So who do you report law enforcement misconduct to? Normally it's the FBI/DOJ, but it seems there's a conflict of interest in these cases...
These rights are privately enforced. There is no public federal enforcement. You have to do what this gentleman is doing. Sue in the courts.
It is becoming apparent that the U.S. needs an independent agency focussed on transgressions by law enforcement / a civil rights enforcement bureau. One could keep it purely civil, to avoid conflicting with the DoJ. But in the same way that criminal prosecution is specialized enough that consolidating it in the DoJ makes sense, investigating law enforcement is specialized and conflicted enough that consolidating it under an independent agency makes sense.
I personally have a monthly recurring donation. Give what works for you.
Tagging money for specific issues is problematic because the organisation doesn’t change its budget percentages for small donations (money is fungible), and organisations find tagging difficult to manage [TODO insert article link here].
Ex: A policy of %80 towards earmarking & %20 towards the general fund to help boot up new projects / general admin would be totally fine with many donators.
What you talk about is much like the arguments against voting, while such logic makes society lose it's prisoner's dilemma for change.
But yes, they kind of used to do that.
YMMV, but:
Many agencies have an Auditor General with a cadre of agents whose entire role is to investigate and publicly report on what that agency does wrong. Sadly, I can't think of any Auditor General's office with the power to punish. So if the agency is acting unconstitutionally or illegally because the governor or agency director wants them to, it's on the public to push for change. That's a hard ask.
For issues with state agencies, contact your District Attorney or state Attorney General. I've never done this, but it's stuck in my mind as the path to go. If other people want to report their dead end stories of doing this, I'd welcome the lesson.
I've contacted the AG about stuff in the past. He was a complete idiot. I contacted him about a state law that was being violated by a state government policy and he said he would forward the complaint to the FBI. Why? It has nothing to do with federal law!
Note: outing classified to an Inspector General not cleared, will still get you thrown in prison. Even pointing in a direction to start asking questions or getting cleared may carry legal consequences that OIG has no authority to protect you from, even if in the end you are in the right.
I've often thought the OIG should be charged with and have authority to countermand and investigate executive agency oversteps through unfettered access to all information regardless of classification in the Executive branch, but it'll never happen.
Note that each agency has its own IG (usually within an OIG directly under the top-level of the agency), there is not a single central OIG.
I very much respect my friends and colleagues who have made the other choice, but it's a lifelong sacrifice of liberties that are otherwise present.
State agencies often have their own IG or similar office, and DAs may not have jurisdiction over state agencies. Some states have centralized agencies that have general oversight of illegal activities in state and sometimes local agencies, as well (Bureau of State Audits in California, for instance.)
This was the case with prosecutors. Then in 1870, President Ulysses S. Grant consolidated them under the DOJ [1]. The common portion of their work, criminal litigation, was specialised and conflicted enough that the benefits of densifying its practitioners outweighed the cost of distance from the field.
I argue a similar problem persists among our Auditors and Solicitors General. Yes, there are advantages to having them in house. But there are disadvantages, too, and the bad outweighs the good.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Department_of_Ju...
We have such a organisation here (Aotearoa) to monitor the police. https://www.ipca.govt.nz/
It is mostly captured, policywise, and supports outrages committed by police.
It is a improvement over what there used to be, but not much.
What has made the biggest difference here is a succession of cases where it became undeniable that the police were raping and framing. They have taken shame and attempting to reform themselves, which is a surprise to those of us who over the years had to deal with the bigoted, prejudiced, violent pigs.
There is a lot of opposition within, and without, the police here. Time will tell.
Sure. But it still just hurts your main argument.
Ask George Floyd... Oh wait, you cannot.
"Pig" is a pejorative term, I used it in connection with the violence, bigotry, prejudice, adn stupidity (forgot to mention that), the raping, the framing....
I did not use it as a replacement for "peace officer". I know what I said and I meant it
That seems to be quite clearly the intent.
Anecdotally around my region people refer to corrupt police officers as pigs, so when someone says something derogatory about 'pigs', it's colloquially understood as "the violent bad ones that extort and over-step, not the ones that help you find your dog."
Noting that I left out extort because that's incredibly rare here, and prosecuted very quickly if it ever does.
Responding to a taunt is an admission of guilt?
Hence my objection to the pejorative term often applied to all police offers equally - it only advances a "them vs. us" mindset, which is not at all true for my country if you're not an active criminal, a country I share with the user I was replying to.
No, it wasn’t. It was founded on an impotent central government. It later adopted checks and balances when it decided it needed a much more powerful central government and what it was founded on was unsuitable.
But just because US Gov 2.x lasted longer than 1.x doesn’t mean everything in the 2.0. release was perfect; its certainly needed many minor and bugfix releases, and there’s no reason to think that it might not at some point need another ground-up rewrite.
I should add a white person got killed the same way before that. No riots. No news. No screaming crying people in the streets demanding justice. No change then either. The family of that person didn't even get money from it.
[0] https://abc7news.com/san-jose-police-beating-hotel-couple-ta...
[1] https://www.sltrib.com/news/2017/10/31/utah-nurse-arrested-f...
In the case of the FBI, the FBI Office of Professional Responsibility (essentially, the FBI’s “Internal Affairs” unit), DoJ Inspector General, your reps in either House of Congress, or members of the Judiciary Committee (in either House) or the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations (in the Senate) or the Oversight and Reform Committee (in the House).
May also be worth going to media and/or NGOs, though which, if any (especially of the latter) are most likely to be useful varies a lot by who you are and what the exact details of thr misconduct are.
Private litigation may or may not be useful (both governmental and personal immunities come into play) and can be very expensive (though NGOs may help with this.)
A trooper knew he was holding an incorrect charge against my wife. The charge carried with it pretrial restrictions that would not have occurred under the correct charge (a "leash law" violation). IAD didn't care. The investigation even tried to explain the trooper's lie to the judge about why he was amending the charge as just a misunderstanding... yeah, ok. Neither state reps replied to my two letters. The governor claims he can't get involved in a court issue even though I only wrote him about the practices of the state police (which he oversees) leading to violations, and that the policy should change. I contacted the ACLU, but this is not a big enough issue for them.
The only thing with any traction is an investigative journalist who is pitching the story to their editor.
I'm not holding my breath, but I am either in the process of submitting or waiting to hear about: a complaint to the Bar about the ADA having information that it was an incorrect charge and allowing it to stand, the DOJ to investigate the practices of the state police knowingly holding false charges, and a response from my latest letter to the governor.
I would guess that would be the most expedient route, if you can get them interested. If you work for a big employer in their district, and are comfortable with it, having your employer reach out to them might help.
Well, the first more than the second; a rep doesn’t have to read your letter to be briefed and direct staff followup, which may itself produce results.
If it's a form letter, you're just going to be lumped in with the others of similar concerns.
This page suggests that the office does investigate misconduct claims and issue reports periodically: https://oig.justice.gov/reports/type/investigation
This is basically internal affairs for the FBI. Report here. Personally, I would make a report here no matter what, just to start a paper-trail of them harassing you.