THE POLICE PROBLEM
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.
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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.
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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.
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ALLIES
• r/ACAB
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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
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ORGANIZATIONS
• NAACP
• National Police Accountability Project
• Vera: Ending Mass Incarceration
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About a year ago I had a very disruptive neighbor. Every night he would bring tons of women over and play loud music, and yell over the music with the people he had over.
Then, in the daytime he had a girlfriend, who worked nights. Every day she'd come over and they'd yell for hours and hours. She had a legitimate reason to be angry at him. He was the father of his child. He never married her, and in the 6 months he'd been a father he got 2 other bitches pregnant. Her words, not mine. On top of that, he was calling off work to invite MORE bitches over, and making up the lost money by pawning her jewelry. Which only got him $23 because the pawn dealer ripped him off. She says it was real gold, real diamonds. And the jeweler convinced him to sell for $23.
On top of that, he wouldn't even let her and his son move in with him because it would "clash with his business". Essentially he was just giving excuse after excuse after excuse.
Why she didn't just leave him, and sue for child support, I don't know. He was clearly using her. He didn't love her. They fought daily. Neither of them were happy. And as they fought, the baby cried and cried and cried.
I asked him to keep it down. Others in the building asked the same. His indoor voice was louder than most peoples "onstage without a microphone" voice.
In short, for 8 months it was a daily struggle to sleep.
But I only complained to the landlord. Never the police. When my sister found out, she couldn't imagine what I meant by "This isn't something to be resolved by the police".
My sister is a Karen. A real bad one. She wants all her problems to go away with a complaint from her to someone else.
But she never stops to put herself in others shoes. I restrain myself from saying I "hated" that neighbor. Only because I reserve hate to be powerful and meaningful. So I don't hate him. However I do think he was highly inconsiderate not only to his girlfriend/son, but also all around him at any given time.
A real "main character" complex.
Still though, I didn't call the police, because I didn't feel his inconsiderate behavior prompted a risk of death.
IF (any that's a big IF), If police could be trusted to arrive, handle citizen resolution in a fair non-violent way, then yes, I'd have called the cops. I certainly felt it was a job they SHOU LD do. It just didn't feel like a job they COULD be trusted to do.
And none of my family/white friends could understand why. All of my black friends did.
I understand your motivations, but I think that guy would still have found his tires running flat on a regular basis. And his power going out. And any other petty things I could think of to make his life worse.
I hate that guy, whether you say it or not. He is bringing unwanted, unloved children into a world where they will always be at least a step behind their peers, and without any understanding of why their world is so hard. And the reason is THAT GUY. So fuck him. He deserves what he gets.
Partying all night every night, a kid would "disturb his business"?
Yeah I'm pretty sure this was some sort of low level hustler of some sort of stimulants, whatever might be the go-to wherever the earlier commenter is from.
I really wouldn't suggest making people like that annoyed in small ways like that, because they would never connect it to being a consequence of them acting that way and it would only make them more mad, probably making him more likely to harm others.
So... while it would be cathartic, remember to think twice.
The escalation is what I'm welcoming.
I never call the police for shit like that either. Some big animal is standing in the road? Sure. Car accident? Sure. If they’re already at the scene I’ll talk to them.
I’ve never seen anything get better in a heated situation because the cops showed up.
I grew up in complete chaos though. I seen my dad get beat half to death by them when I was a kid, followed a few years later by my brother being tackled and kicked at the bottom of our stairs.
My brother was a beast though, so I’m not sure anyone else could have controlled him that night.
He somehow survived being the beast he was and he’s a good father and a contributing member of society these days. Better than me actually.
It sounds like there was child abuse happening. Imo, you made a mistake not calling the police.
Woosh af. Bullets dont solve child abuse social workers and crisis response do
Sounds like OP did neither. While I dont trust cops at all, statistically, it would have been better to make the call because they more often than not don't shoot people. And actually, yes, bullets would solve the child abuse problem, just not in a way anybody would want. Can't abuse a child if you're dead.
I'd absolutely roll the dice for the child's safety over the piece of shit parents life.
Im sure watching their shitty parents getting murdered in front of them would do wonders for their mental health.
You're making the assumption that there's a 100% chance that they will get shot. Cops suck, but they don't shoot 100% of the time.
One is more than it should be.
I agree, but potentially rescuing a child from abuse, to me, is worth the low risk. Inaction is complacency.
As a European, I am sorry that the US police is incompetent and dangerous like this that you cannot trust them to handle these kind of situations and have to be afraid that someone gets killed. In other countries this would be standard case to call the police for, although they could only handle the disturbance aspect if there is no direct indication of violence or abuse