Police Brutality Protests Thread

Rose Karuna

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This is beyond imaginable: Florida sheriff mimics dystopian scheme to arrest people before crime happens and creates a dystopia

It's worse than the "Minority Report".

They swarm homes in the middle of the night, waking families and embarrassing people in front of their neighbors. They write tickets for missing mailbox numbers and overgrown grass, saddling residents with court dates and fines. They come again and again, making arrests for any reason they can.

In the case of one kid, who was 15 and had a single arrest for stealing bikes, Pasco Sheriff’s deputies appeared at his home 21 times in a year. They also appeared at his school. And at his mother’s job. And even at his gym. Not because he had done anything, but because their system said he was a “target.”

As a deputy described it, the purpose of the program is to “Make their lives miserable until they move or sue.” But just because they move out of Pasco County, Florida, doesn’t mean they’ve escaped harassment from Nocco’s precrime unit. Families across the country have found out that Nocco can still pursue them, even when they are several states away from Nocco’s supposed jurisdiction.
These are people who have not committed any crime, they are just people the police think will. WTF?

The system doesn’t start with actual crimes. It starts with a list of people considered “likely to break the law.” This list appears to be based in part on past arrests, but it also includes a secret sauce of other data and analysis that Nocco will not reveal. Then the sheriff’s department actually sends out deputies to find and interrogate people not just without a search warrant, but without evidence of any crime. In just the last five years, deputies from Pasco county have chased down “targets” with no identified crime at least 12,500 times. What happens next is that deputies report back. They feed in names of people who targets were associated with, mostly friends and family. Then those people become targets, and the system expands.
I have just so had it with the police and our whole "not at all about Justice System". 🤬
 

Kamilah Hauptmann

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Innula Zenovka

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Kamilah Hauptmann

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Fionalein

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WTF is wrong with them?!

Lack of background checks and regulations maybe? Over here in Germany every cop shooting anyone is investigated by public prosecution for (attempted) murder. The cops whine a lot about this, despite the prosecutors often coming quickly to the conclusion that the shooting was neccesary for defending the public or self and drop the investigation before even going to court. Our police unions hate this procedure but here is the trick: don't give in to them for that bullshit. Because if they don't understand why this step is a neccessity in a lawful state they should have never been handed a gun in the name of the public in first place. Or in their own logic: Cops that fear prosecution might have broken the law on purpose or in negligence, why else would they fear it?
 

bubblesort

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Half my FB wall was posing about this last night. A cop was responding to a domestic disturbance, and a schizophrenic guy came at him with a knife, the cop shot 4 times, the guy died. The schizophrenic man was black. Here's the body cam footage of it. It looks justified to me.

Most of my friends in Lancaster are from when I camped out down there during Occupy Wall St. I moved around to 6 different occupations across Pennsylvania, sharing resources and information, and Lancaster hands down has the nicest cops I ever met, anywhere. We were literally camped on their front yard. They held classes on how to deal with homeless people, we baked them brownies, if anybody threw a glass bottle at the camp, they would run them down immediately. I'm pretty sure some of us and them ended up dating at one point or another. That was over a decade ago, though, and things change.

The thing that really disappoints me about the Lancaster cops is they tear gassed protesters last night. There's no excuse for that. Tear gas is chemical warfare. It is always wrong to gas your own citizens, I don't care what the context is. They need to let the protesters have their say.

So they had a justified shooting, and protests over it, and the cops decided to start a riot in response to the protests. That is unacceptable. Just goes to show, even nice cops are bastards.

EDIT: Crap, linked to the wrong URL! I just now fixed it.
 
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Innula Zenovka

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Lack of background checks and regulations maybe? Over here in Germany every cop shooting anyone is investigated by public prosecution for (attempted) murder. The cops whine a lot about this, despite the prosecutors often coming quickly to the conclusion that the shooting was neccesary for defending the public or self and drop the investigation before even going to court. Our police unions hate this procedure but here is the trick: don't give in to them for that bullshit. Because if they don't understand why this step is a neccessity in a lawful state they should have never been handed a gun in the name of the public in first place. Or in their own logic: Cops that fear prosecution might have broken the law on purpose or in negligence, why else would they fear it?
Same in the UK -- police officers are as subject to the criminal law as is everyone else, and if they must use force to protect themselves or others, given the circumstances as they understand them at the time, then the force used must be no more than reasonable, otherwise, whether it's deadly force or not, it's an unlawful assault.

When anyone dies during, or shortly after, an encounter with police, or in police custody, that's has to be investigated by the Independent Office For Police Conduct, and a report sent to the Crown Prosecution Service, who will consider whether the report provides sufficient grounds to prosecute.
 
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Sid

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Same in the UK -- police officers are as subject to the criminal law as is everyone else, and if they must force to protect themselves or others, given the circumstances as they understand them at the time, then the force used must be no more than reasonable, otherwise, whether it's deadly force or not, it's an unlawful assault.

When anyone dies during, or shortly after, an encounter with police, or in police custody, that's has to be investigated by the Independent Office For Police Conduct, and a report sent to the Crown Prosecution Service, who will consider whether the report provides sufficient grounds to prosecute.
Sounds pretty much the same as how things are handled over here in NL too.
And rightfully so.
 

Bartholomew Gallacher

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Tasers are somewhat controversial, because they are not entirely unlethal. There are known edge cases, like if the victim is a junkie or has heart problems it still might cause their death, and they also might cause permanental damage to health as well.

The issue is when using conventional fire arms the police officers are aware about their lethality; when using tasers instead most are not, which might cause them a shock is the usage would really trigger somebodies death.

Many Europeans police departments gave them a try, or are still doing so. Some equipped themselves with tasers, others didn't.

By the way take a look at this beautiful, German monster word for taser: Distanzelektroimpulsgerät. Ah yes, marvelous.
 
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Fionalein

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Tasers are somewhat controversial, because they are not entirely unlethal. There are known edge cases, like if the victim is a junkie or has heart problems it still might cause their death, and they also might cause permanental damage to health as well.

The issue is when using conventional fire arms the police officers are aware about their lethality; when using tasers instead most are not, which might cause them a shock is the usage would really trigger somebodies death.

Many Europeans police departments gave them a try, or are still doing so. Some equipped themselves with tasers, others didn't.

By the way take a look at this beautiful, German monster word for taser: Distanzelektroimpulsgerät. Ah yes, marvelous.
During my time in the forest service I even found out the official Taser website was blocked for users of the Bavarian state internet. Don't ask me why though,...
 

Innula Zenovka

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Tasers are somewhat controversial, because they are not entirely unlethal. There are known edge cases, like if the victim is a junkie or has heart problems it still might cause their death, and they also might cause permanental damage to health as well.

The issue is when using conventional fire arms the police officers are aware about their lethality; when using tasers instead most are not, which might cause them a shock is the usage would really trigger somebodies death.

Many Europeans police departments gave them a try, or are still doing so. Some equipped themselves with tasers, others didn't.

By the way take a look at this beautiful, German monster word for taser: Distanzelektroimpulsgerät. Ah yes, marvelous.
While tasers are, as you say, not entirely unlethal, they're considerably less lethal than handguns at a similar range, I think, which raises the question of why, if the officer had one, he didn't use it instead of his pistol.
 

bubblesort

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I don't like tasers because they are also dangerous to the user. If you are in contact with the person you use it on, you become part of the circuit. Mace is messy, and does not always work. I hear it doesn't work as well on people who use a lot of hair spray, for example. Batons are less lethal than guns, but can maim the target, plus you don't want a guy with a knife close enough to club.

The situation in Lancaster is exactly the situation where a gun is needed. I can't think of another solution, short of only hiring cops with Bruce Lee levels of ninja training or something, which is unrealistic.

I like that the officer only fired 4 shots. Maybe one or two more than he needed, maybe not, but he did not empty the magazine like we see officers doing all over the country. He was clearly under pressure, but he showed restraint. This was not a wild, panicked shooting. It was a bit chaotic, but the officer kept his cool and did it right.
 

Fionalein

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While tasers are, as you say, not entirely unlethal, they're considerably less lethal than handguns at a similar range, I think, which raises the question of why, if the officer had one, he didn't use it instead of his pistol.
Policemen are a hugely misinformed and timid bunch, IMHO they need psychological fitness tests on a regular basis. They will tell you all the horrible stories of drug users being immune to taser pain (might be true, but I doubt their muscles are immune to missfiring synapses). Ask any German policemen on the danger a knife poses and they will tell you hearsay anectotes passed down by other policemen on how knifes are more dangerous than guns... (their fear of the "Messerstecher" archetype would almost be comical if you would not know they carry guns).

I fear they all suffer from a collective job-induced psychosis fueled by Hollywood and the internet.
 
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