no one is ever safe from police violence. not the victim, not the witnesses, not bystanders, not children, not people following commands, not unarmed people with their hands in the air, no one.
this post was submitted on 06 Apr 2024
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THE POLICE PROBLEM
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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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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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I dunno. I feel like if you're asking your 11 year old kid to call the cops for you and shit gets fucked up, is it a you problem not a police problem if they're responding to a situation where they apply an appropriate level of response not knowing who is who in that hot moment.
It's horrible that the kid was in the middle of it - - but where was the parent?
This seems to me that police need better domestic dispute training, but tragic as it is ,things move so quickly in a situation like that.
Too bad the boyfriend doesn't have unlimited funds but really I don't think the police department is at fault.
The police are absolutely at fault for, you know, shooting an 11 year old who was complying with police orders.
It doesn't matter who called the police or where the parents were or what they were doing, the police shot an 11 year old who was attempting to do what the police were telling him to do.
This stems from a lot of different things, but my expectation would be this was the #1 component:
https://www.apa.org/news/press/releases/2014/03/black-boys-older
How did the USA get itself into this kind of situation where police routine just shoot innocent people as an 'appropriate level of response' since they don't know 'who is hot'? These stories come up all the time. Police get spooked by something, and people get killed because of it. Sometimes its an acorn; sometimes it's someone walking too fast wearing a hoodie; sometimes it's someone who closed their car window 'suspiciously'; and very often, the thing that makes the cops freak out and murder someone is just the sight of the person who requested help.
"Warrior Training". John Oliver has a great piece on it here, NSFW language.
It's a 30 minute watch and 100% worth it.
Also lots of them train with the Zionist shutzstaffel.
If you think that's an appropriate level of response, you're delusional and way too influenced by your country. See how police operates elsewhere. Here in Spain they don't shoot people even if they're armed, unless they start shooting first basically. There are other ways to control a situation, but in your country they have gone mad with power and they are too afraid to save lives by risking their own safety.
They're not afraid to do it; they don't want to and that's officially not their job according to the supreme court.
Not to say they aren't filthy violent cowards, but it doesn't even get to the point where cowardice enters the equation.
IMO the most salient point of the article:
Carlos Moore, the attorney representing the Murry family, told NPR that the court-filed petition is "outlandish" and suggests the move by the court is retaliation for her ongoing lawsuit against the City of Indianola over her son's shooting.
"I believe they are just harassing her," Moore said. "She is a single mother and she does not deserve this pure harassment."
Without even opening the article, I'm going to guess this woman is a person of color.
Opens article
Why am I not surprised?
WTAF? I'm at a loss.
How can this still surprise you in 2024? Like, what expectation did this defy?
Dear lord, talk about victim blaming. They shot the kid because his mom and her boyfriend had domestic violence issues? FUCK THAT. The reason the kid was shot because ALL COPS ARE BASTARDS.
Not every cop is an American.
"Not all fascist serial killers sex traffickers and drug wholesalers!"
ACAB applies outside of america too
ACAB is a dumb overspimplification of a complex issue and does not help the cause of social justice.
Anyone who uses the phrase seriously is IMO not to be taken so
Your commenting on an extremist community where logic doesn't actually matter anymore.
This is a community that started from pointing out serious problems and talking about how they might be solved, to not actually caring about how to solve the problems and just hating and being polarized.
You are 100% correct because using this term is not going to help figure out realistic ways to solve the problem. It's just going to do what fringe groups do, and make actual solutions impossible to start with. Thus perpetuating the problems the fringe group hates, it's their identity, they can't go without it.
Not only does it prevent solutions but it actually pushes out allies and others who are also passionate about the problem because "they aren't extreme enough". (This is me, I despise this problem and want to support anything I can that aims for actual solutions)
I look forward to all the hate spam, downvotes, and the comments. Which would be no different than if I actually commented on a Nazi community pointing out hypocrisy.
If y'all want to actually solve this problem then extreme, generalized, non-logical, blind-hate, stances aren't going to do it. You're literally becoming a sibling of neo-nazis with this, and you're weakening your own position, and alienating your support, by being extremists about it.
100% agree
No. Itvlooks like an oversimplification if you zoom in a little. But if you zoom in a little more, and look everywhere, you'll find it holds true.
They aren't all obvious bastards; they are all bastards.
ACAB is pretty simple to understand.
1 in 20 candies in a bowl contain a lethal amount of poison. 19 in 20 are fine. You can't tell the difference unless you eat one, and by then it's too late.
Go ahead and eat one. Not every candy is poisoned, most aren't. Most candies are safe. The odds are in your favor, what are you worried about?
Or does a 5% chance of a candy being poisoned motivate you to treat the entire bowl as being poisoned?
Same with cops. One bad apple spoils the bunch. ACAB.
Except also only the other candies can get rid of the bad candy, they all know which it is, and if you try to fix it, even if youre one of them, they'll all burn you to death.
And also the FBI agrees that they're a loose federation of white supremacist gangs that get special tattoos to commemorate kills, with racist tropes based on the victim, published a paper about it 20 years ago, and took no action becauause ACAB
This except 19 are poisoned 1 is fine, and that one fine one could snitch on the others but then the 19 would murder it so it stays silent
While I agree the issue is complex and everything is not about troopers being inherently mean and brutal, sometimes, one also has to name things plainly.
Hence, ACAB. CQFD.
Eh, it isn't an over simplification unless you haven't bothered to look into the origins of the initialism and the ideas behind it.
The entire point of ACAB as a movement is that it's a systemic problem, and until that system changes, every officer is part of the problem, even if they as individuals are "good" cops.
And, having family that are cops, and being friends with the sheriff of my county, I agree with that principle, and have argued it with those people. I know plenty of officers that genuinely want to serve their community and help people. But the system they're in is still horrible, and unable to be fixed from within unless there's a top down change.
Even the sheriff here, and again, he's a friend, isn't top enough to make lasting change. At best, he can enforce better policies while in office. And he does. Not everything I've tried to talk him into, but part of that is being obligated to deal with local government and police union.
So, yeah, the movement behind the letters is absolutely, perfectly summed up by those letters, and using them makes perfect sense, even when whoever is using them isn't aware of all of that and is just bashing cops. It allows opportunities like this.
Don't be a dismissive prick. Take opportunities to open a dialogue and make change by doing so.
Cops who want to serve their community quit, and get a real job as firefighters, medics, or fucking line cooks.
Yeah, sadly. I've seen that personally, back when I worked and lived in the city. They either burn out or get run out.
No. They're not serving their community until they do those things; shit society actually needs. Shit that's actually productive.
Tiny little corpses are a want(apparently); not a need .
Eh, there's a point to proper law enforcement. We've just never seen such a thing.
It's been about protecting the wealthy and powerful, stomping on the oppressed, and generally raking in funds for so long, I don't think anyone would recognize good police if they were fucking one.
Thanks for your perspective. Would a tiny little insular department be just as much part of the larger system as any another? Maybe compared to a department say pulling over out-of-state motorists all day.
Glad I’m reading this, since yesterday I shared:
I’m hard pressed to think of any group of 10m (global) or 700k (domestic) people where I can use the word “All” before describing them. I prefer “PEB”: Policing Enables Bastards. I may be too literal: “PEB” has been downvoted perhaps 2 or 3 of the 3 or 4 times I’ve mentioned it.
The most ethical department in the US probably has like two cops and they’re probably great to every single one of the couple hundred residents they serve. (Speculating) Why lump them in with even 99% of the rest of departments even if we believe those 99% all have at least one bad cop who the other cops covered for?
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To quote you now:
The entire point of ACAB as a movement is that it's a systemic problem, and until that system changes, every officer is part of the problem, even if they as individuals are "good" cops.
Policing has systemic problems and every officer is part a problematic system. Some officers who are part of the problematic system are not themselves part of the problem. I don’t know the numbers – I could be referring to 10 or 12 cops.
To drive this point home, imagine elder care devolves to the point where 100% of caretakers are abusive to their patients. All caretakers would be part of the problem. If one caretaker quits in as replaced by a non-abusive provider, they would be part of a disgracefully problematic system. Given their behavior is not problematic, they would not themselves be a part of the problem.
If 51% of caretakers are abusive, are 49% of caretakers part of the problem?
If 49% of caretakers are abusive, or 1% of caretakers are abusive, are the remainder part of the problem?
If a trans Lemming in Unix socks sees cops kill trans people and wants to take on the impossible challenge of reforming a department from the inside, I don’t know why I’d try to discourage them. “Noo you’re only allowed to vote, protest, and run as a politician, no ground level actions!” I want trans people on the force. PEB, but trans Lemming cops aren’t necessarily bastards. And if their chief takes 30 days to fire them, “ACAB” insults them unnecessarily during that. Besides opportunity cost, the more good people are stuffed into an evil system, the better… provided they won’t think twice before committing terminable offenses (whistleblowing, disregarding immoral orders).
Thanks for entertaining my verbose, overly literal exploration.
Well, sometimes the smaller departments are worse. You run into places where the cops are a literal organized crime faction.
But, yeah, when the system is geared towards incarceration for control of the populace, with racist roots and power grabbing people throughout, even a small department is part of the problem.
Our county? Like I said, the sheriff really does his best to weed out the racists and assholes, but he's an elected official, and some shit is deeply entrenched. He loses an election, and we're subject to whatever gets in.
Conveniently enough, I used to be a nurse's assistant, so the analogy about nursing homes is close to home. And it is another field where the problems of the industry taint even the best caregivers sometimes. It's only because most caregivers are genuinely trying their best that it isn't as bad as the policing problems.
But you really, really don't want to see what happens in most nursing homes. The profit driven ones are worse than the charitable ones, but there's problems rooted in the capitalist dominance of the medical industry. When you're paying bare minimum for caregivers, abuse, theft, and even worse things can creep in because the keep things staffed, it's often the worst ones that stick with the job.
And! When someone stands the fuck up about abuse, they're the ones that get attacked, fired, or otherwise driven away. There's multiple reasons I stopped working in nursing homes, but being unable to stop abuse, even when going to state oversight divisions, was one of them. You make reports, and you end up mysteriously off schedule. You stop someone directly, and you're on report. It's crazy.
But, unlike cops, the victims of elder abuse in facilities rarely have anyone advocating for them, so the problem isn't as well known
But, after that experience? Yeah, even the good ones are part of the problem because the system prevents them from making change so the good ones never last long. It isn't as bad as the police problem, but nobody escapes without some taint on them, some compromise made to their ethics.
You raise a great point though. It is possible for good people to become cops (or caregivers) with the goal of changing from the inside. But they won't be allowed to they'll get run out, or killed
I don't think so, my understanding of it is that even if one individual cop is a 'good one' they still work for a broken system and help in some form whatever insanity has led to the people who are meant to protect and serve, instead, routinely shooting unarmed civilians. In the case of this article - a child.
I don't think it helps to think of cops as individuals when it's the collective that's broken. So in this case the simplification is kind of the point.
Ok, this is a good test. Show me the good cops in this situation who are fighting for this family. Doing what they can to out the pieces of shit who stroke their cocks to dead children.
IF there is a single good cop at this station they would be working to end this, right?
There actually was one in Los Angeles about a decade back.
His name was Christopher Dorner. The hero we needed, but didn't deserve. They kept the fire department away while they burned him. I know a lot of us have heard that phrase before. But this was in fucking southern California.
You do not fuck with fire in southern California unless you're okay with a LOT of people dying. Like, 'see it from space,multiple counties evacuated' level disaster.
Or are at least publicly speaking out against it, right?
at least one saying 'yo fuck that guy'
Or 'thank fuck he's gone, now maybe I can keep my lunch in the office fridge until lunch, maybe even without getting pubic hair and weird tiny holes in it'
'I knew something was off about him'
'Huh, that explains some stuff.'
'Now where am I going to get my cocaine abd child sex slaves!?'
They never will though
Yeah, by that comment alone, smart money's on you being the only one to say your username out loud. 🤌🏽
You sound like the next thing out of your mouth will be, "If you just follow instructions, you have nothing to fear."
Fuck that.
It's not.
Most cops in developed countries are just some guys who happen to be police officers.
Buddy that's every cop everywhere. In the USA cops require less training than a hairdresser.
Give a rando a badge and a gun and there's a good chance they'll use that power to terrorize people.
Citation needed