• piccolo
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    18 hours ago

    Perhaps if police would more often be held accountable in a fair justice system, people wouldnt be so easily swayed to say they ‘had it coming’.

    • PhilipTheBucket@ponder.catOPM
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      18 hours ago

      Who’s one cop in the last three years who’s done something fucked up and not gotten charged for it?

      I actually know of one. The prosecutor charged him and the state governor overrode the charges because he was a Republican. I don’t know of another.

      Up until about 2020, the police could get away with fucked up stuff, and then after BLM the system changed substantially, and as far as I can tell the left is still steaming forward with the narrative that it is 2014 and no one ever gets charged for anything. I would be a little bit surprised if you can name a couple of cops who have gotten away with stuff since 2020, but if you can, I would bet that I can name 5 cops that have gotten charges for every one that you can name that got away with it.

      It’s the pendulum theory. Things were real fucked up for a long time, cops could just straight-up kill people or beat the fuck out of them for no reason and nothing happened because they were cops. And now, the pendulum of public opinion has swung all the way to the other side, and the cops are always guilty and always pieces of shit if something happens, even if someone was actively trying to kill them or someone else when it happened.

      I already know I am not going to change your mind on this, and I’m actually not into having a long debate about it right now. I am just stating my opinion. I also know nothing about the facts of this case beyond what the cops have claimed. I am just saying that usually this blanket “these people are ALWAYS BAD, NO EXCEPTIONS, AND I WILL GET ANGRY IF YOU DISAGREE” that doesn’t need any factual input about the situation is a warning sign to watch out for, in your thinking.

        • PhilipTheBucket@ponder.catOPM
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          6 hours ago
          • Erik Hernandez, for shooting a man who was driving away when he was trying to stop and question him
          • Brad Lunsford, for shooting a man who was fighting with another officer
          • Andrew Buen, for shooting a man who had called for help but then was refusing to exit his vehicle and apparently in some kind of mental distress

          All convicted this year. If you want to look at an incomplete list just of the ones that were convicted or plead guilty after being charged, going back into the past, there is one here:

          https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_law_enforcement_officers_convicted_for_an_on-duty_killing_in_the_United_States

          Maybe a more fair way to estimate is to look at the number of high-profile cases where, clearly, something terrible had happened, and then see what percentage of those involved charges for the cops. Tyre Nichols is the only one recently that I am aware of, and the cops got charges.

          Before 2020, that percentage was way too low. After, as far as I know, it is a clear majority of the time. It should be 100%, but it’s not. But if you talk to Lemmy, then the number is 0%, and that’s just clearly objectively wrong.

          Edit: 2020 not 2000

      • piccolo
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        18 hours ago

        Considering my city is paying 30 million dollars for a settlement for the entire police force taking bribes and looking the other way while a some businessman sexually assualts ~500 women and children. And only because it got the fed’s attention. But to noones shocked, not a single officer took the rap.

        • PhilipTheBucket@ponder.catOPM
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          17 hours ago

          I just looked it up: It’s worse than that. The feds haven’t really done anything at all, it was a civil suit by some of the victims.

          The FBI and the state law enforcement agency apparently haven’t done all that much. People told them, they came by and asked the cops if they took any bribes, the cops said no. The end. This all came to light last year, and apparently it was on the radar of the DOJ’s Public Integrity Section which is the agency that would normally investigate and actually bring charges to the cops. But they didn’t do anything before Trump got in, and he has already fired most of them, so it’s very unlikely that anything more will happen now that the city’s paid the settlement. I think a couple people are bringing a new lawsuit, too, but that’s not really justice.

          Story from last year: https://tennesseelookout.com/2024/04/22/lawsuit-feds-probing-johnson-city-police-over-serial-rapist-cover-up-allegations/

          There’s a more recent story in the New Yorker if you’re able to read those: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2025/03/31/how-police-let-one-of-americas-most-prolific-predators-get-away

          Basically, long story short, it’s real fucked up, debatable whether anything would have happened without Trump, and incredibly unlikely that anything will happen now.

          • piccolo
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            14 hours ago

            So you agree… ACAB in past and now.

            • PhilipTheBucket@ponder.catOPM
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              7 hours ago

              No, I just am willing to admit facts even if they don’t fit my narrative. I asked for a single example, you provided one, fair play. It doesn’t undo the entire narrative, but it’s relevant. Absolutely.

              Part of the reason I talk about these things is to hear opposing points of view and a lot of times there’s some validity to them. I never heard of this whole situation before we talked and it’s real fucked up.

              There are also other alternative ways to conduct one’s self in disagreement conversations.

              • piccolo
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                6 hours ago

                I can provide examples all day. If pretty crazy you think the BLM movement has put to the end of police corruption. At best it just put their corrupption in the public’s spotlight, but its very much still as bad as it always has been.

                • PhilipTheBucket@ponder.catOPM
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                  6 hours ago

                  If pretty crazy you think the BLM movement has put to the end of police corruption.

                  I definitely do not think that. I think it changed the default. I don’t think there will ever be an end to police corruption. You need oversight to make sure they’re not going to start to get abusive, and that oversight is never really going to be a “solved” thing or never have to step in. That’s just not how human beings operate.

                  Maybe a fair way to do it is just to list the high profile terribly fucked-up things that happened in the last few years, and see how many of those times the police got charges. Tyre Nichols and Lich Vu are the only ones I was aware of. In one, the police got charges, and in the second, the prosecutor charged the cop (as I would argue is the norm now), but the governor overrode him.

                  Now, you’re bringing another example. It’s actually not certain to me that the DOJ wasn’t planning to do something about it (that is precisely the Public Integrity Unit’s job and why they are important, and they’ve been busy doing it until Trump came in). But regardless of anything theoretical like that, yes, this is real fucked up and an indictment of US police that it can happen.

                  What other cases do you know of? If you list off 5-10 of them from the last few years we can talk about what the outcomes were.