this post was submitted on 29 Oct 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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ALLIES
• [email protected]
• [email protected]
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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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MODERATORS
Call me crazy, but if you point a gun at a neighbor for any reason other than being attacked, you probably shouldn’t be allowed to have guns.
Brandishing is a crime. The issue here is it isn't being enforced.
It's not a crime at all in my state.
Wait for real? I could just point my gun at anyone i want and there is no law that's being broken?! What state is that? That's fucking crazy.
Pennsylvania. It's an open-carry state. There is no law that says anything about brandishing.
That said, if you point a gun at someone, you are responsible for whatever happens next, including bullets flying in your direction.
(I'm not a lawyer so there might actually be a law about brandishing. I've just never pointed a gun at anyone so just don't come here waving your gat around all willy nilly.)
There's no specific law for brandishing a firearm because it's charged under assault, deadly conduct, terroristic threat, menacing, and/or disorderly conduct. Often more than one charge.
I assure you, brandishing in the sense it's used in other state law is very much illegal in Pennsylvania, and is arguably punished more severely than many states that have specific laws on the books -- partially because it doesn't have a specific law, you're subject to the caprice of the person that brings suit and the judge. If you look up cases of this being tried in Pennsylvania, you'll find that it's robustly prosecuted.
Generally speaking, even if your state doesn't have brandishing laws, pointing a firearm at someone is still considered assault. Assault is the unlawful attempt or threat to cause harm to another person.