this post was submitted on 20 Nov 2024
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THE POLICE PROBLEM

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    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.

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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.

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RULES

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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.

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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.

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ALLIES

[email protected]

[email protected]

r/ACAB

r/BadCopNoDonut/

Randy Balko

The Civil Rights Lawyer

The Honest Courtesan

Identity Project

MirandaWarning.org

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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

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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

 

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[–] [email protected] 100 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (1 children)

Reminds me of Brandalism

Here's an example!

[–] [email protected] 9 points 3 days ago

You should post that to the Wikipedia community.

[–] [email protected] 162 points 4 days ago (3 children)

This is why it's important to remember that in any revolution, resistance, or targeted action, it's the police that are the first enemy. They'll be the ones that respond first, and will likely toe the line the most reliably.

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[–] [email protected] 104 points 4 days ago (1 children)

NY transit starts getting complaints about an ad they have no idea about.

"No, m'mam, we don't have a death penalty policy.....no......no m'man, I don't know what poster you saw....."

[–] [email protected] 115 points 4 days ago (15 children)

"but yes m'aam we did shoot and kill 4 human beings for cheating us out of the 2.90 fare"

[–] [email protected] 89 points 4 days ago (10 children)

Fortunately none of them died as far as I can find. Surgeons had to crack open the skull of the bystander they shot in the back of the head to relieve his brain swelling though. I hope he recovers because he's gonna be set for life.

They spent 150 million on overtime for cops to stop fare evasion. How much were they losing in fares? I'm gonna go ahead and guess it wasn't even a teeny fraction of that.

[–] [email protected] 33 points 4 days ago (2 children)

They spent 1500x more on enforcement than they could have ever recovered from fare evaders. Just like every single other monitoring and enforcement program for public services.

Has there ever been a single program like that which is actually a net positive? Fare enforcement, food stamps means testing, public services with drug screens, "welfare queen" check ups, means testing, etc. I'm not aware of a single instance where it wouldn't have been cheaper just to let a few people get benefits that "didn't deserve them" than putting these restrictions in place

But God's forbid we let poor people have nice things, or just to do good things for our society. Goddamned toxic puritanicalism. ..

[–] [email protected] 21 points 3 days ago

Absolutely right. Brings to mind something I read a while ago which I will paraphrase.

"Liberals want everyone to get what they need even if a few cheat the system. Conservatives want nobody to get what they need if there's a chance anyone will cheat the system."

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 days ago (1 children)

The fun part is of the 4 people shot, only the one had skipped the fare. Two were bystanders, one was another cop.

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

So only three people got shot.

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[–] [email protected] 57 points 4 days ago (3 children)

so is this ad meant to push people to pay the fare or to start a revolution?

[–] [email protected] 94 points 4 days ago

It's saying the quite part out loud about the normalized police state we live in.

[–] [email protected] 67 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (2 children)

I'd say a bit of both. The numbers they showed for it if I remember was that they spent $150m to catch like $100,000 of fares that were skipped. Then throw in 4 people dead and you didn't do much to help. You just made it more miserable for people travelling.

With fares making up 23% of your income, and payroll taking up over 30% of expenses... Odds are they could cut the number of guards patrolling tolls, ticket sales people, customer service reps, maintenance workers for all the machines/guard terminals etc by a shit ton and make the transportation free, and offset the costs elsewhere. It would also likely boost the economy of the area, do to people not needing to scrape together a couple dollars to take the train and spending it at businesses they otherwise may normally avoid do to costs or not having that extra few dollars.

[–] [email protected] 21 points 3 days ago

Well, I’ll give you an update here as I have boots on the ground:

They cut back on the amount of cops on the platforms now—but now every single exit door has a private guard (one of those rent a cop companies). So now they’re bringing privatized security into the mix. But there are still cops on the platforms! Just not as many at the door because they’ve hired some security guards to have the same effect an MTA person has, which means they can’t really do shit if you don’t let them stop you.

So a slightly different way to waste money.

[–] [email protected] 26 points 4 days ago (5 children)

In Ontario, asshole political leader Doug Ford is trying to stop free public transit by paying for transit cops out of the provincial budget. That way no one can make the payment you just made. Can we have the same amount of money to spend on improving public transit? No. The only thing fearless leader Doug Ford fears more than free public transit is good public transit.

What a bag of dicks. Watch other conservative states and provinces follow his lead!

https://ottawa.ctvnews.ca/doug-ford-announces-money-for-cops-asylum-seekers-in-ottawa-no-new-transit-funds-1.7098980

[–] [email protected] 15 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Well he also fears bike lanes.

[–] [email protected] 22 points 4 days ago

Conservatives are scared of EVERYTHING.!

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 days ago

When shouting DefundThePolice/PoliceReform is seen as offensive, this is how you convince the people.

[–] [email protected] 28 points 3 days ago (3 children)

At this point it would be better usage of money to make it a surveillance state instead of a police state, cameras won’t shoot you

[–] [email protected] 41 points 3 days ago

It's also a surveillance state at this point.

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

That's what I think when I see deadly high speed chases occuring, like unless the person is imminently trying to harm others could they maybe just wait for him to drive home and then make an arrest?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 days ago

So keeping track of the suspect movement while also planning for actions based on gathered information? I doubt cops with 6 months training have the patience for something like that

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[–] [email protected] 12 points 3 days ago (3 children)

Please transcribe images of text for the blind

[–] [email protected] 27 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (1 children)

SKIP THE FARE? EXPECT THE DEATH PENALTY

On September 15th, the NYPD shot four people over the $2.90 fare

OMNY

So the NYPD can double tap and go

[–] [email protected] 14 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (1 children)

It says OMNY. It's a payment system for the subway

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