For years I've been saying that the police in this country are ALL out of countrol...

[MrScorpio]

It really disheartens me to point out that I told you so. I'm not in the mood for that "not all cops" bullshit. Because the so-call "good" cops, as we have all seen, do nothing more than to back up the bad ones while they rabbit punch submissive victims of police violence.

My Bad Cop, No Donut posts have all become redundant, which is why I haven't done as many lately as I've done in the past.

There's enough shit out there where I could, not only post several police misconduct articles EVERY FREAKING DAY, I could pick an actual theme for all of the posts.

Drug use and dealing, domestic violence, child abuse and molestation, use of force... You name it. It's at the point where I'm more wary about the cops than I am the criminals, for obvious reasons.

I don't have an answer for this, no solutions, only piecemeal suggestions, like putting every single LEO in the country under uninterrupted video and audio surveillance for every single moment that they're on duty.

Ordinary people, including previously uninvolved white people, are going to have to rise up and demand that cops are held accountable for their abuse. POCs have been telling everyone about how bad the police are for decades, we've had atrocity on video after atrocity on video for as long as cameras have been trained on the police and still much of the country couldn't be bothered to give a fuck.

The people have been very patient about this and will continue to show restraint against law enforcement. I doubt at this point that cops will be gunned down in the street for no good reason, as the cops have done to so many people. It just won't happen, no war on our streets.

But I do expect more people to take to the streets, organize online, address their municipal entities and advocate for change. There is just too much at stake than to just sit idly by and wait until the next unarmed person to be murdered by a cop.

More and more people are waking up. It's time to be on the right side of justice and history. It's time to make a change.

Hey, the cop who beat that man in Inkster, MI and planted drugs in his car was FIRED today. http://www.myfoxdetroit.com/story/28774423/inkster-officer-fired-after-beating-caught-on-camera

That's just a drop in the bucket, but a welcome one. Hopefully he won't get hired some place else.

[notadmblnd]

1. These cops should not be allowed to move on down the road to the next department.

[billhicks76]

8. Like Pedophile Priests?

Another foundation exemplifying group that shocked us into losing faith in the system.

[awoke_in_2003]

56. great analogy. nt

[truebluegreen]

2. Good point about criminals: they generally shoot you

when it is in their own best (financial) interest. It seems the cops do it just because they fucking feel like it. And because they can.

I'll tell you something: I live in Mexico at the moment and I worry less here than I do in the US--particularly when I'm driving near the border on the northern side.

[Hekate]

3. KnR Mr Scorpio

[joshcryer]

4. I've always been wary.

Ever since my first real experience with cops.

There's a reason this subreddit has a new post every few hours talking about cop abuses: http://www.reddit.com/r/Bad_Cop_No_Donut/

[Nay]

27. As soon as my son was in his late teens, I became as wary as anyone about what

cops can do to a person. We are white, and for some reason (probably a bunch of speeding tickets), my son was targeted for a period of harassment. They pulled him over constantly, once for having balloons in his car! My heart was in my mouth for YEARS.

What is very telling, to me, is that once he was in his thirties and had bought an upscale car (not the typical teenage junker or racer), he was never bothered again. Hmmmm.

[mwooldri]

33. I have the utmost respect and trust for the various police forces...

... in the United Kingdom. I know that I'm not going to get shot or stabbed by the police. I might get stopped and searched, but I'm not going to die.

Over here, even though I'm "real white" (as in skin colour - I'm awfully pale!), I have respect for the police forces here, and probably more respect for those local to me. Trust? As long as the general police forces in an urban area have firearms, that in my eyes diminishes my trust level. I trust the unarmed CSI officer more than the Deputy who responded to my call for help.

[AuntPatsy]

5. I remember... It's the , until it effects me syndrome most of the time, bu then again there are

So many injustices happening each and every single day that I'm afraid for the most part, a lot of us become overwhelmed by the burden of feeling as if with each step you take forward someone or something is pushing you back leaving you feeling not only Frustrated but helpless...

[AuntPatsy]

6. http://photographyisnotacrime.com

[mimi85]

7. I remember a quote i heard recently:

"It used to be white against black, now it's blue against black."

I imagine most DUers have seen the stolen horse video. Sickening.

http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/san-bernardino-county-deputies-put-leave-after-beating-horse-theft-n339556

This abused person was not black, but that doesn't make it any less disturbing. 10 officers have been placed on leave (for a change).

[kath]

15. yeah, but it's probably PAID leave. Yippee-I beat the shit out of someone, now I get extra vacation!

[Maynar]

39. This pisses me of to no end

A reward for bad behavior?!

Fuck that shit!

[Joe Chi Minh]

42. Before he became aware of the helicopter news crew's video-recording of it all,

didn't the GA. aka Judge Roy, claim that victim of the gratuitous, police assault and battery had struggled with the police when first apprehended? I mean indicating that he'd seen video evidence of it? Or was it just what he'd been told? If so, that must be tantamount to perjury. An AG, too. And what a bell-wether for the kind of justice that is likely to be in the pipeline concerning the other, daily-occurring cases!

But perhaps I'm mistaken, and he didn't claim to have seen evidence of it.

[awoke_in_2003]

58. like NWA said

But don't let it be a black and a white one
'cause they slam ya down to the street top
Black police showin out for the white cop

[George II]

9. Considering the number of police officers in the United States.....

....the number of violent incidents is very low. What makes it seem like it's increasing is the fact that we now have body cameras, cell phone cameras, the internet, etc.

[Logical]

11. The point is there should be none. How about a higher standard to hire cops? Nt

[George II]

14. No, the point is that there is NOT a higher incidence of "out of control" police officers......

....than there was years ago.

Were you complaining about this ten, twenty, or thirty years ago?

[99th_Monkey]

16. 90% of People didn't have video cams in their pockets ten, twenty or thirty years ago

Granted that part of this national discussion (re: the epidemic of
killer-cops gunning down unarmed citizens) is sorting out whether the
apparent "epidemic" of out-of-control killer-cops is merely a function of
more citizen's with cell phone cams, or whether it's due to an actual dramatic
increase in incidents of excessive police violence. But most everyone agrees
that all the cell phones out there ARE making a substantial difference i.e.
more cops are getting caught in their lies and cover-ups.

[brewens]

46. If the good cops so greatly outnumber the bad ones, it should be pretty easy for them to

make us know they are fixing the problem. The fact that it seems to always take video evidence to nail the assholes kind of tell you how it really is. A high percentage of really bad cops and just ordinary everyday bad cops willing to look the other way.

[99th_Monkey]

53. Great point. I'll know who the 'good cops' are when they rise up to "out" bad ones

We are decidedly STILL waiting for that Hell-Freezes-Over moment to happen.

I worry that these "oh, it's ONLY because of all those cell phones" is being
used as another way to say "Ho-hum ... move along. nothing much to see here"

[Damansarajaya]

59. Frank Serpico tried to do that at the NYPD, and it almost

got him killed when his fellow cops let him get shot.

[99th_Monkey]

60. I'd never watched that until recently

when i saw it mentioned on DU. Quite a revealing account. Brave guy.

He's actually been speaking out again I saw recently, in wake of Michael Brown's murder.

[Major Hogwash]

20. That's a very good point.

Since we didn't have the internet back then, we can surmise that most of these "out of control" kind of police officers have always been around.
We just didn't have the videos to catch them on camera.

Cities need to hire ombudsmen, like Boise did, a neutral judge of the facts of cases before they go to court.
Citizen complaints about police brutality have dropped over 60% here, because frivolous complaints were dismissed, and the cops started acting more responsibly.
I know that it is popular to hate cops at the DU, but that is just one of those weird aspects to this forum.
There are other oddball aspects, as well, but the overwhelming majority of DU members don't trust cops, don't like cops, and pretty much hate cops.

[George II]

48. NYC had (and may still have) a Civilian Complaint Review Board, but it turned out to be.....

.....relatively ineffective. On the one hand it was difficult for a civilian to gather the necessary evidence against a cop that was a bad actor, and on the other hand civilians were reluctant to file complaints.

Getting back to my point, I really don't think there's a rash of incidents or that they are much higher than in the past. It's just that it's much easier to document them than in the past.

[Logical]

25. And you know this how?? Magic? nt

[OnlinePoker]

29. A couple of prominent cases come to mind

The New York City Knapp commission reveal systemic corruption in the NYC police department in the 60's and 70's (I think L.A. had a similar commission). The Mississippi Burning trials where police officer members of the KKK actively lynched 3 civil rights workers. The image of one bad cop has been revealed numerous times to be more like one good cop amongst a bad bunch. Before the internet, you would rarely hear about a cop shooting someone outside of your region. Now, it's almost instantaneously broadcast to the world, often with very graphic imagery.

[treestar]

31. Exactly. Imagine how much more they got away with

back before the tech age. With both the videocameras everyone has on them (practically everyone ) and the internet to spread it, it does seem like a good chance to make major improvements. And we don't see much of that here. No suggestions for improvement are made here on DU.

We need a new way to chose cops. The old fashioned way was pick the most burley.

Now we need people who know how to defuse trouble without use of force.

And we need to address the violence/guns in this culture.

[cstanleytech]

55. I think you hit the nail on the head.

To solve most of the problems with the police all we need to do is to get the police to stop borrowing the republicans method of picking the most stupid person as a candidate so instead of the police picking ones with the IQ lower than a jar of mayonnaise (which is still higher than Sarah Palin, Ted Cruz and Ron Paul combined) we get them to pick smarter people at the level of Senator Warren, Ted Kennedy or Bernie Sanders.

[rhett o rick]

45. So what is your point? Nothing here to look at, move on? I think Haraldo made a

similar point yesterday.

[jobycom]

50. I think you're half right. Yes, the number of bad cops is probably not higher. No, it's probably not

very low.

People have always complained about bad cops. I remember an early Martin Sheen movie where a cop terrorized him in a small town, set in the 50s. "First Blood" was about a rogue cop in the 70s (the movie was 80s, but the book was 70s). I read a Raymond Chandler novel where Philip Marlowe is beaten up by a couple of cops, and the police chief tries to talk him out of pressing charges by saying something like "Law enforcement is like politics. It demands the best type of people, but rarely gets them." This was in the 30s.

Listen to Woody Guthrie's songs. One is a prayer for hobos, where he is telling a weary hobo to rest his head, that when he dies he'll go to Heaven, and there will be no policemen there.

For that matter, read the Robin Hood legends, with the Sheriff of Nottingham.

Law enforcement has always been a shifty business. People have always been murdered for no cause, locked up on planted evidence, etc. Look up Randal Dale Adams or the West Memphis Three, or Timothy Masters.

So yeah, it's true that cameras have made this all more visible, and it's always been around. But I don't think the numbers are that low. Look how many horrific crimes have been caught on camera in the last few years, from the Fruitvale Station incident to Walter Scott. Ask yourself what the odds are that there's a camera around every time a cop steps out of line. The number is a lot higher than the handful of videos have proven, I suspect.

[George II]

52. Excellent points, and very valid, but still the premise of the OP ("ALL out of control")......

....is totally false and has never been true.

[cstanleytech]

62. That's true enough. In fact its no different than someone

claiming that all African Americans are clearly more liable to rob a liquor store just because some have done so when the fact is most African Americans will never commit such a major crime or any other crime just like most whites, Asians or Mexicans will never commit a major crime or any other crime.

[totodeinhere]

28. Of course it SHOULD be done, but we will never get there.

Last edited Sat Apr 11, 2015, 01:18 PM - Edit history (1)

To expect that out of the thousands of police officers that we have in this country that absolutely none will turn out bad is unrealistic. We should work for that goal but it will never happen.

[treestar]

32. So why are you peddling hopelessness exactly?

Things have never improved before? You don't want them to? Makes no sense.

[totodeinhere]

35. What? Just because I mention that there will always be a few bad apples that means

that I personally don't want any improvements? What a cheap shot. Boy, it seems like you can hardly say anything at DU anymore without having someone jump all over you for it.

[treestar]

37. "we will never get there"

what did that really mean then?

Hey this is DU. Get that all the time, too.

I think we can get there. I would not discourage people by stating we never can. Just don't believe in that way of being.

[George II]

49. Will we ever get to ANYTHING in society that's perfect and flawless?

No, never.

Nothing is perfect no matter how hard we strive for perfection. That's not to say that anyone who recognizes that bad cops will never be completely eliminated doesn't want us to do better.

[project_bluebook]

10. My first interaction with a cop was when I was a teen back in the 70's

With my brother, at night, we drove up to a roadblock and had a shotgun pointed at my head. They were looking for armed robbers and weren't in a very good mood. We were living in an area where this happened maybe once every ten years so the cops were a little excited. Didn't bother us much back then because protect and serve was their motto, not shoot to kill like today.

[George II]

51. I had an incident when I was in my early 20s, also with my brother.....

....on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. I'd dropped off a friend and a car cut me off so I beeped my horn at it.

It turned out to be two Tactical Patrol Officers (the tough, hardened cops back in the early 70s) in an unmarked car. The nasty one pulled me over and interrogated me for about 15 minutes (things like "do you know who I am, do you know what we can do"?) then finally told his partner (who was embarassed by the whole thing) that they were "taking you in". We went to the station house, and were kept in a grundgy interrogation room for about 3 hours, then issued a bench summons for harassment and traffic violation.

When the nasty guy was out of the room the nice cop apologized and told us he'd had a rough day (BFD!!), but it was his call so he couldn't let us go.

Turns out we got a great lawyer (cost us $1000 when my father was making less than $20K a year!) who was personal friends with the judge. Scared the shit out of the cop and he dropped the charge in court. But we still went through agony for a month or so and still paid the $1000 to the lawyer.

Now, if I'd been black (this happened in a black/mixed neighborhood) who knows what wold have happened.

[blkmusclmachine]

12. ,

,

[CanonRay]

13. Every cop suspected of excessive force

and in every shooting situation should be immediately subjected to testing for steroids. I have a suspicion that this is at the heart of a LOT of this shit going on. Refusal to pee in the cup results in immediate termination.

[MannyGoldstein]

17. I largely agree

But I still think Massachusetts cops are largely in a good place:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10025917848

[calimary]

18. Indeed, MrScorpio. When I saw that video and what appears very clearly to be an attempt

to plant the taser on the dying victim, my mind shot to one thing.

How many times have we heard this same litany, again and again and again, over and over and over - "he went for my gun, he grabbed my taser, I was in fear for my life." How many times have we heard variations on that theme? How many of those times have been sheer fraud, like this one was? It made me think about the fishy smell I thought I started smelling during the Selection 2000 debacle - when every damn GOP or wrong-wing apologist was parroting the same phrases - "well, they counted once, they counted again, and they counted a third time..." and it just started sounding like a script-cloning to me. A blast-fax that EVERYBODY who might find his or her face in front of a camera or microphone needed to have read and memorized. This can't be a coincidence anymore. Feels like we're getting rolled.

I find myself wondering how many moments either in the field or in the locker room or at the neighborhood watering hole or police convention - some older cop pulls a younger one aside and shares the "inside dope". Just off the record, y'know. "Here's what you say, brother. There's specific things you need to say when this happens - it's important. You say 'he went for my gun, he grabbed my taser, I was in fear for my life.' Okay? You need to hit THOSE POINTS. Make sure you say those three things: 'He went for my gun, he grabbed my taser, I was in fear for my life.' Got it? Keep you outta trouble, brother. You have to say THOSE THINGS. THAT'S what you need to say. You do that and you're covered."

Just a guess on my part. A suspicion. An unspoken "brotherhood/sisterhood." There's been just too damn much of this through the years. So I wouldn't be a bit surprised.

[DesertDiamond]

19. Spot on! The only one you missed was, "He reached for his waistband."

[uponit7771]

24. Yeap, that was Wilsons excuse to murder

[lovemydog]

21. I stay the heck away from police.

They scare me. I didn't use to feel that way. Pretty sad, they are suppose to protect and serve us.

I will join in rallies.

I am glad this is getting publicized. It's bad.

[Contrary1]

22. And if the new channel helicopter camera wasn't hovering above?

He probably would have had a gun miraculously appear at the side of his body, and the family would be planning a funeral.

My heart hurts. When will it stop?

[akbacchus_BC]

23. You should see the shit they do here in BC, Canada. The transit cops on

the bus and the skytrain are way out of control. They handcuff people and threaten them if they are riding the bus or skytrain without a ticket. The people who get raises every year are the ones who should be trotted off to jail for failure to make a system work where people cannot go on the bus or skytrain without a ticket.

I shudder to think what real cops do to people. I've travelled to a few European Countries and there are no cops with guns at the stations. North America is becoming a police state and cops are no longer required to shoot to disable, they now are given free lance to shoot to kill. That makes me sick!

[erronis]

40. I've been overseas a few times and seen lots of Western capitals with armed troops

But this was usually in response to a non-existential threat (Black September, Red Brigades).

In the USofA (and its lap-puppies), the GWOT (Global War On Terror) is an invention to keep the threat level high and the various "enforcers" at the ready to fire their armaments. You know that we've got to test these new tasars and bullet-proof vest penetrating rounds, just in case there's a real insurrection...

[99Forever]

26. Well said, MrScorpio.

Indeed, I couldn't agree more. Cops aren't my allies, anymore than the other criminals are.

[BobbyBoring]

30. and for years

You've been right. It's totally out of hand now and as sick as this sounds, I think many look forward to killing a black youth. As much as I hate to admit it, I know people that think they are animals.
As long as that mentality exists, so will this problem.

[Gothmog]

34. You were right and your warnings were spot on

I have enjoyed your Bad Cop, no Donut threads for a long time. Body cameras are a start but they are not a total cure to the issues we are facing.

[DeSwiss]

36. K&R!

[Binkie The Clown]

38. I've said it before: Most cops are good people.

It's just the minority, the 49% that give a bad name to the good 51%.

[rhett o rick]

47. The problem wouldn't be near so bad if the "good" cops didn't help or

at least look the other way for the bad cops.

[awoke_in_2003]

61. good cops

who cover, defend, and refuse to speak out against bad cops aren't good cops.

[cstanleytech]

63. I suspect the percentage is higher of good cops

however regardless of the percentage they clearly have been slacking in screening out the bad apples and need to get their butts in gear and work harder to get the bad ones off the street before more people are needlessly killed.

[marym625]

41. K&R

I'm with you on this and always have been. There's no excuse.

The militarization of the police has to end. The training for war instead of dealing with civilians has to end. The local prosecutors being in charge of indicting has to end.

And we all need to shout, scream and demand change as loud as possible and for as long as it takes

[mopinko]

43. drug test them all.

if the people who work at walmart and target can be made to pee in a cup, so can cops. if welfare recipients can be made to pee in a cup, so can cops.

not just illegal drugs but steroids, as was mentioned here recently, are very likely behind some of this unbridled rage that is erupting all the time.

random drug tests and lots of them.
i would love to read the results.

[MrScorpio]

44. You know it...

It's quite possible that their rage is chemically induced, going along with the bulk and lack of good judgement.

[mopinko]

54. well

this would mean a lot of them are going to die of brain cancer and other unfortunate side effects of unregulated use of those drugs.
take that for what it is worth.

[cstanleytech]

65. Feeling rage is one thing but that's not an excuse imo

for giving into it. I myself have felt like killing someone like the CEO for a certain hospital that turned my mother away last year to be readdmited because she had used up her medicare days and even though I feel that's what lead to her death that CEO is still very much alive.

[mopinko]

67. roid rage is not the same as normal human rage.

when your brain is not under your control, you should not have a gun.

[cstanleytech]

64. So you are OK then with Walmart randomly drug testing their employees?

[mopinko]

66. no

but walmart employees rarely shoot people in the line of work.
how about athletes, bus drivers, pilots? at least when someone crashes a bus, they can expect to pee. i got no problem w that.

[cstanleytech]

68. Ya rarely is the key thing IMO though.

Now that is not to say that I am opposed to random drug testing but it should only be done if and only if it can be shown to be the likely cause for things like these shootings otherwise its pretty invasive of a persons privacy IMO.

[mopinko]

69. and stupid.

to take pot smokers out of the labor pool is to lose out on a lot of great employees. some jobs work better when you are a little stoned. lol.

[Damansarajaya]

57. As we used to say, RIGHT ON. nt