this post was submitted on 16 Jun 2025
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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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• NAACP
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• Vera: Ending Mass Incarceration
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Utterly delusional to think any of that would work. At every step you would just get your face beaten in. When the cops come they too will just beat your face in.
Thinking you can castle doctrine a squad of ICE agents is equally delusional. You could probably take a couple out but you'd still die in the end and be risking the lives of anyone that lives with you.
The only solution is well known and already in practice in places like LA: have an active community response force that will show up and intimidate and harass the ICE agents. All of the previous delusions assume you, alone, can stop an ICE with just your privledge.
If you can't stop them, taking a many out with you as you can is not the worst option.
It happened at one of the protests. Someone asked one of the officers for their badge number and got their head battered.
Folks also need to be tearing down the local deathcamps, and rescuing the people still alive in them.
No badges, no uniforms, driving unmarked cars and wearing masks? I think any person could successfully argue in court that they thought they were being kidnapped by criminals.
You never get to court, that's the point the previous comment is making.
As an individual trying to stand up to them you're somewhere between being either completely ineffectual or making the situation worse. Having the law on your side doesn't matter because it's impossible for you to summon the enforcement of it fast enough to help you, assuming they even would.
A local community response that will mobilize and appear in your neighborhood in seconds is basically the only way to respond quickly with enough force for them to care about.
The people in LA Matt have been tracking and following the ice vehicles to some extent. We need that everywhere.
If ICE is coming for you, then you're not seeing court. If you're some interfering bystander then maybe you will. But then you're plan to lie to the judge and say you didn't know? The judge will see through you're bullshit immediately.
Like that could only work if you actually were ignorant and even then you'd have a long up hill legal battle to establish the precedent that its sometimes OK to shoot law enforcement. IANAL but I think thats a liberty the state has never been conceded.
If you live in a society where masked gunmen, who are answerable to NO ONE can black-bag and kidnap you off the street, then it's time for folks to have an honest talk with themselves about what kind of society they really live in.
The greatest! Amerikkkan society! The one they voted for!
You're probably right, but you'd have to make it to court. Not everyone does..
:(
There were posters stapled to phone polls in my area with what to do when ice is around. Demand id, demand a warrent etc etc.
The next day there were news stories of ice not even caring about any of that.
They do not care about the law. Lock your door and hide. If you're a neighbor tell them no one's home. That's about as much as you can do as an individual.
Tbh this is my plan if I see them, but starting with the calling 911 about the masked gunmen abducting my neighbor.
You know the cops watch the news too and will immediately guess what your up to. At best this is just trolling the cops. At worst you're calling back for ICE.
Well, show up and exercise first amendment rights certainly!
Second*
possible alternative would be to slash their car's tires. don't let them "get away" with this.
Sometimes you resist even if you know you will lose. At least it spends their time and exposes them to lawsuits.
If you want to be as annoying as possible out of spite or martyrdom I can respect that. But that's what it'd be.
yes, I know that anyone doing anything but whatever nonsense they're told is a dissonant and personally conflicted thing for you. Sorry about that. Its not a comment on your choices, just a statement of my own. I couldnt care less what you do or why-- I've seen your comment history over time. We never agree on much. Truly-- Good luck to you, centrist.
Life isnt easy, and I dont begrudge anyone not aligning to my worldview. Maybe what looks to be nonsensical to me is actually the right way-- I wouldnt be shocked to be wrong, compared to a centrist anyway. I'd be surprised if a right winger were right about much of anything.