Why is there not more transparency? It makes zero sense.
What is going to stop something like this occuring again? Officers going to jail?
What is going to stop something like this occuring again? Officers going to jail?
Police should be treated like other political officials and there should be a democratic mechanism for the public to remove them from their position.
There should be a national ban on psychological profiling during the police hiring process. Police departments should compensate their officers with substantially higher salaried instead of their current compensation: poor pay with perks like the chance to exert power, abuse people, steal things, and almost completely avoid prosecution.
Finally, police officers should be required to live in the areas they police. They should be provided with the same public housing the general public enjoys if they have trouble finding or affording a house.
Of course, these ideas are too sensible to be ever become real.
https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/10/20/558832090...
From a minute of googling, looks like San Diego had more dramatic results
>> It's to be expected that these cameras might have little impact on the behavior of police officers in Washington, D.C., he says, because this particular force went through about a decade of federal oversight to help improve the department.
Seems as though the D.C. PD didn't have many issues that needed correcting?
I contested a ticket I received from an aggressive traffic cop in Portland for texting in a stand-still bumper to bumper traffic jam. He was on a motorcycle and saw me as he rode by on the sidewalk!!! This guy had incredible nerve. In court, I insisted we view the footage from his body camera, which could only be done if I first refuse his plea offer, a significant issue IMO. I took the risk. The way he spoke to me was so militant and I thought it would be good to have the room give it a listen and see the traffic jam. The footage turns off as he is walking up to my car!!! Then he told me “either the battery died or the tape ran out”. Tape!!! This was 2015. The ticket was dropped, but I don’t think many people I know would have had this persistence, especially risking the plea denial. Beyond being annoyed, I was also intrigued with the abuse of power in such a trivial case.
(I agree you shouldn't HAVE to in a society with a well functioning justice system, but that would be the obvious means)
"Sorry madam the last person I dealt with broke my camera, I'm not a cop at the moment"
Political policing departments... Hhmm you think the police equivalent of trump are going to be any less corrupt?
I'm also sure housing the police where they work would definitely no in anyway make them, their family and property, any sort of target being as everyone loves the police.
He could help in any way a normal citizen could help someone in trouble until another officer arrives with a working body cam.
> Political policing That’s not what I said.
What’s wrong with allowing the public to petition for a police officer to be fired?
> I'm also sure housing the police where they work would definitely no in anyway make them, their family and property, any sort of target being as everyone loves the police.
Everyone hates the police. That’s the point. It’s a lot harder to curb stomp a kid’s head if you know you’ll see his mother at the grocery store. It’s a lot harder to force a woman to blow you at a traffic stop if she’s in a book club with your wife.
If your profession requires you to have a secret lair, you’re probably a villain.
"Sorry madam I know the theif is getting away but I can only help as a normal citizen"
Or
"Sorry madam I cannot do anything just now I need my camera, if I tried to save her and it went wrong someone could claim I did someone wrong and a mob could then demand I lose my job based on only half facts"
>What’s wrong with allowing the public to petition for a police officer to be fired?
Because as you say everyone hates to police, that would mean you're local high level gangster could drum up enough support to fill the ranks of the police with cops who wouldn't touch them.
>Everyone hates the police. That’s the point. It’s a lot harder to curb stomp a kid’s head...
Also a lot harder to arrest those dangerous and violent criminals who will then take revenge on you, your family or property. But then I forget if you're a cop your family is fair game, because fuck cops right?
You know, there's a converse to that.
We're developing more and more AI that can detect "events". Wouldn't be interesting if you could detect "criminal" events, even if the officer didn't see, remember, or even know they were criminal to begin with?
It means, that every body cam, camera, and recorder turns into a statute-of-limitations criminal detector. A fishing expedition only bound by compute power. And each charge is a goldmine of $$$$, with almost inexcusable evidence (video!).
It's why the idea of "Badgecam" is boneheaded without one more addendum: the data is sealed until court order opens it up, upon probable cause at the time with said officer. Else, this massive data collection turns into a panopticon of driving and walking officers and devices.
wrongdoings by officers are mostly handled internally with administrative leave aka paid vacation
Unlike a regular job, government employees have a due process right to their job. You cannot suspend them without pay without due process.
I don't think they should have a due process right to a job, but the courts disagree. Trump sort of suggested removing that right during the state of the union, but it won't happen.
There is another side to this story, though I agree the behavior is mostly inexcusable.
These changes were made to prevent the previous situation, where a "political machine" could control a town, appoint their people to the important posts and create a town-wide corruption system, often by tossing boons to the poorer people in the central city (Tammany Hall was the most infamous of these operations[1]).
Of course, one might this replacement system degenerated to the point that you have similar corruption, perhaps even less accountability and fewer boons to the disenfranchised.
But the present order is very strongly entrenched in American politics and given the American system is presently close to a mockery of democracy, the chance of change today looks slim no matter how many egregious appear.
The conservatives will come for them at some point too...until then you have places like Philly that, at least used to, have complaints against police be heard by the union before they are passed on to internal affairs.
Bmore takes the cake, though...just wtf all over and back again.
I really really doubt that. All the conservatives I know love the police and think they can do no wrong.
I hate to agree.
Just an example https://archive.fo/QjtoQ
> A Minnesota prosecutor said on Thursday he needs more time to decide whether to charge a police officer who fatally shot an Australian woman who called 911 for help.
> Minneapolis officer Mohamed Noor shot Justine Ruszczyk Damond on 15 July, just minutes after she called 911 to report a possible sexual assault in the alley behind her home.
> The 40-year-old life coach was engaged to be married, and her death drew international attention. It also cost Minneapolis’ then-police chief her job and forced major revisions to the police department’s policy on body cameras. Hennepin County attorney Mike Freeman had promised a decision by the end of the year. But on Thursday he said his office was “getting more information and evidence, and additional investigation must be completed”.
You'd think that all the "conservatives" would demand that the shooter be hanged, quartered, and drawn. At least, there is a silver lining in this case that the new police chief knows that the public will not tolerate something like this.
* http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/house-races/221721-how-r...
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politics_of_Minnesota
"Minnesotans have voted for Democratic presidential candidates ever since 1976, more times consecutively than any other state outside of the south, and longer than any state."
Your family must live in the Twin Cities metro because Minnesota gets real conservative real quick outside of Minneapolis, St Paul and the inner Suburbs.
Police unions are the most reliably conservative unions, and are powerful advocates for conservative policies. If hardcore libertarians were in power, they might be threatened, but mainstream conservatives aren't likely to come for them.
They have stated that they are committed to transparency.