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Comment by themartorana | Hacker News Reader

Yes, this, as simple as this. This isn't a rogue "bad cop" - it's systemic, criminal abuse of power, and the very reason we have separation of powers - so this kind of activity can be checked all the way back to its origins.

Which is pretty much the origin of my disillusionment, since it isn't happening at all, in the face of red-handed evidence.

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What's the bar for 'at all'? People seem to speak (at least relatively) favorably of the new policing situation in Camden, the old department was disbanded:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camden_Police_Department_%28Ne...

That's a large municipality discarding their entire police organization and creating a new one.

I see no mention of systemic checks and balances or corruption investigation further than a couple of bad actors. So yeah cover it up replace it with something hopefully less corrupt, but not what needs to happen to prevent it from happening again.

I'm trying to establish some common ground. When I read something like this:

http://www.philly.com/philly/news/year-in-review/20100221_Ca...

I see the "federal investigation" as a systemic action, and I don't really see how disbanding the old department is a cover up, it's a pretty real consequence.

Action after it makes the evening news, not an on going part of the system that is actually capable of changing it.

> how disbanding the old department is a cover up, it's a pretty real consequence.

Consequence to who? Not the corrupt officers who weren't the scapegoat, all they had to do was re-apply for their old job.

the police officers have been fired?

I believe some of the worst offenders from that defunct department are in prison.

I don't mean to hang my hat on that particular case, as stonemetal points out, there is overlap between the new department and old department:

http://camdencountypd.org/senior-leaders/

But if we today have a situation where only egregious problems get attention, we should probably not mistake that for a situation where no problems get attention, because it's likely that the latter would be far worse.

There's also the opportunity to look for good outcomes and try to replicate them, rather than coming up with brand new solutions.

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