1
SWAT Team Raids Innocent Family Over Stolen AirPods Dropped on Their Street
(www.riverfronttimes.com)
this post was submitted on 26 Mar 2024
1 points (100.0% liked)
THE POLICE PROBLEM
2462 readers
1 users here now
The police problem is that police are policed by the police. Cops are accountable only to other cops, which is no accountability at all.
99.9999% of police brutality, corruption, and misconduct is never investigated, never punished, never makes the news, so it's not on this page.
When cops are caught breaking the law, they're investigated by other cops. Details are kept quiet, the officers' names are withheld from public knowledge, and what info is eventually released is only what police choose to release — often nothing at all.
When police are fired — which is all too rare — they leave with 'law enforcement experience' and can easily find work in another police department nearby. It's called "Wandering Cops."
When police testify under oath, they lie so frequently that cops themselves have a joking term for it: "testilying." Yet it's almost unheard of for police to be punished or prosecuted for perjury.
Cops can and do get away with lawlessness, because cops protect other cops. If they don't, they aren't cops for long.
The legal doctrine of "qualified immunity" renders police officers invulnerable to lawsuits for almost anything they do. In practice, getting past 'qualified immunity' is so unlikely, it makes headlines when it happens.
All this is a path to a police state.
In a free society, police must always be under serious and skeptical public oversight, with non-cops and non-cronies in charge, issuing genuine punishment when warranted.
Police who break the law must be prosecuted like anyone else, promptly fired if guilty, and barred from ever working in law-enforcement again.
That's the solution.
♦ ♦ ♦
Our definition of ‘cops’ is broad, and includes prison guards, probation officers, shitty DAs and judges, etc — anyone who has the authority to fuck over people’s lives, with minimal or no oversight.
♦ ♦ ♦
RULES
① Real-life decorum is expected. Please don't say things only a child or a jackass would say in person.
② If you're here to support the police, you're trolling. Please exercise your right to remain silent.
③ Saying ~~cops~~ ANYONE should be killed lowers the IQ in any conversation. They're about killing people; we're not.
④ Please don't dox or post calls for harassment, vigilantism, tar & feather attacks, etc.
Please also abide by the instance rules.
It you've been banned but don't know why, check the moderator's log. If you feel you didn't deserve it, hey, I'm new at this and maybe you're right. Send a cordial PM, for a second chance.
♦ ♦ ♦
ALLIES
• r/ACAB
♦ ♦ ♦
INFO
• A demonstrator's guide to understanding riot munitions
• Cops aren't supposed to be smart
• Killings by law enforcement in Canada
• Killings by law enforcement in the United Kingdom
• Killings by law enforcement in the United States
• Know your rights: Filming the police
• Three words. 70 cases. The tragic history of 'I can’t breathe' (as of 2020)
• Police aren't primarily about helping you or solving crimes.
• Police lie under oath, a lot
• Police spin: An object lesson in Copspeak
• Police unions and arbitrators keep abusive cops on the street
• Shielded from Justice: Police Brutality and Accountability in the United States
• When the police knock on your door
♦ ♦ ♦
ORGANIZATIONS
• NAACP
• National Police Accountability Project
• Vera: Ending Mass Incarceration
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Air pods are what, like $200?
Slightly misleading headline - the SWAT team used the "find my" network to locate the airpods, which had been in a car that had been stolen in (they imply) an armed carjacking. The carjackers then drove through the street the Shamilys live on and threw the airpods out the window (again it is implied but not stated that the airpods were found in the street outside the Shamily home where they landed).
So... yeah. Even calling this "circumstantial evidence" is stretching this to the absolute limit. Presumably someone in the family has an apple device on the findmy network, which would show the Shamily home as the location of the airpods (since the device was in the home, but the airpods it was detecting in the vicinity were decidedly not).
Somehow, st. louis' finest didnt stop to think about... well, anything apparently. This is fucking absurd. I hope their lawyers eviscerate the cops over this one.
Yeah, but what made them think the Charger could be hidden in the drop ceiling or behind the drywall?
The truth is they tried to use the AirPods to find the criminals, who I believe also stole a weapon as to justify the SWAT action, so they thought they were at the right place and surely the stuff is just well hidden! And then, when they find the AirPods on the street, they realize that just because the dot looks like it’s in the house, it’s not that accurate. They thought, “If it’s inside the house, then that means this is the bad guys house.” Then they proceeded to break in without observing to see if the car that was jacked is anywhere in sight, if there are children to be aware of, etc. in other words, this SWAT Team was not very bright.
Edit: or didn’t give a fuck.
This is a new twist on a long history of law enforcement misunderstanding and misusing geolocation services.
Just ask the little old lady in Kansas who has 600 million ip addresses in her front yard https://theweek.com/articles/624040/how-internet-mapping-glitch-turned-kansas-farm-into-digital-hell
They already had the charger, it was crashed/ditched soon after it was stolen. They were looking for the guns used in the carjacking, or the airpods case or other items in the vehicle, so they could arrest Shamily and/or Bristoe as accomplices.
Air pods: $200
Drywall repair: $400
New front door: $700
Being Swatted: Priceless
For everything else, there's masterrace card.
"Don't worry if you max out your limit on racism, we will cover for you!"
... also I doubt they use black cards for their top tier clients. Only white. And as I understand things over there, orange racists cards are being more widely accepted too, but will surely have higher interest payments.
What a fucked world as humans manage to create, truly limitless.