this post was submitted on 24 Jul 2024
9 points (100.0% liked)

THE POLICE PROBLEM

2479 readers
64 users here now

    The police problem is that police are policed by the police. Cops are accountable only to other cops, which is no accountability at all.

    99.9999% of police brutality, corruption, and misconduct is never investigated, never punished, never makes the news, so it's not on this page.

    When cops are caught breaking the law, they're investigated by other cops. Details are kept quiet, the officers' names are withheld from public knowledge, and what info is eventually released is only what police choose to release — often nothing at all.

    When police are fired — which is all too rare — they leave with 'law enforcement experience' and can easily find work in another police department nearby. It's called "Wandering Cops."

    When police testify under oath, they lie so frequently that cops themselves have a joking term for it: "testilying." Yet it's almost unheard of for police to be punished or prosecuted for perjury.

    Cops can and do get away with lawlessness, because cops protect other cops. If they don't, they aren't cops for long.

    The legal doctrine of "qualified immunity" renders police officers invulnerable to lawsuits for almost anything they do. In practice, getting past 'qualified immunity' is so unlikely, it makes headlines when it happens.

    All this is a path to a police state.

    In a free society, police must always be under serious and skeptical public oversight, with non-cops and non-cronies in charge, issuing genuine punishment when warranted.

    Police who break the law must be prosecuted like anyone else, promptly fired if guilty, and barred from ever working in law-enforcement again.

    That's the solution.

♦ ♦ ♦

Our definition of ‘cops’ is broad, and includes prison guards, probation officers, shitty DAs and judges, etc — anyone who has the authority to fuck over people’s lives, with minimal or no oversight.

♦ ♦ ♦

RULES

Real-life decorum is expected. Please don't say things only a child or a jackass would say in person.

If you're here to support the police, you're trolling. Please exercise your right to remain silent.

Saying ~~cops~~ ANYONE should be killed lowers the IQ in any conversation. They're about killing people; we're not.

Please don't dox or post calls for harassment, vigilantism, tar & feather attacks, etc.

Please also abide by the instance rules.

It you've been banned but don't know why, check the moderator's log. If you feel you didn't deserve it, hey, I'm new at this and maybe you're right. Send a cordial PM, for a second chance.

♦ ♦ ♦

ALLIES

[email protected]

[email protected]

r/ACAB

r/BadCopNoDonut/

Randy Balko

The Civil Rights Lawyer

The Honest Courtesan

Identity Project

MirandaWarning.org

♦ ♦ ♦

INFO

A demonstrator's guide to understanding riot munitions

Adultification

Cops aren't supposed to be smart

Don't talk to the police.

Killings by law enforcement in Canada

Killings by law enforcement in the United Kingdom

Killings by law enforcement in the United States

Know your rights: Filming the police

Three words. 70 cases. The tragic history of 'I can’t breathe' (as of 2020)

Police aren't primarily about helping you or solving crimes.

Police lie under oath, a lot

Police spin: An object lesson in Copspeak

Police unions and arbitrators keep abusive cops on the street

Shielded from Justice: Police Brutality and Accountability in the United States

So you wanna be a cop?

When the police knock on your door

♦ ♦ ♦

ORGANIZATIONS

Black Lives Matter

Campaign Zero

Innocence Project

The Marshall Project

Movement Law Lab

NAACP

National Police Accountability Project

Say Their Names

Vera: Ending Mass Incarceration

 

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 
top 18 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (3 children)

Found the article.

It's so incredibly stupid how he takes himself so seriously; he's like if Poirot had a satchel of lead beads he would stick up his nose occasionally.

And then like a coward he won't elaborate on his master plan of making education and edification punishable by law.

He wasted important people's time and then just fucked off, pretending it never happened.

What a dunce; no wonder he became a cop.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 months ago

TY for sharing the article!

“London, who has ties to the anti-government constitutional sheriff’s movement and tried to launch a local chapter of the far-right Oath Keepers militia in 2020, did not respond to questions.” No surprises here.

Also, homeschooling parents complaining @ a school board meeting? Wtf?? 🤔

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago

So this guy went around reading books found in a children's library that he thought were disgusting. Then he looked up the names of the children who checked them out?

That sounds like something a pervert would do.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago

The targets of the investigation? Three school librarians in Granbury, Texas. The allegation? They had allowed children to access literature — such as “The Bluest Eye,” by Toni Morrison — that the officer, Scott London, a chief deputy constable, had deemed obscene.

Summary of The Bluest Eye from Wikipedia:

The novel takes place in Lorain, Ohio (Morrison's hometown), and tells the story of a young African-American girl named Pecola who grew up following the Great Depression. Set in 1941, the story is about how she is consistently regarded as "ugly" due to her mannerisms and dark skin. As a result, she develops an inferiority complex, which fuels her desire for the blue eyes she equates with "whiteness".

The novel is told mostly from Claudia MacTeer's point of view. Claudia is the daughter of Pecola's temporary foster parents. There is also some omniscient third-person narration. The book's controversial topics of racism, incest, and child molestation have led to numerous attempts to ban the novel from schools and libraries in the United States.[1]

Now, if he read the book, like he claims to have read it, he would know that the only obscene thing in the book is that it shows why things like racism and incest are, themselves, obscene. And that sounds like something kids should learn.

Unless, of course, this cop doesn't find one or both of those things obscene and rather finds the obscene thing to be telling people racism and/or incest is wrong...

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 months ago

All these books he's read but I guess he still didn't pick up Fahrenheit 451 or 1984

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago

They've been doing stuff like this for years. In 1990, a Florida judge ruled that an album by 2 Live Crew was obscene, and police officers went into stores and threatened to arrest anyone who sold copies of the album. The obscenity law specifically requires a "lack of serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value" and they were able to get it appealed.

Reading the article it's actually more insane than it first appears. He's been doing it for two years. This wasn't an investigation ordered by a court, it was evidence he himself was compiling for his own legal complaint, which was dismissed when finally brought to the DA.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

Cop: these books made me horny, you should be ashamed of yourself for allowing me to get turned on by a book, in fact I'm going to confiscate all of them so no one else has to be turned on by this filth.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago (1 children)

You know who else did this shit?

Nazis.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago (2 children)
[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago

"German Nazis."

[–] [email protected] 0 points 3 months ago (1 children)

I don’t get what you mean

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago

They mean the else isn't necessary cause they're just Nazis. So they're doing Nazi shit like banning books.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago

The police are so absurdly radicalized in this country.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago

As if pigs can read.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago

From the article:

Paul Hyde, a Granbury attorney who served on the volunteer committee tasked with reviewing dozens of school library books, said he informally advised two of the accused librarians early in London’s investigation and saw the toll it has taken on them.

“These women, that are amazing educators and librarians, have been terrified for over two years now that they’re going to get arrested, hauled off to jail on a felony charge of providing pornography to minors,” Hyde said, noting that one of the librarians left the district as a result.

“We lost a great librarian,” he said.

Anyone who thinks it's a non-issue because charges weren't filed should understand that intimidation is the point. It looks like the intimidation worked.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (2 children)

The minor these materials were distributed to? The officer that was investigating the library. Cuz he's obviously a big fuckin' baby.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago

Or because he likes reading sexy books on his work time.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

I am of the belief that people who spend this much time in the mindset of trying to find "inappropriate material minors are reading"are in fact, just pursuing a really weird fucking kink or getting off on it in some way.

I refuse to believe that this cop isn't stuck in some kind of pedo-adjacent sexual obsession.