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 Bounkham Phonesavanh, 2, in a medically induced coma after a SWAT team threw a flashbang into his crib.  UC Officer John Pike hoses down Occupy protesters with pepper spray in November 2011. Pike, who bears a striking resemblance to an actual pig, was fired after 8 months of paid administrative leave but later won a $38,000 worker's compensation settlement, claiming he "suffered depression and anxiety after death threats were sent to him and his family."  Kenneth Chamberlain Jr. with a picture of his father, Kenneth Chamberlain Sr., who was shot and killed by police responding to an aid call after he inadvertently activated his LifeAid pendant. Chamberlain requested that the police leave but an officer can be heard on the LifeAid recording responding "I don't give a gently caress friend of the family, open the door!" A LifeAid dispatcher requested that the aid call be cancelled but was told "We don't need any mediators." Chamberlain stated "This is my sworn testimony. White Plains officers are coming in here to kill me." Police then entered Chamberlain's apartment, tased him, shot him with a beanbag round, then shot him to death. A grand jury declined to indict the officers involved. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bujfjsO7_To King County Sheriff's Deputy Paul Schene assaults a 15-year-old girl in a holding cell in 2009. Schene was fired but not convicted of any crime.  In August 2010, Seattle police officer Ian Birk saw Native woodcarver John T. Williams crossing the street with a piece of cedar and a knife. The dash camera video below, cued up to when Williams crossed the street, shows Officer Birk's response. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vcxqyp2wOzE&t=56s Policing is broken in the United States. Instead of carrying out their purported mission "to protect and serve," police are encouraged to adopt a suspicious, adversarial mindset toward citizens. Unaccountable police unions defend their actions, however extreme. Departments use Homeland Security funds to requisition ever-escalating levels of military equipment, including LRAD sound weapons and mine-resistant MRAP armored vehicles. This is a thread to post and discuss police abuses and essential reforms to policing. Police Unions Unions are good. However, when unions are used to shield the actions of a body empowered to use deadly force in the course of detaining citizens, abuse is the inevitable result. Community Policing This is a vaguely defined term we see a lot. Police should be encouraged to walk beats instead of cruising through them, to think about solving problems in ways other than making arrests, and to live in the communities where they work. Community Oversight a pig posted:On one side of the debate, there are those who assert that internal review and control is the only way to manage the problem of misconduct. Basically, they argue that the involvement of citizens without intimate knowledge of law enforcement procedures and legal limitations will only muddle the review process. As professionals, law enforcement administrators must be held accountable for training and discipline to prevent misconduct. They must remain above the political fray in order to ensure their freedom from the vagaries of political influences. In any case, other avenues of review or redress, such as civil litigation, legislative investigative powers, and the mass media, already exist. In an era of fiscal conservatism, citizen review appears to be an expensive extralegal appendage to the existing system of internal investigations. No they don't. Leaving all review up to internal processes is a guaranteed recipe for corruption and impunity. Community oversight boards need the power to fire officers. This is tied to the power of police unions. Always-on Body Cameras As seen from the Williams shooting footage above, dash cameras can provide valuable evidence of police abuse. The ubiquity of camera phones is also a valuable tool to protect citizens; police know this and often try to destroy the evidence collected by them. The best way to use cameras to keep police accountable is to mandate the wearing of body cameras:  Body cameras have been put into service in some jurisdictions. However, in most (all?) cases police unions have secured the right for officers to turn the cameras off as they please. Please post the following: -News about police abuse, corruption and impunity -Suggested police reforms and examples of their implementation -Fat, leering faces of police -Defenses of police action, that make you a part of the problem 
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Jun 29, 2014 16:49
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f-dJgFdfl3I No I wasn't doing illegal poo poo in my squad car! You have video of it? Um... Here's some free stuff that IS IN NO WAY MEANT TO BRIBE YOU TO NOT TURN ME IN. No way at all.
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Jun 29, 2014 17:13
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I suggest we replace all of the cops with robots. Robots that walk beats and are part of the community, and that will let me off with a warning when they catch me going 45 on a 40 mph stretch of road. Pros: They won't be lazy. They'll always follow procedure. They won't take bribes. They won't be racist. They probably won't shoot your dog and/or baby. Cons: This might happen https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rfl4PqIXIdg But that already seems to happen a whole lot anyways (especially if you're black).
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Jun 29, 2014 17:23
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SedanChair posted:Body cameras have been put into service in some jurisdictions. However, in most (all?) cases police unions have secured the right for officers to turn the cameras off as they please Ars Technica has a two part article last week about cameras: http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/06/candid-camera-part-1-five-times-video-footage-showed-police-misconduct/ http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/06/candid-camera-part-2-four-times-that-video-evidence-exonerated-cops/ I found this bit especially interesting: """According to a study conducted by the Rialto, California Police Department, after wearable video cameras were introduced to the town's police force in February 2012, public complaints against officers plunged 88 percent compared with the previous twelve months, and officers' use of force fell by 59 percent. This despite officers' increased interactions with the public compared to the previous year, according to the study.""" This is obviously a win for everybody involved. You can tell you're dealing with the bad type of police when they fight against always-on cameras. I think cameras, along with massively increased accountability and real punishments, are realistic measures that would go a long ways to fixing issues. Every cop in the OP of this thread and in the first Ars article I linked above should be behind bars. It's telling that in every single one of the stories in that article, not a single officer was convicted of wrongdoing. They didn't even lose their jobs.
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Jun 29, 2014 17:24
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I hope someone reads this thread when it's all said and done and it changes the world.
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Jun 29, 2014 17:35
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quote:UC Officer John Pike hoses down Occupy protesters with pepper spray in November 2011. Pike, who bears a striking resemblance to an actual pig, was fired after 8 months of paid administrative leave but later won a $38,000 worker's compensation settlement, claiming he "suffered depression and anxiety after death threats were sent to him and his family." Pike deserved to get fired, but I don't see what's wrong with him getting a settlement.
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Jun 29, 2014 17:45
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AshB posted:Pike deserved to get fired, but I don't see what's wrong with him getting a settlement. Nothing, it's just funny that squirting a chemical weapon into the eyes of nonviolent protesters didn't cause him any depression and anxiety. woke wedding drone fucked around with this message at 17:55 on Jun 29, 2014 |
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Jun 29, 2014 17:52
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AshB posted:Pike deserved to get fired, but I don't see what's wrong with him getting a settlement. Well those sitting, protesting, young students didn't get any cash after being sprayed in the face with chemicals. So, I guess it's pretty wrong that way. Edit: wait was he suing the school, is that where the settlement came from? I'm sure the students will end up paying that bill anyway.
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Jun 29, 2014 17:53
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Am I still part of the problem if I think step 1 in this process should be across-the-board substance decriminalization and an end to the War on Drugs?
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Jun 29, 2014 17:55
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No that just makes you a reefer mad hippy.
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Jun 29, 2014 17:56
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Also, the protestors were non-cop citizens of the United States, meaning that many of them work for lovely pay with no benefits or job security, so for officer Friday here to recieve 30+ thousand dollars because brutalizing them made him sad, is a slap in face to society at large.
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Jun 29, 2014 17:57
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My personal favorite is the somewhat recent Mollen commission findings about corruption of NYPD officers.wikipedia posted:Today's corruption is not the corruption of Knapp Commission days. Corruption then was largely a corruption of accommodation, of criminals and police officers giving and taking bribes, buying and selling protection. Corruption was, in its essence, consensual. Today's corruption is characterized by brutality, theft, abuse of authority and active police criminality. That was 20 years ago, and unlike the Knapp commission nothing was ever done about it.
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Jun 29, 2014 17:59
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Feral Integral posted:Well those sitting, protesting, young students didn't get any cash after being sprayed in the face with chemicals. So, I guess it's pretty wrong that way. Edit: wait was he suing the school, is that where the settlement came from? I'm sure the students will end up paying that bill anyway. Didn't get any cash? That's just flat-out untrue. Yes the university paid the settlement, as it should have. The university was vicariously liable for Pike's actions. Forcing it to pay the heavy damages is punitive enough to encourage the university to improve its policies. This is how lawsuits work.
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Jun 29, 2014 18:04
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Chantilly Say posted:Am I still part of the problem if I think step 1 in this process should be across-the-board substance decriminalization and an end to the War on Drugs? Not at all. Marijuana arrests are way down in WA:  That means fewer people in jail and fewer lives and livelihoods disrupted because of court dates and mandated "treatment." The decline is apparently less marked for minors, because after all they are still breaking state law. That needs to be fixed; I've worked with any number of homeless youth whose lives and freedom are being disrupted because of MIP charges. I understand that there are some people out there who think it's really important to set themselves the Sisyphean task of discouraging teenagers from smoking pot, but putting them in the juvenile justice system is not the way to do it.
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Jun 29, 2014 18:11
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AshB posted:Didn't get any cash? That's just flat-out untrue. Yes the university paid the settlement, as it should have. The university was vicariously liable for Pike's actions. Forcing it to pay the heavy damages is punitive enough to encourage the university to improve its policies. This is how lawsuits work. Do you have an article where the details of the settlement are in the past, not future, tense? Good news if it actually went through.
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Jun 29, 2014 18:20
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Yes, the settlement was awarded. I don't know when it was distributed because it became a non-story after the judge took action.
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Jun 29, 2014 18:26
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BarkingSquirrel posted:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f-dJgFdfl3I As a general question, what is the argument for the kind of de facto police immunity we have right now? Why would it be a bad thing for cops to sit in front of a criminal grand jury regularly, with the only difference between them and any other defendant being they're allowed to act in the self-defense of others in addition to themselves and they're allowed to take people into custody? Once handcuffs are on or a knee is in their back it has to be an assault trial, shooting an unarmed suspect is always a murder trial. Is there any overall argument for it, or did it just come to happen step by step as police unions got more powerful? Do they assert that cops will hesitate to respond to dangerous situations unless they're assured that 9/10 times they're above the law? Also, I see the quote in the OP asserting that direct community oversight by citizens with "no intimate knowledge of law enforcement procedures and legal limitations" would muddle the review process, but what would the argument be against a panel of elected judges to either do it directly, or to act as a mediator so a volunteer citizen's panel could do the legwork and then have direct access to a judge every couple of weeks to decide if they can or should act on whatever they find.
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Jun 29, 2014 18:30
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Continuing a derail from the last thread... StarMagician posted:90% of the people on this forum, at least, support higher taxes, more regulations, and in the general sense, a more involved and intrusive federal government. Growth in government requires growth in enforcement power, which at the moment is entirely various flavors of cop. Die Sexmonster! fucked around with this message at 18:41 on Jun 29, 2014 |
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Jun 29, 2014 18:32
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Pyroxene Stigma posted:This is patently false. Our police have gotten excessively militarized: they're taking a shotgun to an anthill. We need more accountability and self-control in our police, not more force. Not only are they taking a shotgun to an anthill they're saying the ants are organizing against them and will have their own shotguns soon so they need high explosives. The next anthill will no doubt be more dangerous so we need to go after it with a loving tank.
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Jun 29, 2014 18:43
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What do you guys have in the way of policy preferences? I'll cross-post mine from this month's politics thread. --- For policy, in broad strokes, I like:
I've gotten some solid feedback in that thread about centralization, which was a concern about magnifying the effects of lovely state government on statewide policing, and about rotations, which was a concern about disrupting the ability of individual officers to really engage, and become known and trusted to, their communities. Shown Below: Cop engaging the community  And the thinking behind increased funding is that it would allow for more cops to be hired and compensation to be increased. I'm always reading and hearing about how they never have time for smaller crimes and that we could do with higher quality personnel.
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Jun 29, 2014 18:45
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Accretionist posted:What do you guys have in the way of policy preferences? I'll cross-post mine from this month's politics thread. The biggest one would be actually punishing the guys that are actively corrupt or downright negligent because they know they will never get prosecuted for anything, ever. If somebody gets killed by a SWAT team raiding the wrong house then somebody gets punished. That poo poo isn't cool. The other thing would be an elimination of no-knock warrants for drug raids or, gently caress, an end to drug raids in general. Regulation and oversight are probably other big things, as often police just flat out can't be prosecuted after getting their hands on and destroying all the evidence. Those always-on cameras are a good start but allowing the public to film the public actions of police and forbidding the police from seizing cell phones in those situations would be a good start. Sorry officer, you don't get to keep "losing" tapes from your squad car or confiscating phones that caught you doing something you should not have then acting like you had no idea what happened to them. You know. I know you know.
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Jun 29, 2014 18:50
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wixard posted:I like to be critical of cops, but what do you think is the right thing for the cop to do here? If he sends a trucker away with no paperwork at all, they have no way to prove to whoever they're working for why their cargo didn't move anywhere for the 20 minutes they were pulled over. Personally, I think a trucker who freaks out with their horn about someone speeding on a 70mph highway probably deserves a ticket but I'm a chronic speeder with no respect for human life. Secondly all the driver had to do was use his Qualcomm to report the incident as justification for not moving. In fact they can sit still and not report it on the log book so long as it doesn't exceed 15 minutes(of which he was stopped for 5). As long as the load arrives on time(and I always had to wait to deliver a load), the company doesn't really give a poo poo how many stops were made. The driver was 100% correct. He was speeding on wet roads while on the loving phone. That's reckless driving especially when he admits he was going to HQ and not a call. Its also how most of them die on duty, which leaves me torn. I don't want him breaking the law but also FTP. *Edit Also LOL at someone with admitted no respect for human life defending cops. Talk about two peas in a pod. BarkingSquirrel fucked around with this message at 19:02 on Jun 29, 2014 |
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Jun 29, 2014 18:57
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BarkingSquirrel posted:For starters safety inspections are done at weigh stations, not used as roadside "whoops I hosed up"s. No ticket for something supposedly bad enough to pull him over, no warning and a form he shouldn't have got that was fraudulent(he didn't inspect the vehicle). It was a very clear and defined attempt to butter the man up so no one found out what the cop was doing, an attempt that didn't start until he found out he was recorded. And I have a little trouble thinking this supremely corrupt cop was legitimately worried that he would be disciplined for speeding. quote:The driver was 100% correct. He was speeding on wet roads while on the loving phone. That's reckless driving especially when he admits he was going to HQ and not a call. Its also how most of them die on duty, which leaves me torn. I don't want him breaking the law but also FTP.
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Jun 29, 2014 19:07
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My city of about 25k doesn't suffer from a lot of the issues outlined in the OP, there's actually little enough police incidents in the area that the three closest towns all share the same paper of record and all the things that happened in about half a page of the paper. We're talking about every non traffic incident. "Dude was looking suspicious in a parking lot and then dissipated" level of detail. Key things to note is this city has about 16 officers including a city chief. Has no SWAT, and is contracted with the county sheriff's department for their authority. How much of the problem is the scale of police departments versus the per-capita officers to people they're supposed to be serving? There's another peculiar detail about this city that adds an interesting wrinkle to this but I don't particularly want to bring it up if I don't have to because it basically makes me open to doxxing. I will say that there is for some reason about 20 more officers than the city contract employs in the city limits at any given moment. RuanGacho fucked around with this message at 19:17 on Jun 29, 2014 |
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Jun 29, 2014 19:14
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Coming from Australia where the Police are States-based (with a smaller Federal police), how did the current structure of policing come about in the U.S. where there are State, County and Municipal policing bodies?
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Jun 29, 2014 19:18
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As soon as unions get to much power the quality of service will decline. This is why your small town police department has not to much problems but the police forces of a bigger city will be pretty bad. It's basicly the same problem that teacher unions create for the education system.
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Jun 29, 2014 19:19
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Accretionist posted:What do you guys have in the way of policy preferences? I'll cross-post mine from this month's politics thread. And I will cross post my reply because the history essay is very useful: Joementum posted:I don't think they have the votes in the House to kill it and I doubt they'd have a majority in the Senate even if they took that over in November. The ExIm bank is exactly Thad Cochran's idea of good government and he's not alone in that chamber. I thought the tea party types were angling to make it (one of) their demand(s) for appropriations re-authorization in September because the ExIm Bank authorization expires at the same time. Now I don't think anyone is stupid enough to let them lapse again but then again I didn't think they'd be dumb enough to do it last time. Accretionist posted:Rotate officers between postings & fields to mitigate burnout & clique-formation This would actually be a negative on the whole. One of the problems with police now is they have little connection to those they interact with on a daily basis largely enabled by the switch from community based beat policing to the random officers showing up in vehicles when called. Departments are just now really starting to figure out that they derive their legitimacy not from some Dread-esque "we enforce the law as written and strike fear into the hearts of criminals" professionalism but instead based upon citizens feeling safe and secure which is more affected by problem solving guided by community involvement. In short someone will be much more likely to reach out to police about a problem that worries them before they either move to get away or it becomes a catastrophe if they expect the response to be someone they at least vaguely recognize showing up and asking "Is everyone OK? What can I do to help?" instead of some random stone-faced person demanding "What is the problem here? What is that I smell?". Here's a really good read regarding the changing nature of police from politically-based "to protect and serve" public works departments that did things a city or neighborhood needed like run soup kitchens and happened to arrest people if they felt it was in the community's interest to the completely detached arrest metric driven "thin-blue-line", and the renewed look at perhaps maybe listening to those they serve again.
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Jun 29, 2014 19:22
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GaussianCopula posted:As soon as unions get to much power the quality of service will decline. This is why your small town police department has not to much problems but the police forces of a bigger city will be pretty bad. It's basicly the same problem that teacher unions create for the education system. What?
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Jun 29, 2014 19:26
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Huragok posted:Coming from Australia where the Police are States-based (with a smaller Federal police), how did the current structure of policing come about in the U.S. where there are State, County and Municipal policing bodies? In many parts of the U.S. there are laws that require certain types of jurisdictions to have or provide for law enforcement services based on population, incorporated jurisdiction type, or services required. Also, just about all state constitutions require subordinate counties to have a local sheriff's office. The original "county police" was the Sheriff. This has changed over the years where many places now allow for County Police, etc. Untagged fucked around with this message at 19:29 on Jun 29, 2014 |
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Jun 29, 2014 19:27
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Huragok posted:Coming from Australia where the Police are States-based (with a smaller Federal police), how did the current structure of policing come about in the U.S. where there are State, County and Municipal policing bodies? Part of it was when we started forming what would eventually become our Police there was not a strong central power from which they could derive a mandate (such as the crown). So things started in a fragmented arrangement with most of the power in the local departments. But then that shifted as a response to local corruption/inequity and the need for coordination came to the fore in the 20s. In a way we are really still feeling the effects of prohibition.
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Jun 29, 2014 19:27
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It's helpful to remember that one of the major problems with policing is voters. Turnout in municipal elections is generally abysmal and the people who do turn out would often prefer Judge Dredd to Andy Griffith. The general opinion of people for whom policing is an issue at the voting booth is "There are too many criminals/coloreds in my neighborhood and I wish somebody would crack their skulls." This is why we still have the death penalty in 2014 and why three strikes laws exist.
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Jun 29, 2014 19:28
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Rent-A-Cop posted:It's helpful to remember that one of the major problems with policing is voters. Turnout in municipal elections is generally abysmal and the people who do turn out would often prefer Judge Dredd to Andy Griffith. The general opinion of people for whom policing is an issue at the voting booth is "There are too many criminals/coloreds in my neighborhood and I wish somebody would crack their skulls." This is why we still have the death penalty in 2014 and why three strikes laws exist. Honestly, outside of that though, the personal cameras seem like a huge boon, to both us for reducing police misconduct, and for them for reducing false accusations of police misconduct. Is anyone still seriously arguing against them?
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Jun 29, 2014 19:38
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Cops actively made my old neighborhood in the Bronx more dangerous. While not an ideal solution, no cops is better than the current situation.
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Jun 29, 2014 19:42
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wixard posted:Cops pull truck drivers over randomly all the time to check log books and medical cards, and they usually don't come out of the booth and check lights, safety equipment or log books at weigh stations. At least that was true everywhere I drove within a 5hr radius of Philadelphia. As for what I would have done, well he's a cop so I'd have run his puny sedan over and turned him into canned ham. "Why are you angry about this abusive corrupt cop? He's not as abusive and corrupt as THESE cops!"- wixard, the year of our lord 2014 
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Jun 29, 2014 19:43
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Samurai Sanders posted:Honestly, outside of that though, the personal cameras seem like a huge boon, to both us for reducing police misconduct, and for them for reducing false accusations of police misconduct. Is anyone still seriously arguing against them? Yes, the AFL-CIO
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Jun 29, 2014 19:46
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ToxicSlurpee posted:allowing the public to film the public actions of police and forbidding the police from seizing cell phones in those situations would be a good start This is already the case. In fact, getting arrested for that is a pretty good way to get a ton of free money.
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Jun 29, 2014 19:50
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GaussianCopula posted:Yes, the AFL-CIO
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Jun 29, 2014 20:08
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ColdPie posted:This is already the case. In fact, getting arrested for that is a pretty good way to get a ton of free money. Her lawyer most likely took the lions share of that 57k, but even without you have to remember this was an ongoing court case since the arrest in 2010. Not a lot of people can front the legal fees and four years worth of time taken for court appearances in a hobby lawsuit that wasn't assured to win a dime, and 57k is a pretty lovely return on that sort of investment if you have money to spend and no life to attend to. So no, it's not a good way to get 'a ton' of 'free money', it's a good way to waste four years without assurance of your money or time being reimbursed.
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Jun 29, 2014 20:15
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BarkingSquirrel posted:Right they don't check anything at weigh stations, that's why there's a huge parking lot for trucks at almost every one. Nope no siree. The normal place is clearly the side of a road with no lighting and a large chance of being hit by traffic. Yup. Nice glossing over the fraudulent form though. quote:"Why are you angry about this abusive corrupt cop? He's not as abusive and corrupt as THESE cops!"- wixard, the year of our lord 2014 Instead he stayed calm, listened to the guy, and signed what might have been a false inspection report when the guy had 3 hours left on his clock and it was broad daylight so the lights and flares didn't matter all that much anyway (there's a nice edit in the video when the cop walks away so who knows if he checked lights and kicked tires). That's the kind of resolution I actually hope for when I imagine local cops on the beat instead of the militarized law enforcement robots we pretend they are now.
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Jun 29, 2014 20:33
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wixard posted:If I remember right you pass 1 weigh station driving from Philadelphia to Baltimore on 95, and I'm pretty sure the one I'm thinking of is south of Baltimore so it might be 0. Do you really think it's possible to regulate all the trucks and drivers that drive on that corridor in a parking lot at that weigh station? They need a place for overweight trucks to park. Not to mention most weigh stations aren't open 24/7 and night-time is generally when both safety equipment and driver fatigue are most important to regulate. Your hope for local cops on the beat is that they are corrupt in one way but not corrupt in another (admittedly more vindictive) way? Is there any other profession in America that you hold to these standards? Is your hope for teachers that they forge grades instead of making misleading calls to social services?
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Jun 29, 2014 20:39
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