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anonumos
Jul 14, 2005

Fuck it.

wateroverfire posted:

It's the job of the cops to apprehend people who don't feel like being apprehended. That involves a certain amount of violence and a certain amount of risk that is mitigated by judicious use of violence.

What is this word? I'm not certain all cops know it.

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TehSaurus
Jun 12, 2006

wateroverfire posted:

Most of the poo poo you guys are complaining about is not worthy of putting a cop in prison. There has to be a strong presumption that the use of force is justified.

Hey did you miss this? I think you missed this:

TehSaurus posted:

61% of them acknowledge that 'serious criminal violations involving the abuse of authority' perpetrated by officers goes unreported

Kitfox88
Aug 21, 2007

Anybody lose their glasses?

Solkanar512 posted:

I'm still waiting for an answer.

Where the gently caress is the accountability? Why am I held to a higher standard than someone who carries a gun?

This is really my issue. If I did some of the poo poo cops do, like a local cop who killed a man after T-boning his car while going 90 down a 35 road during no call or emergency, I'd be in jail. Probably prison. Justifiably, I'd add. Instead, that cop is currently on paid leave pending investigation, after he made some very very stupid choices that led to the death of a person.

Why do they have immunity from the repercussions of their actions? What gives them the right to have that?

doug fuckey
Jun 7, 2007

hella greenbacks
Could it be that a cop in jail is basically a death sentence, a kind of indirect acknowledgement that prisons are hell?

Kitfox88
Aug 21, 2007

Anybody lose their glasses?
Maybe we should work on unfucking our prison and justice system then too in addition to our police forces!

woke wedding drone
Jun 1, 2003

by exmarx
Fun Shoe
Wow, presuming the use of force is justified? That's incredibly dangerous.

Samurai Sanders
Nov 4, 2003

Pillbug

Zesty Mordant posted:

Could it be that a cop in jail is basically a death sentence, a kind of indirect acknowledgement that prisons are hell?
Yeah, this logic makes sense to me. But I think that if you're willing to do something horrible to someone else, you'd better be prepared to have it happen to you too, and that clearly isn't the case with cops and prison.

Samurai Sanders fucked around with this message at 17:09 on Jul 17, 2014

wateroverfire
Jul 3, 2010

TehSaurus posted:

Hey did you miss this? I think you missed this:

Meh? The data point was:

61% disagreed with the proposition "Police officers always report serious criminal violations involving abuse of authority by fellow officers."

Maybe lots of officers have heard about that one guy in the department, or can recall an incident in a long career, or just suspect they or their fellow officers would let something slide under the right circumstances, etc. The survey doesn't delve into what officers witnessed or how often that kind of thing happens.

OJ MIST 2 THE DICK
Sep 11, 2008

Anytime I need to see your face I just close my eyes
And I am taken to a place
Where your crystal minds and magenta feelings
Take up shelter in the base of my spine
Sweet like a chica cherry cola

-Cheap Trick

Nap Ghost

Solkanar512 posted:

Where the gently caress is the accountability? Why am I held to a higher standard than someone who carries a gun?

Because your fuckup is more likely to kill hundreds of people in a single incident in a more dangerous environment?

wateroverfire
Jul 3, 2010

Solkanar512 posted:

I'm still waiting for an answer.




Where the gently caress is the accountability? Why am I held to a higher standard than someone who carries a gun?


ayn rand hand job posted:

Because your fuckup is more likely to kill hundreds of people in a single incident in a more dangerous environment?

This, and because presumably you're never in a situation where you have to make snap judgements because stopping to work everything through one more time would be dangerous for you and your co workers.

woke wedding drone
Jun 1, 2003

by exmarx
Fun Shoe
Part of being in a job where you have to make decisions quickly is being held accountable for those decisions. If I make a decision in my job and somebody dies (it happens) I will be held accountable. If you have to "stop and work things through" to make the right decision on a regular basis then you need more training or are the wrong person for the job.

LorneReams
Jun 27, 2003
I'm bizarre
It's our (people's) fault. There are many cases where DAs can't even get out of a grand jury with solid video evidence of police misconduct. This leads to much more cautious prosecution. Which leads to police believing that it's better to err on the side of more force/control.

TehSaurus
Jun 12, 2006

wateroverfire posted:

Meh? The data point was:

61% disagreed with the proposition "Police officers always report serious criminal violations involving abuse of authority by fellow officers."

Maybe lots of officers have heard about that one guy in the department, or can recall an incident in a long career, or just suspect they or their fellow officers would let something slide under the right circumstances, etc. The survey doesn't delve into what officers witnessed or how often that kind of thing happens.

If you look at that sole data point your interpretation makes sense, but recognize also that 84% respond that officers in their department use excessive force at least some of the time. 20% being sometimes, often, or always. With those two data points together I think it is clear that excessive force is frequently used and significantly under-reported. Do you have any data that seriously undermines this supposition?

Samurai Sanders
Nov 4, 2003

Pillbug

LorneReams posted:

It's our (people's) fault. There are many cases where DAs can't even get out of a grand jury with solid video evidence of police misconduct. This leads to much more cautious prosecution. Which leads to police believing that it's better to err on the side of more force/control.
Is it because the DA's office slacks off on cases where the suspect is a police officer, or something else?

LorneReams
Jun 27, 2003
I'm bizarre

Samurai Sanders posted:

Is it because the DA's office slacks off on cases where the suspect is a police officer, or something else?

It's because juries are bad at convicting cops.

SubponticatePoster
Aug 9, 2004

Every day takes figurin' out all over again how to fuckin' live.
Slippery Tilde
I had like 200+ posts to catch up on, so I am late for dogchat but I'd like to throw my .02 in.

I used to work animal control. In my jurisdiction AC isn't sworn law enforcement (in one place south of us AC is actually a rotation in the police department like traffic, detective, etc) but we had the option to go through the police academy if we had been there long enough and I got to go. Cops aren't taught poo poo about dealing with animals. I even offered to do a short training but the curriculum was already full.

Because they get no training they have no idea if a dog acting aggressively is going to bite them or not. I've gone on multiple calls with cops where there was a dog in a yard going apeshit and I would just walk in/jump the fence. "What? You're going in there?" Yes, because I've done this enough to know this dog is making a lot of noise but if challenged he's going to back off. If the dog was giving clear indications he would eat my rear end I'd use a control pole over the fence on it and hold him while they did whatever it was they were there to do - usually a welfare check. Sometimes they would call us when they were serving a warrant and they knew there were dogs in the house. However, we are not armed in our jurisdiction and don't get bulletproof vests so there's no way in loving hell I'd agree to go in on a no-knock caught between armed cops and whatever would be in the house. We were fine with waiting outside until the scene was secure and then rounding up anything that needed it.

We've had few, if any, what I would consider unjustified animal shootings (dog in a crate or car with the windows up) but I have seen cops do some really retarded poo poo when it comes to animals, like using pepper spray on a horse :psyduck:. Another time I got called out because a lady came home one hot summer night to find a 7' albino Burmese python enjoying her air conditioning and she called the police first. The responding officers wanted to take a picture with the snake because they thought it was cool. Fine, except this one dipshit seemed to think he was Marlin Perkins wrestling an anaconda and had the snake's head in a deathgrip which was doing nothing except agitating the poo poo out of the snake. Once I got hold of it and just let it be the snake was chill and they got their picture. 99% of the time when I got called out to an officer shooting a dog, the officer was really upset/felt bad about it, even in cases where the owner set the dog on them. The couple of times I got called out to DEA raids they didn't give two shits.

The clear solution is either more training, either including it in academy, or actually requiring the police take a turn doing animal control. Especially if AC isn't armed. You have to get really good at dealing with people since you can't just whip out a gun/taser the second someone gets surly with you. The other option would be to call AC when animals or the possibility thereof is involved. That's both a good and bad solution, because most AC departments that are independent of the police force are badly understaffed and underfunded. So having AC along in a search for a missing person might result in there being no AC available for other emergency calls (there were plenty of times I was the only officer available for around 600k people and a several hundred square mile jurisdiction). I don't necessarily "blame" officers for shooting dogs that are acting aggressive, simply because they're taught to respond with force and may not be able to differentiate bluff from actual attack. However I think departments could do a much better job at correcting that problem.

Obviously contained/restrained animals should never ever be shot/maced/tasered because what the gently caress.

Samurai Sanders
Nov 4, 2003

Pillbug

SubponticatePoster posted:

I used to work animal control.
I'm curious, what happens when you pepper spray a horse?

KernelSlanders
May 27, 2013

Rogue operating systems on occasion spread lies and rumors about me.

LorneReams posted:

It's because juries are bad at convicting cops.

Because anyone who's had a bad experience with a cop and isn't basically a Cole or Rent-a-Cop from this thread personality wise will get struck from the pool. Also, reasonable doubt applies to police in criminal prosecutions too. These are important safeguards in our criminal justice system, and we probably shouldn't disrupt them. Institutional reform and internal discipline before someone gets killed or injured is probably a better avenue for reform. However, the police departments in question have proved themselves to be completely uninterested in such reform and remarkably resistant to any sort of democratic control.

Talmonis
Jun 24, 2012
The fairy of forgiveness has removed your red text.

SedanChair posted:

Wow, presuming the use of force is justified? That's incredibly dangerous.

Agreed, which is why self defense laws are bullshit as well.

SubponticatePoster
Aug 9, 2004

Every day takes figurin' out all over again how to fuckin' live.
Slippery Tilde

Samurai Sanders posted:

I'm curious, what happens when you pepper spray a horse?
The docile-if-stubborn animal freaks the gently caress out and runs around like it's possessed. Thanks rear end in a top hat, now instead of putting a blindfold over its eyes to get it into the trailer we have to chase it down, contain it (dicey proposition if anywhere but a fenced yard or corral) and wait 45 minutes for the spray to wear off. :argh:

woke wedding drone
Jun 1, 2003

by exmarx
Fun Shoe

Talmonis posted:

Agreed, which is why self defense laws are bullshit as well.

Absolutely, and even more importantly the presumption of juries that armed people with concealed carry permits must have been justified. Basically there's a strain of murderousness that runs through our culture, probably at least back to the days of settler massacres.

Solkanar512
Dec 28, 2006

by the sex ghost

ayn rand hand job posted:

Because your fuckup is more likely to kill hundreds of people in a single incident in a more dangerous environment?

A lot more people die from guns than they do from airplanes being built and maintained incorrectly. Also, why shouldn't someone be held accountable for risking the lives of just a handful if people if we hold people accountable for that lives of hundreds?

Also, this doesn't excuse SWAT raids where they enter the wrong loving house or refuse to do their research.

Solkanar512 fucked around with this message at 19:08 on Jul 17, 2014

Cole
Nov 24, 2004

DUNSON'D

KernelSlanders posted:

Cole's gone. His entire justification for his beliefs was based on the premise that police abuse is extremely rare (rarer than we know police being killed is). That's why he demanded we provide him with personal stories because the types of abuse we're discussing are so rare it's clearly never happened to any one of us. When six or so of us responded, he ran away.

No I'm right here bro. I've even posted since all of those stories.

woke wedding drone
Jun 1, 2003

by exmarx
Fun Shoe
Yes and those posts were a marvel of good faith and engagement.

Mods requesting thread title change to Police Reform: Pepper Spray a Horse

Rent-A-Cop
Oct 15, 2004

I posted my food for USPOL Thanksgiving!

KernelSlanders posted:

Because anyone who's had a bad experience with a cop and isn't basically a Cole or Rent-a-Cop from this thread personality wise will get struck from the pool.
Why do I get lumped in with Cole? Did you not actually read any of my posts in this thread, or were you just offended when I expressed the opinion that getting stopped for speeding when you're speeding isn't comparable to sexual assault when it comes to police abuse?

LorneReams
Jun 27, 2003
I'm bizarre

KernelSlanders posted:

Because anyone who's had a bad experience with a cop and isn't basically a Cole or Rent-a-Cop from this thread personality wise will get struck from the pool. Also, reasonable doubt applies to police in criminal prosecutions too. These are important safeguards in our criminal justice system, and we probably shouldn't disrupt them. Institutional reform and internal discipline before someone gets killed or injured is probably a better avenue for reform. However, the police departments in question have proved themselves to be completely uninterested in such reform and remarkably resistant to any sort of democratic control.

Not disagreeing, but it's usually because of "Just World". Average people don't like to think that police are bad...there must be a reason, any reason, that the police did what they did.

SubponticatePoster
Aug 9, 2004

Every day takes figurin' out all over again how to fuckin' live.
Slippery Tilde

SedanChair posted:

Yes and those posts were a marvel of good faith and engagement.

Mods requesting thread title change to Police Reform: Pepper Spray a Horse
Maybe Mace a Mare or Pepper Spray a Palomino for alliteration.

e: To add something serious about the incident, it's a pretty good example of "if all you have is a hammer" attitude. What do cops do to people who don't cooperate? OC them. A lot of times that's not justified either (person is already in handcuffs, not being violent just not moving the way they want them to). A horse isn't a loving person and if it doesn't want to do something you've got to know how to handle it because a freaked-out 1800lb equine will not listen to reason and can kill you pretty easily even if you did shoot it. We had no warning, he just yanked out the spray and hosed it down. Cue 3 AC officers rounding on him, all yelling a different version of "what the gently caress were you thinking?" And his answer was basically "I thought it would get him moving." Well, yes it did but not in any way that was productive.

SubponticatePoster fucked around with this message at 21:05 on Jul 17, 2014

OJ MIST 2 THE DICK
Sep 11, 2008

Anytime I need to see your face I just close my eyes
And I am taken to a place
Where your crystal minds and magenta feelings
Take up shelter in the base of my spine
Sweet like a chica cherry cola

-Cheap Trick

Nap Ghost

Solkanar512 posted:

A lot more people die from guns than they do from airplanes being built and maintained incorrectly.

The destructive potential of a plane accident is magnitudes higher than someone with a gun. I didn't think that was too controversial.

There's also a side argument about how it would be easier to regulate airline safety instead of gun control, but that would be out of this thread subject matter.

Solkanar512 posted:

Also, why shouldn't someone be held accountable for risking the lives of just a handful if people if we hold people accountable for that lives of hundreds?
I don't disagree, though you'd have to be clearer on your idea of accountability. It doesn't appear to include the criminal justice system based on the cases you presented.


Solkanar512 posted:

Also, this doesn't excuse SWAT raids where they enter the wrong loving house or refuse to do their research.

Never said anything about that, and I agree.

Solkanar512
Dec 28, 2006

by the sex ghost

ayn rand hand job posted:

The destructive potential of a plane accident is magnitudes higher than someone with a gun. I didn't think that was too controversial.

There's also a side argument about how it would be easier to regulate airline safety instead of gun control, but that would be out of this thread subject matter.

Getting into a pissing match about magnitude isn't the point*. The point is that for some strange reason, people who assemble planes or manufacture drugs are held responsible for killing people, but cops with guns aren't. As the former group should be held responsible for unjustly killing people, so should the latter. I'm not talking about general gun control or anything like that, I'm specifically talking about the idea that if a cop shots someone, there should be a good reason why. Having a mother lift her head and ask about her kids is not a good reason why. Sleeping in a crib is not a justifiable reason for taking a flashbang to the chest. And so on.

quote:

I don't disagree, though you'd have to be clearer on your idea of accountability. It doesn't appear to include the criminal justice system based on the cases you presented.

Never said anything about that, and I agree.

Accountability means direct acknowledgement that people were murdered in their homes, that the perpetrators were punished as normal people would be punished and meaningful measures are taken to ensure that sort of thing never happens again. I think we're in general agreement here.

*Though I bet you could kill more people with what a typical cop carries every day than a Cessna!

Liquid Communism
Mar 9, 2004

коммунизм хранится в яичках

wateroverfire posted:

Most of the poo poo you guys are complaining about is not worthy of putting a cop in prison. There has to be a strong presumption that the use of force is justified.

Bullshit it does. In point of fact, the use of force needs to be presumed not to be justified, because otherwise it becomes the go-to tool rather than de-escalating situations and causing the least practical harm in conflict resolution. When given the choice between talking to an agitated person and seeing why they're upset and just tasing the poo poo out of them and cuffing them, the correct answer needs to be talking.

When all you have is a hammer, and you are encouraged to see every problem as a nail, a lot of people are going to get hammered.

TehSaurus
Jun 12, 2006

Liquid Communism posted:

Bullshit it does. In point of fact, the use of force needs to be presumed not to be justified, because otherwise it becomes the go-to tool rather than de-escalating situations and causing the least practical harm in conflict resolution. When given the choice between talking to an agitated person and seeing why they're upset and just tasing the poo poo out of them and cuffing them, the correct answer needs to be talking.

When all you have is a hammer, and you are encouraged to see every problem as a nail, a lot of people are going to get hammered.

Seriously. A majority of officers think that the use of force is excessive at least some of the time. That does not support a presumption of justification.

wateroverfire
Jul 3, 2010

Liquid Communism posted:

Bullshit it does. In point of fact, the use of force needs to be presumed not to be justified, because otherwise it becomes the go-to tool rather than de-escalating situations and causing the least practical harm in conflict resolution. When given the choice between talking to an agitated person and seeing why they're upset and just tasing the poo poo out of them and cuffing them, the correct answer needs to be talking.

There are some circumstances where talking a person down is the right way to go and some where tasing the poo poo out of them and cuffing them is the right way to go. An officer gets a lot of latitude in how they handle that decision because they're the ones on the ground and the only person in a position to make a judgement about what's going down.


TehSaurus posted:

Seriously. A majority of officers think that the use of force is excessive at least some of the time. That does not support a presumption of justification.

A majority of cops think that more force than the minimum necessary (the standard) is sometimes used when making arrests. I'm pretty sure in most cases no one but the arresting officers are in a position to know what the appropriate level of force was. Unless a case is pretty egregious there's no fair or productive way to second guess these things and LOL if every arrestee doesn't think they were mistreated.

KernelSlanders
May 27, 2013

Rogue operating systems on occasion spread lies and rumors about me.

Cole posted:

No I'm right here bro. I've even posted since all of those stories.

I didn't mean physically gone. I meant you've checked out of the conversation since you promptly ignored the stories you asked for and went on to low effort mockery and name calling.

Cole posted:

Whatever pig.

Cole posted:

Are you really putting your complaints about the cops on the same level as nuclear weapons?

Lol ok bub.

Bring up the holocaust next.

Cole posted:

Lol ok guy. Keep fighting the good fight.

That's the sum total of your contributions since then.

KernelSlanders
May 27, 2013

Rogue operating systems on occasion spread lies and rumors about me.

Rent-A-Cop posted:

Why do I get lumped in with Cole? Did you not actually read any of my posts in this thread, or were you just offended when I expressed the opinion that getting stopped for speeding when you're speeding isn't comparable to sexual assault when it comes to police abuse?

I meant it as a contrast. I wasn't trying to lump you together in the way you took it. Just that you seem to start from a different set of biases than, say, I do and those are more likely to land you on a cop's jury than me. I recognize that you're engaging in productive conversation here, and I appreciate that.

TehSaurus
Jun 12, 2006

wateroverfire posted:

A majority of cops think that more force than the minimum necessary (the standard) is sometimes used when making arrests. I'm pretty sure in most cases no one but the arresting officers are in a position to know what the appropriate level of force was. Unless a case is pretty egregious there's no fair or productive way to second guess these things and LOL if every arrestee doesn't think they were mistreated.

I think you have a lower bar for acceptable use of force than I do. Which is fine, but I don't think you'll find too many people here who agree with your sensibilities. Also the argument that 'you had to be there' to be able to regulate the behavior precludes the effective regulation of whatever behavior it is applied to, so don't mind me for rejecting it out of necessity. I prefer to argue policy with the presumption that a solution exists; the alternative is not terribly productive.

Randbrick
Sep 28, 2002
I haven't posted in a while, but this thread got me motivated.

I've been with the PD (Public Defender) a few years now in a mid-sized city. I don't have as much direct experience with police as many other criminal defense attorneys, because I only take felony cases, so I primarily deal with prosecutors. (Cops will not talk to me or my office's investigators on cases brought by prosecutors.) I do take the occasional misdemeanor case, though, and I do deal with detectives with greater regularity than beat cops.

That said, I have seen cops lie on the stand. I absolutely have. I had a cop change the moment at which he smelled marijuana when approaching and searching a man's car, eliminating a valid suppression motion by changing his testimony between the preliminary hearing (a General District Court level evidentiary hearing) and the Circuit Court suppression hearing. I knew he was lying. He knew he was lying. We had a moment's recognition, looking each other in the eye. We both knew. He got his little bust, and that client was ultimately an rear end in a top hat, but that cop lied in court. Needless to say, I take my digital recorder to all General District Court hearings now. I've actually had prosecutors and cops try to prevent me doing this, so I also take a printout of the state statute that provides me the unqualified right to do so.

That said, I have to admit, and I am no fan at all of cops, that the vast majority of the time they do tell the truth. But then they don't, sometimes. They're people, and people lie.

The real blame that I cast is with trial court judges, who are given to accept even the most outlandish and self-serving story from law enforcement as gospel. They do this because they don't recognize the motivation to lie that inheres to the cop -- they want their conviction. But the judges treat them as morally pristine, perfect little people with no skin in the game.

And I think that gets to the crux of the problem. Cops, in my experience, are usually more interested in processing an assembly line of orderly convictions than they are in really assessing and securing the public safety. That's what they're trained to do nowadays, and that's what their efforts and procedures are aligned to provide.

This is great when you're dealing with really bad people. But really bad people are a tiny fraction of the multitudes we wheel through the criminal justice conveyor belt. I get my robbery cases and the occasional rapist, and I get my monsters. But the overwhelming majority of my caseload are sad sack addicts and crazy people who have no proper access to mental health treatment. And treating them as objects to secure convictions upon is a gross disservice to both those poor people and the public at large. The judges delude themselves to believing they serve a rehabilitative end with jail and prison sentences in cases where there is no moral or punitive call to action -- they delude themselves.

A lot of the problem with judges goes back to the ratcheting effect someone else mentioned earlier in this thread, where the fire and brimstone politicians control the agenda by which judges are chosen and re-appointed or elected. There is absolutely no countervailing political agency against harsher and harsher nonsense. But a lot of it, too, goes to the culture of the judgeship. It's a position that breeds a mordant cynicism -- every defendant is a lying shithead, every addict will use again, every thief won't stop thieving, and etc.

Most of that's just confirmation bias, as we in the criminal justice system don't ever get to see success stories return. But a lot of it's just willful blindness. I've seen judges who are former defense attorneys, who know that wrongful convictions happen, who know that cops lie, who know these these truths as well as I do -- I've seen them just suddenly not know it anymore once they get a robe on them. And their unwillingness to enforce actual guilt beyond reasonable doubt, their perfect credulity for anything said by a guy with a uniform, those allowances feed the very culture of imperviousness that leads cops to believe they can kill our dogs and bust up in our homes without issue or accountability.

But, to be a bit less whiny and more productive -- We need dashboard cameras. We need officer button cameras. We need these things, and anyone who for any reason suggests we should not have these things or that their operability should ever be limited or optional, that person is loving suspect. Nothing makes everyone's life easier than a simple video showing whether the cop is lying or my guy is lying. Honestly, in my experience, 90% of the time it will be my guy. But 10% isn't nothing. And why on earth, in this day and age, should there ever be any question on that count?

Further, why on earth are non-video recorded confessions admissable? Why can't we just tie that poo poo down so I can watch it? Why can a cop paraphrase a man's confession, and present his loving notes like they're statements? I don't know if a cop is lying or misremembering or if my guy is lying or misremembering, but there's a world of difference, a difference measured in years, between a guy saying, "I bought those pills for $3 each," and, "I sold those pills for $3 each." And the fact that in the year 2014 I have to litigate that distinction in memory and phrasing, from a drunken man, with years of his life on the line between those two little words, is loving baffling.

Ultimately, there are a lot of broad, hugely complex sociological and political issues to resolve to rein in and make decent the criminal justice system, and to rehabilitate cops from an occupying force back to Officer Friendly. But I really do think that it all starts with proper video recording. There is absolutely no legitimate reason whatsoever that any encounter with law enforcement should go unrecorded. And until that recording is universal, I'm honestly not optimistic as to the prospect for any other meaningful top-down reform.

That said, if anyone has any questions about a criminal defense attorney or a public defender's experiences with cops, in court, I'm game.

E-Tank
Aug 4, 2011

Randbrick posted:

That said, if anyone has any questions about a criminal defense attorney or a public defender's experiences with cops, in court, I'm game.

Have you been threatened by any cops for letting their guy get free on a 'technicality' or some poo poo?

wateroverfire
Jul 3, 2010

TehSaurus posted:

I think you have a lower bar for acceptable use of force than I do. Which is fine, but I don't think you'll find too many people here who agree with your sensibilities. Also the argument that 'you had to be there' to be able to regulate the behavior precludes the effective regulation of whatever behavior it is applied to, so don't mind me for rejecting it out of necessity. I prefer to argue policy with the presumption that a solution exists; the alternative is not terribly productive.

If we want to argue policy instead of whether police are assholes or dirty loving assholes we'll probably find we agree on a lot (though not everything, of course). There are several things that seem like they'd help moderate use of force without putting cops in an untenable situation vis a vis excessive oversight.

Training in deescalation and dealing with animals, for one. Always-on dash and button cams for another. There's some resistance to cameras but ultimately, to build on what Randbrick said about his clients lying vs the police lying, 90% of the time they'd be a benefit to the police and I think that would bring agencies around.

Randbrick
Sep 28, 2002

E-Tank posted:

Have you been threatened by any cops for letting their guy get free on a 'technicality' or some poo poo?

Nah. There are a few criminal defense attorneys and often a few prosecutors in any jurisdiction who everyone hates. But, at least in this jurisdiction, everything stays civil and professional between attorneys and cops. At least where I am, actually, the cops are often more reasonable than the prosecutors.

In large part, that's just buck-passing, where the cop tries to play him or herself off as the reasonable guy and puts the unreasonably long sentence or asinine drug bust on the shoulders of the prosecuting lawyer. But, no, I've never had a cop do anything even remotely retaliatory against me.

A cynical mind could argue that's because the cops know that, unlike my clients, I have tremendous personal credibility and goodwill with the judges. Going after someone with a reputation for honesty stronger than a policeman's magical badge is a pretty serious mistake.

There's a broader context there, though, where as a respected member of the bar, I'm one of the Good People, and as a Good Person, I can reasonably expect a chance to talk my way out of speeding tickets or public intoxication charges or whatever minor bullshit they throw at the un-elect. Honestly, if anything, in this jurisdiction, cops will treat me better than most folks, even if I attack their cases and convictions. It's really more a matter of race and class than anything else.

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hobotrashcanfires
Jul 24, 2013

Randbrick posted:

Nah. There are a few criminal defense attorneys and often a few prosecutors in any jurisdiction who everyone hates. But, at least in this jurisdiction, everything stays civil and professional between attorneys and cops. At least where I am, actually, the cops are often more reasonable than the prosecutors.

I would be interested to hear about your experiences with prosecutors and judges. When such a focus is on cops (understandably since that's the majority of peoples' experiences), it's pretty easy to forget the other potential flaws in the facets of the justice system. Have you experienced motivations that are more about prestige, political careers, and moving on to being high-priced and high profile, than justice?

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