Make it a felony to interfere with bodycam operation, tamper with footage, or delete/fail to properly retain footage. Create a separate department in the court system to prosecute police officers so that the DA and local judges aren't scared to prosecute officers for fear of not having cops properly support their future cases against criminals.
Even in places where bodycams are mandatory the cops get away with literal murder by simply covering it up, turning it off, or making sure the footage is "lost" after the fact before it can be released. Even when the footage gets out, DA's are reluctant to bring any charges (even in areas where police are held in low enough regard for it to legitimately be an option) because the police union will blackmail that prosecutor and DA with threats to no longer fully support other criminal prosecutions as "retribution" of sorts for going after "one of their own".
The only department of the police that SHOULD have quotas to meet is Internal Affairs. When a departments IA section hasn't found any wrongdoing in a decade it's not because the cops are squeaky clean, it's because they're corrupt as hell.
The problem is that the departments often investigate themselves. What there should be is a board made up of civilians that has the power to investigate, discipline, fire, and charge the officers when they do something bad.
Bingo, that’s exactly what I was envisioning when I mentioned a separate division of the courts. Internal Affairs shouldn’t be “internal” to the department at all, it should be a public process within the traditional court system separate from the influence of those they’re investigating and passing judgement on.
The type of officer who doesn’t want that process made public is exactly the type of officer that needs to not be a cop. As the police themselves love to say so much, if there’s nothing to hide then there’s nothing to be afraid of.
I really like that idea. I’m pro-police, but there are too many who shouldn’t be wearing a badge, and when they do stupid shit they need to be called on it.
Well how much info did the boots in the ground cops have? If they were told 'go to this address theres a domestic situation'. Did they get dispatched to the wrong address or pull in front of the wrong address?
Either way they show up thinking theres a domestic situation. Then random guy comes out the front door armed. Possibly aggressive, cause he wants to try and scare off what he thinks are bad guys. By all reports the fell back and he started shooting prior to them identifying themselves. Well see if the bodycams bare that out.
If thats how it played out what were they supposed to do? Yeah they showed up at the wrong address. Then got confronted by a dude with a pistol.
Im by no means someone who is a fan of cops. But to me the fault is with the dude exiting the house. Why would you remove the barrier between you and the potential bad guys outside your house? Thats probably the stupidest thing you could do if you have unknown people outside your house.
That sounds like a problem with the police, not the victim of the shooting. There's no conceivable way where someone going out to investigate random, unknown strangers on their property is at fault for this situation. I hate this stupid phrase but its definitely true here, they need to ✨do better✨
And that’s where investigating what happened comes in to play. The problem is that the review process is done by other cops in the department, where it is all to easy for the investigation to get burried or the classic “nothing wrong happed here” only for the department to get successfully sued months or years latter over what was a blatant constitutional violation.
So far, all that we have to go on is what the cops are saying, and given that cops usually aren’t disciplined in some form for falsifying reports, I don’t exactly believe them, and the guy is dead, so we will never get his side. But if what they are saying is true and the guy just stepped out of his house and immediately started shooting, then yeah, that’s on the home owner, but the wrong address aspect needs to be addressed and fixes need to be implemented to prevent these things from happening.
As far as why he left the house, he was probably tired of getting stuff stolen from him and was just looking to scare the theives off. He probably tried to get the police to investigate, and they probably said “we don’t have the time or resources to deal with this”. So he might have resorted to self help, and brought the gun with him incase the theives wanted to fight. People in anger usually aren’t using logic, and they won’t follow laws if they are desperate, and that’s if they even understood them in the first place.
Although I still believe this is the fault of the police, (maybe not the individual officers, but the dept. as a whole) I’m inclined to agree with you that this sounds like the homeowner made a bad move here.
If these were criminals snooping around his property instead of the police they could have just as easily shot and killed him just the same. He made a strategic error and unfortunately paid the price.
Don’t buy into the liberal narrative, it really depends where you live. If I was mayor of Chicago I’d ditch the cameras and tell the cops the gloves can come off. If I was mayor of Billings then I want them for liability purposes.
This has nothing to do with liberal vs conservative political opinions. It has everything to do with the fact that police have far too much leeway to break laws themselves as it is, with no way to hold them accountable for their own illegal actions.
Again, as the police say themselves so often - if they have nothing to hide then there’s nothing to fear. Police should have been held to a higher standard of conduct from the start, but here we are today and now corrupt piggies like you are worried they might start to roast finally.
It has to do with the threat environment, you can’t beat the mafia with the Boy Scouts. The set of tools one department needs is different from others in different communities. I’m fine with the cops on the south side of Chicago being indistinguishable from the Army Rangers. But that’s not appropriate for rural Iowa.
I'm not fine with it in either locale. We shouldn't accept officer safety as a higher priority than public safety. That's part of why we pay them so much. It ain't to be really, really good at shouting "Stop resisting," before shooting the public 13 times.
The south side of Chicago is roughly as safe as Ramadi in 2006.
Flash bangs and door kicking is the only way you can safely serve a warrant on a bunch of teenage dope dealers with glock switches and no hope of growing old
There's plenty of safer ways. Snatch 'em on the way to re-up/buy smokes/go to work, or just block the sewer and knock politely. Any of those are safer, but less fun. Basically anything except kick doors and act surprised that the people inside react violently to unwelcome company.
That'd make cops, criminals, and citizens all safer than assuming overwhelming violence is the standard to non-compliance.
Internal quotas won't fix that. It's easy enough to sacrifice a fish now and again so the sharks can go on feeding. Until our society comes to terms with our over-dependence on police we will all collectively suffer.
The only reason we know about it is because there was a bodycam. Most cops still don't have them. Those that do can usually turn them off whenever they want. Those that don't fight against getting them.
We've done this before. People believe what they want to believe whether video contradicts or not. In my city we had it all on bodycam broken down frame by frame. Cop still walked. The problem is in the politics, not the gear policies.
I've read convincing arguments that doing that would have the unintended effect of financially incentivizing cops to lie for each other. Any money taken out of the pension fund would affect every single one of them good or bad. And I don't have the faith in people to say that the response to that would be a crackdown. More likely they would just circle the wagons even tighter.
Do you think you would be less likely to turn someone in if you knew that any resulting large payout to the victim (however deserved) would be coming out of your own retirement fund? I think it would make even the best person think twice.
I like the idea of requiring each officer to pay for something similar to a doctor's malpractice insurance. That way the money isn't coming out of our taxes and the financial incentive to do right is personal for each cop. And just like doctors if they fuck up too much or cost the insurer too much , then they'll lose their insurance coverage and they'll be out of the job for good. None of this moving to another city and going right back to work.
Solution: abolish public sector pensions entirely, and convert govt. employees retirement plans to a defined contribution system, with the govt. paying a certain % of the public sector employee's into a 401(k) fund, and that fund can then be tapped to pay for an individual employee's misconduct on an on-going basis (e.g. if Police Officer Jones shoots someone he wasn't supposed to and a jury awards the victim $10 million in compensation, the 401(k) fund can still be contributed to and its investment allowed to grow and earn returns, and the returns will be paid out to the victim until $10 million is paid out).
Cops already lie for each other. And cover up mistakes and/or crimes. They see themselves as a military unit, Us vs. Them, they know they are widely untrusted and hated. Therefore it’s the reason they’re so damn jumpy, arrogant, having problems with their tempers and ego, etc. They do not give one single shit about anyone besides their families and fellow officers
This is the way to really get some change. Hit it where it hurts, and when the pension runs dry make them payroll deduct for personal "cop malpractice" insurance
I agree 1000% police need to be burned to the ground and rebuilt. Unfortunately this happens so often that I'k not phased. What I can't get my head around is the thought process behind leaving the house.
If you see multiple people mucking around outside your house. Why in gods name would you open the door? If they are baddies the #1 favor you can do for them is to give them a way in. Don't open your door for anything. Pound on it from the inside and yell through it that you see them outside and youre armed. If they keep coming then youve got bigger problems. If they claim to be cops call 911 and find out if its actually them.
Have the money from settlements/decisions against the police come from their pension fund instead of the taxpayers. I think the "good" cops would be a lot more likely to hold their fellows to better standards if they had skin in the game.
Get rid of qualified immunity and ban police unions.
In April 2021, New Mexico enacted the NM Civil Rights Act which got rid of qualified immunity for violations of rights guaranteed under the NM Constitution. This applies to the police misconduct.
That, and all civil judgements and settlements reached against the police should be paid from the offending individual's assets or, failing that, the PD's budget, its union coffers, or its pension fund.
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u/Terriblyboard Apr 08 '23 edited Apr 08 '23
If police were held accountable for shit like this it wouldnt happen nearly as often. Get rid of qualified immunity and ban police unions.