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Cont: The behaviour of US police officers - part 2

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I think it's clear in retrospect that the decision was a bad one, but far less clear whether a better one was available, or could be expected given how fast everything happened.

'Play stupid games, win stupid prizes" is not my favorite phrase, serving as it does so often to justify careless and excessive force and punishment and the perception of every wrongdoer however petty as deserving whatever they get. It was a favorite of the now departed Warp12, for example, in his habitual justification for things like gunning down shoplifters. But I'm inclined here to favor the cop, because he really did have only a very short time in which to react to a dangerous situation, whereas the motorcyclist had a lot more time in which to evaluate his risk.
 
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bruto said:
I think it's clear in retrospect that the decision was a bad one, but far less clear whether a better one was available, or could be expected given how fast everything happened.

'Play stupid games, win stupid prizes" is not my favorite phrase, serving as it does so often to justify careless and excessive force and punishment and the perception of every wrongdoer however petty as deserving whatever they get. It was a favorite of the now departed Warp12, for example, in his habitual justification for things like gunning down shoplifters. But I'm inclined here to favor the cop, because he really did have only a very short time in which to react to a dangerous situation, whereas the motorcyclist had a lot more time in which to evaluate his risk.
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You do realize that it's entirely possible for both parties to be wrong. You don't have to hand-wave away the criminal's bad actions to point out that a cop caving a fleeing suspects head in with a cooler is morally wrong.
 
TurkeysGhost said:
You do realize that it's entirely possible for both parties to be wrong. You don't have to hand-wave away the criminal's bad actions to point out that a cop caving a fleeing suspects head in with a cooler is morally wrong.
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Just to make sure my comments haven't confused anyone. I'm not as concerned about what the cop did as I am about when and where he chose to do it.

It seems a bit ironic to me that so many are concerned about the safety of the pedestrians who, it should be noted, managed to be avoided by the biker prior to his getting conked, and fail to recognise that causing that biker to wipe out on the sidewalk puts those pedestrians in much greater and more likely danger.

Early on in this discussion someone pointed out that they could have gotten his plate number, let him get the hell off the sidewalk, and gone to his house to hit him with a cooler. (Okay, I added that last part. :blush: :p)
 
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quadraginta said:
Just to make sure my comments haven't confused anyone. I'm not as concerned about what the cop did as I am about when and where he chose to do it.

It seems a bit ironic to me that so many are concerned about the safety of the pedestrians who, it should be noted, managed to be avoided by the biker, and fail to recognise that causing that biker to wipe out on the sidewalk puts those pedestrians in much great danger.

Early on in this discussion someone pointed out that they could have gotten his plate number, let him get the hell off the sidewalk, and gone to his house to hit him with a cooler. (Okay, I added that last part. :blush: :p)
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Assuming of course:

1. The bike was his and not stolen;
2. The bike was not carrying stolen plates; and,
3. If the bike was his and he was not using stolen plates and he had updated his latest address details with the DMV.

Because drug dealers don't ever commit any other crimes.

Out of interest, why wasn't he wearing a helmet?

Is that another American FreeDumbs thing?
 
novaphile said:
Assuming of course:

1. The bike was his and not stolen;
2. The bike was not carrying stolen plates; and,
3. If the bike was his and he was not using stolen plates and he had updated his latest address details with the DMV.
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Yes. Assuming that.

Because drug dealers don't ever commit any other crimes.
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They don't?

Out of interest, why wasn't he wearing a helmet?
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Beats me. Why don't you ask him.

Is that another American FreeDumbs thing?
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Mebbe?
 
TurkeysGhost said:
You do realize that it's entirely possible for both parties to be wrong. You don't have to hand-wave away the criminal's bad actions to point out that a cop caving a fleeing suspects head in with a cooler is morally wrong.
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I think I did approximately that, if not morally. It would indeed be morally wrong to cave in anyone's head with a cooler if that was the intent. At this point I'm not entirely sure (perhaps I just missed it) that it was the blow to the head that killed the motorcyclist, and not the crash. It's not clear what the cop intended, how much time he had to consider alternatives, and so forth. It certainly looks like the wrong thing to do in retrospect, but I am not sure whether in this case there would be any action that could be guaranteed not to be wrong.
 
novaphile said:
Assuming of course:

1. The bike was his and not stolen;
2. The bike was not carrying stolen plates; and,
3. If the bike was his and he was not using stolen plates and he had updated his latest address details with the DMV.
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Each of which is generally quite likely, though obviously not a certainty. Going back to what the article said, though, it was a friend's bike, which would likely have made tracking them down relatively easy in this instance, though possibly with slightly more legwork and the friend would likely be sharing accountability for allowing their bike to be used in such a manner.

novaphile said:
Because drug dealers don't ever commit any other crimes.
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I don't think that this is much of an argument, in general. With that said, there are more considerations worth taking into account. For example, the "drug dealer" claim was made by an interest group with quite the history of outright making up things to try to prevent accountability when their members commit all kinds of crimes, including cold-blooded murder, and their claims are directly and strongly disputed by the deceased's family in this case. The family also has potential incentives to lie, too, of course, but even so, just blindly trusting the cops' story in the aftermath of a tragedy is deeply unwise, especially when those who were actually harmed were harmed by police. Copaganda is real and frequently quite perverse.

On the other hand, there's perhaps more of an argument to be made in that at least police actually took action to deal with crime, given their fairly low rates of actual dealing with crimes. Driving on the sidewalk without a helmet in NY fairly certainly does make for two crimes. Doing so while on a video call with one's mother, in line with the mother's claim, may well break another law. It's just that these are largely just fineable offenses, rather than violent criminal offenses.

novaphile said:
Out of interest, why wasn't he wearing a helmet?

Is that another American FreeDumbs thing?
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In the sense that FreeDumb is often used as -

Stupidity masquerading as love of freedom; an assertion of one's personal liberty which is perceived to be unreasonable or motivated by stupidity.
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Sure. It was fairly certainly illegal for him to be driving without a helmet in New York, either way, but a lot of what counts as FreeDumbs in practice are officially illegal.
 
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At the speed the motorcyclist was traveling, throwing a cooler (which looks like it's got ice and liquid in it) at his head point blank isn't much different than throwing a cement block at his head point blank. Do any of you who think the cop's action was justified think that throwing a cement block would be justified? Do you think if the cop had shot him in the head point blank that it would be justified? I don't think ANY of these actions is justified. I don't see that he was actually an imminent danger. He doesn't appear to have been trying to run into anyone, but was just trying to escape. The proper response was to get his license plate number, identify him, and arrest him later. This was manslaughter.
 
shemp said:
At the speed the motorcyclist was traveling, throwing a cooler (which looks like it's got ice and liquid in it) at his head point blank isn't much different than throwing a cement block at his head point blank. Do any of you who think the cop's action was justified think that throwing a cement block would be justified? Do you think if the cop had shot him in the head point blank that it would be justified? I don't think ANY of these actions is justified. I don't see that he was actually an imminent danger. He doesn't appear to have been trying to run into anyone, but was just trying to escape. The proper response was to get his license plate number, identify him, and arrest him later. This was manslaughter.
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Manslaughter I'd buy. The action certainly was ill considered, insofar as it was considered at all.
 
quadraginta said:
Just to make sure my comments haven't confused anyone. I'm not as concerned about what the cop did as I am about when and where he chose to do it.

It seems a bit ironic to me that so many are concerned about the safety of the pedestrians who, it should be noted, managed to be avoided by the biker prior to his getting conked, and fail to recognise that causing that biker to wipe out on the sidewalk puts those pedestrians in much greater and more likely danger.

Early on in this discussion someone pointed out that they could have gotten his plate number, let him get the hell off the sidewalk, and gone to his house to hit him with a cooler. (Okay, I added that last part. :blush: :p)
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Cops could simply admit to themselves that they botched their drug bust and one got away, such is the nature of the work.

This guy isn't Scarface, we're talking about the petty drug trade. There's always tomorrow and another bust.
 
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novaphile said:
Assuming of course:

1. The bike was his and not stolen;
2. The bike was not carrying stolen plates; and,
3. If the bike was his and he was not using stolen plates and he had updated his latest address details with the DMV.
Click to expand...

Good justification to justify sideswiping motorcycles who don't pull over fast enough.
Because drug dealers don't ever commit any other crimes.
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Yes let's kill people based on crimes they might commit.
 
Delaware cop allegedly hunted down teen that performed harmless annoying prank and beat the **** out of him.


A Delaware state trooper has been suspended for allegedly beating a 15-year-old boy to a pulp after the teen ding-dong ditched his home.

The teenager, named Jayden, suffered a broken orbital bone around his eye — which will require surgery — as well as a concussion and cuts and bruises after his parents say an innocent adolescent prank was blown way out of proportion.

“There’s bruises all over his body, on his shoulder. There’s bruises on his chest, there’s bruises on the back of his neck,” the family’s attorney, Samuel Davis, told WPVI.
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https://nypost.com/2023/08/26/trooper-accused-of-beating-15-year-old-who-ding-dong-ditched-his-home/
 
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This is one of those stories that can probably fit both here and in the creeping fascism thread.

The Real Story Behind Ron DeSantis’ Newest Fired Prosecutor

In the latest instance, the governor did one sheriff a huge favor by firing Orlando-area State Attorney Monique Worrell just as she was about to crack down on a wide-ranging cover-up by deputies who, she says, were faking documents to hide lethal and abusive behavior.

“They thought that I was overly critical of law enforcement and didn't do anything against ‘real criminals,’” Worrell told The Daily Beast in an interview last week. “Apparently there’s a difference between citizens who commit crimes and cops who commit crimes.”

Worrell continued that there are approximately 20 law enforcement agencies in Central Florida. “And they were all working against me, because I was prosecuting their cops, the ones who used to do things and get away with them,” she said.
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So, what was going on there?

Worrell told The Daily Beast that two incidents in particular had called prosecutors’ attention. In one, a deputy made headlines when he decided to repeatedly tase an annoying dirtbiker who’d led cops on a chase—only his decision to fire his taser happened at a Wawa gas station, setting off a fireball that caused injuries and was caught on tape. In the other, two deputies opened fire on a group of four men in a car at a Target parking lot who appeared to have stolen items from the store minutes earlier. One died, and two others were gravely injured.

But as the State Attorney’s own investigators dug around, they started finding evidence of police covering for each other’s lies in several other cases, she said.

“As we were investigating, there was all sorts of illegal activity that started coming up: officers signing each other’s reports, getting them notarized in someone else’s name when they signed them themselves, fraudulent documents,” she told The Daily Beast.
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Aridas said:
This is one of those stories that can probably fit both here and in the creeping fascism thread.

The Real Story Behind Ron DeSantis’ Newest Fired Prosecutor



So, what was going on there?
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Cops already often have a stranglehold (pardon the term) on local politics, and fascist freaks like DeSantis seek only to further place police above the law.

There's a huge need for federal law enforcement to intervene when it comes to local police corruption but there's just no political will for such a thing from either political party.

Local government is so thoroughly captured by their local police departments that it's hard to imagine any reform being possible with the DOJ first coming in like a hammer.
 
Town of 250 people has a 50 person police department

There’s not much to Coffee City, Texas. Two liquor stores, a couple of dollar stores, a pizza joint and a motel. But this town, which is three hours north of Houston, has quite a reputation among those who drive through.

...

Coffee City’s budget shows the town collected more than $1 million in court fines last year. That came from more than 5,100 citations officers wrote, the most in the state for a town its size according to the Texas Office of Court Administration.
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Highway robbers with badges

Seems to be a job program for cops so corrupt they can't land any other gig.

An officer terminated for posting a Facebook message to a citizen: “You should kill yourself, do the world a favor.”
An officer suspended for smashing a window and entering his girlfriend’s home without consent.
A deputy constable suspended after a burglary victim’s laptop computer was found in his home.
A deputy constable terminated for tackling a non-resisting citizen to the ground during a traffic stop.
A deputy sheriff terminated for slapping a handcuffed inmate without provocation.
Two officers terminated for lying on their job applications.
“Looking at the disciplinary records, I mean, I was astounded to think that they’d been hired by another agency,” Greg Fremin, a lecturer at the Sam Houston State University College of Criminal Justice, said.

Fremin is a retired Houston Police Department captain. His 34 years of service at HPD included stints as an internal affairs supervisor and division commander for the training division.

“I’ve never seen anything like that in my professional career, and I’ve seen a lot,” Fremin said.
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https://www.khou.com/article/news/investigations/coffee-city-texas-police-officers/285-4220e73c-90d4-474e-b59e-2033270cd8e9
 
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lobosrul5 said:
The police department, of my resident city, is taking action to stop the high rate of vehicle thefts. What action might that be? More officers patrolling, or bait cars? Lol, **** no. They are considering suing Kia and Hyundai.

https://www.krqe.com/news/apd-considers-suing-kia-hyundai-over-car-theft-problems/

This is like straight out of "not the onion".
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Any link clickable in the EU? This one has banned my IP because I'm from a country which has outlawed data theft.
 
lobosrul5 said:
The police department, of my resident city, is taking action to stop the high rate of vehicle thefts. What action might that be? More officers patrolling, or bait cars? Lol, **** no. They are considering suing Kia and Hyundai.

https://www.krqe.com/news/apd-considers-suing-kia-hyundai-over-car-theft-problems/

This is like straight out of "not the onion".
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They are just joining other cities which have already done so.

https://www.foxbusiness.com/markets/cities-sue-hyundai-kia-after-car-thefts

Cleveland, Seattle, St. Louis and at least five other cities have alleged the auto makers didn’t install anti-theft technology to cut costs. The decision made the cars easier to steal and their cities less safe, officials said. The lawsuits don’t specify how much the cities want Kia and Hyundai to pay in damages.

The vehicles don’t have immobilizers, which stop the car from starting if the driver doesn’t have the right key. The thefts have focused on cars with steel keys and turn-to-start ignition systems.
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