this post was submitted on 19 May 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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RULES

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ALLIES

!abolition@slrpnk.net

!acab@lemmygrad.ml

r/ACAB

r/BadCopNoDonut/

Randy Balko

The Civil Rights Lawyer

The Honest Courtesan

Identity Project

MirandaWarning.org

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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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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

 

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[–] Thistlewick@lemmynsfw.com 21 points 14 hours ago

They are denying the charges laid against them. There is body cam footage of them emptying a can of pepper spray into the face of an immobile 93 year old man before beating and tasing him, and they’ve both denied the charges. No shame.

His death is squarely on their shoulders. Yes Covid got him, but he probably wouldn’t have been hospitalised at the height of the pandemic if he wasn’t recovering from the injuries doled out by these officers.

[–] ianhclark510@lemmy.blahaj.zone 22 points 15 hours ago

Man, with the enthusiasm they put into beating this man I assumed it was American cops

But hey, in the states they’d have spared him by covid by choking him out

[–] VirgilMastercard@reddthat.com 10 points 14 hours ago (1 children)

Scum. They just escalated that situation so they could use their toys on the old man. He was no threat whatsoever, they could have sat down and had a chat with him.

[–] Lost_My_Mind@lemmy.world 8 points 12 hours ago

I would LOVE to see a judge play the tape of them doing this, and then ask them to explain specifically how a 93 year old disabled man was a physical threat to them. Go on. Explain in detail.

I'm dying to hear their justification of this.

[–] roguetrick@lemmy.world 8 points 15 hours ago* (last edited 15 hours ago) (1 children)

Him fencing the baton with the knife is actually very funny. Overall I don't really have an answer as to what I'd have done as an RN before calling police, but usually you can redirect someone like that to somehow get rid of the knife.

[–] jordanlund@lemmy.world 13 points 14 hours ago

I just think if you can't disarm a one-legged 93 year old without resorting to pepper spray and batons, it's likely you're bad at your job.

Lock the door, walk away. "When you're ready to put down the knife, we'll give you a sandwich."