Let's Debate the Police and Criminal Justice

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > Let's Debate the Police and Criminal Justice

FRINGE: May 23, 2003; title stolen for lf posting

Cop hands sure do carry a lot of diseases. Now they can make spleens explode.

http://www.alternet.org/civil-liberties/cop-ruptures-mans-spleen-fellow-officers-take-pics-and-laugh

quote:

Cop Ruptures Man�s Spleen as Fellow Officers Take Pics and Laugh

... further investigation into the matter shows that his fellow officers were not only complicit in covering it up, but also sadistically laughed as the man lay bleeding internally in the cell.

... Robert Liese was in jail after he says a friend left him with a $60 bar tab that he was unable to pay. Besides being drunk, not once did Liese ever pose a threat to officers. In fact, he peacefully offered Delio his hands to be brought to jail after knowing that he was not going to be able to pay.

... Several hours later Liese underwent emergency surgery to remove his spleen.

... Once again, heroes are exposed for villains, thanks to the power of the camera lens.

Maybe its the cameras. The evil camera radiation is causing citizens to spontaneously develop life-threatening internal injuries. Now we know why the heroes are attacking the evil camera-bearing villains!

# ? Apr 25, 2015 22:58

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# ? May 28, 2024 08:05

FuriousxGeorge: Aug 8, 2007; We've been the best team all year.

They're just finding out.

Couple bad apples. Well, the entire department. But don't let one entirely corrupt department spoil all the departments.

# ? Apr 25, 2015 23:06

Miltank: Dec 27, 2009; by XyloJW

Obama should put a DoJ commissar in the police department of every major city.

# ? Apr 26, 2015 00:23

nm: Jan 28, 2008; "I saw Minos the Space Judge holding a golden sceptre and passing sentence upon the Martians. There he presided, and around him the noble Space Prosecutors sought the firm justice of space law."

Miltank posted:

Obama should put a DoJ commissar in the police department of every major city.

Unlikely, he just made a cop lover attorney general.

# ? Apr 26, 2015 00:26

GhostofJohnMuir: Aug 14, 2014; anime is not good

Miltank posted:

Obama should put a DoJ commissar in the police department of every major city.

When we tried to do this for banking regulators, the regulators just ended up acquiescing harder to the banks because they didn't want to upset the people they worked with everyday.

# ? Apr 26, 2015 00:28

Miltank: Dec 27, 2009; by XyloJW

Maybe set up commissariats in every district or something then? There needs to be some sort of body that operates to seriously investigate police actions- a body who profits politically from prosecuting police officers instead of the reverse.

# ? Apr 26, 2015 00:33

nm: Jan 28, 2008; "I saw Minos the Space Judge holding a golden sceptre and passing sentence upon the Martians. There he presided, and around him the noble Space Prosecutors sought the firm justice of space law."

Outside of San Francisco, no one profits politically from prosecuting cops.

# ? Apr 26, 2015 00:35

Shogeton: Apr 26, 2007; "Little by little the old world crumbled, and not once did the king imagine that some of the pieces might fall on him"

FuriousxGeorge posted:

Couple bad apples. Well, the entire department. But don't let one entirely corrupt department spoil all the departments.

Always fun when 'bad apples' is offered up as a defense. 'A few bad apples spoil the basket' is how the saying goes.

Anyway, could we like, maybe have a special Prosecutor at large whose job is solely to nail crooked cops? Hopefully this wave of media attention to police abuse leads to some political shifts in the aspect of dealing with this?

# ? Apr 26, 2015 00:40

nm: Jan 28, 2008; "I saw Minos the Space Judge holding a golden sceptre and passing sentence upon the Martians. There he presided, and around him the noble Space Prosecutors sought the firm justice of space law."

Shogeton posted:

Always fun when 'bad apples' is offered up as a defense. 'A few bad apples spoil the basket' is how the saying goes.

Anyway, could we like, maybe have a special Prosecutor at large whose job is solely to nail crooked cops? Hopefully this wave of media attention to police abuse leads to some political shifts in the aspect of dealing with this?

If you have a county run PD office, give them a poo poo ton of money and prosecutorial power over cops. We love to gently caress with dirty rear end cops.

# ? Apr 26, 2015 00:42

Blue Raider: Sep 2, 2006

twodot posted:

I'll go ahead and reveal the gotcha, because the follow up question is "Is enforcement of this country's drug laws ethical?" If you answer "No" to this, then you have to support people running unlicensed businesses because their product happens to be drugs, selling drugs to kids, et cetera, and if you answer "Yes" you're stuck explaining how laws can simultaneously be unethical to exist and ethical to enforce, which is a pretty nuanced position.

# ? Apr 26, 2015 00:44

Homura and Sickle: Apr 21, 2013

nm posted:

Unlikely, he just made a cop lover attorney general.

Where are you getting this from? Loretta Lynch has a pretty good record with respect to police, though obviously not flawless.

# ? Apr 26, 2015 00:51

Cichlid the Loach: Oct 22, 2006; Brave heart, Doctor.

You know, about Freddie Gray, I wonder if there's even any corroboration of the order of events that the police claim? i.e. that Gray began running BEFORE the cops chased after him and then decided independently to gently caress him up. Isn't it just as likely that he ran BECAUSE they came after him with murder in their eyes (for the crime of a black man looking them in the eye)? We're rightfully viewing the rest of the story with suspicion, why do we always buy the police narrative of the premise behind the encounter?

# ? Apr 26, 2015 00:53

nm: Jan 28, 2008; "I saw Minos the Space Judge holding a golden sceptre and passing sentence upon the Martians. There he presided, and around him the noble Space Prosecutors sought the firm justice of space law."

Jagchosis posted:

Where are you getting this from? Loretta Lynch has a pretty good record with respect to police, though obviously not flawless.

Well, the fact that in light of Eric Holder's tour of communities with police problems, she has announced a tour of police departments because she's worried about police morale would lead me to believe she's not even going to be as tough as holder who wasn't that though.
I know she harassed the NYPD a bit a decade or two ago, but right now she appears to have changed.
I hope I'm wrong.

Cichlid the Loach posted:

You know, about Freddie Gray, I wonder if there's even any corroboration of the order of events that the police claim? i.e. that Gray began running BEFORE the cops chased after him and then decided independently to gently caress him up. Isn't it just as likely that he ran BECAUSE they came after him with murder in their eyes (for the crime of a black man looking them in the eye)? We're rightfully viewing the rest of the story with suspicion, why do we always buy the police narrative of the premise behind the encounter?

Basically every client I've had who ran was either carrying drugs or weapons, had just committed a crime, thought he had a warrant, or either was or knew someone who'd been beat up by the cops. I know that isn't a fear white suburbanities understand, but if they got beat up and robbed by a gang wearing black and silver, they'd probably run from dudes wearing Raiders gear who �just wanted to talk" too. Scared people do dumb things.

nm fucked around with this message at 01:19 on Apr 26, 2015

# ? Apr 26, 2015 01:14

Von Sloneker: Jul 6, 2009; as if all this was something more
than another footnote on a postcard from nowhere,
another chapter in the handbook for exercises in futility

This will end well.

from
https://twitter.com/HBCUBuzz/status/592124850744987648/photo/1

Someone is there streaming:
http://www.ustream.tv/channel/delotaylor

# ? Apr 26, 2015 01:44

Cichlid the Loach: Oct 22, 2006; Brave heart, Doctor.

Von Sloneker posted:

This will end well.

from
https://twitter.com/HBCUBuzz/status/592124850744987648/photo/1

Someone is there streaming:
http://www.ustream.tv/channel/delotaylor

Fox News and co. will be pleased to report this breaking new development making Freddie Gray's death retroactively not-murder.

# ? Apr 26, 2015 02:05

nm: Jan 28, 2008; "I saw Minos the Space Judge holding a golden sceptre and passing sentence upon the Martians. There he presided, and around him the noble Space Prosecutors sought the firm justice of space law."

Cichlid the Loach posted:

Fox News and co. will be pleased to report this breaking new development making Freddie Gray's death retroactively not-murder.

Wrong excessive force incident.

# ? Apr 26, 2015 02:49

emdash: Oct 19, 2003; and?

nm posted:

Wrong excessive force incident.

Is it?

http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2015/4/25/baltimore-protesters-demand-answers-in-freddie-grays-death.html

# ? Apr 26, 2015 03:37

My Rhythmic Crotch: Jan 13, 2011

TheQat posted:

Is it? http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2015/4/25/baltimore-protesters-demand-answers-in-freddie-grays-death.html

He might be referring to the fact that we don't yet know the identities of the officers involved nor what charges may be brought against them.

# ? Apr 26, 2015 03:44

nm: Jan 28, 2008; "I saw Minos the Space Judge holding a golden sceptre and passing sentence upon the Martians. There he presided, and around him the noble Space Prosecutors sought the firm justice of space law."

TheQat posted:

Is it? http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2015/4/25/baltimore-protesters-demand-answers-in-freddie-grays-death.html

Goddammit, there are so many loving cop linked killings right now, I got confused. gently caress.

# ? Apr 26, 2015 03:52

FRINGE: May 23, 2003; title stolen for lf posting

Jagchosis posted:

Where are you getting this from? Loretta Lynch has a pretty good record with respect to police, though obviously not flawless.

Considering how Obama allowed various levels of law enforcement to be utilized by his banker buddies for the "fusion" operations to break up various aspects of the Occupy movement, I would be shocked if he suddenly took a stand against (or cared about) police abuses at this late date.

http://www.commondreams.org/news/2014/05/23/revealed-govt-used-fusion-centers-spy-occupy
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/2...e-twitter.shtml
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/dec/29/fbi-coordinated-crackdown-occupy
http://www.businessinsider.com/us-banks-and-law-enforcement-together-ows-domestic-security-alliance-council2013-1

quote:

It was more sophisticated than we had imagined: New documents show that the violent crackdown on Occupy last fall � so mystifying at the time � was not just coordinated at the level of the FBI, the Department of Homeland Security, and local police.

The crackdown, which involved, as you may recall, violent arrests, group disruption, canister missiles to the skulls of protesters, people held in handcuffs so tight they were injured, people held in bondage till they were forced to wet or soil themselves � was coordinated with the big banks themselves.

The Partnership for Civil Justice Fund, in a groundbreaking scoop that should once more shame major U.S. media outlets (why are nonprofits now some of the only entities in America left breaking major civil liberties news?), filed this request.

The document � reproduced here in an easily-searchable format � (http://www.justiceonline.org/fbi_files_ows) shows a terrifying network of coordinated DHS, FBI, police, regional fusion center, and private-sector activity so completely merged into one another that the monstrous whole is, in fact, one entity: In some cases, bearing a single name, the Domestic Security Alliance Council.

...

As Mara Verheyden-Hilliard, executive director of the PCJF, put it, the documents show that from the start, the FBI � though it acknowledges the Occupy movement as being, in fact, a peaceful organization � nonetheless designated OWS repeatedly as a "terrorist threat"

...

The documents show stunning range: In Denver, Colorado, that branch of the FBI and a "Bank Fraud Working Group" met in November 2011 � during the Occupy protests � to surveil the group. The Federal Reserve of Richmond, Virginia had its own private security surveilling Occupy Tampa and Tampa Veterans for Peace and passing privately-collected information on activists back to the Richmond FBI, which, in turn, categorized OWS activities under its "domestic terrorism" unit.

Protesters are "potential terrorists" when they upset big profits. When bankers threaten the stability of the entire nation to get their way they are "wise in the ways of business".

# ? Apr 26, 2015 03:56

emdash: Oct 19, 2003; and?

nm posted:

Goddammit, there are so many loving cop linked killings right now, I got confused. gently caress.

No problem, for the same reasons I was hoping I wasn't thinking of the wrong incident :smith:

# ? Apr 26, 2015 04:06

ugh its Troika: May 2, 2009; by FactsAreUseless

When you start breaking random poo poo in the area, your protests stops being a protest and starts being a riot.

# ? Apr 26, 2015 08:16

nm: Jan 28, 2008; "I saw Minos the Space Judge holding a golden sceptre and passing sentence upon the Martians. There he presided, and around him the noble Space Prosecutors sought the firm justice of space law."

-Troika- posted:

When you start breaking random poo poo in the area, your protests stops being a protest and starts being a riot.

Your point is?

And also, if a small percentage of persons involved in a protest cause damage, I hesitate to call the whole thing a riot

# ? Apr 26, 2015 08:39

Dead Reckoning: Sep 13, 2011

If you can't exercise message discipline, you're almost certainly in the wrong.

# ? Apr 26, 2015 10:10

Chair In A Basket: Aug 6, 2005; I'm basically Jesus.; Nap Ghost

nm posted:

Your point is?

And also, if a small percentage of persons involved in a protest cause damage, I hesitate to call the whole thing a riot

Just a few bad apples.

# ? Apr 26, 2015 10:11

semper wifi: Oct 31, 2007

Yeah, kinda funny how whenever a protest turns into a riot it's those goddamn out-of-town anarchist black bloc agent provocateurs causing all of the trouble, every time.

# ? Apr 26, 2015 10:23

VitalSigns: Sep 3, 2011

Dead Reckoning posted:

If you can't exercise message discipline, you're almost certainly in the wrong.

That's not fair, there are plenty of good cops out there that don't deserve to be painted with the brush of the murderous ones. Let's not throw out the baby with the bathwater.

# ? Apr 26, 2015 11:00

Lemming: Apr 21, 2008

semper wifi posted:

Yeah, kinda funny how whenever a protest turns into a riot it's those goddamn out-of-town anarchist black bloc agent provocateurs causing all of the trouble, every time.

Lmao it took you a lot longer to show up this time! Please tell us about how the guy who got shot in the back deserved it, or how the guy who died of a severed spine probably did it to himself by resisting arrest

# ? Apr 26, 2015 11:17

WhiskeyJuvenile: Feb 15, 2002; by Nyc_Tattoo

I don't think it's fair to judge the Baltimore protestors, who are performing a vital public service, harshly on account of a few bad apples who are engaging in property damage. I am sure that the protestors' investigation of these people will reveal that their actions were necessary, anyway. Let's not all rush to judgment hastily.

# ? Apr 26, 2015 12:40

WhiskeyJuvenile: Feb 15, 2002; by Nyc_Tattoo

While we all regret that those police cars were destroyed before it was their time to go, it must be noted that they habitually drove faster than the speed limit and also had their front bumper pointing at the protestors, and therefore the protestors were justified in doing what they did. Better to be judged by 12 than carried by 6, and at the end of the day, the protestors just want to go home to their families.

# ? Apr 26, 2015 14:34

esto es malo: Aug 3, 2006; Don't want to end up a cartoon

In a cartoon graveyard

Dead Reckoning posted:

If you can't exercise message discipline, you're almost certainly in the wrong.

whats with the sudden change of heart?

# ? Apr 26, 2015 14:38

90s Solo Cup: Feb 22, 2011; To understand the cup
He must become the cup

VitalSigns posted:

That's not fair, there are plenty of good cops out there that don't deserve to be painted with the brush of the murderous ones. Let's not throw out the baby with the bathwater.

Too bad most good cops understand what it means to be on the wrong side of the thin blue line. Self-interest and self-preservation wins the day.

# ? Apr 26, 2015 15:37

FRINGE: May 23, 2003; title stolen for lf posting

Most people in these threads know this, but getting it somewhere near the wider press is good.

The cops, agents, DAs, judges, and "forensic scientists" that have participated in this, and contributed to the State sanctioned murder of innocent people, should all (all) be charged with crimes.

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_...ngerprints.html

quote:

The FBI faked an entire field of forensic science.

The Washington Post published a story so horrifying this weekend that it would stop your breath: �The Justice Department and FBI have formally acknowledged that nearly every examiner in an elite FBI forensic unit gave flawed testimony in almost all trials in which they offered evidence against criminal defendants over more than a two-decade period before 2000.�

What went wrong? The Post continues: �Of 28 examiners with the FBI Laboratory�s microscopic hair comparison unit, 26 overstated forensic matches in ways that favored prosecutors in more than 95 percent of the 268 trials reviewed so far.� The shameful, horrifying errors were uncovered in a massive, three-year review by the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers and the Innocence Project. Following revelations published in recent years, the two groups are helping the government with the country�s largest ever post-conviction review of questioned forensic evidence.

Chillingly, as the Post continues, �the cases include those of 32 defendants sentenced to death.� Of these defendants, 14 have already been executed or died in prison.

The massive review raises questions about the veracity of not just expert hair testimony, but also the bite-mark and other forensic testimony offered as objective, scientific evidence to jurors who, not unreasonably, believed that scientists in white coats knew what they were talking about. As Peter Neufeld, co-founder of the Innocence Project, put it, �The FBI�s three-decade use of microscopic hair analysis to incriminate defendants was a complete disaster.�

This study was launched after the Post reported that flawed forensic hair matches might have led to possibly hundreds of wrongful convictions for rape, murder, and other violent crimes, dating back at least to the 1970s. In 90 percent of the cases reviewed so far, forensic examiners evidently made statements beyond the bounds of proper science. There were no scientifically accepted standards for forensic testing, yet FBI experts routinely and almost unvaryingly testified, according to the Post, �to the near-certainty of �matches� of crime-scene hairs to defendants, backing their claims by citing incomplete or misleading statistics drawn from their case work.�

NACDL executive director Norman Reimer said in an interview with Associations Now that the flaws in the system had been known for years now. �What we were finding was that the examiners � wouldn�t just simply say that there was a microscopic similarity [between the two hairs], but they would go beyond that and say it was a 100 percent match, essentially misleading the jury into concluding that the evidence had a certain value that it didn�t actually have,� Reimer said.

This problem doesn�t stop with the FBI labs or federal prosecutions. The review focuses on the first few hundred cases, involving FBI examiners, but the same mistakes and faulty testimony were likely presented in any state prosecutions that relied on the between 500 and 1,000 local or state examiners trained by the FBI. Some states will automatically conduct reviews. Others may not. Much of the evidence is now lost.

Systemic change, in other words, is being left to the discretion of the system itself.

...

And the reign of pseudoscience in the witness box hardly stops at hair and bite marks. It sweeps in the testimony of forensic psychiatrists like James Grigson, nicknamed Dr. Death for his willingness to testify against capital defendants, and flawed arson analysis that may have contributed to the execution of Texas� Cameron Todd Willingham. Jurors grass-fed on CSI-Someplace and Law and Order believe uncritically in experts who throw around words like �cuticle� and �cortex,� and why shouldn�t they? These folks are supposed to be analysts who answer to the rules of science, not performance artists trotted out for the benefit of the prosecution.

Since prison-crowding and justice reform are widely touted as issues that unite the left and the right in this country, going back and retesting the evidence of those who may well have been wrongly imprisoned should be a national priority. So far it isn�t, perhaps because the scope of the enterprise is so daunting. Or perhaps because nobody really cares all that much about people who�ve been sitting in jail for years and years. Says Garrett: �These victims may remain unrecognized and in prison�if they still live�and the same unscientific testimony continues to be delivered without limitation. � But hey, these are just criminal cases right?�

The "CSI effect" has done as much damage to the public understanding of criminal proceedings as 24 did to the understanding of the non-value of torture.

# ? Apr 26, 2015 16:34

Vahakyla: May 3, 2013

http://yle.fi/uutiset/finnish_police_fired_guns_only_six_times_in_2013/7701005

Finland, population 5,477,359, firearm amount on a rough parity with the United States in per capita, but a smaller percentage of the population owns firearms. The statistic lies a little bit, due to sibling and children-firearm permits where people in the same household might share a hunting rifle despite only one person owning it. It's pretty common in the countryside to one of the parent's to own firearms, to which all the household members have access.

quote:

Finnish Police fired their guns on duty only six times in 2013, reports the Finnish news agency STT.

�The Finnish Police respond to slightly more than one million different kinds of emergency situations per year, so in light of this fact, it is very rare that we resort to using firearms,� says Jukka Salomaa, an instructor in the use of force and strategies of engagement at Finland�s Police University College.

The UK magazine The Economist reported in August that British police officers fired their weapons three times in total in 2013. In 2012 the figure was just one.

The high-profile shooting case of Michael Brown, an 18-year-old unarmed African-American, by a police officer in Ferguson, Missouri, has generated headlines around the world that show civilians in the US are far more likely to be killed by police than in the rest of the world. According to data compiled by the FBI, 410 Americans were killed by police in 2012, 409 with guns.

Some attribute US statistics to America�s overwhelming gun ownership rates. 2014 figures from the controversial Small Arms Survey show 90 out of 100 US residents own guns.

In Finland, the corresponding number is more than fifty percent less, at just over 45 out of 100, but this number is still huge when compared to England and Wales, where only slightly more than six out of 100 residents own guns, according to the survey.

Salomaa points out that in Finland, police statistics on using firearms also include cases in which the police used weapons as a warning or threat. He says the incidence of cases like this is also very low in Finland.

Vahakyla fucked around with this message at 17:18 on Apr 26, 2015

# ? Apr 26, 2015 17:14

got any sevens: Feb 9, 2013; by Cyrano4747

^ Is Finland a pretty white country? Whites mostly get violent when they have someone else to hate.

-Troika- posted:

When you start breaking random poo poo in the area, your protests stops being a protest and starts being a riot.

Good. Protests that don't disrupt anything don't change anything.

got any sevens fucked around with this message at 18:01 on Apr 26, 2015

# ? Apr 26, 2015 17:56

Jazzimus Prime: May 16, 2002; The Brothers Autobot

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_6ZVq2Fim8Q

Diversity is our strength! :newlol:

# ? Apr 26, 2015 18:02

Rent-A-Cop: Oct 15, 2004; I posted my food for USPOL Thanksgiving!

Chair In A Basket posted:

Just a few bad apples.

Hey buddy. Thought you got eaten by the Canadian Gay Porn Cannibal.

How ya doin'?

# ? Apr 26, 2015 18:26

tezcat: Jan 1, 2005

effectual posted:

^ Is Finland a pretty white country? Whites mostly get violent when they have someone else to hate.

Right, look at the riots surrounding the anger at Pedophile Coach Sandusky being arrested. I mean it would be cool if they rioted to get that fucker arrested but instead they riot to defend a pedophile.

quote:

Good. Protests that don't disrupt anything don't change anything.

Exactly, the more anger it generates and the more white people are affected by this, the quicker a resolution is reached. The Baltimore PD could have conducted themselves like SLED and in turn generated an outcome beneficial to the community but instead conducted themselves like your typical PD more concerned with protecting officers than holding them responsible for deaths in their care.

# ? Apr 26, 2015 19:04

ugh its Troika: May 2, 2009; by FactsAreUseless

effectual posted:

^ Is Finland a pretty white country? Whites mostly get violent when they have someone else to hate.

Good. Protests that don't disrupt anything don't change anything.

I'm sure that's very comforting to the random shop owners who's windows got broken and the motorists who were attacked by protesters, none of which had anything to do with the guy being protested about's death.

# ? Apr 26, 2015 19:27

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# ? May 28, 2024 08:05

tezcat: Jan 1, 2005

-Troika- posted:

I'm sure that's very comforting to the random shop owners who's windows got broken and the motorists who were attacked by protesters, none of which had anything to do with the guy being protested about's death.

Most of those shop owners & motorist are probably the same people who make the racist youtube comments in stuff like this:

Jazzimus Prime posted:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_6ZVq2Fim8Q

Of course I already answered this in the post above yours.

tezcat posted:

the more anger it generates and the more white people are affected by this, the quicker a resolution is reached. The Baltimore PD could have conducted themselves like SLED and in turn generated an outcome beneficial to the community but instead conducted themselves like your typical PD more concerned with protecting officers than holding them responsible for deaths in their care.

# ? Apr 26, 2015 19:37

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