this post was submitted on 14 Feb 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.

♦ ♦ ♦

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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ALLIES

!abolition@slrpnk.net

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r/ACAB

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Randy Balko

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Identity Project

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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

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Florida deputy Jesse Hernandez screamed “shots fired,” and frantically fired his gun after an acorn fell onto the roof of his squad car, making him jump.

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[–] vexikron@lemmy.zip 22 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (2 children)

Link to video of the dude's body cam, from VICE:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eTauF2NaZ1o

Acorn hits what looks to be his cruiser, he screams shots fired, seemingly does a double (triple?) combat roll, comes up, fires a number of shots into a stationary car while exclaiming that the shots came from a car (presumably the one he is shooting at), as what appears to be his partner cop is standing right next to this car, as she asks "What, right there?"

Then he cries out in pain, claims he was hit as he drops to the ground and basically does instinctive covering fire toward another car that could have been a likely place for someone to attempt to flank him from... had there been anyone there, or any one shooting at all. Empties the rest of his mag while on the ground.

His partner asks him (Jesse, apparently) where the shots came from, he makes a kind of gutteral noise then wheezes out "In the car! He shot, through the car!" He then makes more pain noises as he crawls along I think hia cruiser.

His partner asks him one more time "Where is he?" to which he replies "I don't know." The clip cuts shortly afterward with an off camera bystander screaming.

Basically this chuckle fuck seems to have genuinely convinced himself he was shot and wounded, at least momentarily, due to an acorn hitting his cruiser next to him.

I genuinely have no idea how one could possibly mistake an acorn hitting a car for either a gunshot or a bullet impact. I'm no ex or current cop or military, but I've been to gun ranges and shot a variety of guns. Its not even close.

Just maybe, maybe he's a a bit high strung, you know, to the point of emptying a magazine into a suburb where he easily could have injured or killed someone from the overpenetration of his rounds at such a close range.

Jesus fucking Christ.

EDIT: Ok, in fairness, I was a bit unfair, inaccurate.

An acorn hitting a car does sound similar to a bullet hitting a car.

But in this scenario that would only make sense from long distance ranges, with a shot heard after travelling a looong distance.

In this scenario, at this range, the two cops seem to be investigating people either in a car or maybe they fled inside a house.

So... you would expect a significantly louder gunshot from this close range to the point your brain wouldnt really even be able to notice or process the sound of the bullet impact.

He starts shooting at the car maybe 100ish feet away when the only thing that could have caused just the sound of a bullet impacting the car would have been a sniper, as if theyd been led into an ambush.

So... yeah.

EDIT 2: Apparently this dingus reported that he thought he heard a suppressed weapon fire, and that he felt an impact and then his legs gave out.

Uh... ok so basically /nevermind/ to all of my first Edit... a bullet impact/acorn impact on a car sound nooooothing like a suppressed weapon firing, subsonic/low caliber or supersonic/high caliber.

Nothing alike, at all.

What a goddamned joke.

[–] AA5B@lemmy.world 17 points 9 months ago (1 children)

I’m sure they did mandatory drug and alcohol screenings on site, right?

[–] Coreidan@lemmy.world 5 points 9 months ago

They promoted him

[–] RandomStickman@kbin.social 13 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Did the guy pulled a muscle while doing his tecticool combat roll and thought he was shot lmao

The only silver lining is that they're so incompetent that they didn't hurt anyone from their "Anyway I started blasting" gambit

[–] vexikron@lemmy.zip 5 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

In the spirit of fairness and accuracy after editing my first comment:

At least from this 44 second clip alone...

The female partner cop keeps her cool. Keeps asking where the shots are coming from, never fires her gun.

Jesse here is Mr Hair Trigger, and his female partner didnt start wildly shooting at the first thing she saw.

[–] RandomStickman@kbin.social 5 points 9 months ago (1 children)

I have a bit more sympathy for the partner for sure. I would be panicked if my partner is writhing on ground screaming "I'm hit!" as well.

[–] vexikron@lemmy.zip 5 points 9 months ago

Exactly, from her perspective its officer down, time to get serious!

But she got the right kind of serious, the kind they theoretically train you to be.

What a shit show. Glad she kept her cool but goddamn is this ridiculous.