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
It's one thing to be happy to concede your constitutional right to assemble and protections for the press to bullies with guns.
It's another to distance yourself from the brave injured journalists and blame the people with cameras for the actions of tyrants.
The people with the cameras should not be blamed, clearly.
What does "Don’t be in a zero zone, that’s all there is to it." and "I agree with you fully." mean, if you're not endorsing someone who blames the journalists for being harmed while *checks notes* doing their job reporting on civil unrest with cameras in proximity to armed police?
That was not the comment I replied to, and to be fair, I should have said something like "This is something absolutely agree with" to clarify that I spoke about that specific comment.
I'll also take this time to ask a question, are public protests the only way to fight oppression?
I ask because, while I stand by that if someone with a gun tells me to leave, I will leave, there is plenty of other things someone can do to fight for freedom that does not involve mass protests.
No, of course not. Just doing your job as a journalist documenting the government breaking the law is a great way to fight oppression without engaging in public protest.
Are you a journalist? Do have have a responsibility to the public to document how the government is responding to the protests? As a private citizen, you're free to follow the dictates of your conscience. But I suspect you'd be a terrible journalist.
It seems strange you're asking about protest ethics, when there were no protesters in the video; only police and journalists. I hope you're not trying to shift the goalposts, derail the thread, or muddy the waters. There is no order to leave recorded in the video, only police approaching and immediately firing rounds. Journalists in the United States should not expect to be targets of police violence when they're clearly engaged in first amendment protected activity and not breaking the law.