Ongoing U.S Police Brutality and Corruption Discussion Thread

Cops often get away with enough shit that, if they're so inclined, they can essentially be paid vigilantes with the weight of the law behind them. It's like the best of all possible worlds.

few weeks old, but https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/08/magazine/the-preacher-and-the-sheriff.html?_r=0

depressing as hell

too on the nose

The only person I knew growing up who became a cop was a sadist who enjoyed torturing and brutalizing people. It was kind of sad, he started out as a sweet kid, but he was adopted by creeps, and I met him through this gang of punks I hung out with during my wayward youth. I'm sure he's getting his justice now...

Becoming a cop in the US grants you unlimited power over life and death over other human beings with barely any repercussions. Pretty good deal if that's your thing. Not everyone's like that, but if you are like that, I can only imagine it's a dream job.

ICYMI

Benjamin Kunkel‏
@kunktation
Darren Wilson admits that Mike Brown never tried to grab his gun:

http://www.theroot.com/everything-you-think-you-know-about-the-death-of-mike-b-1793261221

very much not into the article starting with "Here is the story of Michael Brown’s murder that we all believed" - um NO we did not believe this BS for a minute, fuck you

but that's a side story to the new information which of course is totally enraging and exactly what i expected. there are no words for this murdering scumbag.

on a related note, from a few days ago:

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/11/us/michael-brown-ferguson-police-shooting-video.html

In the two and a half years since Michael Brown, a black 18-year-old, was shot and killed by a white police officer in Ferguson, Mo., the explosive case has been parsed in intricate detail. Witnesses offered varying descriptions of the fatal encounter. Investigators examined bloodstain evidence on the street where Mr. Brown died. And the police released a security video from a nearby store that showed Mr. Brown pushing a worker and taking cigarillos minutes before the shooting.
But a second, previously unreported video from that same convenience store included in a new documentary is raising new questions about what happened in the hours before the shooting on Aug. 9, 2014.

The footage shows Mr. Brown entering the store, Ferguson Market and Liquor, shortly after 1 a.m. on the day he died. He approaches the counter, hands over an item that appears to be a small bag and takes a shopping sack filled with cigarillos. Mr. Brown is shown walking toward the door with the sack, then turning around and handing the cigarillos back across the counter before exiting.

Jason Pollock, a documentary filmmaker who acquired the new tape, says the footage challenges the police narrative that Mr. Brown committed a strong-armed robbery when he returned to the store around noon that day. Instead, Mr. Pollock believes that the new video shows Mr. Brown giving a small bag of marijuana to store employees and receiving cigarillos in return as part of a negotiated deal. Mr. Pollock said Mr. Brown left the cigarillos behind the counter for safekeeping.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eqmnyD8dri8

search function is down so I couldnt hunt for the LA thread, but this works too

http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-baca-verdict-20170314-story.html#nt=oft12aH-1la1

down goes baca

the theory that Brown paid (in some way shape or form) for the cigarillos was put forth before the trial I think and it got next to no traction. kind of infuriating to see that yes, this is likely what happened and despite people picking up on it nobody was willing to entertain that the dude didn't strongarm rob the place. y'know even tho the owner seemed to be suggesting he didn't call 911.

I rather suggest everyone read this

https://www.buzzfeed.com/melissasegura/detective-guevaras-witnesses

"The attorney general of the United States believes that minority citizens need to be controlled by whatever means necessary, to coin a phrase. The Department of Justice now has the back of every rogue cop in the country. Old times there are not forgotten."

http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/news/a54291/jeff-sessions-consent-decrees/

yeah fuck jeff sessions. I just wish being pro police brutality and extrajudicial summary executions by cop was actually hurtful in elections in every state in this country.

http://www.miaminewtimes.com/news/charles-kinsey-was-shot-after-a-north-miami-cop-called-halt-it-is-a-toy-9254204

sad

Eugene, a veteran City of Miami cop who had been sworn in as chief only six days before the Kinsey shooting, says training was lax and infighting rampant.

"The scene was a mess, to be honest with you," he tells investigators of the Kinsey shooting. "People were walking all over the place. Thank God (Kinsey) did not die. I realized I have a problem with the training of my staff. We're talking about some 15- or 16-year veterans, but in North Miami, a 15- or 16-year veteran may have less experience than a two-year cop in Miami."

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/14/us/georgia-police-officer-fired.html

this happened in the county where i grew up. it was 90% white when we moved there and is 39% white today

http://www.cnn.com/2017/05/02/us/texas-cop-kills-teen-trnd/index.html

should also be crossposted to the 2017 race thread

Jesus fucking Christ. We're just making zero progress with this shit. And most likely moving backwards, if Sessions has his way.

Goddammit

Justice Dept declines to prosecute Baton Rouge officers over Alton Sterling murder.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions, everybody

guess what
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2017/06/16/minn-officer-acquitted-of-manslaughter-for-shooting-philando-castile-during-traffic-stop/?hpid=hp_hp-top-table-main_pn-castile-407pm%3Ahomepage%2Fstory&utm_term=.e5df7ec69756

fuck

Over and over again.

this whole legal rationale whereby a cop "feeling threatened" justifies murder has to be systematically dismantled

this whole legal rationale whereby a cop "feeling threatened" justifies murder has to be systematically dismantled

I meant this

Here is some background on the law. New standards are needed. #blacklivesmatter #PhilandoCastiile pic.twitter.com/6N88RiJiDM

— ACLU National (@ACLU) June 17, 2017

ACLU otm. sickened by this. felt nauseous when I first watched the video and yet given recent history I can't say I'm shocked at the verdict, though doesn't make me less outraged at it.

http://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/crime/officer-involved-shooting-in-magnuson-park-leaves-3-children-in-protective-custody/

Where was the seed planted for this horrible shoot-to-kill protocol? Somebody decided this was how police all over the country needed to be trained. PDs didn't all converge on this lunacy by coincidence.

My glib-but-serious answer is "1865"

jesus i just saw that new castile video, it is so so awful. i don't know why i watched it, i never watch that stuff, but i did. when the kid runs out of the car at 1:40, after that piece of shit cop fires seven times... were the jury not shown this video? does it not matter?

it's one of the most horrifying things I've seen.

call me old fashioned but there's wayyyyyy too many 'watch this person get murdered' videos on the internet than I care for..

DJP I think from 1865-1970 the fundamental police protocol was "look the other way while the lynching is happening" but sadly you are probably more correct than Radley Balko is

Marvin Gaye sang about "trigger happy policing" in 1971

call me old fashioned but there's wayyyyyy too many 'watch this person get murdered' videos on the internet than I care for..

I think you mean "mass-viewings of lynchings are back in vogue, only now people can view them from their phones and don't have to physically congregate in the same space to watch"

call me old fashioned but there's wayyyyyy too many 'watch this person get murdered' videos on the internet than I care for..

i agree. the thing started autoplaying while i was reading shaun king's twitter feed. i should have looked away.

oh boy this definitely gets the copspeak award this month. A kid was killed by a bullet. Also, some cops opened fire nearby
(v @daricsnyder) pic.twitter.com/A8xG8if0WB

— Adam H. Johnson (@adamjohnsonNYC) June 23, 2017

http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/off-duty-st-louis-officer-injured-by-friendly-fire-after/article_761b9cc4-75d1-5023-a38f-c4096f99d114.html

Black police officer comes out of his house to render possible aid at a car crash/crime scene, is ordered to ground by other officers. They then confirm he's a cop, tell him he can get up. Another officer who had just arrived on the scene immediately draws his gun and shoots him, in the arm.

i get that the police are individually and institutionally racist. but why are they such cowards?

fuck, Georgia: http://www.11alive.com/news/investigations/the-drug-whisperer/437061710

"our officers are more reliable than drug tests." man, fuck youuuuuuuuu. one of the uncomfortable truths we've all agreed upon is that sometimes, people who have committed a crime go free because you can't prove it. maybe there are people driving stoned that you can't arrest. arresting sober people "just in case" to make up for that = not going to solve anything.

I can attest there have been many times after waking up after an apnea-esque disrupted sleep that one could confuse me w/ someone who was stoned.

not enough crime, gotta make some up
too much crime, gotta not report it

indicators

like they're fuckin drug dogs sniffin you out or somethin

This is all reminiscent of this: https://wrongfulconvictionsblog.org/2012/03/02/arson-investigation-after-decades-of-junk-science/

(note: I know nothing about this site or its credibility; it was the first one I found that referenced the issues I remember dimly from an article I read a few years ago about a dude falsely jailed for arson due to a fire investigator who was 100% wrong and refused to believe the scientific refutation that resulted in the dude's exoneration)

DJP this one? http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2009/09/07/trial-by-fire

Now that I read it, they reference the story I was half-remembering; the dude was actually executed and the state wouldn't exonerate him despite the mounting evidence that the argument used to convict him was wrong.

xp: yes caek, that one

just spent my commute reading that. wow.

it's just like, the idea that scientific tests that don't prove the alleged's guilt also don't necessarily prove their innocence isn't necessarily incorrect (on a case-by-case basis), but the extrapolation of "a hunch should supercede the evidence" is downright terrifying. Like, ok, you still think they did it even though the test suggests otherwise - release them! Otherwise, who are we protecting if we're ok with executing innocent people?

yes, none of that is mindblowing, but I'm a bit terrified of anti-science becoming an even bigger thing in the police community (even remember shivering when Nifong suggested the Duke students were guilty of rape because "DNA evidence clearing them doesn't mean anything").

(aware he was the DA and not police but still)

anti-science is huge in the law enforcement community, including attorneys on both sides. forensics is mostly a sham