Just something that got me thinking. In all the incidents of police officers violating citizens' and suspects' rights, committing acts of brutality and even killing unarmed civilians, how often do they actually end up facing trial for what they've done, let alone being convicted?
Ordinary people are subject to the law and the Military's code of justice is pretty cut-and-dried as well, yet it seems law enforcement exists in some nebula of its own where there are few if any consequences for actual crimes. Who is watching the watchers?
Fair criticisms are welcome, but I can't think of a single case off the top of my head in which murder by cop has resulted in prosecution and conviction.
Please keep rants to a minimum. I understand that this is in no way representative of all police. This is more aimed at the fact that incidents that do warrant action often receive little to none and that outfits like the NYPD and certain other large forces have for decades committed abuses of power that have gone unchecked, though mostly against non-whites so perhaps that is the reason for the lack of action.
Even if these things get to trial, juries are generally reluctant to convict police officers except in the most extreme circumstances. We've just had that in the UK with the Ian Tomlinson case.
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"We've got maybe seconds before Darth Rosenberg grinds everybody into Jawa burgers and not one of you buds has the midi-chlorians to stop her!"
So, my girlfriend's brother and father are really into old cars, and fix them up (her father actually runs the autoshow in Winnipeg, which focuses on old cars and bikes, really awesome).
So, the brother was out driving one of these old cars, when he was stopped by an officer. The officer came to his window and said he thought the tires were too large, and he was going to measure them. The brother, wanting to see this, decided to get out of the car and watch the officer.
Obviously, anyone who follows this kind of thing knows what happened next, as the police tend to expect you to stay nicely in your vehicle (even though there is no law stating you must, and in this instance the officer didn't even ask him to). As soon as her brother got out of the car, the officer pointed his gun at him and arrested him for assaulting an officer. Additionally, he was fined for his tires being too large (this statute had actually been overturned earlier that month) and having an illegal modification to the hood (he didn't actually, the officer just measured wrong).
As it happens, my girlfriend's father knows the officer's supervisor personally, and went to talk to him. It turns out the officer is facing at least 3 other civil suits for wrongful arrest in situations where the officer arrested them for assaulting an officer for no reason.
Ok, so flashback to March. Her father is running the car portion of the autoshow, his associate the bike part. Without warning, Winnipeg SWAT bursts through the door and arrests the associate. As it turns out, one of the bikes on display belonged to a member of the Hell's Angels Motorcycle Gang. The associate had no affiliation to the gang whatsoever, the gang member was not on the premise and there were no phone calls or anything to the people running the show, you know, to ask if they could just come take the bike or anything like that, just the SWAT team bursting into a busy convention center. Guess who the officer in charge of this was?
So, the issue is, even if the supervisor wanted to do something about this officer (and it appears he does, he has encouraged the brother and father to file complaints and civil actions), his hands are almost entirely tied by the unions and a lack of solid evidence that would hold up in a criminal prosecution. It is, in fact, very difficult to have an officer reprimanded even when the bureaucracy wants to have it done.
In most cases, supervisors cover for officers who cover for eachother, making justice that much harder to attain.
^I was reading that today as well. Apparently, with his hands cuffed, he shot himself in the right temple. Mother claims that the sun isnt suicidal and doesn't seem to believe the official story. How he stuck a gun in there... idk
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Jul 23rd, 2012 04:16 PM
