r/PoliticalHumor • u/j37qhfyhvnh • Mar 23 '23
Don't worry about cops
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u/Moikepdx Mar 23 '23
Add to this:
Cops: "I didn't know I wasn't allowed to do that!"*
Us: "Ignorance is no excuse under the law."
*This is literally the defense most often used for civil rights violations. Unless there is an explicit matching precedent showing that something is not allowed, the assumption is that the government official was acting in good faith while violating your rights and is therefore immune from liability.
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u/eNroNNie Mar 23 '23 edited Mar 24 '23
Which honestly is a batshit legal doctrine that could only be written by judges so willing to bury the dirty laundry of law enforcement that their logic gets so twisted that it becomes indistinguishable from satire.
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u/Moikepdx Mar 23 '23
It’s way worse than it sounds, since this has been extended to things that anyone could patently see is illegal.
“Wait, you mean as an officer I don’t get to decide whether the woman in my custody consents to sex with me? I did not know that. I seriously thought her opinion was meaningless because she is in custody and therefore no longer has the right to refuse. Thanks for the heads-up, judge. Now that I know I won’t make that exact mistake in the exact same way again. But if something extremely similar happens then I might have to come back for further clarification. Cool?”
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u/Bureaucromancer Mar 24 '23
Moreover, it’s been extended to things the precedent obviously does cover but judges have allowed differentiation on absolutely meaningless trivia.
‘But that case was about a wooden baton, not an extendable, we couldn’t possibly know it was the same thing’
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u/Hardlyhorsey Mar 24 '23
John Oliver has a last week tonight about this. “Oh no we killed people in a quarry, last time it was a ditch. You didn’t say anything about a quarry. How were we supposed to know?”
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u/Fake_William_Shatner Mar 24 '23
Now that I know I won’t make that exact mistake in the exact same way again.
--Banking and Finance have entered the chat.
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u/Vividination Mar 24 '23
So they don’t have to know the law to enforce it…they are just supposed to make ‘judgments calls’ and hope they don’t get smeared on the front page for getting caught making poor judgments
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u/Moikepdx Mar 24 '23
And when they get it wrong they need "more training".
This is why eliminating qualified immunity and replacing it with mandatory insurance is such a good idea. Instead of simply shuffling bad officers to another department, they would need to find an insurance carrier willing to insure them. And bad behavior over time would have real consequences.
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u/Fake_William_Shatner Mar 24 '23
Insurance carriers are perhaps the ONLY reason we have any accountability at all in some police departments.
Wow, here I am saying; "thank God we have insurers." Usually, it's the other way around.
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u/Fake_William_Shatner Mar 24 '23
Ignorance of the law, however, seems to fly under the radar for people in positions of authority and power.
Funny how the people who have to keep their cool, know at all times what their rights are and what they are expected to do, and are ultimately responsible for any situation they find themselves in -- usually make less than $70k per year.
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u/Comovartia Mar 23 '23
Someone I went to school with was a pt auxiliary cop for years. Him and a few friends went out for breakfast one day and he announced he was giving up the cop job. When asked why he said he didn’t want to loose his house. One of his friends looked up and said “the only way you would loose your house is if you were doing something illegal”. Breakfast got very quiet after that.
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u/persona1138 Mar 23 '23
It’s easy to lose a loose house
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u/Fake_William_Shatner Mar 24 '23
"I don't feel safe being a cop any more."
Why?
"All you have to do is beat one person to death without an actual threat to your life -- and you can get in trouble. Just one!"
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u/kozmonyet Mar 23 '23
As highly trained and skilled workers, Cops should be held to a significantly higher standard for use of force than some jackass-Joe off the street.
The standard escape route, "I felt there was a threat to my life", should NEVER apply to someone in that position. That's like an engineer claiming "It felt like it was strong enough" after his building collapsed and being given a pass for that. Higher standards of care apply.
And---NEVER should previous military service be a special way to get more hiring credit when applying for police positions. Military training is the exact opposite of what policing requires. The public, even the criminal public, is not and enemy to be eliminated. The broader masses are not a threat to be dominated.
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u/TwinTowersJenga Mar 23 '23
The military is held to a higher standard than police forces are.
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u/kozmonyet Mar 23 '23
But the goals are diametrically opposed so one does not enhance the ability to perform the other. In war, one has to maintain control and authority over a population in any region assigned: Policing should be an attempt to allow a region to operate with freedom from authority and virtually no need for control.
Even the "crooks" are citizens in distress--people who's lives have taken a turn toward the harmful for some reason. "Crackin' skulls" as an attitude toward them might be a normal gut reaction for most of us but it does not address the real cultural goals. "How is this helping the people I am interacting with ?" Should be the question driving it all.
That "veteran" badge should get you no further in a police interview than any civilian job. The last time I had a friend apply (long ago), his 4 years in the navy got him about a 15% points boost over someone who had spent 4 years in another job, including such things as law school.
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u/Fake_William_Shatner Mar 24 '23
However, I feel a lot better about someone who had military training (with commendable service record) becoming a police officer than most.
Honestly I actually feel safer when the police officer looks like he might be able to beat me in a fight -- because the guys who are physically capable, don't freak the fuck out if they stub their toe. It's the chunky, short, no-neck "thumbs" who might be sporting a bald head, or a fascist buzz cut, or a Chicago style porn mustache that looks exactly like 90% of his buddies on the force. Nope -- give me the one dude with good hair and biceps. That dude doesn't need to join a bunch of Meal Team Six wanna be Judge Dredds.
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u/NavyCMan Mar 23 '23
Yes we are. But our training is for warfare not police work, unless in a specific type of mission requires it or your MOS is some flavor of MP. Those of us that go through serious combat training are taught to identify threats clearly and quickly and then react to that info as quickly and decisively as possible. That's not police work.
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u/maltamur Mar 23 '23
So…cops aren’t properly trained so they also shouldn’t get to play with military or military style equipment
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u/NavyCMan Mar 23 '23
Cops shouldn't be trained in military tactics or mindsets period. That shit gets trained in before you are ever let anywhere near a gun that qualifies as military style equipment within ANY competent military force. The US police training is stupidly irresponsible and actively harms police relations with their communities. The military industrialization of US police forces is shameful.
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u/maltamur Mar 23 '23
Yup. Would be a fun federal law that stated that any police force that uses any current or former military equipment must submit all officers to the UCMJ
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u/230flathead Mar 24 '23
Cops shouldn't be trained in military tactics or mindsets period.
I don't know. Seems like a lot of shit could be prevented just by training them in the rules of engagement.
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u/HidetheCaseman89 Mar 23 '23
Look up "warrior training" in regards to policing. Modern policing originated as slave patrols.
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u/SkullLeader Mar 23 '23
It always amazes me that they can get away with citing their training as justification for everything...
Cop: Sir, you were driving at an unsafe speed.
Me: Officer, you were following me at a faster speed.
Cop: I have special police high speed safe driving training.
But as soon as they screw up in a way that their training should have prevented, and its all out the window.
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u/EtOHMartini Mar 23 '23
I laugh every time I look at cops literally on their phones while driving or typing on the keypad installed into the center console.
As if that cop who got hired 30 years ago was selected on the basis of their ability to multitask at driving and tech use
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u/TyRocken Mar 24 '23
Bruh... Back in the Aughts, before texting was a thing, I used to see cops AOL IMing people on their cruiser computer. Some while driving. Always made me chuckle.
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u/benjiro3000 Mar 24 '23
Always made me chuckle.
Until that cop rear-ended somebody and then the whole "you illegally did a break check on me" and power dynamic comes into play to put the blame on a different party.
That is the lovely thing with camera's, boy to they show a lot of what has really been going on (and what then gets swiped below the carpet by the chiefs and unions). I am amazed as the statements they put out and only when the camera images come out (after LOTS of fighting) you see how much the cops their superiors lied. Why is that not illegal or a fireable offense?
And their hate of citizens with smartphones, HOW DARE YOU!!! That tells you all... They are so used to getting away with a lot of shit, that those pesky little camera's are just slightly holding them accountable and they are acting like Karens on steroids.
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u/Fake_William_Shatner Mar 24 '23
Sounds like the physicians who get hooked on drugs because "they know what they are doing."
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u/LoveaBook Mar 24 '23 edited Mar 24 '23
Military background used to be a sought after commodity in the days when cops would proudly talk about going their whole careers and only drawing their weapon once. It was sought after because the thinking was that someone who has been scared to death in war would not be as quick to shoot the crazy neighbor down the street. They were prized for their calm and their deescalation skills.
None of that is true under todays “warrior cop” bs.
edit: typo
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u/Fake_William_Shatner Mar 24 '23
As highly trained and skilled workers,
That will only be truly "highly trained" once they've had 6 months of hard core "mitigation techniques and advanced death punch" at the 98 acre Cop Compound in Atlanta -- sponsored by Dunkin' Donuts. No, that wasn't me being funny, Dunkin' Donuts is actually a major sponsor.
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u/NeoRyu777 Mar 23 '23
I will protest qualified immunity all day long. But why stop there?
Cops aren't required to know the law they enforce. Let's fix that, and punish the cops who arrest people when they didn't do anything wrong.
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u/honeybakedman Mar 23 '23
There also needs to be a national database of cops who were fired for fucking up so they can't just go two towns over and be a cop again.
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u/ClutzyCashew Mar 23 '23
Yes, but first they actually need to be fired. The problem is they don't get fired in the first place. If they do something and it looks like they might actually get in trouble for it they just resign. You can't have any disciplinary action put on their file if they no longer work there. And even if this database existed it would only help so much since the majority of them quit before they can be fired.
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u/Brolafsky Mar 23 '23
Agreed. The whole 'gypsy cop' thing needs to end.
If a police officer is let go (allowed to quit) as opposed to getting fired in light of wrongdoing, a detailed explanation MUST be written down and must be available during future job interviews in relation to any form of civil servantry, regardless of whether it's other police stations/precincts/ etc.
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u/shymrc91 Mar 23 '23
Isn't that fucking crazy? I mean you work at Walmart and within 6 weeks your expected to have memorized most of the produce codes and store policy. Yet a cop doesn't need to know the majority of the law. Why are cops allowed to be so grossly incompetent compared to any other profession out there?
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u/NeoRyu777 Mar 23 '23
Because it's a thankless job, one where everyone is afraid of you. Becoming a cop means willingly becoming "other" to the rest of the community, and that's not something that many people are capable of bearing for long periods of time.
There are, in broad strokes, two basic kinds of people who willingly become cops. Those who want to serve their community, and those who want legally-enforced power over other people.
The former (the ones who want to serve) will do their best - though their best may be lacking - but will inevitably be worn down by the corruption inherent in the system and the constant fear that comes part and parcel with the job. With the law changing, it's difficult to keep up with what is and isn't permitted while also doing your job and trying to handle life outside of it. They master the basics and then wash their hands of the rest, because if they wanted to know the law inside and out they would have gone to law school. From their perspective, as long as they make good faith efforts, that should be enough, right?
The latter (the ones who want power) thrive in those conditions, and figure out how to game the system to get the most power for the least work. These are the ones who go on power trips, the ones who fuck up people or straight-up kill them, the ones who get quietly shuffled to other police stations when they're exposed. Problem is, they're efficient and know the system. There's not enough people who want to become cops. There's a lack of manpower, and these assholes know it.
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u/MarkPles Mar 23 '23
People might thank them a bit more if they didn't terrorize so many of their communities.
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u/kozmonyet Mar 23 '23
Your argument seems to be that corporate culture is bad so the few good workers are demoralized.
The solution is not to feel sorry for the few good ones but to increase standards and practices to the point where corporate culture changes to exclude the power-mad psychopaths. And those psychopaths (along with the whole Republican party) will scream loudly in the process but tough titties. Get over it.
Some rare places are making slight inroads to changing that corporate culture but it will take a whole lot more than minor tweaks to existing management structures.
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u/NeoRyu777 Mar 23 '23
I apologize if any part of my response sounded like I was defending them. I'm not.
I recognize there are some people who genuinely want to help and serve. And I recognize that there are some people who are just part of the system. And I recognize that there are some people who are just out for power.
I will not argue against revamping the police system. It needs a massive overhaul.
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u/kozmonyet Mar 23 '23
Sorry--I live in a deep red part of the world where there are 17 cops on the force to police only 2200 people in the whole county--and most of those people want the damned hippies and "libruls" clobbered with a billy-club to keep 'em in their place. That makes me conclude I am hearing defense of bad policing simply by my internal habitual biases.
I have actually had people say to me "The government needs to keep its hands off my Medicare"--and not be joking. And I have had a local cop tell me how much this state legalizing marijuana was going increase violent crime and challenge his authority and ability to deal with those "welfare people."
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u/LevelHeeded Mar 23 '23
Agreed, also if assaulting an officer is its own special crime we should make assault by an officer have stricter punishments, it's only fair.
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u/ClutzyCashew Mar 23 '23
This is one thing that never really made sense to me. Ignorance of the law is not an excuse for an average citizen, but somehow ignorance of the law is acceptable for the people whose job it is to enforce the law.
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u/MultiverseTraveller Mar 23 '23
It doesn’t make any sense that they don’t know the laws the enforce. It’s mind boggling
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u/mmm__donuts Mar 23 '23
It makes perfect sense. There are far too many laws for anyone to be able to memorize them all. The problem is that we've criminalized far too much as a society and then we expect the police to enforce a ridiculously complex set of laws. The police certainly aren't blameless in the trainwreck that American law enforcement has become, but in this area it's not really their fault.
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u/MultiverseTraveller Mar 24 '23
I think it is their fault.. doctors have to learn about so many diseases and take an exam to show their qualifications, engineers have to take specific exams to get a professional license that allows them to sign off on specific designs etc based on laws and standards. Any fault on either of their ends can lead to people suing the organization or hospitals.
The police are given nonsensical leeway and qualified immunity when they don’t enforce the laws properly. This is not about an emergency situation where someone is shooting at them or there’s a life and death situation, this is the cops taking advantage of their positions of power to intimidate people into making mistakes that they can be charged with later to back up the dubious claims in the first place. If you have to be a cop you have to know the laws.
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u/mmm__donuts Mar 24 '23
I think it is their fault.. doctors have to learn about so many diseases and take an exam to show their qualifications, engineers have to take specific exams to get a professional license that allows them to sign off on specific designs etc based on laws and standards.
Doctors and PEs are extremely well paying jobs reserved for highly intelligent people. There's not enough of those to go around for us to hold cops to those standards. Plus, if we want cops to pass the bar, we're going to have to pay cops like lawyers. Probably more, since the Bar doesn't test on all aspects of the law, just a minimum level for practice and therefore, the test you're recommending for cops would need to be more in-depth than the bar.
Any fault on either of their ends can lead to people suing the organization or hospitals.
That's how policing works too. If a cop violates your rights, you sue their employer. Qualified immunity just says that you can't sue the cop personally unless some specific things are true. I don't understand what point you're trying to make.
The police are given nonsensical leeway and qualified immunity when they don’t enforce the laws properly.
Agreed. Qualified immunity is a bad policy. Police do get too much leeway and have a huge incentive to abuse their power. We need to figure out a better way of supervising them. My point is that requiring police to remember all the laws we currently have just won't work.
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u/MultiverseTraveller Mar 24 '23
Well actually my issue is more that they try to enforce laws that aren’t true or charge someone for something that isn’t illegal. So while they may not need to know all laws they should at least know the ones they’re enforcing
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u/Familiar_Client_6467 Mar 23 '23
Really? In canada the cops have to tell you which law they suspect you broke, they cant hold you unless they intend to charge you, is it not like that where you are?
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u/NeoRyu777 Mar 23 '23
The cops can hold you without charging for 24 hours, on suspicion of whatever. Even if you quote the law at them, backing yourself up, it doesn't matter. They can still do it.
There's also the vague ones, like failure to comply, failure to provide id on request, and resisting arrest. Like, if you refuse to be arrested because you are telling them that they have no grounds to arrest you... Well, depends on if that cop is an asshole that day.
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u/Familiar_Client_6467 Mar 23 '23
Man thats nuts, a cop up here once told me that if you want a cop to fuck off when harrassing you to ask if you're under arrest, if they don't say, yes, leave.
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u/Weird_Cantaloupe2757 Mar 23 '23
An illegal arrest should be charged as exactly what it literally is — a kidnapping. Arrest someone because they talked back to you? Enjoy spending the next 20 years in prison, you fuck.
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u/Supercoolguy7 Mar 23 '23
To be honest there's really not much we can do about cops not knowing the law. There's no way for any person to know every single law when there's so many of them and when they contradict each other.
That being said cops need to be punished when they violate people's rights.
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u/NeoRyu777 Mar 23 '23
What we CAN do is have the cops know a subsection of the laws, the ones that they plan to enforce.
Or we can make ignorance of the law an excuse. If it's not reasonable for cops to know the laws they enforce, it's doubly unreasonable for civilians to know the laws.
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u/doktor_wankenstein Mar 24 '23
I'm looking for a relevant comment to attach this to, and yours seems appropriate:
Eric Garner was killed with an ILLEGAL CHOKE HOLD and the cops got away with it.
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u/ElysiumSprouts Mar 23 '23
In a very general way, I don't mind that cops get some kind of immunity, but holy moly, when they screw up, they should lose their jobs! That's not a jail sentence... a career change isn't the end of the world. It bothers me so much that there are repeat offending officers who go back to work as if nothing happened.
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u/stormrunner89 Mar 23 '23
When a physician kills someone due to gross negligence (or just murder) they at minimum will lose their license. The other doctors will NOT allow that shit.
When a COP kills someone, they get protected and if necessary, moved to another location (like a molesting priest). This is why people say ACAB. If the rest are protecting a murderer, they're complicit.
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u/LirdorElese Mar 23 '23
When a COP kills someone, they get protected and if necessary, moved to another location (like a molesting priest). This is why people say ACAB. If the rest are protecting a murderer, they're complicit.
Yeah to me that's the worse part... it would be bad but understandable if say a cop making a horrible screw-up that resulted in a death shielded from prosecution BUT prevented him from ever having that position again. Much like what generally happens with doctors and other major life threatening professions. But not only do the cops not lose their life outside the force... they then keep their jobs in the force and commit the same crimes again.
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u/jaleik36 Mar 23 '23
And very often get suspended with pay during the investigation, if there is one.
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u/Kcl923 Mar 23 '23
Did you see that documentary about the doctor in the south (Texas I think?) who kept killing and maiming people in different hospitals and kept getting recommendations? Doctors don't care either man, nobody cares as long as the checks keep clearing.
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u/TurtleNamedMyrtle Mar 23 '23
I’m enamored with the idea of requiring individual police officers to have insurance like doctors have malpractice insurance. The insurance would pay for lawsuits and medical for victims. With enough screw ups, they eventually get priced out of a job. Done deal. No need to deal with the unions to terminate a bad cop. No amount of relocations or otherwise brushing bad behavior under the rug. They’ll quit because it doesn’t make sense anymore financially.
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u/Homegrownscientist Mar 23 '23
I’m glad ending qualified immunity is finally getting the attention it deserves
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u/EEpromChip Mar 23 '23
I mean, it's ok if they lie to you because they are on the side of truth and justice
But watch out if you lie to them.
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u/SJWRidinWithBiden Mar 23 '23
Yeah but if we can sue cops for breaking the law they won't be willing to do things that gets them sued. They say this like it's a bad thing.
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u/thankyeestrbunny Mar 23 '23
Dirty money, dirty cops, dirty politicians.
Two steps forward, one (two?) steps back.
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u/sunny5724 Mar 23 '23
Being held accountable for your actions, must be why so many Republicans are against ending qualified immunity.
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u/DeleteConservatism Mar 24 '23
Generalized qualified immunity does need to go, but some of it is important. For example, cops need to speed to catch people speeding. There needs to be much much broader oversight on police, and no longer allow PD to investigate their own.
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u/ArkamaZ Mar 24 '23
Ask Afroman why his gate is busted, his door is broken, and he's missing a couple hundred dollers...
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u/peroper7 Mar 23 '23
Cops should be educated prior to being given the right to qualified immunity
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u/Doobieki Mar 23 '23
I have had personal bad experiences with cops and got sent to country jail all to cover their mistakes. So safe to say I absolutely hate them.
That being said I think Cops should be higher paid. Provided they are higher educated but held to a way higher standard.
Average salary right now is around 60k depending on location.
In simple terms 6 professionals making at least 100k a year with great training, great education and with a paycheck they don’t want to risk loosing will do much better than 10 average joes with a couple months of training and not much too loose when it comes to their career.
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u/No_Release_1337 Mar 24 '23
Like we're ever gonna end qualified immunity LOL cops are an important part of the control structure
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Mar 23 '23
[deleted]
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u/Arrasor Mar 24 '23
Even assuming removing the immunity would lead to frivolous lawsuits, in what way does being inundated with frivolous lawsuits is somehow worth the deaths and abuses innocent victims had, have been, and will suffer?
I will ask you again, between frivolous lawsuits and deaths+abuses, how in the world deaths+abuses the lesser evil here?
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u/Papaofmonsters Mar 23 '23
QI is only for civil suits. It has nothing to do with prosecution for crimes.
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u/BlueToast4242 Mar 24 '23
Good luck getting anyone on reddit to read anything about what QI actually is. Most widespread factoid I’ve ever heard. What they’re probably thinking of is absolute immunity, which police do not have.
Here’s a summary of QI for anyone who wants to learn: If the actions of a police officer are not in violation of clearly established rights or laws, the CIVIL lawsuit will be dropped before the officer himself has to suffer the burden of a lawsuit. It does not protect against criminal charges.
To anyone who downvotes me because you disagree with the real definition of QI, you’re wrong.
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u/Whole_Suit_1591 Mar 23 '23
When cops beat on you after you're handcuffed its a direct violation of them having to protect you while in custody.
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u/BW4D Mar 24 '23
the OP j37qhfyhvnh is a bot
Original: https://www.reddit.com/r/PoliticalHumor/comments/mjp53s/dont_worry_about_cops/
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u/alliewya Mar 24 '23
The Afroman case shows you can’t sue cops for anything they do on the job, but they can sue you
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