That should be the entire story: if a raid is performed and the warrant doesn’t pan out the cops behind the warrant should be immediately investigated by another agency (which, they’re cops too so who knows if this would help).
I'm of a mind that police officers should have to carry malpractice insurance like doctors and other professions do, and repeated incidents would jack their rates up and if they're out of control would be priced out of the profession, instead of moving to the next town over and continue dumping the lawsuit costs on taxpayers. But in this case even that wouldn't have done anything. There are bigger training and accountability problems.
As far as I'm concerned, the Ohio state government should step in and entirely dismantle this county's police department and replace everyone.
All we can do is try.
Last time I had to call cops was when two drunk people started brawling in a bus. One fell asleep and the second, driven to desperate acts by prolonged homelessness tried to steal his phone. In the end, the victim decided that the best course of action after reclaiming his phone was to kick now lying down thief until satisfied.
I and another passenger have stepped in, restrained the aggressive phone owner. We have gotten 4 of us out of the bus. We told the phone owner repeatedly to verify that his phone is OK, in order for him to realize that no harm has been done. We have talked him down. He was still inclined to (way less fervently) take revenge. I had to choose between getting confrontational and sending him home to sleep it off "or else" and calling the cops. Since the first option would put me at risk of being caught breaking the law, I had to call cops.
Cops came in sirens blazing, 3 cars, acting all high and mighty. "Your IDs" and shit. In the end, the phone owner has not even been told not to kick other people. The homeless person has not been checked by a medical professional. He was drunk, might have had some ribs broken, but none of those 7 "public servants" bothered to check. I asked if they were at least giving him a lift to wherever he was residing. "We are not taxi."
Fucking useless.
The fired cops will just get jobs in other departments. Cops won't be better trained, procedures that lead to this won't be changed. No real change is going to happen.
Firing cops at this point is just theater. It isn't trying, it is honestly just more of the same. It isn't likely that they fire the entire department either, and it will do nothing to take care of the folks that were elected in (sherriff and prosecutor, for example).
>it will do nothing to take care of the folks that were elected in (sherriff and prosecutor, for example).
I won't deny that rot starts at the top, but part of that rot is never firing misbehaving employees. You emphasise training, I emphasise learning, and the only way to learn is not fiddling around with the curriculum, it's not giving cops an extra year of training. What helps people learn is bad cops fucking around and finding out.
You can give people as much training as you want, but if they see other cops getting away with this gang nonsense, they will learn that you can do that and nothing bad will come of it.
- A large percentage of the people are already bad
- Anyone who pushes back against bad behavior is shunned, fired, or left "without backup" in bad situations
- There are no repercussions for bad behavior
- There are positive reinforcements for bad behavior
Eventually, you're either going to be driven out, or you're going to turn. So wiping the place clean and starting from scratch, while drastic (and _certainly not appropriate everywhere) can be a valid approach when the problem is rampant across the entire department.
“The major problem—one of the major problems, for there are several—one of the many major problems with governing people is that of whom you get to do it; or rather of who manages to get people to let them do it to them. To summarize: it is a well-known fact that those people who must want to rule people are, ipso facto, those least suited to do it. To summarize the summary: anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job.”
I will use myself as an example. I absolutely do not want to be a cop despite having a relatively strong moral compass, because I know for a fact that I will agonize over small things and believe most excuses thrown at me. More than that, I do not think taxpayers would want me to be a cop, because I am lenient ( which also why I did not really enjoy having a position of authority in my previous job ). I mostly assume everyone will do what has to be done.
And sadly, that is not nor has ever been the case. Uniform is just a symbol of that power.
Ah and before you answer: most of use who are not in the US live in places where police misconduct is much less of an problem, so obviously it can work better. The entire German police force fires less bullets during their patrols and missions in a year than e.g. the NYC police force alone. Sometimes single cops in the US fire more bullets alone than the entire German police force. This is even hard to compare, because the Germans have numbers for every bullet fired at a person during service, bullets fired for warning shots, bullets that hit, bullets that did not etc. That data is wildly mixed and unreliable in the US depending on the state.
If you want to have a police force you can trust they must not be above the law and the law must be even stricter, the standards even higher for them than for the rest of the population. That means longer and better education and training, knowing the law, but also strict measures when police officers break the rules or there is even just the slightest doubt about their version of events.
In many police departments in the US the problem is essentially that there are so many bad apples that every good apple that comes is spoiled or cannot do good. This can only be changed be decisive action from the top.
How many bad apples does it take, to spoil the whole barrel?
I'm not disagreeing with the comment I'm replying to, just trying to challenge the perception that there's anything ok with "just" a few bad apples. The acceptable number of bad apples is zero.
This is obviously idealistic and impossible in the real world (given the size of a police force). What is needed is a system that gets rid of bad apples with time, instead of letting them thrive and corrupting other apples.
WHAT PUNISHMENT?
And that.. can probably be changed. Qualified immunity would be much harder.
It doesn't just take apples, it takes time. If you remove the bad apple as soon as possible, the rest of the barrel can still be fresh and healthy. If you leave it to rot, you spoil the entire batch.
Should we defund and abolish public schools since more than zero teachers are child molesters? Should we defund and abolish fire departments since more than zero firefighters are arsonists?
Where that cutoff percentage is, depends on the single organisation and the individuals within it. But I believe that in this case it is a combination of police culture ("we always did it that way, we need to protect our own") and systemic incentives ("if we hide bad behaviour we look better than if we expose it") are the key to understanding this.
These are deep rooted issues that are not as easily quantified and discouraged. Reducing gun misuse is one thing, but reducing police discrimination, selective policing, and misconduct is a much larger ball of wax.
And people think that they need those means (which they never had) "back."
Also institutional racism and all the other shit that's true for most police across the world.
ACAB.
The German government decided there doesn't need to be an external investigation into police violence because the police can be trusted to have correctly investigated itself finding that police violence is not a problem.
The NRW state minister of the interior abolished ID badges for riot police, then insisted that there had been no evidence of misconduct during police riots because no individual officers (wearing full helmets and no individually identifying features) had ever been charged despite video evidence of excessive use of force.
Demonstrators hospitalized due to police violence routinely receive police visits in hospital because their injuries are taken as evidence of resisting arrest as all police violence is presumed to be justified.
The NRW police literally used the energy company's transport vehicles to detain and transport arrested demonstrators during the raid on Lützerath, where the police was explicitly instructed to show full force to deter future protests at similar sites.
Police officers were found to be part of a neo-nazi group called Combat18 (18 = Adolf Hitler) that had maintained kill lists using police records and a stash of assault weapons and body bags.
It's a whole thing, yes.
We can look at statistics from eg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estimated_number_of_civilian_g... and compare with statistics on police shootings.
https://www.rand.org/research/gun-policy/gun-ownership.html
https://www.norc.org/PDFs/GSS%20Reports/GSS_Trends%20in%20Gu...
But it’s like firing the whole development team because we all keep ignoring lint errors and our bugs crash the system.
I think there’s systemic changes to make.
Maybe for cases like this if the judge or person that approves the warrants has a high failure rate they can no longer approve warrants.
Same issue with nearly every place people have power. It feels particularly acute in the US because of reverent attitudes to police force.
But doctors, nurses, teachers, priests... Good people will do bad things given half a chance.
From what I can tell from the outside, people always accuse American police of being terrible. I don't see much of a reverent attitude.
This attitude goes way back. It is characterological. See the Fugitive Slave Act versus states' rights.
Also, the Democrats have never had a politician of any stature, let alone a president of their party, say "Government is not the solution to the problem. Government is the problem." That was Ronald Reagan.
In other words, you are right, the left does distrust those portions of the government it does not control, but there is an enormous difference of degree in how the two sides behave towards these portions of the government.
There's no inconsistency in trusting a democratic process to do mostly democratic things but thinking the lack of accountability in policing has had negative outcomes. The vast majority of democratic voters in america do not support "abolish the police' in entirety, but rather that reforms are needed.
The first problem with that, from the perspective of forming an accurate view of the populace, is that, as a whole, the US leans ever-so-slightly center-right[0].
The second problem is that much of our political news is a circus whereby both political parties attempt to paint a picture that the “majority” of the country is behind more extreme interpretations of their platforms — that the country leans more heavily to the left or the right than it really does. The Republican Party has been doing this for more than a generation; its a more recent phenomenon with the Democrats.
0 - https://news.gallup.com/poll/275792/remained-center-right-id...
…and except when Team Red needs to justify owning military grade weapons, in which case it’s all about deterring tyranny by being prepared to shoot cops and soldiers.
It’s a very… situational reverence. Like, as long as the situation is the police attacking the correct demographics.
I think that's starting to break down. Conservatives are not happy with the ATF's self evaluation of congressional law right now and they are certainly an armed police force with arresting power. Also, poor people who are conservative are also on the receiving end of police violence quite frequently as well.
There are plenty of police abuse videos out there, against citizens of all colors and they're all over YouTube. The more people watch them, the more that support will break down.
Of course the other irony is some of the worst police departments are in cities run by the Democratic Party. New York, LA, Chicago, Louisville, New Orleans. The abuses aren't limited to a single party, so it's difficult to politicize.
And how changing the systems and culture can fix it. Think the book checklists discusses this in detail .
If people no longer trust that executive arm of government, then hold those in power responsible for it. Start at the top and replace those politicians. An elected politician can only remain in office if they continue to receive support by voters.
Just voting differently is naturally not the only way a government can be held responsible. Political assigned jobs is a job description based on trust, and there should be mechanism to remove individuals who do not fulfill that trust. Governments should also be liable to their citizens, so when injustice occurs people should have the option to demand compensation from the government. This in turn put pressure on politicians to avoid injustice caused by the police.
A police force that protects citizens rights should be viewed as an asset to local government, and the opposite should be a harsh liability that local governments can feel.
I try to solve problems from a systems perspective. For example the common automobile stop and warrantless search allows officers to more easily abuse power and escalate situations quickly as cops no longer required a warrant from a judge. This was by design by the Supreme Court who ruled in 1925 to allow this exception in times of prohibition when an individual ran away from police with alcohol and they didn't have time to go get a warrant. Stop and frisk was an extension of this case law.
A more accurate comparison would be firing the whole team for inserting intentional backdoors and collecting fractional pennies from each transaction and depositing them in personal accounts.
Accidents happen to everyone. We often make trade offs. In the cases we're talking about, these weren't accidents or appropriate judgement calls.
Heh, so because he was the victim of a burglary the police decided to do burgle him again.
Total retail theft alone is well over $60b [2]. Adding in other crimes like employee theft, fraud, property crimes, and so on puts total US cost from crime well into hundreds of billions.
So no, police don't steal more than traditional criminals.
[1] https://www.justice.gov/afp/reports-0
[2] https://www.rila.org/focus-areas/public-policy/study-retail-...
And it doesn't actually affect the point.
When your world view is made of false claims and feelings and you ignore actual evidence, don't be surprised when people that do prefer evidence won't believe you.
Then people wonder why black people don't talk to (or call) the police. It has nothing to do with "snitching". It's about the fact that It never ends well, no matter which side you're on. Best to avoid the beasts entirely.
The aversion to police altogether, while I understand is akin to being overprotective as a parent, which can be more than just counterproductive but harmful as a whole.
However, there appear to be no good police unions. The unions bend over backwards to protect bent cops almost regardless of their actions. The "good cops" also support these unions - if they didn't, and if the "good cops" where the majority, then the police unions would reflect that
And one of the misunderstood things about ACAB is that it doesn't have to be literally true, if there are enough bad cops (and we know by now that there are), and if the bad cops are protected by the good cops (which we also know to be the case most of the time) then as a civilian you don't know which you're going to be dealing with in an interaction. The only safe thing to do is to assume that any given cop that you interact with is a bad cop.
The union is supposed to serve the police, and that includes legal protection... your lawyer is going to back you, that's how the system works. Would you want a defense lawyer that was against you?
I know it's pretty simplistic, but that's largely what it comes down to... I'm not supporting police misconduct at all. I think that civil asset forfeiture is a crime, I think that police spend too much time trying to make criminals out of innocent people... Once at an accident where I was rear ended, "why is your seatbelt unbuckled?" I was kind of pissed, because, "I needed to get my insurance and registration from the glove box."
In the end, I get it... I do feel, however, that the ACAB is oversized because a lot of it is over-reported or misrepresented.
I'm also not that inclined to generally and blindly support police. They are agents of the govt's interests and not yours. They serve the govt and the govt is too split from general good and in favor of the wealthy and powerful. And I also think that enforcing draconian lockdowns in many places didn't gain them any favor with anyone these past few years.
Again, most cops are mostly good, like most people. And like most people they will bend to peer pressure, anxiety, stress and their environment. You really want to see people with a bent personality, talk to the guys that have to clean up traffic accidents sometime... They're quasi police and complete alcoholics for the most part. That's a job nobody should have for an extended period of time. It's extreme, but only to show that one's own experiences will shape their perception.
Of course, I am biased, I just make an effort to be level headed as much as possible.
That's an interesting perspective and nuance! It gets really interesting when the same group is both responsible for "protecting the individual" and "protecting the profession". In most legal situations, you have a lawyer of your own and it's very crystal clear that their role is to protect your best interests. And I am one of the people who strongly strongly believe that, in the general legal perspective, "he got off on a technically" should almost always be replaced with "the legal system failed to do their job". For example, if someone is acquitted of a crime because of a poor chain of custody with the evidence, the fault 100% is on the people who failed to do their jobs correctly. When the state wants to strip someone of their most basic right (freedom), they had better dot their Ts and cross their Is.
> In the end, I get it... I do feel, however, that the ACAB is oversized because a lot of it is over-reported or misrepresented.
With the lawyer situation, I am paying my lawyer to represent me the best they can. With the police union situation, the good guys are paying union dues that go directly towards the defence fund for the bad guys. There's a very significant conflict of interest here as well; if a video leaks where I'm beating the shit out of someone while wearing my company uniform, my employer is almost certainly going to put out a statement about how my actions don't represent the company values and that I've been terminated. With the police and police unions, there's often complete silence or even support.
I have more thoughts, thank you for triggering a really interesting line of thought for me. Will try to come back to this but work's getting busy again...
That was after the civilian world had already reacted publicly. All of the police involved helped kill him or cover it up until the video came out.
"A bad system will beat a good person every time." -- W. Edward Deming
> The only safe thing to do is to assume that any given cop that you interact with is a bad cop.
True.
I was swatted. I had a puppy who was still in the barking and biting phase. My starting assumption was they'd shoot my dog.
Then I got conflicting instructions ("freeze!" and "lie down on the ground!"). And I thought, "Whelp, here it is."
Fortunately, we both lived. But it's sad that being shot in my driveway while wearing my PJs would be a "disappointed, but not surprised".
Due to the potential for an extreme outcome, I've long though Swatting should cop the 'prankster' an attempted murder charge. Which is in itself probably excessive, but hey.
[1] https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/07/what-polic...
The unions are literally the legal defense for the police... they are supposed to do that. And police protect their own, like most people in any tribalistic group. The power and repercussions for those that are bad guys in the system is definitely outsized in terms of influence and effect.
Again, and I feel I have to repeat this... I do not condone, or favor misconduct. I think police, generally speaking have too much power and gov't employees as a whole too much protection from liability for their actions. I'd like to see govt, and police reduced as much as reasonably possible, and strongly favor 2A and self defense.
According to a 2006 report [1] from the Bureau of Justice Statistics (part of the DOJ), 25% of allegations of use of excessive force were unfounded. (This contradicts statements made elsewhere in the comments that "most allegations against police are falsified.") Keep in mind that these numbers are reported by the police agencies themselves.
(In the interest of beimg complete: In 23% of cases the officer involved was exonerated, meaning the "incident occurred, but the officer’s action was deemed lawful and proper". In 34% of cases the police agency didn't find enough evidence to either sustain the allegation or exonerate the officer. 8% of allegations ended with disciplinary action.)
Interestingly, when surveying citizens, the BJS found that 75% of citizens who experienced use of force thought it was excessive, although only about 10% filed a complaint with the agency employing the officer(s).
I wasn't able to find very much info on this, and I suspect there are probably some pretty big biases, so if anyone else has any info, please share.
It is not a matter of good cops and bad cops. The issues are systemic and often complicated.
That doesn't mean you have to be an asshole, and that doesn't condone asshole cops either. The point is, that broad brush strokes definitely don't help.
Personally, I'd like to see most govt minimized, including police and standing down the military. I'd like to see far more community engagement, and strongly support 2A and self defense, I don't like seeing that eroded for larger/stronger govt.
I was under the impression that the police in the US are not required to be truthful and it's perfectly legal for them to give false legal advice if it'll make their day go smoother?
That said, if it were anything more than something like a basic traffic stop, I wouldn't answer anything other than my name and providing ID without a lawyer. Pretty much every interaction with police (outside family/friends) has been a traffic stop, an accident, or otherwise reporting a crime.
If you are required by law to answer a question, you must do so. If you are not required to, you do not have to. What the police tell you has nothing to do with it.
There are very few occasions when you can be required by law to answer a question without a lawyer present (and without a judge compelling you to do so). These questions tend to be very limited, such as name and address, and may be even more limited in states without a stop and identify statute. You should research these questions before you need them.
The police are not required to teach you the law (with a very specific exception of reading you your rights when you are arrested) and are allowed to lie to you. They may also be simply mistaken about the legality of compelling you to answer a question. This may or may not impact the admissibility of anything you say, but generally provided the police officer reasonably believes what they’re saying is true, they will have qualified immunity and you will not be able to (successfully) take action against a police officer for lying to you.
In any case, you should take personal responsibility for learning what questions you must answer, and any questions other than that you should respond to with some formulation that makes it clear that a) you are aware of your legal right to refuse to answer the question, for example under the fifth amendment and b) you are exercising that right. You should answer all questions this way, even seemingly innocuous questions, as inferences may be drawn from your choice to stop answering questions. Courts have also established that if you are unaware of your fifth amendment rights, then they do not protect you. You should get legal advice at the earliest opportunity, but certainly before answering any question you are not required to answer. Police also receive training on how to make it seem as though you are required to answer the question without necessarily saying so. For example “how many people live in your house?” may be the question.
You might respond with something like “I would prefer not to answer that question”.
The police officer might then respond with something like “I need to know how many people live in your house so I can record it in the report/make sure my colleagues are aware that there are people at home/because I need that information to perform a proper investigation”. They may even threaten you with arrest for obstruction, but at this point they have likely crossed a threshold and anything you say past that point is probably inadmissible.
Although I’m not a lawyer, the above is my understanding of the recommendations of pretty much every lawyer about everything. You should do your own research or engage your own lawyer rather than listening to some loon on the internet with a Wikipedia degree.
Your understanding is absolutely wrong. There are no magic words that make your voluntary confession inadmissible whether intentional or not. l
The closest thing would be refusing to answer questions. Then, if arrested, demand your attorney and continue to refuse. Never try to rely on a Miranda violation.
Also, folks, find out if your state has a Stop & ID law and understand the details of when they can apply. You are always required to ID yourself if stopped for a traffic infraction.
Alec Baldwin, the actor, may have voluntarily talked his way into prison by saying too much after the recent accidental shooting on a film set.[0].
[0]https://www.mercurynews.com/2022/04/26/alec-baldwins-sad-str...
This is ironic reasoning for defending a body with a history of racial profiling, i.e. https://www.aclu.org/press-releases/us-department-justice-ch...
Look, my initial response to this is here[1]... I don't condone misconduct... but I am at least attempting to have a level head and see more sides to this. I'm someone who would generally like to see most of the govt including police and military end.
In this case, it's f'd up, and the police in question, from what I recall were dismissed. The lawsuit itself is anything but okay imo, and they shouldn't have any expectation of privacy while on duty, period. And was my very first response in this post, if you care to look/check.
I'm a minimal govt libertarian, and that includes police. I'm just pointing out facts. How many times have you ratted someone out in an environment with oversized peer pressure? MOST people historically won't and don't.
> How many times have you ratted someone out in an environment with oversized peer pressure?
Why has this culture of oversized peer pressure been permitted to continue unabated for so long?
When I was in the military, there was an incident where someone witnessed another serviceman committing a war crime. The commander dragged us all out, stood us at attention, and made 3 things abundantly clear: 1) if we committed a war crime we would be punished. 2) if we witnessed a war time we were expected to report it. 3) failure to report is a UCMJ violation and will also be punished.
What's so special about cops? Why do they get held to a lower standard than the military?
Mine is let self defense reign supreme and vigorously defended #2A.
Any policing force will have power.
I'm curious as to where you got this information. After a quick search, a source of information said that 25% of allegations against police are falsified [1]. This is far from "most allegations against police". (I wouldn't be surprised if there were bias in favor of police in presenting this information either, as the organization putting it out states that a big part of their mission is "working to protect innocent law enforcement officers ... from wrongful allegations and convictions".)
It also doesn't make sense to me if most allegations are falsified, why aren't police unions in favor of more transparency and turning cases over to more objective parties to be investigated and cleared (i.e. civilian over-site boards instead of other police officers)? It's a bit alarming that an organization whose job it is, is to investigate crimes, wasn't able to either clear an officer or find him guilty of the allegation in 65% of situations (according to the statistics from the website [1]). (It's not worded the best in the report, so again, if you have other evidence that's both more objective and clear, I'd appreciate seeing it.)
I get that police shouldn't be automatically seen as the "bad guy", and I think it's sad that we live in a society (at least in the U.S.) where that is often the case. However, I think there are reasons for the distrust and defending against those reasons is counter-productive and not moving us in the right direction.
> they shouldn't have any expectation of privacy while on duty, period.
I agree with this (aside from minor exceptions), but police who destroy private surveillance systems and then sue when information gets out, presumably to create a chilling effect, go against what you seem to be arguing for: giving the police a chance at objective judgement. In my eyes, they do this to themselves.
> How many times have you ratted someone out in an environment with oversized peer pressure? MOST people historically won't and don't.
Just because most of us have fallen victim to peer pressure, doesn't mean it's right, and I don't think you are arguing that, but ignoring it in your plea towards empathy for police. I don't think claiming the police deserve more empathy in this story, than a man who was falsely accused of kidnapping and faced unfair repercussions because of it, is the right balance to strike. I would argue that we should be working to break down peer pressure and tribalism within the justice system, instead of excusing it.
> I'm just pointing out facts.
Again, I think the facts that you present are wrong (esp. that most allegations are falsified), and I'd genuinely like to see some evidence to back them up. I've seen plenty of evidence that police brutality and dishonesty is a problem in the past few years, and seems to me to be the bigger problem, so I have a hard time seeing from your point of view. (I'm often wrong about things, so I'd like help seeing it from a different perspective.) If you could present some evidence that might change my mind, I'd really like to look into it.
Anyway, thank you for the thoughtful discussion.
[1]: https://www.uncufftheinnocent.org/post/wrongful-allegations-...
Because most cops are bad. Plenty of good people become cops every day. But good cops have a half life of just a few years. The moment a good cop thinks "well I'll just overlook this one thing so that the guys will still like me" he becomes a bad cop. Whereas good cops treat it as a moral line and become former cops.
A police force that won’t expel and arrest one corrupt cop is an entirely corrupt force.
Aversion to police is just aversion to risk. You never know why a cop is asking you a question or what they are really investigating so even answering innocuous questions is massively risky. You never know if you match the description of someone they are looking for or if something minor like answering a question during a traffic stop. “I’m just headed home from the grocery store officer” could put you at the scene of a crime you didn’t even know about.
Misunderstandings are usually easy to clear up with most people but if a cop decides you are under arrest it would have catastrophic consequences for most people and everything you said prior to that arrest would immediately be stacked against you.
If YOU get pulled over and the cop is aware that you have police family they may give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you are “one of them” and not “one of us”, for everyone else take the advice that every defense attorney agrees on: just don’t talk to them.
Would they really come home and mention all the shitty things they did to their child?
The second amendment protects organized armed resistance against state-level tyranny, whether external or internal.
Can't have a militia of one.
I especially dislike how people will point to the private writings of certain founding fathers to support their 2A opinions, even though what was ratified by the states was NOT those private writings, but rather the very very short amendment.
Individual officers benefit from this, too. It keeps the relationship between citizens and police much healthier.
We need to end QI and make the police earn their keep. In general, they've cozied up too close with any potential oversight for a reasonable person to have faith in them being held accountable for misdeeds.
(I say this as someone who's been grateful for police presence before)
Is this impossible to do in the US?
https://www.findlaw.com/injury/torts-and-personal-injuries/w...
It's generally not expensive enough to create enough economic pain to break through the 2 party (or 1 party in many locales) political system.
When people sue a public company, the people who in the end must hold the people responsible will be the share holders. When government are sued, it is the voters that must hold the people responsible. If a local government is found guilty in a court of law and forced to pay millions in damages, the money need to be either from raised taxes or reduced services. Both of those should be strong points for the opposition to gain votes and kick out the people who are responsible.
Where I live, when the government is found guilty and forced to pay out it usually also result in the current local leader responsible for the situation being forced out. Mismanagement is not a effective way to gain votes, so if the leader don't step down volunteerly the party may just want to replace them anyway for someone without such baggage during next election. Maybe US politics and the system around political donations makes such results less common?
This is a red herring. Qualified immunity only protects individual cops from civil liability, not from criminal liability. And above all, proper check for police is neither civil nor criminal liability, but independent institution for investigation of criminal and professional misconduct (like police IA division, but independent and ideally under different level of government - e.g. state or federal for checking municipal police).
Then why is literal theft protected by qualified immunity? https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.forbes.com/sites/nicksibill...
Most other places in the world cops have to train for +24 months and most of it is focused on physical conditioning, descalation/conflict psychology, and Law.
I mean knowing my local government incompetence I would be pretty nervous in having people with guns being trained by a local institution. It needs to be federal, standardized, and just longer than the few months training US cops have.
You are militarizing incompetent institutions (with military grade hand me downs) which have far less trigger discipline than actual military.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-watch/wp/2017/02/14/...
Issue is not that they are incompetent. Issue is that they know fully well they can get away with it. And real world proves them right almost every time.
Well at least here the answer is somewhat simple.
There is a deep ingrained level of distrust for federal government. It has been there since country's foundation and the past few decades have done nothing to lower it ( and one can reasonably argue it has only increased ). In a sense, the reason is structural.
<< It needs to be federal, standardized, and just longer than the few months training US cops have.
FWIW, FBI is effectively federal police. I think you will agree that they had their fair share of, uhm, not great behavior.
<< I mean knowing my local government incompetence I would be pretty nervous in having people with guns being trained by a local institution.
The whole point of cop that is local is that people will not, ehkm, revolt, because random guy from NY got plopped in AK and does not understand the basic environment they are in.
I personally prefer local. I think last year I went to our local quarterly neighbors/cops outreach and I was largely happy with what the sheriff had to say, because it dealt with MY local issues and not some pre-ordained stuff from the top.
Like I said, the issue is structural, because US is a massive country.
Why have states at all rather than one federal government that decides all laws?
I disagree. Since having radically different roles and powers for police, rasically different organizational structures for poloce, or not even having anything that exactly fits the typical concept of “police" are also within the acceptable variation, and all of those factor in to minimim quals, minimum quals for police absolutely are legitimate.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FBI%E2%80%93King_suicide_lette...
The system is working as designed.
Institutions change over time.
>Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery-- the greatest material interest of the world. Its labor supplies the product which constitutes by far the largest and most important portions of commerce of the earth. These products are peculiar to the climate verging on the tropical regions, and by an imperious law of nature, none but the black race can bear exposure to the tropical sun.
But sure, this system that obviously had a huge impact on how the country developed, how power structures were purposely designed, and how freedom even worked, TECHNICALLY wasn't the primary reason for rebelling, maybe.
No technically about it. Though you're right about the rest.
> His stories about George Washington, none of which I knew, are even more fascinating. Bueno de Mesquita claims, quite plausibly, that a huge part of George Washington’s motive for fighting the Revolutionary War was to protect his substantial, and critically placed, landholdings in the Ohio Valley. I’m not saying that I agree with him, but his story made me realize that a large part of my belief in GW is romantic: because I learned about him so early in life, that romantic view is harder to shake and I’ve been less willing to put GW under the public choice microscope than with any current or recent president.
> An excerpt about GW’s wealth:
>> His last position, just before becoming President, was President of the Patowmack Canal Company–the Potomac Canal, as we know it, from the Potomac River. What that canal did was bring, make it possible to bring produce from the Shenandoah Valley–which George owned–up to the port in Alexandria, which had been built by Lawrence, by the Ohio Valley Company, in which George had a direct interest, and shipped goods out. So it was a very profitable undertaking–or so he thought it would be, in the long run, for him. And that’s what motivated him. Most people think of Washington as–besides a great hero, which he certainly was–as kind of a gentleman farmer. Economists have estimated the worth in real dollars adjusted for inflation, not appreciated, of George Washington’s estate, in contemporary terms; and it’s about $20 billion dollars. He is by far the wealthiest President. He is the 59th wealthiest person in American history. Three of the American founding fathers are in the list of the top 100 wealthiest Americans in all of history: Hancock, who was wealthier than Washington–made his money smuggling; and Ben Franklin, who was not quite as wealthy, who made his money because he had a monopoly on the printing press. These are the folks who led the Revolution. These were not the downtrodden. These were not the oppressed. These were people who stood to lose huge amounts of wealth because of the King’s policies. And so they fought a Revolution. Which was, by the way, not very popular. Sixty percent of the colonists either were neutral or opposed to the Revolution.
As long as we're talking about shoulds, we should have an independent body reviewing police misconduct and major screw ups. There should be very little "police policing themselves".
Police can police themselves when it comes to the kinds of things any other workplace handles themselves, like people showing up late for their shifts, or stealing office supplies. When police end up violate the rights of Americans though, let police handle that however they want internally, but that should always be in addition to what an outside body decides.
Honestly, the police should welcome the idea too. I'm sure there are plenty of officers who would rather be doing their job than spending time busting down the doors of innocent people and searching for fake kidnapping victims they'll never find.
The court and prosecutor’s office currently exists and are working as ill-incentivized, clueless, codependent body that mostly post-hoc justify actions.
I believe this is an unsolved problem, not inherent to US or any country.
I.e. civil society.
The criticism is pretty strong.
https://novaramedia.com/2022/11/21/why-are-we-still-pretendi...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westminster_paedophile_dossier
For like 11 years after Dickens handed over the dossier he could have just said who they were. He still had that same immunity he used to name the first one and could have told the world, but he apparently just decided not to even after seeing nothing came from his "explosive" report that was supposed to change everything, and even after having previously threatened to do exactly that and use his immunity to name the others.
So, why didn't he just do it? Why is the question all about where this guys one pedo report went. He knew what it said. Why didn't he just type up another one? Why not a bunch of them? How did he end up being the only person to get this information in the first place?
He said that he'd been threatened after naming that first guy, but that didn't stop him from compiling and turning over his dossier. I guess maybe the 8 powerful mystery people threatened him harder until he shut up, but if we can't blame him for not just saying who they were because of those threats, how can the IOPC or anyone else who tried to investigate it later be blamed. Couldn't they have been threatened into silence the same way?
It's really messed up if its all true, but the whole thing seems full of holes and uncertainty. Then again, that's just what I managed to get out of Wikipedia so what am I missing?