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this post was submitted on 12 Aug 2023
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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.
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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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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
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MODERATORS
It repeatedly mentions "the young man" particularly as quoted by the police chief.
No, that is not a "young man." That is a boy. Unequivocally so. This wasn't a 18-year-old man. It was a 12-year-old boy. Absolutely ridiculous that nobody calls out authority figures making statements like that.
Excellent catch, thanks. I'd completely missed it, but four times this 12-year-old is referred to as "young man," and all four come from the police chief. It's language intended to obfuscate.
Maybe they were hesitant to call a black person "boy".
Why?
“Boy” has historically been used in a belittling way towards black people in the US.
On the flip side, black boys and teens are often referred to as older than they are, hence “young man”. I’m guessing in the pigs’ minds it’s so they rationalize their disgusting and inhumane treatment
It's almost as if the English language has multiple ways to say a young person. Like say...young person...kid...child....pre teen...teen....I could go on but I think I made my point which is it was intentional to downplay the police being useless pieces of shit.
If only there were other words to describe him... Oh, wait! I just thought of these off the top of my head:
There's also kid, young person, son, youth, youngster, teen, preteen, tween, highschooler, and more.