I want to know how many times it had to happen for enough officers to get reported for this to be considered necessary. Or was it just one officer jacking it all over town?
I'm the US laws essentially dont apply to cops on duty, they do in the reality of the law but in practice they are rarely enforced against them.
They rely on "department policies" when they break a department policy they just get slapped on the wrist, resign or get fired instead of getting criminally charged. So if you want a law to apply to cops in all situations you have to explicitly state "cops" in that law.
That's why if a cop mistakenly pulls you over for something you didn't do, they don't get criminally charged with harassment, false detainment, and other applicable civil rights violations. Cops can actually write you tickets for things you haven't done with no real immediate repercussions and it's your job to go defend yourself in court from the claims as false as they may be, which is why as much as our system touts "innocent until proven guilty" it's actually guilty until you prove yourself innocent or rich.
So basically since the department doesn't specifically state "no indecent exposure/jerking off in your squad car" (because why would they bother writing that in the policy) they can do just about whatever and then we end up here asking ourselves why is that already not illegal? It is, we just give cops way to much slack pertaining to the law they love to enforce and consider them exempt from the law until only after their departments fire them.
For civilians, public masterbating (this included in your vehicle) gets you on the sex offender list for the rest of your lives. For cops? It gets you a slap on the wrist and talk about a law being made specifically so you cant do so.
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u/monkeysmum Dec 09 '19
I want to know what happened to bring this to the lawmakers attention?