the actual law, in matters involving the police. It is legal under the letter and color of law to use lethal force to defend yourself against unlawful conduct by the police, most especially if they are attempting to use unlawful force or make an unlawful arrest, however as a practical matter prosecutors are in the gang and will “back the blue” no matter what. We could easily make even the idiots we hire as cops think twice before busting down a door without a warrant, announcing their purpose, or just plain knocking first. What I am very clearly not saying is any such stupidity as “disband the police”. In a well functioning society, the police serve a valuable purpose. We are not currently a well functioning society, and part of why is because the police operate like thugs.
- giraffe_lady 3y ago
jMyles 3y ago
> which is not something most people want for obvious reasons Is this true? On sufficiently long time scales, do you really think that most people continue to imagine / desire law enforcement and public safety being mashed into the same entity(ies), and for those entities to be state agencies? My sense is that most people recognize that this is a temporary phenomenon. For advocates of slavery (including the current plantation-masquerading-as-corrections regime), police are of course necessary, because slavery is only economically feasible in the presence of this subsidy (which is how the current framework of police began in the USA in the first place). But if we imagine something only slightly more utopian, like restorative and rehabilitative justice that isn't designed as a profit generator, empowered by a sufficiently democratic and highly sensitive internet, then it becomes easy to imagine relieving the police of their duties and moving to more mature and stable systems of public safety.
creer 3y ago
Stop raising a country on winning at all costs at sports? The jocks in the police are just carrying on with their game. For people following in a different land, US kids are raised worshipping winning and (american) football and baseball players. And mostly in that world, winning is what matters - for individuals and for the team. Fair play is a british kind of nonsense, so is the spirit of the rules. And cheating is a means to an end (getting caught is a problem: you have let your team down). When that becomes a problem the rules are touched up so that "everyone is a winner" - but winning is still the point and anyway the kids know this is BS and that they have lost. I caricature a little but only a little. American cops are THAT. They are there to win and everything else is for the losers. They are still playing their game - and their team.
SauciestGNU 3y ago
Something I've been thinking about recently is making it specifically a crime for police to break laws in the absence of exigent circumstances, and then have exigency investigations for everything from police assaults (so-called "use of force incidents") to unlawfully parked patrol vehicles. Police should be held to the absolute highest standard of lawfulness, and there need to be harsh consequences for any abuse of power.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]