Police brutality, how should it be handled?

chris89300

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Jun 5, 2010
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Sup guys.

I've just seen yet another police brutality video, as usual without provocation and I wanted to know what you guys thought about it.

More specifically, how we, as citizens, should handle it.
But, and this is the tricky part, not individually. Because as we all know, if an individual goes up against a cop in court, the citizen will pay dearly, but never the cop, even if all the evidence is against that cop.

So, as the people who PUT FOOD ON COPS' TABLES, how should we handle this? Cuz let's be honest, they're little more than garbage men. Public servants. Don't get me wrong, I have a lot of respect for garbage men, but not in the slightest for cops.

And for the smartasses: YES, I know there are good, even great cops, hell, I personally know a few, but most of them are little more than abusive little shits, so the topic is about the latter.
 

TakerFoxx

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Jan 27, 2011
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Gotta agree with Not The Bees on this one. Every time I hear "Yeah, okay, I know that there's good X out there..." with X being anything from a job to a belief system to a nationality to what have you, it always translates in my mind as "But most of them are assholes!" Which always makes me think of this scene:


Relevant part at :59.
 

Thaluikhain

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What can you do? Film everything, even when it's not your problem, vote for people who oppose police brutality, go to protests...and try not to be too upset when this doesn't work and might get you on the receiving end of police brutality.
 

Zykmiester

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Jun 22, 2010
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Would you mind posting a link to the video in question?
You should just record the whole incident and report them. However most videos I've seen of so-called police brutality is just the suspect getting fucked up trying to resist arrest. Also, most cops are good people just doing their jobs with a minority abusing their power.
 

Artaneius

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Life has always been this way. People with power always abuse that power. If you were in the same position you would most likely make the same choices. Why? Because deep down, there is a monster behind that glass you would call morality.
 

Imperioratorex Caprae

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May 15, 2010
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There are a lot more good cops than bad cops, just that good cops don't usually make the media salivate because its just not sensational enough to get headlines. Thats the unfortunate part of the media, they don't care about truth, just shock value. So please, stop feeding from the media trough. I'm pretty sure it lowers the IQ.
Why is it more prevalent? Media bias, its easy to play up the bad parts of society by rarely showing its good side. Skewing data can show anything to be "true" but it doesn't make it that way. I've known a lot of different law enforcement personnel in my life, and yes some of them were unfit to wear the badge, scumbags. But the rest (and the absolute majority) are decent hardworking folks who have a shitty job and get little to zero credit for what they do.
Most of the ones I know aren't on a powertrip. Actually the ones who act as if the badge gives them super-powered authority to fuck with people however they want don't last as cops or get stuck on traffic duty their entire careers.
There are bullies and jackasses everywhere, badges don't make them that way.
 

Saltyk

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Sep 12, 2010
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Zykmiester said:
Would you mind posting a link to the video in question?
You should just record the whole incident and report them. However most videos I've seen of so-called police brutality is just the suspect getting fucked up trying to resist arrest. Also, most cops are good people just doing their jobs with a minority abusing their power.
I have to agree with this one. I've yet to see a video of police brutality where the victim wasn't resisting arrest, often violently. I vividly remember one with a teenager, who was being held, kicking a security guard's leg for a solid minute before they take him to the ground. But even if you nonviolently resist arrest, you are still resisting arrest (which is a crime) and the police will take you down if they have to in order to place you in handcuffs. That is not police brutality, despite what some seem to think.

However, that's not to say that it doesn't happen. I think there is reason to believe that recent well publicized events may be one such example. In that case, all you can do is bring attention to it and try to get those responsible brought to justice.
 

chikusho

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Jun 14, 2011
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Imperioratorex Caprae said:
There are a lot more good cops than bad cops, just that good cops don't usually make the media salivate because its just not sensational enough to get headlines. Thats the unfortunate part of the media, they don't care about truth, just shock value. So please, stop feeding from the media trough. I'm pretty sure it lowers the IQ.
Why is it more prevalent? Media bias, its easy to play up the bad parts of society by rarely showing its good side. Skewing data can show anything to be "true" but it doesn't make it that way. I've known a lot of different law enforcement personnel in my life, and yes some of them were unfit to wear the badge, scumbags. But the rest (and the absolute majority) are decent hardworking folks who have a shitty job and get little to zero credit for what they do.
Most of the ones I know aren't on a powertrip. Actually the ones who act as if the badge gives them super-powered authority to fuck with people however they want don't last as cops or get stuck on traffic duty their entire careers.
There are bullies and jackasses everywhere, badges don't make them that way.
Unfortunately, even if the overwhelming majority of police are "decent hardworking folks", that's just not enough. The problem goes way deeper than "a few bad eggs" since police are more or less immune to justice. And, shit, how they seemingly as a rule exclude, abuse and harass any colleague who chooses to stand on the side of the citizen when a police officer abuses power.

The police are given power way beyond any normal citizen. That means they must be held to a higher standard. And every time they fail to act for justice within their own ranks that's a failure for the entire force, and for society as a whole.
 

Siege_TF

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May 9, 2010
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TakerFoxx said:
Gotta agree with Not The Bees on this one. Every time I hear "Yeah, okay, I know that there's good X out there..." with X being anything from a job to a belief system to a nationality to what have you, it always translates in my mind as "But most of them are assholes!" Which always makes me think of this scene:


Relevant part at :59.
Never actually watched that movie, I only (care to) assume he's talking about a young black man?

Anyways the way to prevent police brutality, even in the districts that conduct themselves like old boys' clubs, is to make them all wear cameras while on duty. It's been tried, it works, and the only ones opposed to it are the ones who know they'd have to stop having 'fun' on the job and claiming it would be too expensive.

As so many governments are not-saying 'in this post-9/11 world' (as they actually ARE so fond of saying); 'the innocent have nothing to hide'.
 

SirDeadly

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Feb 22, 2009
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How do you know there was no provocation? Something must have happened for the cops to act as they did that was not shown in the video. As Not The Bees said, I am offended by what you said in judging all cops in the same way as I intend to apply to the police force where I live at the end of the year.
 

michael87cn

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Jan 12, 2011
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cops that break the law - pay the same price as anyone else. It is only fair, and just.

Usually, they just lose their jobs - even if they kill someone. How is that a good system?
 

MrMixelPixel

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Jul 7, 2010
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The police should be held to a high standard and it's their job to fix the poor image that they have. When a police officer does something that makes the others look bad, it's up to the others to try alleviate the tension it created. They should be transparent about their mistakes and not defensive when we call them out on the awful stuff they pull. I don't care that most police officers are good folks, enough of them have been caught being horrible for many of us to be a little cynical.

As for what to do about it, I believe equipping police officer uniforms with recording devices has had a decent success?

http://online.wsj.com/articles/what-happens-when-police-officers-wear-body-cameras-1408320244
 

Imperioratorex Caprae

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May 15, 2010
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chikusho said:
Imperioratorex Caprae said:
There are a lot more good cops than bad cops, just that good cops don't usually make the media salivate because its just not sensational enough to get headlines. Thats the unfortunate part of the media, they don't care about truth, just shock value. So please, stop feeding from the media trough. I'm pretty sure it lowers the IQ.
Why is it more prevalent? Media bias, its easy to play up the bad parts of society by rarely showing its good side. Skewing data can show anything to be "true" but it doesn't make it that way. I've known a lot of different law enforcement personnel in my life, and yes some of them were unfit to wear the badge, scumbags. But the rest (and the absolute majority) are decent hardworking folks who have a shitty job and get little to zero credit for what they do.
Most of the ones I know aren't on a powertrip. Actually the ones who act as if the badge gives them super-powered authority to fuck with people however they want don't last as cops or get stuck on traffic duty their entire careers.
There are bullies and jackasses everywhere, badges don't make them that way.
Unfortunately, even if the overwhelming majority of police are "decent hardworking folks", that's just not enough. The problem goes way deeper than "a few bad eggs" since police are more or less immune to justice. And, shit, how they seemingly as a rule exclude, abuse and harass any colleague who chooses to stand on the side of the citizen when a police officer abuses power.

The police are given power way beyond any normal citizen. That means they must be held to a higher standard. And every time they fail to act for justice within their own ranks that's a failure for the entire force, and for society as a whole.
While not an excuse, looking for perfection in humans put in a very stressful job like law enforcement is an exercise in futility. Yes we demand excellence from that profession, we don't always get it. In a society as large as this we're not going to catch all the offenders, the authority abusers. The reason cops stand with each other is due to the scrutiny they endure on a day to day basis. For every shit cop being reported for abuse of power or brutality, you can be guaranteed there are more good cops being targeted by bitter offenders. A guy gets a speeding ticket, gets angry because they got caught and calls in a false report. If cops didn't stand up for each other in times where one was "accused" of something, then who could they count on to keep them safe in a life-or-death situation?
We are supposed to live in a society where one is innocent until proven guilty, that should apply to everyone cops included.
Its a shitty job where one gets abused by the people one is protecting on a daily basis and it is a wonder that there aren't more cops who break under the strain of such abuse.
Just as cops aren't perfect, neither is the society they choose to protect. Holding them to impossible standards isn't going to make the problem go away and shaming them for standing up for each other whenever there is negative media attention is ludicrous. Yes a bad cop makes the entire force look bad, but fellow cops not standing up for a good cop who was falsely accused is even worse. And then there's the context of "police brutality." Once again, not everyone who gets beat up by a cop was just innocently minding their own business, and a lot of the time cameras don't catch the beginning of those incidents.
What I'd like to see is the implementation of button-cams on cop uniforms. That way the cops side of the story gets more or less weight because it is recorded from the source. Its not a catch-all, but it gives a lot more context to those issues. It won't prevent everything, and they aren't foolproof. Nothing really is.
 

SexyGarfield

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Mar 12, 2013
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The good cops outweigh the bad and any generalization to the contrary is sensationalism. That said it does seem as if there is an us and them mentality in cop culture. If an officer causes physical harm in excess of what is necessary to subdue a detainee then they should be brought up on charges any other citizen would with all the consequences therein being present. Too often we hear on the news that when a cop makes a fatal mistake and the only thing that happens is a shift to desk duty, if that. Too few officers are willing to cross the thin blue line and speak out against the misconduct of their peers and it drags down the willingness of the people to be policed.
 

Candidus

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When a police officer near for example a kettling site (an abusive crowd-control practice that should be banned) happens to cave in the head of a news stand worker who just happened to be walking home from a place nearby (this actually happened in London), I think that officer should receive a mandatory full-life sentence in solitary confinement. Not 25 years, but life. All solitary.

Police officers who steal from peoples' homes should get 30 years; no parole, no nothing.
Police officers who confiscate legal items during random stop-and-searches (like USBs) with no legal right or good reason should ALSO get 30 years.

In short, I'm saying that if you put a foot wrong as an officer it should be the end of your fucking life.

Police officers should live and work and sleep under a sword on a string, figuratively speaking.
 

maxben

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Jun 9, 2010
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The problem is, as always, America, not the cops. Cops have problems in all of the Western world, but nowhere as badly as America. You know why cops only get fired when they kill someone? Because the chance that the other person had a gun is so high, and therefore if they hesitate to shoot first then the chance that they might die or be seriously injured is so high, that while it is awful it is hard to blame the cop for making the decision. I blame the US and its violent citizens/society first, then the overly militarized police second, because we both know which came first.
 

Uriel_Hayabusa

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Imperioratorex Caprae said:
While not an excuse, looking for perfection in humans put in a very stressful job like law enforcement is an exercise in futility. Yes we demand excellence from that profession, we don't always get it. In a society as large as this we're not going to catch all the offenders, the authority abusers. The reason cops stand with each other is due to the scrutiny they endure on a day to day basis. For every shit cop being reported for abuse of power or brutality, you can be guaranteed there are more good cops being targeted by bitter offenders.
Excellently put. I do not work in law enforcement nor do I have any family members who do, but I nonetheless have immense respect for the men and women who put everything on the line to help keep the streets safe, in spite of neverending mockery or even outright harassment from people who've already decided to hate them yet still insist that their every call was a bad one.

Relevant video:

Joe Friday, Waht it means to be a police officer[/youtube]
 

Starbird

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Not The Bees said:
I realize that you tried to end this with you know that there are good cops out there, but most are abusive little shits... and I find that incredibly insulting. As my father is a cop, my step-brother is a cop, I have friends that are cops. But mostly, my father... who I am incredibly proud of, who has done more than his fair share in this world of trying to be a good person, and all the rest of them that are treated like they're all one entity as if each cop from each precinct, from each district, from each city, from each county, from each state are the same.

Because they're not. And while I am the first one in line to punish over zealous and abusive cops, God knows I've had my fair share of run ins with them, I would never treat anyone with as much disrespect as you just showed right there. That is just wrong.
The Police are like The Internet. Most people involved are decent human beings but a horrible minority give the rest a bad image.

I lived in South Africa for the first almost 30 years of my life. Cops there are underpaid, overworked and sometimes snap and do nasty things. Currently living in Japan and the police here are well paid, somewhat underworked (at least in the country) and still do the occasional nasty thing.

Nonetheless, like in most spheres - the majority of people involved are decent.

In terms of brutality, all cars should have a camera. There needs to be monitoring of people with the level of power the police have. Incidents of brutality or corruption should be prosecuted extremely harshly and there should be zero tolerance from other police.
 

Kae

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I live in México so I'm legally obligated to hate cops and be really cynical about the fact that there isn't anything I can do, here people have little to no faith in the police so no one really cares about police brutality, I mean let's worry about the brutality after we fix the ineptitude, it doesn't really seem fair to cops but then again I've never met a cop that wasn't a useless pile of corrupt trash, then again I know way more criminals than cops.