this post was submitted on 02 Sep 2023
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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]

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r/ACAB

r/BadCopNoDonut/

Randy Balko

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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

♦ ♦ ♦

ORGANIZATIONS

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    “We don’t have any way of taking care of a dog,“ an officer told the dog’s owner, Bryan Pennington.

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[–] [email protected] 74 points 1 year ago (1 children)

If the only tool you know is a gun, every problem looks like a target.

Dogs, suspected shoplifters, black people in a white neighborhood...

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[–] [email protected] 66 points 1 year ago (6 children)

Have these people not heard of animal shelters, or are they too lazy to take the dog to one?

[–] [email protected] 68 points 1 year ago

It would literally be easier to just tell the person to look for a shelter. They're going out of their way to be heartless monsters.

[–] [email protected] 26 points 1 year ago

It has probably been a few hours since they last shot something and they were getting withdrawals.

[–] [email protected] 25 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I’m sure the dog was resisting.

[–] [email protected] 34 points 1 year ago

Dog was black unfortunately. It was bound to happen.

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[–] [email protected] 62 points 1 year ago (3 children)

“We don’t have any way of taking care of a dog,“ an officer told the dog’s owner, Bryan Pennington.

You couldn't just take it to a local dog pound? And isn't there such a thing as microchipping, which allows a dog to be scanned and their owners identified?

[–] [email protected] 31 points 1 year ago

He didn't think of this excuse until afterward when he was called into question. When asked to pick up the dog his only thought was "Great! Something I can get away with killing!"

[–] [email protected] 19 points 1 year ago

That is such a bullshit statement. My sister's dog ran off at state park. We searched for hours and asked around before finally heading to the rangers station to see if they had heard anything. Turns out, the rangers had found her and they and the maintenence guys spent all day hanging out with her and driving her around in the various vehicles. The ranger we spoke to said they were going to take her to the shelter if we hadn't come before the park shit down. They had "nothing to take care of a dog" but managed to handle it without shooting anything.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 year ago (1 children)

That takes more time and effort than a bullet.

I will never call cops for a lost animal. What a shitty outcome.

[–] [email protected] 23 points 1 year ago

Never call cops unless you want someone dead, and don’t mind if it’s yourself. And that goes 10x for PoC

[–] [email protected] 53 points 1 year ago

The police are far from anyone’s friend.

Cops kill dogs when they enter houses, it’s one of the very first things they do.

Cops just love to kill small harmless animals! Cops just love to kill!

[–] [email protected] 50 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The cops resent it when their job involves anything but murder. Don't call the cops unless you're prepared for something or someone to die.

[–] [email protected] 30 points 1 year ago (6 children)

When I first bought my school bus I needed to have a policeman come out and do a VIN verification so I could get it registered, so I called the local (Philadelphia) police department. When I asked for an officer to do this, the dispatcher said "nah". I said "nah?" and he said "yeah, nah" and hung up on me.

[–] [email protected] 26 points 1 year ago

When someone broke the window on my car I needed a police report for the insurance. They wouldn't cover it otherwise. When the cop showed up he yelled at me for having a broken window and told me he wasn't gonna do the report unless I gave him permission to search the car for drugs. I gave him permission, but filmed the search. He found nothing and wrote the report.

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[–] [email protected] 48 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Let me guess it was a black lab?

[–] [email protected] 39 points 1 year ago (1 children)

This joke is so dark that it was shot and left in a ditch.

[–] [email protected] 23 points 1 year ago (3 children)

This kind of humor is like the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness - not everyone gets it

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[–] [email protected] 43 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Years and years of copganda movies have rotten these guys brains.

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[–] [email protected] 39 points 1 year ago (7 children)

The dog was no angel! Let's hear the officer's side of the story too /s

[–] [email protected] 27 points 1 year ago

I heard the dog had drug charges in the past, so it's okay he died

[–] [email protected] 26 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 32 points 1 year ago

I know you're joking... but yes. Yes it was.

[–] [email protected] 21 points 1 year ago

I'm going to wait to decide whose fault it was until I see the bodycam footage. The dog might have had a gun.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Fido was on angel dust, had the strength of 20 pit bulls!

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[–] [email protected] 39 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Note to self: if you find a lost child in Missouri, don't call the cops

[–] [email protected] 21 points 1 year ago

Further: don't go to Missouri

Source: was born in Missouri

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[–] [email protected] 34 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

I don’t believe in hell. But there are days when I hope with all my being that I’m wrong.

May they reap what they’ve sown theeefold. With harm to none but them personally, so mote it be.

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[–] [email protected] 25 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Maybe they should have said that before taking the dog to murder it. What a terrible person. I hope he toys.

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[–] [email protected] 25 points 1 year ago

Finally, a post about police violence that has no bootlickers in the comments. I guess going out of their way to kill a dog is the one thing so unambiguously shitty that nobody bothers trying to defend the cop

[–] [email protected] 21 points 1 year ago

They're all just itching to kill. Doesn't matter what it is, kill it.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 1 year ago (1 children)

They literally named a state misery.

[–] [email protected] 21 points 1 year ago (11 children)

Actually, Missouri is a native American word meaning "This place sucks"

Incidentally, "Mississippi" is Iroquois for "most racist and generally awful state"

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[–] [email protected] 20 points 1 year ago (17 children)

Again, this is what happens if you don't give adequate training to police officers nor select on more intelligent individuals for the job. If you hire a bunch of trigger happy gun nuts, this is what you get. Don't be surprised, this is an obvious outcome.

It's also relatively easy to solve. Double investments in police. Sell all the crazy military equipment they have and don't need. Actually, don't sell it, destroy and recycle it. Use that money to then give they a minimum of 4 years of training before they go out on the streets. Teach them de-escalation techniques. Teach them how to make the world better, to protect and serve

[–] [email protected] 29 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Double investments? Police already siphon up nearly all of many communities resources.

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[–] [email protected] 17 points 1 year ago (1 children)
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[–] AI_toothbrush 13 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Isnt fox republican??? Why did they report on this? Also its not available in my country -_- but i guess fox protected me from fox

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Fox News and Fox Broadcasting have the same corporate granddaddy and the same first name, but they're not the same thing.

Fox News is the laughably Republican propaganda channel on cable TV.

Fox Broadcasting is a separate, over-the-air TV network with ordinary brain-numbing television shows. The network doesn't even have a news department, but their affiliate stations might have local news. When they do, it's low-calorie journalistic content similar to any other station, and not usually as thoroughly slanted as Fox News.

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[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago

abolish police.

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