this post was submitted on 13 Jan 2026
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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.

♦ ♦ ♦

RULES

Real-life decorum is expected. Please don't say things only a child or a jackass would say in person.

If you're here to support the police, you're trolling. Please exercise your right to remain silent.

Saying ~~cops~~ ANYONE should be killed lowers the IQ in any conversation. They're about killing people; we're not.

Please don't dox or post calls for harassment, vigilantism, tar & feather attacks, etc.

Please also abide by the instance rules.

It you've been banned but don't know why, check the moderator's log. If you feel you didn't deserve it, hey, I'm new at this and maybe you're right. Send a cordial PM, for a second chance.

♦ ♦ ♦

ALLIES

!abolition@slrpnk.net

!acab@lemmygrad.ml

r/ACAB

r/BadCopNoDonut/

Randy Balko

The Civil Rights Lawyer

The Honest Courtesan

Identity Project

MirandaWarning.org

♦ ♦ ♦

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

♦ ♦ ♦

ORGANIZATIONS

Black Lives Matter

Campaign Zero

Innocence Project

The Marshall Project

Movement Law Lab

NAACP

National Police Accountability Project

Say Their Names

Vera: Ending Mass Incarceration

 

founded 2 years ago
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[–] spacesatan@leminal.space 114 points 4 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (7 children)

It's literally impossible to know how many shootings were prevented because the shooter knew there was an armed cop present.

And they actually have stopped active shooters, several times.

Like, real cops are bad enough. You don't have to just lie about them. Lies can be effective propaganda but if you don't need to lie then you're just undercutting your message for no reason.

*The only reason to downvote this comment is if you care about vibes above truth and vibes above effective messaging. Or are pro-cop and want to make lefties look dumb. Self reflect.

**not sure if some replies are missing my point or just talking past it. I'm not saying school cops are a good thing I'm saying the tweet is blatantly factually wrong and should not be promoted.

***Oh the tweet is from February 2018, it might have actually been true at the time. For about one month until the Great Mills shooting.

[–] ChonkyOwlbear@lemmy.world 33 points 3 days ago

We have to ask ourselves if the money that was spent on cops in schools was instead spent on counseling for troubled students, would we be better off?

I would argue that this would have been just as effective at preventing shootings without any of the negative side effects.

[–] funkless_eck@sh.itjust.works 22 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

school shootings in 2024 average 1.8 per every school day (0.9 at 365 calendar days a year). The next highest country - Mexico - has one every ~~24 school days (one every 46 calendar days)~~

I would not call that a deterrent.

Edit: oh God, it's actually even worse. I assumed I was looking at yearly stats for Mexico. it was actually a decade. It's one every 15 months

[–] BarneyPiccolo@lemmy.today 17 points 3 days ago (1 children)

I do know of at least two massive school shootings - Parkland and Uvalde - where the cops literally cowered outside, and listened as the shooter murdered child after child.

Every cop is trained that their primary objective is to make it home safe at the end of shift. Anything they have to do to accomplish that is acceptable, including killing people or allowing people to be killed. Cops don't protect anyone but themselves.

[–] StupidBrotherInLaw@lemmy.world 8 points 3 days ago (2 children)

Cops don't protect anyone but themselves.

And the rich, thank you very much.

[–] AngryCommieKender@lemmy.world 3 points 3 days ago (2 children)

Not all the time, or Brian Thompson would be alive, and Luigi wouldn't be a patsy.

[–] BarneyPiccolo@lemmy.today 3 points 3 days ago

Who's Brian Thompson? I just think of him as a Corporate Serial Killer for Profit. I don't want to know his name.

I know who my man Luigi is, though!

[–] BarneyPiccolo@lemmy.today 3 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Just because they are supposed to protect the rich, doesn't mean they're good at it. They don't get suddenly competent because it's a rich guy. The rich are being guarded by the same dumb apes that are brutalizing the rest of us.

[–] AngryCommieKender@lemmy.world 4 points 3 days ago

That was my point really. They may protect the rich and their property, but they aren't effective, efficient, or even educated.

[–] henfredemars@infosec.pub 23 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (1 children)

Indeed. It’s not a defensible argument because it’s too categorically strong. I looked up some reasonable counter examples just to make sure I’m not crazy, but I will not be in the position of defending pigs, so I’ll leave it at that.

Definitely fuck the police, but don’t stoop to their level.

[–] spacesatan@leminal.space 7 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (2 children)

It's not defending the police to defend the truth unless you think the truth makes the police look good. Knowingly spreading lies is just bad from every angle. Tactically, rhetorically, intellectually, etc.

It's doing the right's job for them if stuff that is easily disproven is being presented as a reason that cops suck.

[–] curbstickle@anarchist.nexus 8 points 4 days ago (1 children)

I am quite sure they were agreeing with you.

[–] spacesatan@leminal.space 0 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (1 children)

I didn't read it as *disagreement and wasn't arguing with them. I was just prickling at the 'defending pigs' bit and reiterating.

[–] curbstickle@anarchist.nexus 3 points 3 days ago

I am pretty sure they were saying they weren't going to share the examples they looked up in defense of cops, not suggesting that you were defending them.

[–] henfredemars@infosec.pub 1 points 4 days ago

My main concern is lack of critical thinking skills clouding the message. I want to stick to actual facts as much as possible, but for some of my brothers and sisters, vibes is all they’ve got to work with, and we still need these people too to present a united front and affect real change. Their heart is in the right place.

[–] chemical_cutthroat@lemmy.world 18 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (1 children)

If you want, you can find the data on the number of school shootings before and after Columbine. Here is a website with those stats: https://echomovement.org/school-shootings/

You can see that the change was slight at first, but in the last 10 years it has gone through the roof.

So, you can argue that there is no way to know how many were prevented, but we can see that they occur in MUCH larger numbers than they did pre-Columbine. Maybe the numbers would be higher without the cops there? Whose to say. I can tell you that there seems to be a problem that we aren't addressing, and sending cops into schools to arrest little children of color doesn't seem to be the answer we all are hoping for. Maybe we can look at the system in systemic racism and see what systems need to change? Does that system involve gutless fucking pigs who like to shoot minorities and hide while children are being mowed down? Maybe we should have a fucking barbecue.

So, yeah. You can't say how many they've prevented, but I can tell you how many dead children are buried now on their watch, and that tells me they aren't worth the salt in the cure.

[–] BarneyPiccolo@lemmy.today 2 points 3 days ago (2 children)

There was a Federal ban on certain military style assault weapons from 1994-2004. During that time, mass shootings were fairly rare, as you stated. The Columbine massacre was in 1999, and kind of started the era of modern mass shootings, but it didn't really kick in until the ban ended a few years later, as you stated.

The assault rifle ban worked as planned, and it's clear that the minute it was lifted, mass shootings began.

[–] AngryCommieKender@lemmy.world 2 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (1 children)

I think that's mostly incidental. That ban was mostly on cosmetic features, not the core functionality of the guns. You could, and I did, still buy AR-15 and M-16 platforms. They just didn't come with the tactical/ military style stocks and magazines. I could get smaller mags and just swap mags faster.

This is a feature of almost every gun legislation that has managed to pass in the US. They manage to make people who don't know much about guns feel safe, and the gun manufacturers don't lobby against the laws because there are loopholes that one could drive a tank through, so they won't lose any profits.

[–] BarneyPiccolo@lemmy.today 0 points 3 days ago (1 children)

I just wrote this in response to another post, but it applies here, so please forgive me for the cut & paste:

This is an important subject that doesn't get ANY discussion. The type of gun makes a HUGE difference in these cases.

Military assault rifles aren't much different than a standard hunting rifle, like a Ruger. And yet, they are overwhelmingly the choice of most mass shooters. When was the last time you heard of a shooter using a standard hunting rifle?

The reason is psychological. Nobody would dispute that anyone who has committed to a mass shooting is psychologically compromised, and so their warped psychology has to be applied to everything they do, especially their choice of weapon.

The overall objective of any mass shooter is to show the world that they are someone powerful who should be taken seriously. They feel weak and victimized, and it's time to turn the tables. They want their victims to feel fear, and shame, and humiliation as they cower at the end of their gun, and to that end, they need a big scary black weapon to impress not only his victims, but himself. That gun provides the psychological motivation to carry out their mission. Other weapons may be scary, and equally lethal, but they don't have nearly the same psychological effect on either the victims or the shooter.

In fact, I wouldn't be surprised at all if gun manufacturers recognize this, and actually design guns to appeal to this particular psychological profile. I expect it. After all, whenever there is a school massacre, gun sales for this type of weapon go up. School shootings are among their best marketing.

It wouldn't be the first time corporations have done something that evil. Tobacco manufacturers covered up their own studies confirming tobacco addiction and cancer, and marketed against it for years, even as they manipulated their formulas to be more addictive, addict people faster, and make it harder to quit. Oil companies knew about Climate Change from their own studies years before it became widely known, and still deny it to this day. Evil companies do shit like that routinely, and it's hard to imagine a more evil industry than arms manufacturing.

So we can ban assault weapons, without banning hunting rifles with the same lethal potential, because standard hunting rifles aren't designed to attract and inflame the most psychologically broken individuals in our society.

And BTW, just because the VTech killer used handguns, does not negate the truth about MOST mass shooters using military style weapons. It's still a fact in most massacres.

[–] AngryCommieKender@lemmy.world 1 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

I will agree with most of your points, the point that I was making is that I would like some gun legislation that actually bans those guns, not the cosmetics.

Sure it just looks like a hunting rifle, but someone that wants to use my AR-15 or M-16 for something like that, would still be able to do so, and they can order the tacticool shit online and change out the stocks with a few turns of a screw. I shouldn't have been able to buy the platform. The cosmetics aren't an effective ban.

[–] Alcoholicorn@mander.xyz 1 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (1 children)

The style of gun doesn't cause mass shootings, thats silly. Though it probably increases dead:wounded ratio. Then again vtech was done with handguns.

[–] BarneyPiccolo@lemmy.today 0 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (1 children)

This is an important subject that doesn't get ANY discussion. The type of gun makes a HUGE difference in these cases.

Military assault rifles aren't much different than a standard hunting rifle, like a Ruger. And yet, they are overwhelmingly the choice of most mass shooters. When was the last time you heard of a shooter using a standard hunting rifle?

The reason is psychological. Nobody would dispute that anyone who has committed to a mass shooting is psychologically compromised, and so their warped psychology has to be applied to everything they do, especially their choice of weapon.

The overall objective of any mass shooter is to show the world that they are someone powerful who should be taken seriously. They feel weak and victimized, and it's time to turn the tables. They want their victims to feel fear, and shame, and humiliation as they cower at the end of their gun, and to that end, they need a big scary black weapon to impress not only his victims, but himself. That gun provides the psychological motivation to carry out their mission. Other weapons may be scary, and equally lethal, but they don't have nearly the same psychological effect on either the victims or the shooter.

In fact, I wouldn't be surprised at all if gun manufacturers recognize this, and actually design guns to appeal to this particular psychological profile. I expect it. After all, whenever there is a school massacre, gun sales for this type of weapon go up. School shootings are among their best marketing.

It wouldn't be the first time corporations have done something that evil. Tobacco manufacturers covered up their own studies confirming tobacco addiction and cancer, and marketed against it for years, even as they manipulated their formulas to be more addictive, addict people faster, and make it harder to quit. Oil companies knew about Climate Change from their own studies years before it became widely known, and still deny it to this day. Evil companies do shit like that routinely, and it's hard to imagine a more evil industry than arms manufacturing.

So we can ban assault weapons, without banning hunting rifles with the same lethal potential, because standard hunting rifles aren't designed to attract and inflame the most psychologically broken individuals in our society.

And BTW, just because the VTech killer used handguns, does not negate the truth about MOST mass shooters using military style weapons. It's still a fact in most massacres.

[–] Alcoholicorn@mander.xyz 2 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (1 children)

So would there be fewer mass shootings if all guns were required to be colored pink and have no fewer than 3 floppy dildo attachments?

[–] BarneyPiccolo@lemmy.today 1 points 3 days ago

Almost certainly.

[–] doingthestuff@lemy.lol 14 points 4 days ago (2 children)

I agree with your comment 100%. But I down voted because of your edit. Never assume you know all the reasons someone might down vote.

[–] MedicPigBabySaver@lemmy.world 4 points 3 days ago (1 children)

I also down voted for the attitude.

Man that says more about you if you interpret OP as having an attitude. You can infer that from some text. Grow up 😂

[–] spacesatan@leminal.space 0 points 4 days ago

It was hyperbolic, but I wanted to explicitly call people out for rejecting reality when it doesn't line up with the most convenient possible narrative. Something which feels like a growing problem on lemmy.

[–] D_C@sh.itjust.works 6 points 3 days ago (1 children)

I took it that they were talking about active shooters that went ahead with it.
That that after all this expense and day to day intrusions, etc, that none of the thousands of shootings were ever stopped by the people who were employed and trained to do so...

[–] spacesatan@leminal.space 1 points 3 days ago

That's the thing, they have. However, turns out the tweet is from February 2018 and the earliest example I could find (not looking very hard) is March 2018, funnily enough.