this post was submitted on 20 Nov 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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RULES

Real-life decorum is expected. Please don't say things only a child or a jackass would say in person.

If you're here to support the police, you're trolling. Please exercise your right to remain silent.

Saying ~~cops~~ ANYONE should be killed lowers the IQ in any conversation. They're about killing people; we're not.

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

!abolition@slrpnk.net

!acab@lemmygrad.ml

r/ACAB

r/BadCopNoDonut/

Randy Balko

The Civil Rights Lawyer

The Honest Courtesan

Identity Project

MirandaWarning.org

♦ ♦ ♦

INFO

A demonstrator's guide to understanding riot munitions

Adultification

Cops aren't supposed to be smart

Don't talk to the police.

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

So you wanna be a cop?

When the police knock on your door

♦ ♦ ♦

ORGANIZATIONS

Black Lives Matter

Campaign Zero

Innocence Project

The Marshall Project

Movement Law Lab

NAACP

National Police Accountability Project

Say Their Names

Vera: Ending Mass Incarceration

 

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[–] Lost_My_Mind@lemmy.world 110 points 1 month ago (2 children)

NY transit starts getting complaints about an ad they have no idea about.

"No, m'mam, we don't have a death penalty policy.....no......no m'man, I don't know what poster you saw....."

[–] shoulderoforion@fedia.io 116 points 1 month ago (4 children)

"but yes m'aam we did shoot and kill 4 human beings for cheating us out of the 2.90 fare"

[–] CarbonatedPastaSauce@lemmy.world 90 points 1 month ago (5 children)

Fortunately none of them died as far as I can find. Surgeons had to crack open the skull of the bystander they shot in the back of the head to relieve his brain swelling though. I hope he recovers because he's gonna be set for life.

They spent 150 million on overtime for cops to stop fare evasion. How much were they losing in fares? I'm gonna go ahead and guess it wasn't even a teeny fraction of that.

[–] Passerby6497@lemmy.world 36 points 1 month ago (2 children)

They spent 1500x more on enforcement than they could have ever recovered from fare evaders. Just like every single other monitoring and enforcement program for public services.

Has there ever been a single program like that which is actually a net positive? Fare enforcement, food stamps means testing, public services with drug screens, "welfare queen" check ups, means testing, etc. I'm not aware of a single instance where it wouldn't have been cheaper just to let a few people get benefits that "didn't deserve them" than putting these restrictions in place

But God's forbid we let poor people have nice things, or just to do good things for our society. Goddamned toxic puritanicalism. ..

[–] CarbonatedPastaSauce@lemmy.world 23 points 1 month ago

Absolutely right. Brings to mind something I read a while ago which I will paraphrase.

"Liberals want everyone to get what they need even if a few cheat the system. Conservatives want nobody to get what they need if there's a chance anyone will cheat the system."

[–] SwingingTheLamp@midwest.social 6 points 1 month ago

Somebody on Lemmy a while back asked about the phrase, "the cruelty is the point," and whether it was true and fair. Well, here's the evidence: The point is not a net gain on fare collections.

The fact that the numbers are public and they keep doing it proves it: The cruelty is the point.

[–] sqw@lemmy.sdf.org 7 points 1 month ago (1 children)

public transit fares are a steeply regressive tax on the poor

[–] falcunculus@jlai.lu 4 points 1 month ago (2 children)

I disagree, the poor would be worse off without public transit since else it'd be much harder for them to move around. In fact many if not most public transit systems are subsidized and operate at a loss.

The richer don't use it and so care little, beyond the macro level that it benefits businesses and such.

[–] Trainguyrom@reddthat.com 10 points 1 month ago

Public transit never turns a profit, not because it's bad business but simply down to the economics of providing affordable transit. In fact, fares recover such a small percentage of a public transit agency's budget that there's good arguments being made for making public transit fare free. Public transit is a net good for communities so making it as accessible to those who want or need it is important

I think you may have missed his point. He wasn't arguing against public transit, just the fare. It should be free. For the reasons you yourself mentioned.

[–] thanks_shakey_snake@lemmy.ca 3 points 1 month ago (1 children)

What were you able to find out about the cases? 👀

[–] CarbonatedPastaSauce@lemmy.world 3 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Just what I wrote above. There aren't a lot of articles about it after the initial incident. Our media has the attention span of a frantic gnat with Level 11 ADHD so it's not surprising.

[–] thanks_shakey_snake@lemmy.ca 2 points 1 month ago

Yeah I know what you mean. Thanks for the extra context that you were able to glean though.

[–] Drusas@fedia.io 3 points 1 month ago

That's why Seattle largely doesn't bother with fare enforcement and doesn't even have turnstiles. It's simply a waste of money and manpower.

[–] SARGE@startrek.website 1 points 1 month ago

because he’s gonna be set for life.

Lolololololol no

He will sue, the state will settle for 20mil and then quietly cancel the settlement payment after people move on from the story.

That's what they always do.

[–] Lost_My_Mind@lemmy.world 7 points 1 month ago (4 children)

Well wait.....can the NY transit be blamed for that, if it was NYPD?

That would be like if some guy stole a loaf of bread from a grocery store, so they call the cops, and the cop shoots the theif.

Do you blame the grocery store?

[–] webghost0101@sopuli.xyz 28 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

The vast majority of people who steal food from a grocery aren't doing it out of malicious reasoning but simply for their and their families survival.

Using a systemic monopoly on violence to stop people from trying to non violently survive in a world that refuses to help them is always immoral.

We should be calling the cops on supermarket chains for hoarding and not sharing their exes of wealth with citizens who actually need it.

[–] SanctimoniousApe@lemmings.world 11 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

”We should be calling the cops on supermarket chains for hoarding and not sharing their exes of wealth with citizens who actually need it."

I think the word you were looking for was "excess." What you wrote seems like an oddly specific kink for divorcees.

[–] webghost0101@sopuli.xyz 14 points 1 month ago (1 children)
[–] FinalRemix@lemmy.world 14 points 1 month ago

Homer: You know, Mr. Burns, you're the richest guy I know. Way richer than Lenny.

Mr. Burns: Yes, but I'd trade it all for a little more

[–] CarbonatedPastaSauce@lemmy.world 17 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

Don't worry there's plenty of blame to go around in this fucked up system we've got.

But I agree with you. No matter what this guy did, these cops engineered an unnecessary confrontation and then shot innocent bystanders, the suspect, AND themselves. They are to blame. They are not qualified to use firearms in the performance of their duties because they lack good judgement.

[–] elvith 7 points 1 month ago (2 children)

Wait.... they did WHAT?!

I read the advert and just assumed, the suspect just tried to ran and they needlessly used guns to stop them instead of running after them or something like that?!

[–] CarbonatedPastaSauce@lemmy.world 18 points 1 month ago (1 children)

The suspect is not 100% blameless, he did hop the line, he was not following lawful commands, and he was holding a knife. Now that is a really sketchy situation because a knife can kill you real quick, real life is not like Hollywood. But he did not try to stab anyone with it and he was not threatening anyone. Cops love to talk about how a knife can kill you from 20 feet but that ain't gonna happen when they have already drawn on him. So none of that validates their response. They could have easily backed up temporarily, called for backup, tried the tasers again, waited for him to calm down a bit, or 20 other things than unloading their guns in a crowded subway station. Idiotic. The ONLY reason they should have fired is if the suspect was attempting to harm someone. I hope they are fired and charged with negligence at the very least, attempted manslaughter sounds even better.

[–] Malfeasant@lemm.ee 2 points 1 month ago

unloading their guns in a crowded subway station.

The sad thing is it wasn't even crowded. There were like 3 people in the immediate vicinity, not counting suspect and cops- and they managed to hit 2 of them.

[–] TootTootComingThru@lemmy.world 1 points 1 month ago

Not justifying the cops shooting up everything, but he 100% had a knife and was acting dangerously. They tried using tasers first which didn't work.

There are videos. People who are saying that a man was murdered just over couple bucks of fare are purposefully leaving out some crucial details. I get it, but it's dishonest.

[–] WalrusDragonOnABike@lemmy.today 12 points 1 month ago

Do you blame the grocery store?

Yes.

[–] Malfeasant@lemm.ee 3 points 1 month ago

It wasn't NYPD, it was transit police. Not too uncommon in big cities for the transit system to have their own (real) police force, it solves some problems of jurisdiction when the transit system spans multiple cities and/or counties.

[–] Malfeasant@lemm.ee 6 points 1 month ago (1 children)

The fun part is of the 4 people shot, only the one had skipped the fare. Two were bystanders, one was another cop.

[–] rickyrigatoni@lemm.ee 3 points 1 month ago

So only three people got shot.

[–] TachyonTele@lemm.ee 2 points 1 month ago

The statement they did put out about the poster was basically
"The shooting was not over skipping fare. But everytime someone skips fair we loss money and people are in danger"

[–] octopus_ink@lemmy.ml 1 points 4 weeks ago

While I feel a little bad about the folks no doubt receiving those calls, this is so deliciously amusing to contemplate.