this post was submitted on 15 Jul 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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• A demonstrator's guide to understanding riot munitions

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• Police lie under oath, a lot

• Police spin: An object lesson in Copspeak

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• Shielded from Justice: Police Brutality and Accountability in the United States

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The Police Aren't Here to Protect You, Uvalde Children, or Presidential Candidates (slrpnk.net)

submitted 4 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

94 comments fedilink hide all child comments

AP News

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[–] [email protected] 0 points 4 months ago

You can't help a situation if you're dead.

Tactical retreat and getting backup/informing the secret service sniper team was a better play, and safer.

I assume that the message simply took too long to make it through all the interdepartmental channels, and he was able to get shots off.

Realistically, WTF was the cop supposed to do? If he proceeded forward, he'd probably get shot. Without checking in to dispatch to report the presence of the shooter and that he was on scene in the company of a guy with a rifle, then dispatch would have been very slow to respond, if they responded at all.

Talk to the guy? He's clearly deadset on doing something. You don't climb on a roof with a rifle without a plan and the will to execute that plan. Talking to him is going to either agitate him or just get the officer shot.... The chances that the cop could have talked him down, even if the Leo had expert negotiation training, is slim at best.

The standard carry equipment for a police officer is pretty limited. It's not like he has grenades or something, and don't forget, at this point he's on a fucking ladder with a rifle pointed at his dome at point blank range. Calling for someone with the correct equipment and training to get onto the roof to handle the guy, with the correct equipment to do so, and/or, have a fully trained sharpshooter that's already positioned nearby take that shot, is a better way to handle the situation.

Look, I'm not going to defend the police about what happened at Uvalde, or any other school shooting, but in this scenario, given the options, falling back to call reinforcements was the right call.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Tbh, after reading the link, I don't blame anyone with a rifle pointed at them to climb back down, cop or no. The whole situation was handled so poorly tho and is 100% going to increase voilent tensions.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 4 months ago

Fair, but you have a team ready to shoot at anything at a drop of a hat. Find a way to contact them.

But US cops aren't chosen for their critical thinking.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 4 months ago

or Presidential Candidates

Yeah... I don't care about the third one. They deserve every bullet.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 4 months ago

[–] [email protected] 0 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (2 children)

One officer climbed to the roof and encountered Crooks, who pointed his rifle at the officer. The officer retreated down the ladder

"only pointing at a cop" is how you know it wasn't a leftist or anarchist.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 4 months ago

That doesn’t make sense for a successful assassination attempt, it would have alerted the SS.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Go on, spell it out

[–] [email protected] 0 points 4 months ago

It implies respect for cops. That's something the right or conservatives are into.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Maybe this is poorly described and the shooter literally turned and shot as the cop ducked back down the ladder… but that cop should’ve been on radio or firing his sidearm into the dirt or SOMETHING immediately after going back down a step or two. But this reads like he just went back down and wandered off.

They could head off a lot of questions by saying he went down a step and radioed immediately so people think the cop at least tried lol

[–] [email protected] 0 points 4 months ago (1 children)

The cop had already lost, the shooter had the high ground!

Seriously though, he was on a ladder - all of your limbs are dedicated to keeping you on the ladder. You have to get off the ladder before you can do anything else, so you either go up the ladder probably getting shot multiple times before you can get to your gun or radio, or go down the ladder where you're not in the line of fire to call for backup, draw your gun, or whatever.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 4 months ago (2 children)

Not really, I’m on a ladder for hours a day frequently, like multiple times a month. You are only required 3 points of contact for OSHA compliance and pretty sure cops can ignore that. If you can’t grab the radio attached to your chest with one hand while on a ladder with three other contacts then you have no business being a cop lol

[–] [email protected] 0 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Ha OSHA

If you work on a ladder, you've survived with one and told nobody.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 4 months ago

Oh yeah, one foot on ladder, other foot on top of something tall (if anything), hands on whatever you’re working on partially holding you up

[–] [email protected] 0 points 4 months ago (1 children)

I agree that you can get one hand free while on a ladder, but I'm still going to duck first if someone is pointing a gun at me

[–] [email protected] 0 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Fully agreed, I’m just saying a cop who passed the annual fitness exam should be able to duck down a step and radio an alert pretty damn quick.

I’m still betting $10 that the shooter turned and threw lead without really aiming since he knew he was compromised.

I just think the journalists are wording this extremely poorly

[–] [email protected] 0 points 4 months ago

I agree with the poor wording, "retreat" makes it sound he ran away.

Another issue is the Secret Service were probably on their own radio channels and not with the local police. When there's interagency things like this, there's usually a command center where they have the leaders of each group staged so they can relay things between the teams, but not direct communication between Deputy Bobby who sees the gunman and Agent Spike on the stage. Plenty of time to get off shots before the warning is heard by the people who need to hear it.

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