Police Brutality

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SacredWarrior

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One of the biggest issues that seems to be plaguing the U.S. as of late and one of the things that the media is using to divide us. What can be changed to put a stop to it?

First, I just want to say that police brutality can affect anyone and everyone and racism/racial profiling can be one of the causes. Key word being one.

With that out of the way, here are some reasons why I think there's rarely any justice when it comes to police brutality.

Cops have too much protection in the legal system. They automatically get the best lawyers and the juries in those cases are almost always biased. They need to be treated just like any other civilian when it comes to committing crimes and mistreating others.

Cops have a no-snitch code. If a cop dares to report another cop doing something that he or she isn't supposed to be doing, the cop that "snitched" will be mistreated and even harassed. That definitely needs to be addressed and fixed since it's pretty hypocritical of them to have that code.

These are pretty much my thoughts on the entire thing. As for solutions, I'll let you lovely people discuss. Peace!
 
Since I'm not from the U.S. I can't give any facts, but just looking at it from what I know...isn't it nearly impossible to make a jury unbiased? I mean, if a cop is up against someone that is supposedly a criminal, you would always lean towards the cop, someone who is supposedly the one to make justice work. Another problem on this is that since the cops are apparently hiding each others crap, there won't be many facts speaking up for a victim of police brutality. Is it that much a problem in the states? I hear of a few cases, but I never felt like it was that much, of course it's probably just me living in Europe and not hearing every last case. I don't see a solution to it unless people stop abusing power, which, to be honest, has been a problem that has plagued humanity over and over since humans are simply not working fully unbiased.
The only thing I could imagine is that you could not tell the jury about the job of a person, but I'd assume if it's a case of police brutality, the job of the cop is needed for the entire thing to roll anyway. They could just not get the best lawyers of course, but I don't know how that works in the U.S. so I presume it's just something they get based off the fact they work for the country?
So unless you throw over the entire system..I don't really see it getting changed much, but that's just an outsiders perspective, never worked in the states or lived there, nor do I know the compley structures of a law system in a country I don't live in, just seems like a thing of people being dicks and not enough people being just to me.
 
You see this? Topics like this are how you give @Grumpy an aneurysm.

I think police fall victim to the same thing as a lot of stuff in media; were more aware of the bad side because it's publicized, so it seems to be more rampant than it is.

Be respectful to police and - just like with literally anybody - don't pre-judge an officer before you have anything to go on.
 
Naw it's cool, keep going: you're just giving more ammunition to my "let's get rid of General" argument.
 
1) Make body cams a requirement; cams that cannot be turned off by the officer being worn, or any one else in the field. Have them record to a physical memory card located nearby (in the car or even inside the device), as well as to a cloud server that is overseen by a 3rd party not the police or the city.

2) New training of the non-paramilitary type.


That's all you need to fix the image of the police and to give trust back to citizens. It will save millions in tax-payer money in frivolous (and not-so frivolous) lawsuits. We've already seen the effectiveness of the above in some cities and states. I can't be assed to source, but there are already officers being vindicated for NOT doing what the witnesses or the "victim" said they did (thanks to bodycam devices proving the opposite). That's honestly what I want more than anything-- vindication of officers, to show the public that the police are not the 5% that make them look bad.
 
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Simple.

We need Robocop.
 
Good lord, the things I can say on this topic ... but will not.

I will just point out that like racism and other things, I believe the media makes it seem more rampant than it probably really is to generate controversy they can talk about.
 
Simple.

We need Robocop.
I second this motion!

In all seriousness though, my brother in law is a cop so I tend to hear the other side of the story. The media never reports all the times cops are attacked, quite often for no reason other than doing their job, and sometimes simply because they exist and are in uniform.

There are always going to be people who abuse their power. There's always going to be an asshole cop who thinks nothing of beating the hell out of someone. There are also always going to be the good cops that have their reputations ruined because of the assholes. What pisses me off though is when there is a case of brutality, you never really hear both sides of the story until much later on. A guy can try to beat the hell out of a cop and the cop responds by brute force, you always hear about the cops actions first, never the reason why the cop responded the way he did.

Take that resource officer that 'assaulted' the girl in the school. They tried to make it out that she was being peaceful and doing nothing wrong, but later on you hear the story of her punching the office and refusing to obey his orders. (At least that's how it turned up on my Facebook page. One person posting the video with the title 'Peaceful student attacked by cop' then a few days later the rest of the details came out.)

No one wants to be arrested. No one wants to get caught committing a crime. Criminals are going to do everything in their power to beat charges, and that means a lot of false accusations. The problem is, there are cops out there that aren't above beating a person to death or overusing brute force. There is never going to be a solution for it, because there will never not be crime. Unless all officers out on the streets are made to wear cameras at all times, there's really never going to be an accurate way of knowing if all the allegations police brutality are true, or if the cop acted responsibly under the circumstances they were in.
 
I have to agree with Utsuho here.

What we're seeing today is two things:

1) People taking the vast minority of abusive cops, and making it out to be something insanely common.
2) People taking rough situations, and cherry picking specific parts of the recording/story so the cop looks bad, without understanding any context.

And honestly it tries my patience to see this "Screw the Cops!" or "We need to remember how many Cops are actually bad people" mentalities.
Because it is built upon nothing expect fear, ignorance and paranoia.

Hell, Ferguson alone should have made this clear to people.
Not only was something attacking officers forcing them to defend themselves, but crowds of 'peaceful' protester's were blockading the Police from getting in.
And if Police were truly these monsters that Media paints them to be, do you really think they would have stayed back? Or do you think they'd have beat that crowd down?

Hell let's remember that the entire neighbourhood was being pillaged, ransacked and robbed by people just looking to take advantage of a crisis.
Those Protestor's by all accounts were aiding criminal activity and actively siding with criminals while prevent the police form upholding the law.
The Police would have been fully in their right to take own and arrest the lot of them. But they didn't.

This, something which should clearly address that most cops are still good people that don't want to hurt others, even if the people are being outright revolting.
But do we see that?

No, people see this and somehow twist it to be about how cop's are abusive and racist...

Ok, rant over.
I don't intend to debate this so please don't bother making any long responses trying to argue back.

Same thing I said in the last thread made about this just a few days ago.
 
@Chrysalism

I'm glad you brought that up.

I was actually a student at that school as a freshman and sophomore before I moved elsewhere. My youngest sibling is a student there now and was actually present (not in the classroom, but outside in the hallway with a fellow student) at the scene of that incident at Spring Valley High. We know the Officer well enough that a lot of what was reported about him was bullshit by mainstream media that was way behind the facts of what was happening in SC at the time.

The rest of your post is absolutely spot on. I just would also like to add the very large amount of the population that confuses politicians for police officers. They don't like the law so they think they're okay to ignore, disrespect, and beat on police officers instead of complaining to the politicians about the law that they made. And they're often very unapologetic about this belief as well.
 
1) Make body cams a requirement; cams that cannot be turned off by the officer being worn, or any one else in the field. Have them record to a physical memory card located nearby (in the car or even inside the device), as well as to a cloud server that is overseen by a 3rd party not the police or the city.
Not to burst your bubble, but I've been giving this some thought since I was for body cams for a while too. Until I turned on my techie brain and mulled it over.

Firstly, to have that cloud server idea, you need to have 100% wireless coverage across all of the United States of America, at all times, during all hours, and at speeds sufficient to record at least 360p video/audio. (Because 180LolPotato Vision™ can have so, so many problems, for so many reasons.)

Secondly, you need to somehow make it invincible to basic jamming techniques. (Ezmode cop kill via spamming the airwaves by a bunch of gangbangers, topkek right there.)

Thirdly, regardless of whether it has Big Brother Loves You™ tiers of wireless tech behind it or not, I hope that camera is, you know, invincible to a lead pipe swinging at it. Or bullets. Or an "accidental" shortage, as the officer "accidentally" stops his vehicle too fast, and "accidentally" smashes the lens against the dashboard of his vehicle as a result. So many "accidents." So unfortunate.

Fourthly, that your third party independent commission is somehow bribery proof. Remember, you can't have government monitoring government, it rarely works out in the end, so... Who watches the watchmen?

Fifthly, that, even assuming all four above points do not come into play, that the people involved all play nice, that all of this technology can be reasonably afforded and the sheer data storage required to maintain all records is done without any issue.

Get all five points above, and you'll still have police brutality cases. Only instead, it'll be "police brutality while off duty."

I'm still pro body cams by the way, I just don't think of them as a perfect solution. So, consider this more bringing down the idealism to something more realistic. It's a tool, but nothing more: It's going to be entirely dependent on those using it to use it properly, both on the part of the cops and their watchdogs. So some will use it properly, and some will not. :ferret:
 
Not to burst your bubble, but I've been giving this some thought since I was for body cams for a while too. Until I turned on my techie brain and mulled it over.

Firstly, to have that cloud server idea, you need to have 100% wireless coverage across all of the United States of America, at all times, during all hours, and at speeds sufficient to record at least 360p video/audio. (Because 180LolPotato Vision™ can have so, so many problems, for so many reasons.)

Secondly, you need to somehow make it invincible to basic jamming techniques. (Ezmode cop kill via spamming the airwaves by a bunch of gangbangers, topkek right there.)

Thirdly, regardless of whether it has Big Brother Loves You™ tiers of wireless tech behind it or not, I hope that camera is, you know, invincible to a lead pipe swinging at it. Or bullets. Or an "accidental" shortage, as the officer "accidentally" stops his vehicle too fast, and "accidentally" smashes the lens against the dashboard of his vehicle as a result. So many "accidents." So unfortunate.

Fourthly, that your third party independent commission is somehow bribery proof. Remember, you can't have government monitoring government, it rarely works out in the end, so... Who watches the watchmen?

Fifthly, that, even assuming all four above points do not come into play, that the people involved all play nice, that all of this technology can be reasonably afforded and the sheer data storage required to maintain all records is done without any issue.

Get all five points above, and you'll still have police brutality cases. Only instead, it'll be "police brutality while off duty."

I'm still pro body cams by the way, I just don't think of them as a perfect solution. So, consider this more bringing down the idealism to something more realistic. It's a tool, but nothing more: It's going to be entirely dependent on those using it to use it properly, both on the part of the cops and their watchdogs. So some will use it properly, and some will not. :ferret:


So... you agree with me.

Gotcha! :D
 
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So... you agree with me.

Gotcha! :D
Ultimately yeah. I just wanted to play Devil's Advocate and turn down the optimism a bit because I'm a bloody bastard like that.

I mean, it's a tool with no downsides aside from increasing expenditures. There's no reason not to use it so long as it can be afforded, and the police get military hand-me-downs all the time in the US, so don't tell me they can't afford to get a few body cameras. :ferret:
 
Ultimately yeah. I just wanted to play Devil's Advocate and turn down the optimism a bit because I'm a bloody bastard like that.

I mean, it's a tool with no downsides aside from increasing expenditures. There's no reason not to use it so long as it can be afforded, and the police get military hand-me-downs all the time in the US, so don't tell me they can't afford to get a few body cameras. :ferret:
I read somewhere (don't quote me on this, I can't remember where I read it, but it was at least a news article) that body cams themselves would only cost, on average, $1,000 per police department. Obviously, some cities have quite a number of departments operating within their juristiction but...

Really? Only a thousand bucks for a dozen officers? And we still have politicians screaming that it would be too expensive?!

*rips hair out*
 
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I cruise through General on occasion, see some of these topics and cringe. I read them, true, and have always read far more than I ever comment on. On this topic, a quick disclaimer: half my family is straight up criminals (three time losers, life sentences, time spent in federal and state pens for near every offense you can imagine); the other half (the half I associate with) is made up of law enforcement, and those not in law enforcement have served in the military. For me? I've been both military and law enforcement.

All that to say, I [personally] am eternally grateful to those among you who spoke up already (throughout various threads) on behalf of most law enforcement, men and women who put their lives on the line every day, keeping our communities safe best they can. Is law enforcement full of 100% perfect and virtuous people at all times? Obviously not - human beings can really suck, and it doesn't matter what career or position one holds. But the vast majority of cops/deputies/law enforcement agents are doing a mostly thankless, very dangerous job, all beneath a microscope and for a sometimes hostile public - and doing it with grace and humor and genuine dedication.

I saw a few people put up videos in another thread - just wanted to add one I found around last Christmastime:

 
Not to burst your bubble, but I've been giving this some thought since I was for body cams for a while too. Until I turned on my techie brain and mulled it over.

Firstly, to have that cloud server idea, you need to have 100% wireless coverage across all of the United States of America, at all times, during all hours, and at speeds sufficient to record at least 360p video/audio. (Because 180LolPotato Vision™ can have so, so many problems, for so many reasons.)

Secondly, you need to somehow make it invincible to basic jamming techniques. (Ezmode cop kill via spamming the airwaves by a bunch of gangbangers, topkek right there.)

Thirdly, regardless of whether it has Big Brother Loves You™ tiers of wireless tech behind it or not, I hope that camera is, you know, invincible to a lead pipe swinging at it. Or bullets. Or an "accidental" shortage, as the officer "accidentally" stops his vehicle too fast, and "accidentally" smashes the lens against the dashboard of his vehicle as a result. So many "accidents." So unfortunate.

Fourthly, that your third party independent commission is somehow bribery proof. Remember, you can't have government monitoring government, it rarely works out in the end, so... Who watches the watchmen?

Fifthly, that, even assuming all four above points do not come into play, that the people involved all play nice, that all of this technology can be reasonably afforded and the sheer data storage required to maintain all records is done without any issue.

Get all five points above, and you'll still have police brutality cases. Only instead, it'll be "police brutality while off duty."

I'm still pro body cams by the way, I just don't think of them as a perfect solution. So, consider this more bringing down the idealism to something more realistic. It's a tool, but nothing more: It's going to be entirely dependent on those using it to use it properly, both on the part of the cops and their watchdogs. So some will use it properly, and some will not. :ferret:
I think that body cams are still viable tools. Certainly they can be beaten if someone genuinely wants to beat them, but the fact that it will remove any percentage of bad officers while simultaneously protecting some percentage of good officers is reason enough to employ them. I don't actually think we need to record or save this film for a long period either. Simply holding it for long enough to be usable for a defense in court is good enough. I'm basically in line with your sentiment, body cams don't need to be the end all solution. They just need to be useful as evidence when they record what actually happened.
 
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Bodycams. Oh and support and better protection for whisleblowers. Remember that cop that was put into mental health against his will after blowing the whistle on police corruption and systematic abuse? Yeah.
 
Guess this is relevant. This is probably one of those quiet cases where it doesn't get much attention because the cop was a woman and the victim was an older white guy.

Warning. It's graphic.
Female Cop Shoots Unarmed White Man

Hummelstown officer cleared of all charges in killing of unarmed motorist


Surely someone, somewhere, somehow, has an opinion on this. Personally, it seems like a bad cop doing things wrong. But I'm not a cop so can't really judge. But from body cam alone he doesn't seem to be 'reaching for a weapon' which is how she got off without a single charge.
 
Hummelstown officer cleared of all charges in killing of unarmed motorist


Surely someone, somewhere, somehow, has an opinion on this.
I'm still pro body cams by the way, I just don't think of them as a perfect solution. So, consider this more bringing down the idealism to something more realistic. It's a tool, but nothing more: It's going to be entirely dependent on those using it to use it properly, both on the part of the cops and their watchdogs. So some will use it properly, and some will not.
It feels good to be vindicated no less than within 48 hours of stating what should be the patently obvious: Good people use tools properly, bad people do not. Body cams will not magically erase the actions of incompetency or cruelty. Regardless of how one personally feels about this particular case, the courts have done their business, and law has been served with or without justice.

The end.
 
I swear you posted this same topic not a couple days ago. Why not bump it instead of making another thread. Were you not satisfied with the last one?
 
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