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
view the rest of the comments
Also the, "do you know how fast you were going?". So curious and child-like about the world.
And that's how they can put you in the back of their car and take you to jail while your legal council arrives. Leaving you with wasted time, a car bill for having to impound it because of no driver, and hopefully you weren't on your way to work or something.
Declining to answer questions alone doesn't legally allow you to be arrested. If you end up in the back of a squad car "because" of that, you would have ended up in the back of a squad car anyway, in which case you extra shouldn't waive your right to counsel.
Good to know, out of curiosity. How would that proceed? Would they ask you to call your legal council? Would they have to come in person? Would the cop just give you an appointment time and place to talk to you with your legal council? I don't think ignoring any questions they may have is gonna end well in any way. Even if you're extremely polite and respectful in your declining.
It would proceed one of two ways:
If there was cause to arrest you, you were going to take that ride anyway. Waiving your right to remain silent only firms up the officer's grounds for arresting you and makes it more likely that you will be convicted.
Declining to answer questions without legan counsel and "ignoring any questions they may have" are two very different things. The former is an active assertion of your rights; the latter is not.
Also of note, police are not required to read you the Miranda warning immediately after arresting you. Often they do, to cover their ass, but they only need to read that warning before asking you questions related to the cause of the arrest. They can not read you the Miranda warning, and ask about what you had for lunch yesterday, get you talking about other things, in the hopes that you'll get comfortable and spill some information related to the reason for your arrest.
tl;dr: Shut the fuck up.
"Do you know how fast you were going."
"Yes"
"..."
"So you were willfully speeding then!"
"Are you sure your radar was for my speed and not the BMW that was passing me when you turned your lights on?"
"Yes." or "You can argue that in court."
"Ok"
There really is no right answer, and although I have told cops they were wrong when pulled over before that is because I am a white middle class guy in the midwest who they don't tend to target with abuse of power. Wish everyone else was able to contradict cops freely too.
Exactly where officer? I am certain I never exceeded the speed limit, but I have time/date stamped recorded gps tracking with dash and rear camera footage correlated on this vehicle, saved local and cloud backed up so I can pull it up for you.
Umm, you are offering information. It's a slippery slope. And cops will use that.