EDIT: If you want to downvote, please prove me wrong. I'm happy to provide citations where law enforcement is responsible for criminal conduct, up to and including theft and shooting people's dogs for no reason, and where they're defended by their unions.
But the union would not defend me if their lawyers thought the dismissal was according to procedures and with sufficient evidence; it's not considered in the union's interest to defend clearly bad employees, and in practice they object in only a minority of dismissals. Even when they do lodge an objection in a given case, there is hardly any guarantee they will prevail. Why don't police unions work like that? My guess is a mixture of factors, relating to both cultural aspects (the "no snitching" culture) and ineffective oversight or even outright collusion from people who are supposed to be their adversaries in such procedures, such as judges.
Imo public opinion has to align against police misconduct for it to be dealt with. If the public is offended by misconduct not being punished, this provides both an incentive for elective officials to make sure that can be done, and to police unions to be pragmatic about which kinds of interests they wish to defend; it may not be in the members' collective interest to defend a few bad apples, especially if doing so greatly angers the public. Of course, it might be in their interest if the whole lot of them are bad apples...
My impression, though, is that the majority of Americans are hardly concerned about police misconduct, and generally support the police against complaints, which doesn't provide very fertile ground for anyone interested in pushing reforms. You can win an election by being tough on crime, but can you win an election by being tough on police misconduct?
In a democratic system, whether a major crackdown on police abuses happens depends to a large extent on whether there is actually public support for such a crackdown. Is the current situation that there is strong public support for a crackdown, but FOP lobbying is keeping it from happening? I don't think that's the case; my read is that the majority of people actually think the police are basically good guys who shouldn't be hassled more. The dissenters are a mixture of left-wing/minority-activist groups who are suspicious of racial profiling and police abuse directed mainly at minorities, plus some libertarian groups wary of increasingly militarized policing. But afaict by far the majority opinion thinks those concerns are overblown and supports the cops.
Your original post was a single word with no explanation and did not contribute in any meaningful way to the discussion. It's not a question of whether I agree or disagree with you, it was a crappy post and not the level of content I expect to find on HN. I gave your post, not you, not your ideas, a thumbs down.
The onus is not on anyone else to prove a 1-word assertion wrong, it's on you to prove it right. More generally, every assertion is wrong by default, the asserter has to prove it true.
Most major Hospitals have peer review processes known as a Morbidity and Mortality conference where doctors behind closed doors can speak freely about poor outcomes and ways to avoid future occurrences.
The lack of major reprimands for marginal doctors is sometimes why people rush to lawsuits because standard review processes are usually avoid a doctor apologizing or admitting any blame.
In aviation, near misses in airline or transport category flights are sometimes investigated as "serious incidents" even if no damage to the aircraft or injuries occurred.
It seems if police adopted a similar review process where problems and potential misconduct are addressed in a non-adversarial way (M&M conference style) then attitudes and community relationship will benefit.
That's very true in this case. Cop unions are just one aspect of the problem, and if you look at this particular case, no cop has been disciplined. The union, which comes into play late in the game, really cannot be a factor except very indirectly. There are dozens of problems upstream of the union that need to be attended to first.
It's worth pointing out that unions are legally compelled to defend all of their members regardless if that person is in the wrong or not.
I don't believe you. I think you'd be sad to do it. Otherwise you would have already. And having lied about one small thing, why should I believe that you haven't lied about other, bigger things?
http://www.policemisconduct.net/
http://www.policemisconduct.net/maps/searchable-map-2009-201...
There are plenty of incidents in Seattle you might be interested in.
I'm just wondering what is at play in this state.
Our local Sheriff gave a Neighborhood Watch talk and mentioned the drastic down-sizing of law enforcement officers in the Oregon counties adjacent to us as a major concern and a potential source of problems for us.
Far more South than Portland...