Ongoing U.S Police Brutality and Corruption Discussion Thread

http://www.theonion.com/articles/unpopular-police-officer-thinking-about-committing,36790/?utm_source=Twitter&utm_medium=SocialMarketing&utm_campaign=Pic:2:Default&recirc=area-man

http://rt.com/usa/183000-police-departments-lose-military-weaponry/

Already, the investigation has found that police departments in Arizona, California, Mississippi, Missouri, Georgia, and others have lost or cannot account for various types of weapons. This list includes M14 and M16 assault rifles, .45-caliber pistols, shotguns, and even vehicles.

I'm sure a search of a few police officer homes would turn them up, tanks included.

Reminds me of back in high school a buddy of mine got a job working at a gas station and used to hand out free packs of cigarettes to the cute girls and drug dealers who came in for a few months until he was caught and arrested. Bet there are some cute girls and drug dealers in Maricopa County with some military grade weaponry now.

http://www.tcdailyplanet.net/news/2014/08/27/minneapolis-cops-allegedly-taze-and-arrest-black-male-sitting-public-space

i never hear a reason on the video—just 'do what we say or else'

Uh oh:

http://www.startribune.com/local/stpaul/273013851.html

I think we can expect a whole lot of shootings of people who were "charging" in the near run.

The earlier crime of vandalism appears to have been throwing rocks at cars

This whole thing of police either tasing or shooting people and then expecting them to "comply" and "cooperate" and "stop moving" is just . . . WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH THIS COUNTRY????

“The guy charged at [the second officer], and he got about 5 feet away before the officer fired his weapon three times,” Toby said. “And the guy went down, and they got one cuff on him. They were yelling, ‘cooperate, cooperate; give me your hand, give me your hand,’ but he wouldn’t give the hand. He was kicking his legs. And I think, at that point, the guy passed away.”

*blam!* *blam!* *blam!* "cooperate! cooperate!"

Please hear me doing that in my most contemptuous imitation of a fuckwit that I can possibly muster.

Oh, I see you got to that point before me.

sorry no time to cooperate, busy dying

Oh the police lied again about a guy they shot you don't say how rare etc.

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/08/26/video-shows-police-shot-ohio-man-on-sight-as-he-leaned-on-toy-gun-in-walmart-attorney-says/

jesus fuck.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2014/04/28/knoxville-cop-fired-immediately-after-photos-show-brutal-choking-of-student/

Usually, after charges of police brutality, police officials take their time reacting while they follow procedure to determine who did what. But this episode in Knoxville, Tenn., was so extreme and well-documented that the local sheriff fired the officer immediately. Also, it involved a white guy.

Yeah, that was pretty much my reaction too

busy night for these guys.

they did not shoot anybody here tho:

http://www.startribune.com/local/272992321.html

(that chase screamed by right in front of my building fyi)

well i guess it doesn't say they didn't shoot him

http://www.mprnews.org/story/2014/08/28/police-shoot-and-kill-man-in-ramsey

Uh what the hell is going on - this is a different story than earlier today

cops twitchy, journalists on the lookout

Well except cops killing people would be reported in this town whenever and that makes 2 today and I don't remember the last time one happened

Preliminary search says three people killed by cops this month, 2 dogs no people last month, none in the rest of 2014. So yeah

http://gawker.com/man-tased-by-police-while-picking-up-kids-the-problem-1628148261

http://www.tcdailyplanet.net/news/2014/08/27/minneapolis-cops-allegedly-taze-and-arrest-black-male-sitting-public-space

i never hear a reason on the video—just 'do what we say or else'

― j., Thursday, August 28, 2014 9:40 AM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

http://ktla.com/2014/08/26/producer-in-beverly-hills-for-emmy-pre-party-mistaken-for-bank-robber-held-6-hours/

Twitter/Tumblr's been really good at unearthing stories of Things White People Can Do To Cops And Live To Tell About

From last year:

http://www.katu.com/news/local/Police-shooting-Beaverton-City-Hall-high-mushrooms-217458381.html

fuck, one of my friends is in that article about the shooting in St Paul, she was working at the coffee shop nearby.

http://www.wsbtv.com/news/news/local/attorney-east-point-police-used-taser-against-man-/ng9RG/

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/08/30/daniel-holtzclaw-cop-rape_n_5740714.html

the cops here are open-minded enough to kill white people too:
http://host.madison.com/news/local/crime_and_courts/newly-released-police-records-shed-additional-light-on-paul-heenan/article_315e18ac-82e0-11e2-b277-0019bb2963f4.html

this was a couple years back, but it was a block and a half from my house, lots of my friends knew the victim (he was a musician), etc.

the cop was cleared of any wrongdoing for the shooting but fired for other reasons (yeah, ok), but i believe that external investigations into police shootings are now required in WI due to the efforts of his friends & family.

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/die-hard-director-john-mctiernan-731171

damn

boy with toy sword shot from behind

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/race-utah-police-shooting

I saw that, horrifically sad

http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/news/58409680-78/hunt-family-police-sword.html.csp

Multiple witnesses say he was running away AND an independent autopsy report found that he was shot in the back

Direct contradictions of the police officer's report that he 'lunged' at the officer

http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-utah-police-shooting-20140914-story.html

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/crime/blog/bs-md-ci-police-suit-20140915,0,6933088.story

It seems to me that police doctrine is that the instant you are suspected of unlawful behavior, you are presumed to be dangerous and are fair game for any amount of force to be used against you, with the idea that it is far better that you are killed or wounded than any police officer ever be hurt. This doctrine goes back a very long time in the USA, but the difference now is that it has become officially recognized and codified by the legal system and courts.

It apparently does not matter whether the suspicion is justified or not. It apparently does not matter whether you present any clear or present danger by your actions. So long as the officer "felt threatened", any amount of force is justified to nullify that imagined threat. In practice, this, of course, nullifies the entire concept of "excessive force".

Autopsy report shows police shot Darrien Hunt in the back, lawyer says

http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/darrien-hunt-carrying-toy-sword-shot-and-killed-utah-police

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/sep/16/darrien-hunt-shot-in-the-back-by-utah-police-says-family-attorney

“We haven’t even interviewed the officers yet,” said Taylor. “We’ve talked briefly with them just to kind of get an idea of what the scene was at the time.” He said officers were typically interviewed within 48-72 hours of a shooting. One is now scheduled to be interviewed on Tuesday and the other on Thursday, more than a week after the shooting, he said.

“I’m stunned. I find that almost incomprehensible,” Edwards, the attorney for Hunt’s family, said after being informed of this by the Guardian. “You want to speak with the officers almost immediately afterwards, when their memories are fresh and before they have had a chance to corroborate their stories.”

"just to kind of get an idea of what the scene was at the time"

Just, you know, see how their day was goin' 'n' stuff.

“You want to speak with the officers almost immediately afterwards, when their memories are fresh and before they have had a chance to corroborate their stories.”

This assumes that "you" are interested in the truth.

http://gawker.com/nypd-officer-filmed-slamming-pregnant-woman-to-ground-1638487177

An NYPD officer was filmed violently throwing a pregnant woman to ground early Saturday morning. Sandra Amezquita, who is five months pregnant, reportedly suffered vaginal bleeding after the incident, and her arms and stomach remain bruised.

The two officers who shot and killed John Crawford were not indicted

That is fucking insane.

jesus christ that fucking gawker clip possibly the most disturbing thing I've seen in awhile

http://bigstory.ap.org/article/d97584cfd10d48b5a3ea366850f4f06d/woman-punched-california-highway-patrol-settles

holy crap

http://gawker.com/trigger-happy-cop-shoots-unarmed-driver-in-just-release-1638993749

dude in that last video is the most polite assault victim i've ever heard; how the hell do you maintain the patience to call the man who just shot you sir and apologize to him

Easy: You are black and he is white.

already been downgraded from felony to misdemeanor - I have a feeling Morris's lawyers will get them dropped altogether

Must have been one small dog.

we are all looking for the guy who did this

xp - about 25 years ago, i had a cop back their car into mine while I was parked ... I was with a couple friends and I was thinking, "oh, a cop is going to follow the law about backing into a parking space, right?" ... they gave me some bullshit excuse why they weren't paying attention. there wasn't any damage to my car. they said that I could file a report if I wanted, but I'd have to wait for another cop to show up to take the report, and it was 1:30am and I was like, "no, I'm just gonna go home. Drive safe, officers!"

ftr it wasn't OPD but Emeryville PD

Deputy scared by an acorn hitting his cruiser opens fire in street

Hernandez and Roberts were shooting in crossfire positions and without cover. Hernandez fired his last shots lying on his left side in the road, yelling: “I’m hit! I’m hit!”

He was, in fact, not hit.

The video is incredible - both utterly harrowing and just unrecoverably humiliating for the police officer. An acorn lands on his car and he drops into like.. a roll? Roars like a walrus? Drops his gun a few times? How the fuck do these people get given guns

"there's FENTANYL ON THAT ACORN"

It’s going to grow into a Fentanyl Tree

sometimes you feel like a nut

Amazing that with two officers firing into the car they didn’t hit the handcuffed guy. If you’re going to be in a car getting shot at, I guess be in a cop car.

It says Officer Acorn was just hired last year. Every police dept in America has hired a bunch of new people because there have been a ton of retirements. And not much of anybody wants to be a cop these days, so they can’t be choosy about the ones who actually apply and manage to squeak through the qualifications.

Which is to say, if you thought cops were bad before …

he didn't know he hadn't been hit until he got to the hospital and they told him.. wtf?

What if they never told him

That guy is going to end up a right wing grifter talking about how god healed his acorn wound

always worth remembering that pizza delivery drivers have a more dangerous job than these clowns

dude needs to lay off the Monster energy drinks

esp since *multiple people* who merely pulled into the wrong person's drive way have been shot by gun-touting homeowners in the last year, each the time police saying "shucks if only we could do somethin"

Not that we want to really amp up every cop’s Delta Force fantasy with more gun training but the yearly qualifications for cops are ridiculously low for a license to carry a gun 24/7 and kill with near impunity.

https://www.politico.com/dims4/default/bae6997/2147483647/strip/true/crop/307x231+0+0/resize/1260x948!/quality/90/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fs3-origin-images.politico.com%2F081116_acorn_campus.jpg

The war against Acorns continues

dude needs to lay off the Monster energy drinks

― Andy the Grasshopper, Wednesday, February 14, 2024 7:44 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

Cops drink Bang.

https://abc7.com/tennessee-deputy-missing-found-dead-robert-leonard-first-arrest/14429043/

article focuses 99% on the dead cop and gives maybe a sentence to the detainee in the backseat that died because of him, a mother of two

Yeah really gross

Two stories in a row about new cops endangering/killing people.

I’m sure it’s fine.

Fuck police

There's great pressure to hire more police, and in a shrunken labor pool we are going to be scraping the bottom of the barrel. I expect Republican states to start employing child cops.

My locality is complaining about a persistent shortage of cops (shortage versus ideal staffing levels, whoever determines those) in our otherwise low-crime community. The world has not ended.

not ended due to the alleged shortage.

I expect Republican states to start employing child cops.

Not quite there yet, but our county just dropped minimum age to work as a corrections officer in the county jail from 19 to 18 because they couldn't get enough applicants. So now they have 18-year-olds out there "taking care" of prisoners, I'm sure that's going great.

That episode of South Park surprisingly prescient

Also they raised starting salary for the jailer positions to $50k a year, which I'm sure is attractive to an 18-year-old without other good options. If they went and spent five years getting an education degree and a teaching certificate, they'd come out making less. We're really great at prioritizing around here.

Some may have heard about the killing of Tyre Nichols by police in Memphis last year. Five officers are facing 2nd degree murder charges because of it. After debating and in some cases rejecting proposed reforms, one thing the Memphis City Council did last year was pass an ordinance reclassifying minor traffic violations (expired tags, broken taillights, etc) so that they by themselves can't be used as a reason to initiate a traffic stop. (Nichols had been stopped on vague allegations of "reckless driving," which turned out to be entirely bogus when they reviewed the dash cams.)

So, now, because we live in an aspirational police state, our Legislature has passed a bill nullifying that ordinance and saying local governments can't set policy FOR THEIR OWN POLICE DEPARTMENTS that in any way restricts their powers more than existing state and federal laws. This follows a bill last year that took away any (mostly minimal) teeth that our handful of civilian review boards have. Even though local governments and citizens pay for our local law enforcement, the state is telling us that we can't regulate them.

Hard to see how this could go wrong ...

https://apnews.com/article/tennessee-tyre-nichols-police-memphis-c154e1bde2ddeae5059f42f9e10e27b3

Pretextual traffic stops are what made this country great.

funny i thought we didn’t want the federal gummint telling us what to do

State legislators (and this is a somewhat bipartisan phenomenon, tho more pronounced in the red states) see themselves as the ultimate authority. They see no conflict in saying both that the feds shouldn't tell them what to do and that they should be able to boss around local governments all they want. "It's the United STATES of America," they say.

Yeah, we had a real pissing match in Georgia during the pandemic between Brian Kemp and the then-mayor of Atlanta, Keisha Lance Bottoms. Needless to say, this was a red/blue conflict as much as it was a turf war.

Yep, those tensions are always there (see NYC vs. every NY governor), but in the red states where all the big cities are blue, it's much more heightened. We've already had Mississippi state government trying to deploy its own state police in the middle of Jackson, I won't be surprised to see more and more of this shit — sort of a backdoor way to create a state police force, by limiting local control over them.

Oh, our own governor also wants to deploy some of the state Highway Patrol in "high crime" areas in Memphis.

hell, DeSantis as usual is one step ahead in turpitude. He's got his own team, the Florida Guard.

And of course we have Abbott building a National Guard military base in Texas to "protect the border." These guys are very into having their own military. And this is the kind of stuff that really chips away at what I've always thought was one of our best structural protections against having a real police state, because power over law enforcement is so generally decentralized and historically there's actually been a lot of tension between fed-state-local agencies. To the degree that all of that gets "streamlined" under the command of governors and state legislators, it's obviously bad news.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/interactive/2024/new-orleans-police-child-sexual-abuse-rodney-vicknair/

https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2024/03/14/trial-new-orleans-police-child-abuse/