this post was submitted on 24 May 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
① Real-life decorum is expected. Please don't say things only a child or a jackass would say in person.
② If you're here to support the police, you're trolling. Please exercise your right to remain silent.
③ Saying ~~cops~~ ANYONE should be killed lowers the IQ in any conversation. They're about killing people; we're not.
④ 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.
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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
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
Unfortunately, there has been precedent for the argument that the right to remain silent is one that needs to be continuously and positively invoked.
So if they keep interrogating you and you choose to start talking, that can be interpreted as you waiving your right to remain silent.
https://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/questioning-after-claiming-miranda.html
https://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/when-how-invoke-your-right-silence.html
Remaining silent is not enough, you have to articulate that you want to invoke your right to remain silent, unambiguously request a lawyer (no "I think I should have a lawyer for this"), and request a lawyer generally (no "I want a lawyer before I answer any questions about where I was").
"I am invoking my right to remain silent and I want a lawyer" is basically all you should say.
The ACLU remains an excellent resource for being aware of your rights.
https://www.aclu.org/know-your-rights/stopped-by-police
My father-in-law is a defense attorney for juveniles, he always said that the best thing to say is " I understand you guys are just doing your jobs, and I really would like to cooperate, but to do so I need a lawyer present".
Otherwise they can basically classify you as a combative witness, or claim that you are interfering with an ongoing investigation.
By saying that you really want to help, it puts the imperative of wasting time on their end. If you guys need the information that bad, you should be rushing to get some representation here as fast as possible.
Its kinda bullshit that to get proper treatment people need to know a bunch of little phrases to throw out like a secret password. Fuck cops for real
True, but, that's kind of something you have to do for anyone in really any position of authority generally.
ACAB
I watched this video a few years ago. You can tell its age, but I found it very enlighting. In it a lawyer explains why you should never talk to the police even if you’re innocent:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-7o9xYp7eE
I read this guy's book, "You have the right to remain innocent". Definitely reinforced my ACAB inclinations.
I was going to link that but you already got it covered!
It's fun to mock sovcit whackos, but this is the sort of thing that gives them the idea that there are magic words they can invoke that let them wallhack through the legal system. The judicial system has spent literally hundreds of years working hand-in-glove with police and prosecutors to make it as difficult as possible for the everyday citizen to exercise the legal rights that protect you from them, and only by knowing exactly how to navigate the legal labyrinth set up between you and those rights can you actually use them.
A lot of it's not intentionally for that purpose, but a side effect of hundreds of years of arguing over wording and what exactly the law means in different situations.
The cases that caused the "disagreeable" (most polite phrases I can think of) changes to Miranda protections happened only in the past few decades.
It's still preposterous that the system, which is constitutionally pretty obviously slanted against the government, is so eager to find loopholes in protections for people to the advantage of the government.
Yeah, the police should be required to ask if you wish to remain silent and if you’d like a lawyer