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Police Brutality Thread


CrownSlayer’s Shadow

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Couldn't find the old Police Brutality thread, so I assumed it was gone in the server hiccup. So I figured to start a new one, and lo and behold we have another ridiculous case that couldn't be any more suspicious than the ones before.

 

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Last Friday, an African-American woman was returning home from a job interview in Waller County, Texas, when she was stopped by police. Apparently, she had improperly signaled a lane change. Two days later, the woman, Sandy Bland, was found dead in a jail cell. A video taken by a bystander during the arrest shows Bland shouting that the officer had slammed her head into the ground. According to police, Sandra Bland was taken into custody and charged with "assault of a public servant." On Monday, police say Bland was "found in her cell not breathing from what appears to be self-inflicted asphyxiation." The announcement was made by Waller County Sheriff Glenn Smith. Meanwhile, reports have emerged that Smith was fired from his previous post as chief of police of Hempstead, Texas, amidst accusations of racism. Bland’s friends and family contest Smith’s account, saying the thought of her committing suicide by hanging is "unfathomable." Social media is now ablaze with people demanding answers about Sandra Bland’s death. The hashtag #SandraBland is now trending on Twitter, edging out the Emmys as a topic of discussion. We speak to Maya Schenwar, editor-in-chief of Truthout and author of "Locked Down, Locked Out: Why Prison Doesn’t Work and How We Can Do Better."

 

[link]

Here we go again...

Like, are they fucking serious? We're seeing pattern after pattern after pattern after pattern with this, and it just keeps going. Micheal Brown, Eric Garner, Freddie Grey, and now this?!

And then the police once again lie about it, as if we can't see through their bullshit, and as if they expect us to believe it after hearing this story repeat time and time again with other case. Nevermind how fucking suspicious it is to target someone of the BlackLivesMatter movement, and how a minor police stop somehow led to this.

Unbelievable. I feel the more they escalate this, the more they shoot themselves in the foot by turning it into an even greater domestic issue than it already was. And that's saying something. At this point, they're doing it to see how long they can get away before it really bites them hard.

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Part of me still wants to believe, somehow, that the police force wouldn't be this cartoonishly evil with this sort of thing. The rest are that point where they aren't the least bit surprised, especially with this tragic event happening in the South where, even by the generally poor standards of the country, race relations are very much shitty.

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I can believe the police force isn't this cartoonishly evil, at least individually.

They're like normal people, there are good and bad cops all around. The problem is, of course, the bad cops misusing such policing powers they've been given and they get away scott-fucking-free for it. Even worse when you have good cops who report such abuse only for them to get ostracised by the other cops for doing the right thing.

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At this point we'll hear about some cops literally shooting a black kid to death because he looked at them the wrong way.

So have there been any cries of "But it's not the police's fault!" yet?

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That is just suspicious as shit.

 

I would think any corrupt cop, no matter how racist, wouldn't be stupid enough to murder a noted activist in their cell, but I'm not so sure.

 

This sounds like another example of a case where surveillance would be a good idea. It would catch a police officer redhanded on one hand, and it would also allow anyone monitoring the feeds to intervene in any attempted suicide.

 

I ultimately wish that Obama's move to get surveillance installed on police equipment gained some momentum from things like this. If it proved that there was no assault and she shouldn't have been there in the first place, there'd be some justice involved even if she did commit suicide for whatever reason.

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I think what disturbs me most about this is the fact that I'm almost used to this now. Like, I'm truly starting to believe this country does not give an iota of shit about its minorities given how often this has been happening. It doesn't care to change, and nobody is willing to address it beyond for media attention.

 

 

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Another issue is how minorities are all grouped together when analyzing the problem... but from what I know, they don't feel much solidarity on the ground.

 

For good reason: despite the statistics versus white people, it's pretty obvious Latinos and Asians have it a lot better than blacks and Indians.

 

It makes some sense from a pure skin color perspective since for most the difference is less obvious. But these groups also have positive economic stereotypes. The other two groups? Oh no. Indians are seen as inefficient treehuggers and blacks as lazy and unmotivated.

 

What starts as a simple disregard for another group's ability to perform financially merges with criminal statistics to create an idea that the group is naturally inclined as a whole to commit crime. And in a "law and order" society... you sure as hell don't want to have that sort of thought about you.

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It's an endless loop at this point.

  1. White cop harasses/kills non-threatening black person for whatever reason he can find
  2. News media covers the story
  3. Social media erupts in anger and sadness, but mostly anger
  4. Protests start across the country
  5. News media covers that
  6. President talks about it a bit
  7. Time passes, the heat dies down
  8. And we staaaart baaaack at oooooooone

That's basically how it goes down, and will continue to go down until either 1) the government suddenly starts caring enough to do something about this, or 2) humanity's end.

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That's another reason I gave up on addressing the race issue. It gets nowhere and is just one big circle over and over.

 

At least there's actual hope for ending the Drug War, curbing the overall police state, etc. But I can't get people to do anything about issues they're convinced don't exist in the first place.

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Body cams are not an end-all be-all solution because they don't address the lack of oversight police have which allows them to hide or fail to record footage nor biased indictment juries who don't give a fuck even when the crime is right on camera. Police are surrounded by cameras 24/7 and that hasn't made a notable difference in actually jailing these bastards.

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Body cams have another issue: Who is going to sit there and watch countless hours of boring ass everyday policing, looking for any kind of brutality?

A few police departments are putting their footage up online, for the public to look at and examine, but a lot of departments won't do that because they know damn well what they're gonna find.

There needs to be a way for the system to automatically bookmark any and all instances where the officer was found to use a certain amount of energy, issued warnings, or was around another officer who did, which might require a Fit-Bit-like piece of tech that monitors the officer's pulse, or a voice recognition system that can understand specific noises. Then, these instances can be automatically relayed from the police server to an independent, non-partisan review body overseeing police brutality for a given area, and the cops can't do a damn thing to stop justice being done.
 

Body cams is one thing but why the fuck wouldn't a jail cell have CCTV on it 24/7?

This may very well not be the first time these cops might have used that jail cell as a place in which to beat up prisoners.

Remember when Chinese Water Torture, now known as Waterboarding, was routinely used by police departments to get information from prisoners? Man, weren't those... times, of a sort.

Edited by Patticus
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Police surveillance is ultimately a reactive rather than active policy. As problematic as it is, brutality is still sparse enough it'd be a waste of resources to have people actively monitor the cameras.

 

While there's the technological solutions, the simplest one is to just make it so people don't feel fearful or inconvenienced by reporting an incident. They mention the when and where, the footage is looked at, and that's that.

 

Surveillance is good because it deters dishonesty on both sides; jurisdictions with surveillance tend to show pretty large drops in brutality reports, as both abusive police and anyone who might falsely accuse an officer are rooted out. The surveillance's effects are best when it is in the hands of objective sources, of course. There's no shortage of stories of cell phones being returned accidentally broken or with files deleted.

 

I think it'd be good if groups like the ACLU were given control of a surveillance database. While everyone has an agenda, short of some awesome photoshop skills, they're not going to be able to really manipulate footage they're given. Police, on the other hand, can easily doctor footage that shows wrongdoing. It's pretty obvious which bias would be more in society's interest.

Edited by Sly the Tasmanian Ogilvie
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And now I've seen some murmurs that her mugshot photo actually shows her dead. Would the police be able to make a dead body pass off as alive so easily?

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http://dangerousminds.net/comments/dead_creepy_family_portraits_with_deceased_relatives

 

It was a common trend back in the  Victorian era to take photos of/with dead loved ones as a way of commemorating them. If positioned right, the person can look alive, albeit bored.

 

It stands to reason it would indeed be possible to fraudulently do a mugshot of a deceased person.

Edited by Sly the Tasmanian Ogilvie
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  • 3 weeks later...

http://www.cnn.com/2015/08/06/us/seneca-teen-dead-police-shooting/

 

And now, a sudden change of pace.

 

An unarmed 19-year old was shot in Seneca as part of a drug bust. The officer states that the teen drove at him in a vehicle, prompting firing in self-defense.

 

So far, the autopsies aren't lining up with that story. He looks to have been shot while his car was not in motion, though further autopsies will need to determine how close he was to the officer. Either way, it's not looking good for the officer.

 

Here's the best part: the deceased in this case is white. And it's only getting any coverage at all because black activist groups are making a point of it.

 

The white public are convinced anyone who is shot by cops is a thug, even when it's a white person. Any story that makes the cop look bad is motivated by an anti-police agenda. Never once is it considered that police can be liars too (funny, given we're right next to one of the most corrupt countries on the planet). Good lord.

 

Race is just a part of this masterpiece that was painted with human blood. There's a culture of authoritarianism, violence, apathy and more that come together to make the mess that is the current legal system.

Edited by Ty the Tasmanian Ogilvie
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http://www.cnn.com/2015/08/06/us/seneca-teen-dead-police-shooting/

 

And now, a sudden change of pace.

 

An unarmed 19-year old was shot in Seneca as part of a drug bust. The officer states that the teen drove at him in a vehicle, prompting firing in self-defense.

 

So far, the autopsies aren't lining up with that story. He looks to have been shot while his car was not in motion, though further autopsies will need to determine how close he was to the officer. Either way, it's not looking good for the officer.

 

Here's the best part: the deceased in this case is white. And it's only getting any coverage at all because black activist groups are making a point of it.

 

The white public are convinced anyone who is shot by cops is a thug, even when it's a white person. Any story that makes the cop look bad is motivated by an anti-police agenda. Never once is it considered that police can be liars too (funny, given we're right next to one of the most corrupt countries on the planet). Good lord.

 

Race is just a part of this masterpiece that was painted with human blood. There's a culture of authoritarianism, violence, apathy and more that come together to make the mess that is the current legal system.

As horrible as this is to say, some sadistic part of me wants to see the apologists of the current system in a scenario where they end up on the end of a gun by the police they love to hold on a pedestal, JUST to see if they'll still be in denial to the bitter end, or if they'll realize how fucked up everything really is. I always get the feeling that they only apologize for it because they haven't been subjected to the brutality they claim is fair for everyone other than themselves.

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http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/04/02/sentencing-reform-opposition_n_5065403.html

 

You need look no further than persistent opposition of police forces to legal reform to see an issue. Now there are police lobby groups that do lobby for less strict laws and the like, but they don't look to be the norm.

 

As a whole, the police force is an institution. It exists to perpetuate itself and the interests of its members, just like the military, healthcare industry, the government, etc.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kansas_City_preventive_patrol_experiment

 

I don't think it's a surprise the Kansas City Experiment gets so little coverage. I'd wager many police forces try to suppress the fact it even happened, because it illustrated that we don't need anywhere near as many officers to be safe.

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What a C-C-C-Combo Breaker!

ya know Olgivie, I had a strong feeling you'd be right at some point about the police coming for everyone else, and that it was only a matter of time before a white guy got targeted for the same thing. And getting coverage from the very protest group the media likes to portray as violent.

 

But the next question we should ask is how will this be seen overall? Black protest group acknowleging the police shooting of a white guy doesn't exactly fit their usual mold, and I'm not sure this'll convince the white majority blind to it. Still good to see tho - says more about #BlackLivesMatter than those who try to discredit it with #AllLives Matter.

 

EDIT - changed the topic title. This should be good.

Edited by ChaosSupremeSonic
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I'm posting this link because as an autistic this is rage inducing.  http://www.dnainfo.com/new-york/20150708/fordham/nypd-officers-beat-autistic-teen-front-of-his-home-lawsuit-says

Seriously these jerks need to owe up and be proper citizens and admit their failings especially when it comes to the treatment of disabled people especially those who are PoC. I think basic training in recognizing and helping mentally ill and people with social and intellectual disabilities should be mandatory for ALL COPS so that way this bullshit can at least be detected and reprimanded.

 

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How does an autopsy report conclude whether or not a vehicle was in motion when someone was shot inside of it?

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How does an autopsy report conclude whether or not a vehicle was in motion when someone was shot inside of it?

My guess would be the trajectory of blood splatter changing with each bullet.

 

Though there's also the chance of the officer running while firing, I imagine.

 

I'm posting this link because as an autistic this is rage inducing.  http://www.dnainfo.com/new-york/20150708/fordham/nypd-officers-beat-autistic-teen-front-of-his-home-lawsuit-says

Seriously these jerks need to owe up and be proper citizens and admit their failings especially when it comes to the treatment of disabled people especially those who are PoC. I think basic training in recognizing and helping mentally ill and people with social and intellectual disabilities should be mandatory for ALL COPS so that way this bullshit can at least be detected and reprimanded.

 

As always, it's great when the victim's story and the police's story doesn't match up.

 

Congress needs to hurry its ass up and get every police force outfitted with surveillance while also making provisions that keep the police from influencing or viewing the recorded material.

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https://berniesanders.com/issues/racial-justice/

 

In response to the criticism at his last speech that he didn't have a comprehensive package on racial issues, Bernie Sanders has formally made one up to shut his critics up. Some highlights:

 

-Demilitarization of the police.

-Federal funding and requirement of body and dashcams for police officers.

-Affirmative action in hiring of police officers so departments are more racially representative.

-Investment in community policing to bridge the gap between officers and the people they're supposed to protect.

-Increasing the standards of situations in which lethal force may be utilized.

 

There is a wider platform of reforms that would alleviate racial issues, but this is the police brutality thread so I focused on his approach to policing.

 

Edited by Ty the Tasmanian Ogilvie
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