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SWATs Gone Wild: Police State Lite Edition
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the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
Or the mother with her newborn, or the grandfather, or the vet who was awoken to the sound of persons breaking into his home and therefore grabbed his weapon like American culture told him to do, etc.
The important thing in those cases - and one that the ACLU really emphasized in that report - is it's not like those instances involved a few sadistic cops looking to kill toddlers or grandparents (I'd say it's pretty clear that the officers involved honestly thought that they'd be Rambo'ing into hardened, armed gangsters): it's just the ultimate end result of toxic police culture, lack of discipline (and moreover, a lack of interest in what proper military discipline looks like) & use of high risk weapons / tools without the extensive training needed to employ them either safely or effectively.
Heads ought to roll for the officers who acted so recklessly, and then the policing programs that enabled the incident need to be excised from the department.
On the other side of this argument, too, SWAT isn't just about "buying toys"; I'm sure there's an element of regular cops not wanting to get shot serving a drugs warrant.
To also be fair the fact that the person they were looking for was never seen there and the low value of the fucking crime tells me everything else is fully their fault.
Most likely if you are going get killed by a cop its going to be a normal one with a hand gun and if a cop is killed its probably going to be just doing normal stuff. Although both are really unlikely anyway.
http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/leoka/2012/tables/table_27_leos_fk_type_of_weapon_2003-2012.xls
http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2011/crime-in-the-u.s.-2011/tables/expanded-homicide-data-table-14
If you're going to replace the cops you need a second set of cops in place to replace them.
THIS IS REALLY FUCKING HARD.
Maybe you can trick them.
This is one of those bullshit issues like a pre-emptive strike (also known as an attack) is sold as a defensive action. An armed rebellion as a response to increased militarization does not justify said militarization, when that very issue is what caused the hypothetical rebellion in the first place.
The actual truth of the matter will be irrelevant to their increased funding and scope.
No American mayor wants to run a police state. All those armed convoys, aggressive cops and traffic barricades don't mesh well with prosperous mini-malls and thriving tourist traps. It's one of the actual benefits of being a capitalist paradise - permanent lockdown puts a huge crimp on the business community.
Sure it got curbed after Rampart, but that was due to outside agitation and internal investigation.
LAPD "Tough on Crime, Big on Choking" Chief Daryl Gates got ousted, and the department was subjected to serious internal reforms. None of them made the department a beacon of justice - although LAPD is supposedly somewhat better these days - but there were consequences.
Tell that to Christopher Dorner, he seemed to have some pretty serious issues with the way they're doing things. And then they shot at two women, gave one man a neck injury and burned down a cabin to get at him. That's some Chief Wiggum level police work right there.
To say the least. The main reason he was mad at the LAPD in the first place is because his superior wrote him up for poor impulse control and lack of judgment. And his response to that was to go around killing people in order to "clear his name."
I don't think he had to testify to show their incompetence that he stated was happening. They blindly shot at civilians who were in a vehicle that vaguely resembled his in the least ways. like 'it's a truck, better open fire'. and hurting lots of people in the man hunt.
Just for driving a blue truck
Different model
Different make
Different year
Different license plate
Same color though SO START SHOOTING
PSN/Steam/NNID: SyphonBlue | BNet: SyphonBlue#1126
Look, it was a motor vehicle and it was vaguely bluish. That's enough.
It's the same strict criteria they use when evaluating suspects. It's a man and blackish, so it's the guy we are looking for.
The number of people who have jumped out of bed and started shouting or acting belligerent or going for their own weapons because, hey, there's people bursting into your home in the middle of the night and then got shot and killed by the police is not zero. The number of times this has happened when they did this SWAT-style no-knock warrant service to the wrong place is not zero. I don't think it's a "huge" effect on total number of civilian deaths, but it would be callous to just say that those deaths are too few to care about.
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The question is is one safer than the other. I don't know if there is evidence to support either one.
Was it? I thought they were both blue.
Ah well, it was a car! SHOOT!
PSN/Steam/NNID: SyphonBlue | BNet: SyphonBlue#1126
And of course no charges or penalties because they were acting reasonably.
If we could just make the police accountable to someone, that would probably fix 80% of the problems, easy.
As is, even when you have them on video beating up an unarmed person for no reason, it's still coin toss whether there'll be any penalties.
Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
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"Hey, this guy wasn't even black!"
"Eh. It was dark outside, okay?"
Even if we assume that no knock raids haven't resulted in more casualties / unwarranted property damage / catastrophic disruption of life than regular warrant serving (I'm skeptical, but whatever) - it's still bullshit. It's unnecessarily risky, violates the rights of the people being attacked, promotes a culture of violence and creates an adversarial relationship between the police and the public. If the police knock on your door and declare that they have a warrant, and you flip out & are killed as a result, that's much different from the police just breaking down the front door, you flipping out & being killed as a result. Sure, you're dead either way, but in the first instance the responsibility is clearly yours (the police did not instigate a violent confrontation). It's a tragedy, but not one baked into the system.
This isn't an excuse, or at least it shouldn't be. Even if being a cop was a particularly dangerous job (which it isn't, delivering pizzas is more dangerous), part of the job is supposed to be accepting the idea that you might have to put yourself in harm's way if it means protecting members of the public. We shouldn't be okay with cops using equipment and tactics that make them safer at the expense of women and babies. It still wouldn't be okay if a cop could be reasonably worried about getting blown away while he tries to serve a warrant for unpaid library fines, but they don't even reach that bar
hitting hot metal with hammers
I know the cop! I've seen him around, talked to him, I didn't know he was an undercover cop he looked like a high school kid
The police department spent an entire year doing undercover operations to catch a single pot dealer who wasn't selling pot before the undercover cop told him he should start selling pot
it should also be pointed out that this guy went to jail once for not paying birthing costs because he lost his job, and he lost his car when he went back to jail because they didn't file the proper paperwork when they released him so they arrested him for breaking out of jail (for a month before realizing that no, he didn't break out, they released him)
then they launched a long term undercover operation on him
And I wonder why recidivism rates in the U.S. are so high?
:P
if he is to be believed the undercover cop even helped him with supply but idk if that's true
I let the cop play gta 5 on my xbox (or rather I loaned my xbox and gta 5 to my neighbor when I beat it, his family is really poor and has little in the way of entertainment), what a jerk : /
which really, that's the whole problem, right there in a single sentence. this is not a thing that is outside the realm of possibility.
hitting hot metal with hammers
I'm beginning to think the concept of Entrapment doesn't actually mean anything.
-Indiana Solo, runner of blades
hitting hot metal with hammers
If he's to be believed, he bought the pot from a guy that was an informant, who he was introduced to by the undercover cop
I don't know if he's telling the truth or trying to make himself sound less guilty but I know for a fact the cops spent a year to get one guy for selling baggies of pot so it wouldn't surprise me
this is the same state that held someone a year longer than they were supposed to because of a computer error and only offered him $7000 in compensation
Shit at least the mob was truthful about being corrupt assholes.
I don't remember the details, but there was a story some time ago about a cop (I don't remember the state, east side of the US I think at least?) who found a guy making small time friendly bets with friends in a bar over sports.
This officer spent like a year slowly goading the guy into making larger and larger bets with him, because bets over X amount (in the thousands iirc) are an arrestable offense, and when he finally agreed to a bet above the magic number he whipped out his cuffs and arrested the guy.
Basically, an officer spent a year befriending and goading a man into doing something he'd never normally do so he could arrest him.