Driver accused of DUI tracks missing laptop to Illinois State trooper's house | Hacker News Reader

Driver accused of DUI tracks missing laptop to Illinois State trooper's house

abc7chicago.com

447 pointsbryan0382 comments

The offending trooper's lie was comically bad:

    "I kept it for his courtesy, like I said with his phone, key and wallet," Bradley told investigators. "It's my mistake. I forgot to give him his stuff back and he tracked it."

For anyone who knows policing, evidence and suspect possessions do NOT go the arresting officer's home for obvious reasons.

This is very cynical, why would you not thank the Wallet Inspector

When the chain of evidence starts looking like silly string.

I was pulled over by a motorcycle cop back in the 80's. I gave him my license, and he gave me a ticket, but didn't give me my license back. The next day I called the police dept, and told them what happened. They mailed my license back to me, with the cop explaining that he found it on the ground, and I had driven off. The problem is, the cop pulled away before I did. They seem to make any excuse to cover their ass.

Brb keeping by courtesy my neighborhood bank vault

“His wallet was safer in my pocket, your honour”

I do not think it is completely a forgone conclusion that he was lying. I think it's possible that it was separated from the other possessions (e.g. because it didn't fit in a bag, for example) and then forgotten in the patrol vehicle. However, this definitely should have been investigated thoroughly and the officer fired and blacklisted if it was attempted theft.

If that's the case there should be documentation backing it up. Like messages to a group chat or something. Or there should be a rule making it not ok, which would explain why that sort of thing wasn't written down.

"hey guys, I found this MacBook, I'm taking it home?" Of course there's a rule against that. But it's probably SOP to remove valuables from the car before towing it. After that, it's possible (unlikely, perhaps, but possible) that the cop just forgot to take it from his car with the other possessions and drove home with it.

> investigators determined Bradley had violated State Police policies, and he was suspended for one day.

Comically limp self-punishment- this is why police unions need broad reform.

Police need reform. Police unions need to go entirely. Police unions exist primarily to prevent police from consequences of their abuses of power. The State doesn't need unions to protect itself from its citizens.

I have friends who are cops.....the amount of shenanigans that happens behind the curtains is insane. It is literally full of high school drama, divorces, sleeping around, just all around poor behavior.

Unfortunately, the same happens in other high stress industries. Nurses are wild too.

I don’t think “high stress” is the common denominator for that kind of behavior. That just sounds like horny, immature humans - happens in lots of places.

Exactly.

Is Florida State University also a high-stress environment?

or…birds of a feather?

It happens essentially everywhere. If you think it doesn't happen at your place of work, it's likely just because you haven't been included in the gossip circle.

Drama is stressful/exciting. People who have a high tolerance for stress/excitement are the ones who take on stressful jobs (nurses, police, flight attendants...) and the ones who are more tolerant of/likely to engage in drama.

I don't give a shit about what cops do on their time off, as long as it's legal. It's what they do in a uniform that matters.

This happens everywhere, your office just isn't sharing the gossip with you

A lot of this will happen without unions anyway. It seems like every country has a completely different cultural gestalt surrounding police work.

For some reason, modern police culture in american seems to increasingly value a corporatist perspective of us vs them (them being everyone who is not police), the normalization of violent response, fixation with the concept of face and widespread corruption.

Police Unions didn't create them, and abolishing them won't eliminate their lobbying power, you don't need a union to organize yourself around a lobby.

Let's not use this excuse to perpetuate the demonization of unions. After decades of increase concentration of productivity gains in the hands of capital at the expense of labor, and as we enter the AI age, this is the least thing we need.

i dont know that it's a modern phenomenon. For example law enforcement being used to attack strikers in West Virginia, cops from Los Angeles being sent to the CA border to attack Dust Bowl Okies, maybe other readers can think of others. For all the good that LE does, there has always been a strain of working for more extreme capitalist interests.

Cops (modern cops) grew out of capital trying to socialize the cost of protecting their interests. Whether it was slave patrols or dock warehouse security, central cops evolved to protect capital's interests.

I would think Police unions would probably gladly accept. higher pay for more accountability. It feels like accountability sheltering is a deal with the devil that cities made.

You've never negotiated with a union rep on anything, have you?

You pay every beat cop in the country $1 million/yr and they would never agree to the level of accountability most people expect. Independent review of actions by someone outside the chain of command? Unpaid leave when you're under investigation? At-will employment? Raises and promotions based on skill, not seniority? Random, immediate, and pass-fail physical, psychological, and marksmanship tests? Most of these seem completely reasonable to most people and if you said even one of them in a contract negotiation the first order of business by the union rep would be to remove you from contract negotiation.

>you said even one of them in a contract negotiation the first order of business by the union rep would be to remove you from contract negotiation.

You can do the same thing by saying "jury nullification" during the jury duty selection process. You can watch BOTH lawyers scramble to kick you out of the room.

Serious question: why would a defense attorney want to kick off the one crazy juror who brings up jury nullification during voir dire?

To be fair, this may be not because you know about it, but because you're the sort of person to bring it up unsolicited.

> You've never negotiated with a union rep on anything, have you?

To be fair, how many people can say they have?

Cops are already paid very, very highly and should be held accountable. Cops don't take accountability and do take the pay, so your thesis is pretty well tested and didn't work.

Would police unions vote to strike to support a trooper who stole a laptop?

If so, then I think you've got police problems, not police unions problems.

Back in 2019 the police in Fresno stole a bunch of rare coins during a search of a house where the warrant did not cover anything like said coins, valued at $125,000, by reporting that they seized $50,000 when they actually took twice that much in cash and the coins. The 9th Circuit ended up deciding that while it was obviously morally wrong, qualified immunity applied because there's clearly established case law that stealing property that was specifically targeted for a search does violate the Constitution, because there's no analogous case regarding property stolen by police that the police did not know was there and are not covered by the warrant, there's no clearly established violation of the 4th Amendment even though it is literally an unlawful seizure of property. Supreme Court denied cert, allowing the decision to stand. I wish I was joking.

https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/ca9/17...

Qualified immunity is a stain on American jurisprudence and an insult to the idea of America as a free society.

Demand of people who want your vote in the coming elections that they support a legislative correction to this judicial activism. This country was founded in large part because 250 years ago the British sent soldiers into American cities and American homes, with powers to detain, arrest and deprive of life and liberty with no accountability. If a colonial was wrongly treated they would force adjudication in favorable courts back in Britain, effectively making their soldiers immune from accountability.

The fact our judicial system has saw fit to independently replicate this injustice that none of us voted for is a crime against the very notion of what it means to be an American. Hold your leaders accountable.

Despite how the USA barely pretends to be egalitarian, there is 100% an importance totem pole, with billionaires and businesses on the top, then politicians, the police, the military, religious leaders all somewhere in the middle in some order, and then the rest of the population on the very bottom. Any fight between these cohorts will be decided based on where they are on the totem pole, not based on the law, the Constitution, or what's right.

Please, please tread on me.

It's an AND. The union is why administrations can't get rid of the problem employees.

In Seattle, the police are "quiet quitting" (traffic ticketing is down 8x over ~10 years ago) and literally committing fraud and getting away with it (an officer on his second time falsely applying over 24 hours of work in a day, just had to return the pay for that week. There's STILL not computerized time tracking...)

Unions strike primarily for collective bargaining purposes.

They use the bargaining to set contract terms that restrict how people can be fired.

A union member who gets in trouble can leverage union resources and representation to protect themselves.

One of my family members did a term as a union rep. He was getting really frustrated with some of the little claims that union members wanted to use the union to protect themselves from, but it was part of the job. Fortunately for him there wasn’t a serious incident like this to deal with during his term.

I'm in a union. My dad has been a union rep (different union), so I know a bit.

There is no way my colleagues would go out on strike to protect me if I stole anything. And that's absolutely right. Nor would I expect my union to go into bat for me, after anything like that was proven; nor for anything immoral.

Mad.

Unions are there to make sure you're treated fairly, not to shield members from consequences when they act immorally/illegally.

I agree with you on moral grounds, but I have some stories.

> Nor would I expect my union to go into bat for me, after anything like that was proven

Sure, but one of the jobs of the rep is to prevent it from being proven that you are guilty.

Also, there would be no need to strike, because the union has negotiated the bureaucratic processes that will be followed when you do something wrong. Following the usually slow process will let you look for ways to escape, including the company not properly filing paperwork within the allotted time.

Source: union steward's stories.

> … claims that union members wanted to use the union to protect themselves from ...

One could argue that as litigious as US society has become, it makes sense to find out what resources are available when you’re the target of a grievance.

Further, since we are also a society of specialists, one should consult a specialist when one is the target of aforementioned grievances.

It wasn't really that complicated. It was a lot of stories about someone getting caught doing something like time card fraud or even unarguable sexual harassment and then desperately trying to avoid consequences for their own actions.

Police Unions engaged in collective action beyond striking to support other police who shoved a senior citizen to the ground and gave him brain damage, so stealing is nothing.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buffalo_police_shoving_inciden...

That's seemingly contradicted, or at least cast in doubt by your own article:

>The Buffalo police union, the Buffalo Police Benevolent Association, was angered by the suspensions of the two officers, and it retaliated on June 5 by withdrawing its legal fees support for any other Buffalo officers for incidents related to the protests. [...] All 57 police officers from the Buffalo Police Department emergency response team resigned from the team, although they did not resign from the department.[45] According to the police union's president, the mass resignations were a show of solidarity with the two suspended officers.[46] However, his account has been contradicted by two of the resigned officers, who stated they resigned because of a lack of legal coverage. One of these officers said "many" of the 57 resigned officers did not resign to support the two suspended officers.[47]

Either the officers resigned in protest, or the union withdrew legal support in protest and the officers resigned as a result of that. Either way, the resignations were a result of union support for the criminals in their ranks.

That only seems to confirm what I wrote?

Why do you think the union withdrew legal support here, given that the union supported the officers?

No, but they go on strike when negotiating their collective contracts, and put terms in the contract that govern how failures like this are investigated and punished.

Apologies if I misread/misinterpreted you, but police can't (generally) strike in the USA. Most states have a specific laws against police and firefighters from going on strike. Federal law enforcement cannot strike

edit: a source (I assume lawyers.com is reputable..) https://legal-info.lawyers.com/labor-employment-law/wage-and...

It's not legal, that doesn't mean it doesn't happen.

See "Blue flu" for cases where cops coordinate a strike using sick leave. Another way they strike is by simply not doing their job. They'll just sit in their cars all day and won't respond or will severely delay response to dispatch.

AFAIK, those cops never get a ATF style house cleaning.

Who's gonna arrest them? Who would enforce a civil judgement against them?

Oh no, they still strike. It's just one of the other definitions: "to engage in battle. to make a military attack."

there's a pretty well known saying about all cops and it's never been proven wrong.

That's a funny thing because, as with all absolutes, it's trivially easy to prove it wrong. All you need is _one_ cop to not be a bastard to prove it wrong.

I've known several non-bastard cops.

If you work alongside bastards, like civil-rights-violating bastards not chew-with-your-mouth-open bastards, and aren’t actively working to get them removed from the force - i’ve got bad news about your bastard status.

Which is the point of the saying. It’s not that all cops are individually bastardly, it’s that all cops are part of a system that both protects bastards regularly, and does systemically bastardly things (like say heavily policing crimes of poverty while ignoring crimes of wealth).

I'd have to go through a decent chunk of the dictionary before I started referring to people who chew with their mouth open as "bastards."

> systemically bastardly things (like say heavily policing crimes of poverty while ignoring crimes of wealth)

I'm the last person I would expect to be defending police, but I think if you look at the rate of physical and property violence perpetrated by "crimes of poverty" vs. "crimes of wealth" that might have a lot more to do with it than the cop trying to decide if the victim has money or not before they do anything.

> than the cop trying to decide if the victim has money or not before they do anything.

Who said that? The cops don’t need to ”decide” to bust you based on how much money you have, the system already put them on patrol in the poorer neighborhood.

The police are too busy going after crimes of poverty to go after the crimes that impoverish people. “Crimes of wealth” do plenty of violence, it’s just laundered thru abstractions and layers of misdirection.

Poor neighbors are where the crime happens - at least the crime that some beat cop is qualified to see or investigate.

> “Crimes of wealth” do plenty of violence

Not for actual definitions of violence, no. I'm not saying they're not crimes, or they're not serious, but there's a reason "violent crime" is a category of its own. It's an important distinction. Words mean things, and trying to say murder or aggravated battery is just one kind of violence and embezzlement or stock fraud is a different kind is, at best, incredibly dishonest.

"property violence"? Isn't it well known that wage theft is much larger than shoplifting, for example.

It's deeper than this. If you try to justify why Marijuana is schedule 1, you can't. The only reasonable explanation is "the DEA hates black Americans and poor people and wants to punish them most". That's the reasonable explanation, not the conspiracy.

"The DEA" doesn't have opinions because it's not a person.

Marijuana was made schedule 1 close to 60 years ago, and it's very possible the people who made that decision had racist motivations. It's also possible they didn't and they just wanted to punish anyone who was using marijuana more than other drugs.

"People working at the DEA 60 years after this decision was made are very obviously racist and hate blacks and poor people" is much more of a stretch than "nobody really cares enough about this to change it and it wouldn't change very much anyway," isn't it? Unless, of course, you're not interested in actually understanding why things are the way they are and are more interested in perpetuating some victimhood fantasy.

The decision was undisputably made with racist intentions, and anybody not willing to acknowledge that is not a reliable narrator and isn't worth arguing with. It would be like me trying to argue with someone in a mental institution - it's just not worth it, neither of us will gain anything from it.

I also didn't say everybody at the DEA is racist. You said that, based off of I guess you profiling me as some radical. I'm not, I understand that the DEA is an organization.

But what some people don't acknowledge is there are two types of racism in America: individual racism, and systemic or institional racism. You don't have to say these n-word to be racist. Most of our institutions are structured and designed in such a way to be racist. The DEA is structurally racist, and so is ICE.

It's not some "victimhood fantasy", you're just uneducated on it. But it's real and the rabbit hole goes very deep, I recommend some research on these topics. And, for the record, I'm white, I'm just not blind.

Then you, like many others, misunderstand what the saying All Cops Are Bastards means. It's not an observation about the morality of each individual cop. It's shorthand for the fundamental corruption and injustice inherent to the institution of policing itself.

If Mother Theresa or Mister Rogers becomes a cop, ACAB isn't suddenly disproved, because it's not about specific individuals and their specific moral qualities. It's about systemic and fundamental problems with policing as a whole.

See how ACAB is a lot easier to say?

Perhaps they should not have chosen a name with an easily misunderstood claim such as "all".

They picked exactly the appropriate word.

Is your name Humpty Dumpty by any chance?

> trivially easy to prove it wrong

Only if the other person is arguing in good faith and believes you.

There's another relevant saying about apples you should check out.

Defuck the police!

I disagree with the other trendy slogans, but yours is one I can definitely get behind!

This is why ACAB

The Union has nothing to do with it, it is systemic corruption.

I don't want to blow your mind but the union is part of the system. A pretty central part, actually.

The one day suspension was 100% because of union protections.

We need to remove immunity for everyone. Cops, judges, politicians. Otherwise the most justice you get is taking money from taxpayers with a lawsuit, rather than from the corrupt people doing the crime.

And you'll end up with no reasonable person wanting to do those jobs becausr any day any bs complaint or lawsuit could cost you your livelihood, no thanks.

Hence insurance on the individual. Kick in the wrong door and insurance covers it. Do it twice and suddenly the actuary sees an expensive and risky pattern.

People don't like to admit that there are problems that the market is absolutely able to solve.

It is nuanced. Insurers can be problematic. Tort law has strange incentive structures in the way it's implemented in various places. But, broadly speaking, the price of insurance is an informative signal.

Colorado has no qualified immunity for cops. Are they short of cops?

Really! Are there any downsides?

It's symbolic since these cases broadly speaking need to be adjudicated in federal court for the most part and the federal law doesn't mention any immunities, it's a court-created doctrine. But neither the court nor congress thinks it's urgent enough of an issue, the last time a bill had support it ended up with around 70 cosponsors and it adds nothing but affirms that the law is applied as written and didn't get a vote, during the short period of tri-partisanship in 2020, because nbd it only accounts for 3-4 billion dollars of money that is taken from those who aren't able to be charged with any crime and redistributed to cops around the country in a sort of slush fund fashion, chump change if you consider how much debt we're running for... god knows what at this point. When you speak in trillions and can simply handwave that sort of deficit away, a few billion eventually sounds trivial, I'm guessing.

Doctors regularly have people's lives in their hands and if they make a significant mistake, they are liable. Not that the current state of medical malpractice law is exactly the gold standard, but that's an example of another approach to a similar situation. I do hear that some folks avoid the profession because of that, but I don't think that it's the case that "no reasonable person" wants to work in healthcare.

I don't think most reasonable people want police to be personally liable for every single thing they do, but neither do they want them to have broad and complete immunity from the law. The answer is somewhere in the middle, where police are protected in certain situations, but do still need to think about the consequences of their actions.

Medical services are a good deal cheaper in texas because they have doctor friendly malpractice laws. There are tradeoffs with everything.

> Medical services are a good deal cheaper in texas because they have doctor friendly malpractice laws

I didn't do more than 30 seconds of research here so I won't claim to be an expert, but according to the report in [1], Texas is the state with the fifth highest medical bills, "highest percentage of adults who have chosen not to see a doctor at some point in the past 12 months due to cost", and "the highest percentage of children—14.9%—whose families struggled to pay for their child’s medical bills in the past 12 months".

Some of that is no doubt Texas refusing to expand Medicaid under the ACA, but also "the study found that Texas exhibits the fourth-highest annual premium for both plus-one health insurance coverage ($4,626) and family health insurance coverage ($7,051.33) through an employer," so "a good deal cheaper" doesn't really seem an apt descriptor.

[1] https://www.star-telegram.com/news/state/texas/article291990...

That's already true of you and I (assuming you are not a policeperson).

Kind of like how an unjustified DUI arrest can mess up your life?

That's a false dichotomy. Those aren't the only two options.

Plainly, we don’t have to pretend like there could be unforeseen consequences. This is a thing that exists in many jurisdictions and many societies around the world and we can see that many reasonable people become police officers in those societies.

It's the same rules the rest of the population works under.

That's how it is for literally every other fucking job. The goddamn cashier at McDonalds could theoretically get fired if some bozo complains loudly enough, even if it's not true.

We're legitimately at the point where mcdondalds cashiers have higher standards for accountability and behavior than the police. Just sit back and really, really think about that. And, to top it off, there's droves of people like yourself who are so accustomed to such a broken system that they legitimately believe it couldn't be done any other way - even though there are minimum wage workers working under stricter rules!

Doesn’t say one way or the other, but probably suspended with pay. That’s typical. It’s like a free vacation day.

He violated the policy of turning off devices that can be tracked off before stealing them.

And this is why most cops should be tarred with the brush of corruption - it isn’t that they broke the law, but too many are willing to cover up, defend and sweep under the rug those that do.

Engaging in a cover-up is in fact a crime. Recently a Massachusetts trooper who engaged in railroading a fabricated suspect was exposed for sending extreme racist, sexist, antisemitic texts to fellow troopers. But the names of those troopers and their own behavior remains opaque to the public. That's crazy! Nobody should put up with that.

Even if it is a criminal offense, a prosecutor still has to bring charges. No prosecutor is ever bringing charges against a cop unless there is an absolute media frenzy that pushes it beyond the point it can be ignored.

Prosecutors need cops. Cops bring them cases. Cops testify in their cases. If they piss off the cops they can't do their job.

This is fixable. Many jurisdictions have a provision for outside prosecutors appointed by courts.

They do, special prosecutors, but the court has to appoint them. The bar is extremely high for getting a judge (80% ex-prosecutors) to appoint a private attorney or outside-jurisdiction prosecutor as a special prosecutor.

Again, sadly, almost never happens.

I have to agree it almost never happens. It needs to be normalized among the public and institutionalized in governments.

What really bothers me is how an independent investigator made a compelling case that identified a member of the DC metropolitan police as the suspect who placed a pipe bomb on Capitol grounds. Then after years of inactivity, the FBI suddenly broke the case and arrested a mentally unwell black kid.

The whole apparatus is shameful.

The "compelling case" was all based on gait analysis which is heavily debunked and while making the case they quoted from reports about gait analysis but left out all the parts about it being an extremely inexact process prone to false matches.

Ironically, gait analysis is considered iron clad scientific evidence when used against impoverished black guys like in the Taylor trial.

Just kind of displays the. corruption and duplicity of the US legal system.

There's a lot of junk "science" used in trials because there are plenty of "experts"[0] available to back it up for the prosecution and fewer funds to pay for the countervailing defense expert available to present the problems with it. Usually it takes a particularly bad case making it to a supreme or appeals court for that kind of evidence to be disallowed.

[0] The people paid to perform these analyses in the first place and then go testify convincingly for the prosecution about it but that's a whole separate rant.

>Recently a Massachusetts trooper who engaged in railroading a fabricated suspect was exposed for sending extreme racist, sexist, antisemitic texts to fellow troopers. But the names of those troopers and their own behavior remains opaque to the public. That's crazy! Nobody should put up with that.

What does sending "sending extreme racist, sexist, antisemitic texts to fellow troopers" have to do with cover-ups? Anyways my guess is that it's general policy for police/courts to not release evidence unless it's part of a trial, similar to how the Epstein files weren't released across 3 administrations and took an act of congress to get released.

>took an act of congress to get released.

I guess?

I mean you go ahead and call that a release.

If it brings you comfort.

The US government is just corrupt from tip to tail. Why everyone continuously acts surprised about these things is genuinely a mystery?

This is, to a large extent, a US problem, because of the qualified immunity. Yet another cultural abomination that nearly doesn't exist anywhere else in the "developed" world.

The impact of qualified immunity is greatly exaggerated. All it means is that an officer can't be sued for performing their duties. They can still be sued for acts outside their authority. And more importantly, qualified immunity has nothing to say about criminal prosecution.

The real problem isn't the legal doctrine of qualified immunity, but the informal doctrine of "police don't get prosecuted for crimes, and if they are, they don't get convicted."

You're half right but missing the point.

Police probably shouldn't be sued for performing their duties. But the issue is that with a few choice words (I feared for my safety/life) their "duties" cover a wide array of actions that a lot of citizens would argue it shouldn't.

Example: There are many cases of Cops stepping in front of a moving vehicle when confronting a suspect, which then is used as a reason to shoot and kill the suspect because "their life was in danger". But it's very easy to argue that the Cop put their own life in danger by stepping in front of the vehicle. IMO, that should not be covered by qualified immunity, and yet it usually is.

My point is that qualified immunity is not the problem. In your example, the cop should be prosecuted. Qualified immunity doesn't cover criminal prosecution, and a lack of prosecution has nothing to do with qualified immunity. Being able to sue that cop would be a nice bonus, but what you really need is for the cop to be criminally prosecuted for their crime.

Getting rid of qualified immunity wouldn't do jack squat to change that. The problem is an informal culture where police are not prosecuted (or if prosecuted, not convicted) for crimes.

Just like "Stand Your Ground" and "Castle Doctrine", people learned a new legal buzzword and think it applies to every story in the news.

In this very article the police department argued that taking a laptop and not entering it into evidence is protected by qualified immunity. People think that qualified immunity applies to every story in the news because the police argue that it does and the courts typically agree. I will be interested to see the outcome of this case - my expectation is that the court will rule that the police officer cannot be personally sued in this case, because of qualified immunity.

Theft is a criminal offense as well. The officer can be prosecuted for that.

Qualified immunity also applies to the officer who individually. The department can be sued still.

My point is simply that you suggested that qualified immunity doesn't apply to this case, and I agree that it should not in principle but my understanding of the case law is that it typically does.

People talk about qualified immunity like it means a police officer is above the law. That's not true at all. When qualified immunity is working correctly, all it does is shift the liability from the individual to a higher authority (the department/city/state/etc).

In this case, it doesn't apply because theft isn't part of an officer's regular duties. You can't sue an officer for taking your laptop and putting it in evidence. You can sue an officer for taking your laptop home.

> You can sue an officer for taking your laptop home.

Again, I agree with you that this should be true in principle, but I don't have faith that it will apply in this case, and this is contrary to the stated position of the police department.

And it only shifts civil liability. The officer is still (according to the law if not actual practice) criminally culpable for illegal acts they perform.

> When qualified immunity is working correctly…

When is this exactly? 52 years on this planet and am yet to witness this event… :)

They don't write news stories about dogs biting men.

Normal people are prosecuted for theft when they steal things like that. Qualified immunity doesn't cover that. This officer probably won't be prosecuted, but it's nothing to do with qualified immunity.

People forget the original saying was "one bad apple spoils the whole barrel."

While in graduate school, the graduate student government had results from a student survey about their advisors. When presented with the results, nearly every administrator would give some response of "Well, it's really just a few bad apples," and we had to remind them every time of the actual meaning of the phrase!

I've done some digging on the history of the phrase, and find that 1) it's been in use for at least 80 or so years (several non-produce hits in the 1940s), and 2) clearly missing the "spoils the whole barrel" element seems to begin in the 1950s, with conspicuous application to police misconduct.

I'm strongly inclined to include the abbreviated phrase in a list of thought-stopping cliches if only for that reason (though not the correct and complete version you provide).

Google's Ngram viewer shows usage beginning in the 1930s: <https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=fe>.

Application to police from The Nation in 1956:

<https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Nation/Ay8QAAAAIAAJ...>

That’s true, but people on HN have a habit of saying ‘most’ when they really just mean ‘many.’

But it’s not one bad apple. It’s one cop who stole someone’s laptop while arresting them and entire system that looked the other way and let the theft go unpunished.

And really it's just a few.

It's a "few" who actually commit the crime. It's the vast majority who refuse to prosecute them for committing the crime.

Coping by only hearing the first half of the expression. “Spoils the bunch” is just as important as the number of bad apples.

"State records show in 2024, Bradley nearly tripled his salary, earning nearly $250,000 in one year"

Holy cow.

This is the pension game. When the amount of your pension is determined by your last 3 years of compensation before retirement, you do everything you can to maximize overtime in those 3 years.

So people work as much as possible during that time and your peers are expected to make way for you to get as many hours as possible because it’s your turn.

One of many reasons why pensions are broken and going away. When the payout math was based on what people were typically paid but everyone plays games to double or triple it during the calculation window it breaks down.

Would be easy to fix by making it calculated over an entire career rather than the last 3 years, but when the people who make the rules also want their pension gamified you can’t get the rules changed.

So instead they’re just going away for everyone.

It would be trivial to exclude overtime from the last 3 years. People gaming them is not why pensions are going away.

Or to put limits on overtime.

Overtime is supposed to be a penalty to the employer for having unreasonable work hours. It shouldn't be something employees can willingly engage in to boost their take home pay. Especially when we are talking about cops and emergency services. I don't want to be working with a cop that has been on the clock for 80 hours.

It's a bit crazy that cities are paying so much extra for their police force because cops want a cushy retirement.

People don't realize how well paid cops are. In a lot of municipalities the highest paid officials will be dominated by police.

And the police budget as a whole is often the top line item.

No it isn't. Schools are, and by a long way. People are confused by this because most municipalities have multiple taxing bodies; schools and municipalities work from different budgets, and the police are the largest line item in a budget that basically captures only police, fire, and public works.

>>> In a lot of municipalities the highest paid officials will be dominated by police.

>> And the police budget as a whole is often the top line item.

> No it isn't. Schools are, and by a long way.

Where I live municipalities do not run schools, rather it is the province. My municipality breaks out fire and paramedic separately.

Smaller municipalities or regions (~counties) may 'contract out' to the provincial (~state) police for a local detachment, but would have a line item for such payment.

Right. The point is that people fixate on the percentage of the budget "police" take up, but that budget is specialized. When a county, multi-muni school district, or state provides the schools, you're still paying taxes for it, they just don't show up in the same spreadsheet.

You almost always want to be looking at the total tax breakdown for your area, which will almost always include multiple taxing bodies. Where we are, "village" (police, fire, public works, permits, customer service), "township" (human services like elder care and youth programs), "library", "parks", "K8 schools", and "high school" are all separate taxing bodies, along with "county", "state", and... "water reclamation".

But if you just add everything up, police is something like 14% of the budget, and schools are over 2/3rds.

and pensions...

My mother and step-father were both state cops. They put in about 30 years each, but could have retired after 20 years in. They make more in retirement than my wife and I do. It pays quite well, but it comes with significant risks.

> but it comes with significant risks

But fewer risks than people make it out to be. When people publish the lists of riskiest occupations based on health data, on the job injury data, etc police officers generally wind up around #20 +/-. Meanwhile there are occupations that are much lower paid ahead of them.

And they are that high just because statistically they are in traffic for such a large amount of time.

At least in my state the actually high risk portion of their job…dealing with traffic collisions on the highway…is being outsourced to non police “hero units”

Tells me we can change what police are and aren’t responsible for, and it is telling which ones they want to drop and which ones they don’t.

Incidentally, that's a big part of the argument behind "defund the police" (which is poorly named, at best). Instead of having police do everything, almost none of which they have any training in, and making any situation potentially lethal just by virtue of them having guns, there should be specialized units for their various responsibilities.

Where I live this has also created a secondary debate. Due to union laws, when these jobs are handed off to non-police, the municipality must still pay the prevailing wage, aka what the cops were getting paid.

Here it's required to have a police detail at every road based construction site. They get paid overtime to sit there playing candy crush in case maybe something happens requiring them to direct traffic. So it seems like a win-win to replace them with citizen flaggers as it'd remove the cops from that role but also drastically lower cost to the city. But no, it'd mean taking what should be a minimum wage job and paying someone $50-100+/hr to do it.

And then the secondary debate is that some people see this as a bad thing and others see it as a good thing.

Another decent chunk is medical events. If an officer has a heart attack and dies while on the clock, that's "killed in the line of duty."

https://www.bls.gov/iif/additional-publications/archive/dang...

Looking there all that are riskier on deaths either have much lower education requirements, or also pay well.

What job has a lower education requirement than cop??

Which on the list that is riskier has a lower education requirement and isn't also well paid?

There are lots of ways to quantify or record "risk"?

Risk of death?

Risk of injury? How much injury? I've had paper cuts recorded as workplace injuries, I've also had to get stitches after bleeding profusely, are both equally recorded as risk incidents?

What about the risk of getting shot? Just the risk, will I get shot today, has a physiological impact, is that risk recorded?

What about the risk of moral injury? The potential that you're hurt in your soul, because you failed, and someone got injured or hurt?

What about the risk of infectious disease or transmission from needles, blades or bodily fluids?

Police may be a safer job than forestry from a death risk, but there are many risks for police.

I am not sure why some people seem to hate the police so much that downplaying the risks police face. I used to sell drugs and the police were my adversary, but I don't hate them as much as people who have never been arrested. It's very strange. Who do the cop haters call when thieves are breaking into their home with guns?

> Who do the cop haters call when thieves are breaking into their home with guns?

For one thing it doesn't happen that much in the first place. In 2024 the rate was 229.4 per 100k in the USA [1] And yet this always gets cited as some reason to keep the police around. These sorts of threats that people cite are exceedingly rare, and yet used to fuel a vision of the world that's one of requiring constantly vigilance and paranoia.

[1] https://www.consumeraffairs.com/homeowners/home-invasion-sta...

2 per thousand!? That seems pretty high.

Anecdotal:

Also, my mom's house was burglarized, unknown if they had guns. After that, she got a home alarm.

My mom moved do a different part of the city, and her home was broken into at night while she was asleep. The home invaders continued as the home alarm was going off, and only stopped when a group of male neighbors started shouting at them. Presumably the criminals had weapons to conduct their home invasion.

In Toronto if you call the police because of armed home invasion, you’re connected to an AI that decides whether to escalate to a human operator. But if you do get connected they’re not going to show up anytime soon.

The advice given by Toronto police is to leave your car keys out by your front door so that armed home invaders can get what they came for with ease. The police don’t show up to protect you and your property. They also don’t want to risk their own safety around armed invaders.

yeah who else can we call to show up 7 hours later to shrug their shoulders.

> It pays quite well, but it comes with significant risks.

Per this 2020 article, police offer is at #22 for fatal injury rate in the US:

* https://www.ishn.com/articles/112748-top-25-most-dangerous-j...

That’s really high. There are like tens of thousands of job types

It is really high, but it's high because cops interact with traffic a lot, not because of criminals or guns or whatever. Real life isn't CSI Miami, cops are mostly sitting in cars. You'll notice crossing guard is much higher up the list, for the same reason.

Pizza delivery drivers face about twice as much risk of on the job injuries via violence when compared to cops. Also twice as much risk of fatal injuries. This mythos the US has with cops does not match reality.

Police aren't in the top 10 of most dangerous professions in the USA[1], and when they are injured, it's overwhelmingly the result of traffic accidents.

[1]: https://www.bls.gov/news.release/cfoi.t03.htm

I've heard this statistic too but do you have a better source? The one you provided only has total injuries, not per 1000 or per capita.

Here's a chart of the top 10 professions per 100,000 FTE (basically, per capita): https://www.bls.gov/charts/census-of-fatal-occupational-inju...

Thanks!

What are the risks? Even among public employees I'd imagine firefighters are in dangerous situations more often. The data doesn't show that policing is an especially high-risk profession. EDIT: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48095469

Most of firefighting is actually getting called because someone had a heart attack. Actually fighting fires is a tiny proportion of their job.

The irony is that the municipalities that pay the most are typically the lowest risk. The most dangerous thing they will do is pull someone over on the side of the highway. Sure, not exactly safe, but also not exactly gunning it out with the bad guys.

Bullshit, being a cop doesn’t even rank in the top 10 most dangerous jobs.

His pension is based on that figure and he _may_ get to retire after ~27 years.

From https://isp.illinois.gov/JoinIsp/BecomeATrooper:

Officers may retire from the ISP with pension benefits under the following plans: Tier 1 This information applies to individuals who became a member of SERS or a reciprocal system on or before December 31, 2010. The alternative formula applies to members in certain positions with 20 years of alternative service. Members eligible for the alternative formula may retire at age 50 with 25 years of service, or at age 55 with 20 years of service.

Tier 2 This information applies to individuals who became a member of SERS or a reciprocal system after December 31, 2010. The alternative formula applies to members in certain positions with 20 years of alternative service. Members eligible for the alternative formula may retire at age 55 with 20 years of service.

A maximum retirement benefit of 80% of ending salary is earned after 26 years and 8 months of creditable service.

It is not just troopers, it's a lot of IL state employees. Pay being ballooned in the final few years of service is just one of the many reasons the Illinois pension system is in crisis.

My grandpa retired as an IL police officer in his 50s and lived for 30+ more years making 6 figures from his pension and getting 3% or 5% (I forgot) adjustments every year. He probably had the most chill retirement of anybody I've ever known (outside of getting cancer twice). He was making six figures a year living on a lake near Dixon, you do not need six figures in Dixon lol

The saddest part is that I didn’t even blanche at that. At least here in New England, that kind of OT seems to be baked into the system, at least for senior officers. Just pulling regular construction duty can make a massive difference in income.

> Just pulling regular construction duty can make a massive difference in income.

Yep! Stand around for 4-5 hours on a Saturday morning (often hungover; I personally know cops) and pad that overtime and pension.

It's baked into the system on purpose. If city council doesn't want to raise police salaries too much, the union advocates for bylaws like ones requiring police officers doing traffic duty on large construction sites. Of course it's on the developer to pay for their hours, so the union gets their raise and the council gets to keep their budget in check. Everyone is happy.

Police budgets are completely out of control. Defenders will often quote base salaries and it's almost always intellectually dishonest. Overtime can 2-3x that base salary. It gets worse too because, depending on the police department, your pension is based on how much you earned your last year so people in their last year get to take all the OT.

And beyond that they're so awash with money that they're turning into paramilitary forces.

And on top of that we have a regime of legalized theft aka civil asset forfeiture. Often the police departments get to keep some or all of what they seize. They'll often get a cut of ticket revenue too such that cops will have quotas of tickets to write.

Combine the two and you end up with so-called "forfeiture corridors". You might find that drugs go one way but the cash goes the other and they'll only police the cash direction with excessive stops and tickets to seize as much acashn as they can get and then the burden is on you to prove the cash is not the proceeds of crime.

You say departments get to keep civil forfeiture proceeds, but the truth is individual officers often take that home. There are many cases of US police using civil forfeitures to buy themselves luxury items such as premium trucks for personal use, Super Bowl memorabilia, premium dog food for their pets at home (some actual examples). The money doesn’t just go back to police service funding.

Police and fire fighters have tons of opportunities for overtime. they get paid absurd amounts of money to do it. It’s another thing that badly needs reform.

Becoming that in the USA only requires 1 year of training AFAIK and a massive ego. Seems like one of the best options for someone who can't afford the "universities".

This was incredibly dangerous of the victim. In another version of events, the officer could have shot him and plausibly (unfortunately) claimed the victim had a vendetta against the cop for arresting him.

At first I thought, "Wow, he's much braver than I am."

But "audacious" and "bold" are probably better words to describe it. Maybe I'm overly cautious, but it's inherently risky to confront someone who has taken your property since they have already shown a willingness to break the law. It's a coin toss whether they will perceive the confrontation as a threat and react violently.

All that without even considering that he was dealing with a police officer who, de facto, will be given the benefit of the doubt in a confrontation and may behave accordingly. Not all cops are bad, I think most are good actually, but you have no way of knowing which one you will get in a situation like this. I'm very glad that this ended well (as well as it could have) for him.

The way this is supposed to work is that the victim says "I got screwed into a baseless DUI and I'm only out a predatory tow bill and my $2k Mackbook. That's $3k less than the lawyer's starting price. Golly gee it's my lucky day"

He's not brave. He's dense enough to still believe in the system. See also: Knocking on the door of a cop who you've got beef with.

I do not think the victim knew in advance that he would re-encounter the cop when he went to the location that the tracker was reporting.

Great, so they steal your stuff and you can't even confront them about it

Yeah it’s a sad state. But it’s also not worth putting oneself in harm’s way. Report it to the state authorities (not all of them are crooked). Or try another jurisdiction, like the local police.

The victim didn’t know whose house it was until the cop answered the door

Think of all the things stolen from people who can't afford this technology. The US system really is two-tiered.

It has long been official policy. And not one “freedom” loving legislator will speak out against it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_forfeiture_in_the_United...

See this post elsewhere in the thread too:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48095493

I used to spend a lot of time in forfeiture court in a past life, it's pretty wild. Most cases don't even make it to court. At least in Illinois they mail a notice to the person that says they have 14 days to file themselves in court if they want to challenge the forfeiture, and it specifically states on the form that the government will not help you in any way to file the required forms or supply them to you.

One should have right to demand a blood test.To many people can't pass field with out having a drink or smoke.To many have disabilities,old,whatever.

That's because field sobriety tests aren't designed to find out if people are actually impaired, they are designed to give cops a reason to arrest people purely on their own discretion even when they otherwise lack any evidence of wrongdoing. And in doing so it boosts both the local cops and court's funding through mandatory court fines and fees and programs when they hammer down on people too poor to afford a lawyer.

Same with polygraph tests. It's not admissible in court. It's an interrogation tactic designed to give some perceived authority to the police's claims that a suspect is lying and give the suspect a reason to talk more.

Should be illegal.

source?

I don’t think this it’s worth being reported for asking for a source on this kind of claim. I would argue of a middle ground though. I think field tests origins came from a good intent of trying to distinguish intoxicated drivers but has morphed over the years and used to give reason to search your belongings. I think the original post is wrong, the intent is not to arrest people but they are commonly used as a means to get cause to search your vehicle.

And I don’t have a source, so it’s anecdotal but one of those things where you read enough of these cases and even see how cops are trained that the intent for most stops unrelated to genuine traffic violations is to get cause to search the vehicle.

I think back to some of those corridors within the United States where law enforcement abuse cash forfeiture laws to take peoples money.

I recall that a lawyer who talked about how they were developed and explained how they work, came to that conclusion. The tests are completely subjective, and the way they are graded means that unless you are an Olympic-level athlete, you will fail it. Can you balance on one foot without swaying or puting the other foot down (even when you first start and find your balance), with your eyes closed, for one minute?

Might I suggest that you research it and post what you find.

Their obvious ineffectiveness for the stated purpose, combined with the effectiveness for the unstated, hidden purpose.

I don't know, like, common sense and your eyes?

Think of a field sobriety test. Now think of if that actually tests for sobriety. There, there's your source.

So whats the solution? 37 people die every day in a crash involving an alcohol impaired driver. Do we think if we inhibit the police's ability to arrest drunk drivers, the world will be a better place? People are clearly not going to stop drinking and driving.

I am neither left nor right, but I feel like I need to say this much more in spaces that heavily lean left -- I wish we would focus on the actual crimes the police are there to stop as much as we do the police reform.

Two things can be true: - police should enforce the law to reduce or address crime or infractions - police should have a standard of enforcement that corresponds with the way the court system should operate, which is that the state carries the burden of proving the crime

The right to demand a blood test or other mechanism of having the state own the burden of proof might be inconvenient but it's integral to a fairly operating system, just like the right to demand a lawyer or representation.

Violent crime like being robbed of your laptop at gunpoint is precisely one of those crimes "police are there to stop". And yet here we have someone who is being entrusted and paid by the public to stop that crime, actually creating more of that crime instead, and then using their privileged position to avoid accountability!

To support the societal belief in law and order, it is much more important to punish the meta issues where the government is itself causing harm. It's not that there should magically be no crime committed by police officers. But rather every single crime should be investigated and prosecuted to the utmost extent.

> inhibit the police's ability to arrest drunk drivers

They have breathalyzers and blood tests. Field sobriety tests are not there to help police arrest drunk drivers, they're there to help police arrest whomever they want to.

> I wish we would focus on the actual crimes the police are there to stop as much as we do the police reform.

The U.S. is one of the most punishment-happy countries in the world. Nearly every politician vows to be "tough on crime". This is an incredible thing to say given the past 50 years of policing and justice in the U.S. Won't somebody please think of the children!?

> I am neither left nor right

The "center" is constantly moving and has been, on average, shifting far to the right over the last 20 years. Anyone who claims to be a centrist is therefore either changing their politics with the wind, or was far right all along.

> They have breathalyzers and blood tests. Field sobriety tests are not there to help police arrest drunk drivers, they're there to help police arrest whomever they want to.

You're wrong about that. "Sobriety" isn't limited to alcohol. You'll notice that most laws against drunk driving are actually against being "intoxicated" or "impaired". Breathalyzers and blood tests are for gathering indisputable evidence.

Field sobriety tests are there to determine if you're motor skills are impaired. If an officer observers a person driving erratically and they can't walk a straight line or touch their own nose, they shouldn't be driving. You can be arrested for DUI [of sleeping pills].

The only time police would specify a DUI was for alcohol is if a breathalyzer or blood test showed that. Even if the officer says there was a beer can on the floor and they smelled like alcohol, they could be under the legal limit and be on any number of other substances so the DUI wouldn't specify alcohol.

> If an officer observers a person driving erratically and they can't walk a straight line or touch their own nose, they shouldn't be driving.

There are plenty of reasons that someone might not be able to demonstrate this to the subjective opinion of an officer and be completely unimpaired and competent at driving. e.g. people with atypical minds or bodies

Police generally ask people to do these tests when they have already made up their mind about someone being impaired. The only point of the test, practically, is generate standardized documentation. It is a dog and pony show.

Other countries that have serious anti-driving-impairment programs don't use these types of subjective tests -- they test people for using the substances directly.

They'll have an opportunity to prove that in court. I know that's not a great solution (because of the penalties involved in simply being accused of a crime, but that's a different issue) but, remember, they were pulled over for driving erratically and the, through conversation, the officer would gain further reason to ask them to do the test. The problem is the driving, everything after that is evidence gathering.

These days, so much of that will be recorded on video, from the dash cam to the body cam, it's usually cut and dry that the person accused is under the influence of something.

> people with atypical minds or bodies

This is a reasonable concern so I don't want to dismiss it but this isn't even close to the typical situation and, to emphasize, the reason for the stop is usually bad driving and the officer is looking for an explanation. Before a sobriety test is administered, there is already a cause for being pulled over. So people who can't pass a sobriety test because they have a physical or mental reason they can't only have that one piece of evidence against them removed.

I'm sure you can construct a hypothetical case where a person with a speech impairment, an inner ear deformaty and who's eyes shake when moving left and right gets arrested for DUI because they appear impaired but they weren't pulled over for those reasons.

The problem is that low-quality evidence causes both type 1 and type 2 errors.

Not only does it cause significant problems for people who are unjustly jailed and charged for crimes they didn't commit -- but it also lets drunk drivers off the hook when the flimsy evidence fails to convict. These aren't hypotheticals, both are very common.

Police in the US simply need to be equipped with roadside chemical tests for substances. They exist, they just simply don't use them.

Here's is an example of what other countries do:

https://adf.org.au/insights/roadside-drug-testing/

> The officer takes a sample of your saliva by placing an absorbent collector in the mouth or on the tongue. The sample is then analysed at the roadside. If the test is positive, it must be confirmed by laboratory testing before charges can be laid.

Doesn't that sound like a better solution than: "The officer makes you stand on one leg and say the alphabet backwards, if they don't like they way you did it, you are charged with DUI"?

> I'm sure you can construct a hypothetical case where a person with a speech impairment, an inner ear deformaty and who's eyes shake when moving left and right gets arrested for DUI because they appear impaired but they weren't pulled over for those reasons.

The more common, and even more scary issue, is that sometimes people undergoing medical emergencies are arrested for DUI and sent to jail instead of a hospital. Which is again another situation that would be avoided entirely by roadside testing. This is such a common issue for diabetics that police normally do train to recognize the difference, but since they are not medical professionals and don't have adequate equipment, they still often confuse the two.

Watch this dashcam video: https://www.wsmv.com/2025/10/02/retired-deputy-arrested-dui-...

> Police in the US simply need to be equipped with roadside chemical tests for substances. They exist, they just simply don't use them.

I feel like you're not getting my point.

> Doesn't that sound like a better solution than: "The officer makes you stand on one leg and say the alphabet backwards, if they don't like they way you did it, you are charged with DUI"?

No, it doesn't. DUI isn't a law that lists a bunch of chemicals that are illegal to drive while using. The purpose of the tests is to prove you shouldn't be driving, not what drugs you're on.

You could be over-tired and get a DUI and I think that's justified.

Are you sure about that? Maybe your locale is different, but the DUI/OVI statute in the part of the US where I live is for influence of "alcohol or drugs" specifically. And it absolutely does have a list of what qualifies... and that list basically includes all drugs and alcohol.

Part of the criminal element of DUI is someone's choice to alter their body intentionally. I don't think many would think it would justly apply to natural processes like sleepiness or medical emergencies. That's not to say there shouldn't be penalties for failure to operate a vehicle safely, but those situations are clearly very different than DUI.

What I said there was confusing. I was saying that _I_ was fine with an over-tired person being charged with a DUI as I feel it's just as dangerous and just as elective. It is not the law here. That was unclear, sorry.

The relevant section of the law here is:

(f) It is unlawful for a person who is under the influence of any drug to drive a vehicle.

> And it absolutely does have a list of what qualifies... and that list basically includes all drugs and alcohol.

Does it state that the list is the exhaustive list? I have a hard time believing that someone could be pulled over, obviously inebriated but get off because they were actually on some new synthetic marijuana that wasn't on that list.

I disagree with that, because the penalties for DUI aren't merely because it is dangerous, but primarily because of the negligent intent related to the act.

And most laws in the US work this way (e.g. they are not strict liability). We often treat people differently based on why a thing happened because doing a bad thing for a bad reason is worse than doing the same thing for any other reason. For example, the penalty for killing a person might range from "absolutely nothing" to "life in prison or death" depending on why it happened.

> Does it state that the list is the exhaustive list? I have a hard time believing that someone could be pulled over, obviously inebriated but get off because they were actually on some new synthetic marijuana that wasn't on that list.

They thought of this -- the list itself includes any "chemical" that is "mind altering", as well as specific drugs.

What it doesn't include is any reason that isn't drugs or alcohol related.

> remember, they were pulled over for driving erratically

Maybe. Or they were pulled over for being black, or having tattoos, or being really hot, or because they criticized police brutality on social media, or because the officer needs to hit their arrest quota by the end of the month, or because they're driving an expensive car and the officer thinks they'll have lots of cash they can legally rob via civil asset forfeiture. We have far, far too many examples of all of these happening to say with any certainty that the police officer actually suspects anyone of an actual crime.

By the way, I have called in drivers who were badly impaired before. One kept driving up onto the curb, on the sidewalk and grass (next to a school!), then swerving back nearly into the oncoming lane, then stopping in the middle of the road, etc. Another kept swerving toward the concrete barriers on the highway, and when I passed them, they looked visibly asleep. Both times, the cops didn't care. They didn't send anyone. They sounded annoyed that I was bothering about that crap. The police do not care whether people are driving drunk or not, just like they do not care whether an active shooter is gunning down kids in an elementary school. They don't care if a violent dad with a restraining order has kidnapped his kids and is about to murder them, even when the mom tells them exactly where he has taken them. Their interests are orthogonal to the just enforcement of the law.

> but they weren't pulled over for those reasons.

Yeah, good point, they were probably pulled over for being black.

> I wish we would focus on the actual crimes the police are there to stop as much as we do the police reform.

Having criminal police is possibly worse than having no police. "First, do no harm" right?

I have tremendous respect for the work that good police do. I support laws that have higher penalties for crimes against police and other public workers. But respect is a two-way street. I also support higher penalties for crimes committed by police and other public workers.

What other countries do? A chemical test on the field and a more accurate one when they get to the police station.

No other country relies on road travel to the extent of America, so I am not sure there is a good comparison to make.

We have a bigger road network. We have a larger road travel infrastructure. So, we should have enough chemical test units to cover our infrastructure.

That's a reason the US needs better enforcement tools, not worse ones.

If we can pay for the roads and the patrols, we can pay to equip the patrols. Bigger needn’t equal worse.

The police aren't stopping the crime, therefore the police need to be reformed.

And note that “involving” is very much not the same thing as “caused by”. Yes, “caused by” will be a big chunk of it, but there's a reason the latter term is not used.

"People are clearly not going to stop drinking and driving" is such a strange statement to make in defense of DUI stops. Doesn't that imply that DUI stops don't help matters?

At any rate, the solution is to fire all of the corrupt cops and strictly enforce ethical and legal rules. Everything considered to be evidence needs to have an actual scientific basis for it. No more arresting people for being drunk because an officer with three months of training is considered to be an expert judge in impairment. Officers caught lying about the basis for an arrest should be imprisoned. Enforce the law, but do it in both directions.

One should never take a field sobriety test.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yGHFpc6uiWA

In the UK it's done by breathalyser and refusing is itself an offence.

A field sobriety test is distinct from a chemical analysis (breathalyzer or otherwise).

In California, you are required to submit to chemical testing (breath, urine, or blood — I don’t recall the rules for which applies in which situations). However, you are not required to otherwise talk to or perform the absurd procedure of the field sobriety test (“you have the right to remain silent”).

I was under the mistaken impression you could refuse and then would get a blood test, seems that was wrong/out-dated (also wrong!). The backup test at the station is also usually a breath test apparently. And it seems we have field sobriety tests but it looks like they're for drug-driving.

For example, https://www.gov.uk/stopped-by-police-while-driving-your-righ....

I took OpenAI's references as correct without checking legislation as I'm on my phone.

It's also an offense in most (all?) of the US. Even then, if someone is pulled over for DUI, at that point the officers are just collecting evidence. If someone has had anything to drink, it's in their best interest to say they want a lawyer and refuse all tests. Then there will be less evidence to argue against in court.

I would love to be corrected, but I was under the impression if you refused any testing, your driving license will be revoked. Drivers license is a privilege, not a right.

Depends on the state. Illinois refusal of everything is typically a 3 month suspension. But if you are guilty that is better than submitting to evidence that gets it suspended for 6 months+. If you are innocent, it is in your interest to pass the test.

Sure, but it's typically less than a DUI conviction and doesn't show up on your record as a DUI and you can avoid insurance increases.

If the police decide to have you exit the car and do the field tests, the odds are high they have already decided to arrest you. At that point, it's best to refuse all unless you have had absolutely zero drugs/alcohol. And then the question has to be why did they have you get out the car.

I don't understand how simple DWI testing is like that in your country. 3 seconds of a certified calibrated breathalyzer is sufficient, this walking in a straight line and saying the alphabet backwards sounds like a joke.

As others have said the intent is not to document sobriety but to have a subjective reason for an arrest which looks good in the scorecard.

Look for “if cops say I smell Alcohol, say these words” on YouTube, gives you tips on how to respond if asked about alcohol use or doing a sobriety test.

I am curious about these 'smell' comments, or at least how you're supposed to react to it. The last time I got pulled over, the cop commented multiple times that something smelled like marijuana, and he asked if I had been smoking or had friends that smoked.

I said I hadn't and didn't know anybody who did. It's true that I don't and had not been around any and there's no way my car smelled like drugs. I think I was on the verge of heat stroke and basically didn't respond with any level of stress to anything he said. I was being pulled over for driving without a seatbelt, which I almost never do, but it was 95 degrees and my AC was broken and I couldn't bring myself to put my back against the chair (plus I was in the middle of nowhere).

Another cop also showed up reasonlessly to hang around behind the other one with his lights on after awhile (I'd pulled into a gas station), which I think was also supposed to freak me out. I ended up excusing myself to go stand in the gas station to cool down and when I came back they were gone

How to react to it is exactly what that video covers. Basically - don’t try to explain/justify it. It could be anything - maybe you drove through a cloud of pot smoke? Who knows. The advice from the video is to say you exercise your right not to discuss what you ate or smoked and ask if you’re detained or free to go.

I rather use a lawyer for legal advice than YouTube. There is a lot of sovereign citizen "you don't need a license to drive" "legal advice" on YouTube too.

Oh for sure. Have you asked your lawyer what to say if they pull you over and falsely claim to smell alcohol / drugs or want you to take a bogus sobriety test? If so, care to share? With the full understanding YANAL.

I don't have the card in front of me, but my lawyer has something like this on the back of her business card: Dear officer, I will not be answering any questions today. If I am under arrest I wish to consult with my attorney. If I am not under arrest I wish to leave as soon as possible. I have already provided my license, registration and insurance.

Of note, in my state implied consent applies after the arrest. I believe this limits the information the officer gets for free before making the judgement for your arrest. It's easier in her book to defend a case where they have to show probable cause for the arrest without that free information. I have never driven under the influence, I used her for a "I don't know how fast you were going but it was fast so here's a reckless driving ticket" before and this was the card she gave me. I wonder if this approach lets her use fruit of the poisoned tree approach to dismiss cases where the cause for the arrest was flimsy gets any evidence afterwards inadmissible. Again, I only watched her work one case. The judged called the case, she asked to confer with the prosecutor, then the prosecutor dropped all charges. Took five minutes.

Note, I am not a lawyer and I am recollecting information from 20 years ago. Things may have changed. Consult your lawyer, not YouTube.

I couldn't edit my other reply, but here's the text from the actual card:

> To Washington State Law Enforcement Agents Who Have Stopped, Detained, or Arrested Me.

> I want an attorney and help contacting one. I will not answer questions or speak to you except for identification purposes. I do not consent to detention or search of my person, belongings, automobile, or any other item or place. Since they are voluntary, I will not perform field sobriety tests or take the portable breath test (PBT). I will consent to take a breath or blood test at the station, unless my attorney advises me not to. I understand that if I refuse, DOL will suspend my license for at least 1 year.

More or less what I recalled, but written in a way that's both for the officer and yourself.

There are other forms of intoxication beyond alcohol. A device that measures your blood alcohol percentage does nothing for the driver who is half asleep from valium. A field sobriety test is more of an indicator of whether you are capable of operating a vehicle safely than of having a high alcohol intake recently. If you can't perform simple tasks, you probably shouldn't be operating a vehicle regardless of the cause.

The portable breathalyzer is inadmissable in court in my and most states. The Simon Says game is though (but it can be refused without penalty, hypothetically).

The portable one is used as an indicator.

A positive result will get you arrested and taken to the station, where they have the (non-portable) court admissible calibrated kit.

Why would a certified calibrated breathalizer test be inadmissible in court? How is it any different from catching speeders with a laser gun, or doing a DNA test?

And if giving every cop a calibrated breathalizer is too expensive: give them a reasonably-accurate one for in the field, then take everyone who fails it to the station for a retest on an expensive calibrated one.

That’s what they do. The field one is inadmissible, but justifies arresting and transporting to the admissible one at the station

This is changing. Most states have “permanent” properly calibrated breathalyzer at every dui checkpoint now. And in an increasing number of regular vehicles

The I stands for impaired. There a zillion other things that can impair your driving.

You can. Refusing the field test allows them to arrest you. But it isn't sufficient to charge you. They also have to offer you a breathalyzer at the station and you can refuse that but demand a blood test.

But your car still gets towed even if you pass the tests at the station and don't ultimately get charged because you refused the field test.

In Michigan, refusing the roadside breathalyzer is $150 automatic fine. Refusing the chemical test once at the station is an automatic 1 year suspended license and 6 points, even if you are subsequently let go without charge.

What if you don't refuse, but just barely blow into the device or otherwise have a medical condition such as asthma that prevents the machine from getting a good sample?

Not sure what the law is exactly, but I'm pretty sure that doesn't end up working out in your favor.

He refused a blood test as was his right, and probably the correct decision given that this "top cop" (ie, the one they say had by far the most DUI arrests) was a criminal and shown to break the evidence chain of custody.

> He refused a blood test as was his right

Per the article, he refused the old walk-along-a-straight-line-without-swaying, not a blood test (nor even a breathalyser).

Blood tests are not administered in the field, they would be administered at a nearby medical facility, later in this process.

Correct, the request for the blood draw and test was done under coercion at a lab in a hospital, https://youtu.be/DWCEssxYVC0?t=434

He refused the blood draw as was his right.

> State records show in 2024, Bradley nearly tripled his salary, earning nearly $250,000 in one year.

> That's more than the salary of the Illinois State Police director.

From the article it says the officer has to appear in court for each DUI arrest...which leads to overtime pay. The officer made 319 DUI arrests of which 174 cases were dismissed. The more arrests, the more overtime pay so there's an incentive to arrest people even if they are not drunk. This is how he's making $250K.

Why is someone making that much money stealing a MacBook?

Probably started stealing shit before he was making $250k/year, and then just continued to do so because it works.

The less you have to buy, the more money you have. Or the more stolen goods you sell, the more money you have. Or the more stolen goods you can give to others, the more goodwill you can get with them and possibly favors which can save you money elsewhere.

That’s how they have that much money.

It’s like saying why does the drug cartel leader keep selling drugs, he’s swimming in cash (literally).

That's the fun thing about greed, it is rarely satisfied :/

Are you implying there's a link between having money and being immune to corruption? In the US, just look at the federal government or titans of industry, like Elon Musk.

Psychopathology.

Here's a radical idea... you could... read the article :-O

I did. Where in the article does it answer my question?

Edit: my bad, see my other comment

The final paragraph:

"Court overtime

For every DUI arrest made, state police troopers must appear in court, and in evidence motions filed with the court, attorneys have said this has led to a staggering amount of overtime pay for Trooper Bradley.

State records show in 2024, Bradley nearly tripled his salary, earning nearly $250,000 in one year."

Ahhh I apologise - I misparsed your comment. I read it as:

> Why is someone making that much money [from] stealing a MacBook

instead of

> Why is someone [who is] making that much money stealing a MacBook

Sorry about that.

Exhibit A for why we need to rewrite sovereign immunity laws and get them out of union contracts, at the same time professionalizing how DUI is enforced. If we made the punishments like they have in Europe, the incidence would go way down.

If he was the 'Top Cop' how bad are the others?

It would seem that he was the top cop because he was this bad.

The only measurement for that status is number of DUI arrests (not convictions, which for him was less than half).

This is exactly the type of stuff Afroman was working to bring into public view!

LEOs should be required to carry malpractice insurance.

US police steal more than robbers do in total dollar value per year

For anyone who doesn't believe this, it is true when it comes to reported Civil Asset Forfeitures compared to reported thefts.

If you've never heard of Civil Asset Forfeiture, it will probably make your blood boil if you look it up and learn about its abuse.

Beyond the abuse of power and all, the dumb act of stealing an easily traceable item should be enough to get that officer removed.

It’s an interesting aside in the story but if you’re under investigation for a DUI you can just refuse the field sobriety tests and it appears they don’t follow up so you’ll be declared innocent even if you were arrested for felony DUI.

Assuming the best case version of this guy’s story he arrested this guy for the DUI and then forgot to check in his wallet, key, and laptop or whatever. Fine, not unbelievable. But it doesn’t look like he followed up about the DUI thing.

> It’s an interesting aside in the story but if you’re under investigation for a DUI you can just refuse the field sobriety tests and it appears they don’t follow up so you’ll be declared innocent even if you were arrested for felony DUI.

I assume it varies but for most places if you refuse roadside field sobriety tests and they feel you have given indicators of impairment they will take you into custody. Then they'll take you to the station and give you the option of taking a breathalyzer and if you refuse again your license is automatically suspended for a year.

In my state they can get a judge to issue a blood draw warrant. I learned this because I was on the jury of a DUI case and the arresting officer said he didn't want to bother a judge so opted not to get a warrant after the driver refused the tests and breathalyzer. The prosecutor only presented "this cop is good!, he has 100s of DUI stops, trust him!". We acquitted due to lack of evidence.

The whole subtext here is that the cop's self-serving misconduct comes at the expense of the system.

The cop got a free laptop so of course the ball got dropped. The point is he they didn't want it dragged through court where that could be easily uncovered so he just dropped the ball. $5k+ lawyer fees minimum if they decide to prosecute the DUI vs $2k at best laptop. The math is supposed easy for the accused.

So then this guy goes and gets the GPS info, confronts the cop, it spirals, whole thing comes crashing down.

And now the state is going after this cop because he's at the very least implicitly making DUI enforcement look bad.

Gotta give it to the cop who made $250k a year because he knew DUIs required him to go to court and guaranteed him excessive overtime.

I expect he will be pardoned by Trump because of his creativity.

Weird, I didn't see Trump mentioned in the article. Do you still have it in your cache? Can you please post the version of the article that they showed you?

Trump is not mentioned in the story at all. I'm making a comment on how his entire administration is corrupt to the core.

I'm saying that I am considering how to tell my kids that lying and cheating and graft are the way America works now, and that this cop did exactly that.

If you are making a clever comment to expose my snarkiness, feel free to down vote me and maybe others will follow you down that path.

I'm not AI so it will sting a little bit and maybe I'll be more civil next time.

Oh, sorry, I didn't expect someone to drag politics into something out-of-the-blue.

> At the gas station, Bradley accused Holland of driving under the influence. When asked if he would submit to field sobriety tests, Holland calmly refused.

Much as I hope Bradley would be fired and lose his pension for abuse of power, this part is on Holland. In my state, refusing a breathalyzer is by law an automatic penalty because of the "implied consent statute" that you accept when you get behind the wheel: automatic license suspension for 1 year, and you still have to face the officer's testimony. There are consequences to the refusal that have nothing to do with the officer.

You're confusing a breathalyzer with a field sobriety test, the latter of which no one should agree to. It's the sort of test that asks you to walk straight, hop on one leg, allow an officer to use a flashlight on your eyes, or recite the alphabet backwards. They're designed to allow the officer to use their discretion to determine if you've failed rather than use an objective reading (like a breathalyzer).

Ask yourself why an officer would want to use a set of tests that require being subjective instead of deferring to a breathalyzer.

Cops gotta meet that quota.

A cop pulled me over once, claiming I ran a red light (It was bullshit, and I had the dash cam footage to prove it). He insisted on me doing a field sobriety test based on my breath supposedly smelling like alcohol, despite me not having anything to drink.

I wanted to just skip the bullshit and take a breathalyzer. It was freezing cold out, and I'm a Wears Shorts Year-Round Guy(tm), which normally doesn't bother me since I'm only outside for like 15 seconds between my car and whatever building I'm going into/out of, but a field sobriety was gonna have me in the cold for several minutes.

He basically said that if I wanted to take a breathalyzer, he'd gladly drive me down to the station to do it.

This cop already decided I was guilty of two crimes with zero evidence because he has an arrest quota to meet.

And sure, you can argue that arrest quotas are illegal and don't exist, but it's one of those things where it doesn't exist on paper, but they basically still have a de facto existence because of performance tracking.

Incorrect. Field sobriety test like walking a straight line or doing those bizarre tests can be difficult for those who haven't been drinking. Now if he refused a breathalyzer or blood sample and he was sober, that's the wrong move. If he refused a breathalyzer or blood sample AND he was NOT sober, that's the correct move. It's far cheaper to take the one year license suspension than get a DUI and deal with all of those issues. This has nothing to do with the officer, but protecting yourself.

This is not true in Illinois. Field sobriety tests before you are arrested are entirely voluntary and you can refuse them without triggering implied consent penalties.

An fst after being arrested would be difficult for most people.

Almost never lose their pensions. The cops I know in Illinois who all did bad shit and were investigated for it were all given the chance to resign to keep their pensions.

field sobriety test != breathalizer

Stop spreading misinformation.

>No. Field sobriety tests are not mandatory in Illinois. A driver may legally refuse to participate in field sobriety testing without violating Illinois law. These roadside tests are voluntary and are not part of the State’s implied consent laws.

https://dohmanlaw.com/refusing-a-field-sobriety-test-in-illi...

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