police abuse in America

[Fellowship]

I think any officer who acts this way should be fired and never allowed to serve the public again.

http://www.infowars.com/articles/ps/police_threaten_detain_motorist_for_parking_after_ hours.htm

Watch the google video footage of a young man being treated like a piece of dirt by a thug of a "police officer".

This just shows more of the same tough guy mentality I see too much of in America today. Be it our foreign policy and attitude to those who are different than us or our neighbors something is going wrong when we allow this kind of evil treatment to stand.

What are your thoughts?

Fellows

[@_@ Artman]

BUSTED: The Citizen's Guide to Surviving Police Encounters (http://youtube.com/watch?v=yqMjMPlXzdA)

[southside grabowski]

Pretty whack dude.

[SDW2001]

I'm at work so I couldn't get the artman link, but I would like to say this:

I've lost a lot of respect for the police lately. My girlfiend had a really bad encounter with a DUI (she was innocent and the charge was dropped) and since then I've been jaded. This girl was told she was drunk (she had two drinks hours before, then a meal). They called for backup! They took her to get blood tested and withheld the results until the trial. When it came back as less than half the legal limit, they tried to tell her she was on drugs. I mean, really..if you knew this girl...she's basically straight as an arrow. No one in their right mind would think that. Basically the cop had egg on his face and lashed out. His report was inaccurate too. Wrong instersection, pulled her over for speeding initially then said it was a stop sign. So basically to be innocent cost her $3000 in attorney and expungement fees. Fun times.

With the exception of police in violent urban areas, I find them to be pretty useless. The worst are speed traps, which are just revenue generators. I also think that while driving drunk is dangerous, they've gotten out of control. It's at the point where I could get a DUI for having two beers....I know people it's happened too. I wonder when they'll institute a zero-tolerance policy for of age adults? I think it's coming.

I've had a few experiences myself with minor traffic stuff and I really am starting not to like them. I'm not ready to start calling them pigs and throwing bacon at their cars yet, but maybe someday soon! Halloween is coming! :)

[@_@ Artman]

I've lost a lot of respect for the police lately. My girlfiend had a really bad encounter with a DUI (she was innocent and the charge was dropped) and since then I've been jaded.

Believe me, I've been through the DUI revolving door when I had my drinking problem. Three DUI's in two years. Long stories all...but to the point. In my town (Plymouth Meeting) the police station was like Mayberry when I grew up. When the DUI laws lobbied by MADD finally came to fruition, they gave incentives for police to nab DUIs. Mainly by receiving percentages of the fines and legal fees incurred.

The rise in arrests for DUIs skyrocketed (and in many ways, this was a good thing), but the laws had become so broad and the police used so many tricks (waiting in parking lots across from bars and tailgating cars home). That the monies coming through was enormous.

Our Mayberry police station became a sprawling municipal building and they went from 6 squad cars to 20 new cars, two SWAT trucks and a helicopter. Salaries went up too, of course. In some cases this occurred anyway because of the growth of the town, but from my own associations with cops up there (they got to know me pretty well) it was the expansion of DUI laws that brought all the cash in.

It was a police officer who collared me the third time who sat me down and listened to me about my problem. He gave me advice and a number to call for help. Some cops aren't that bad. You also need to know your rights and limitations when dealing with police.

[Fellowship]

Believe me, I've been through the DUI revolving door when I had my drinking problem. Three DUI's in two years. Long stories all...but to the point. In my town (Plymouth Meeting) the police station was like Mayberry when I grew up. When the DUI laws lobbied by MADD finally came to fruition, they gave incentives for police to nab DUIs. Mainly by receiving percentages of the fines and legal fees incurred.

The rise in arrests for DUIs skyrocketed (and in many ways, this was a good thing), but the laws had become so broad and the police used so many tricks (waiting in parking lots across from bars and tailgating cars home). That the monies coming through was enormous.

Our Mayberry police station became a sprawling municipal building and they went from 6 squad cars to 20 new cars, two SWAT trucks and a helicopter. Salaries went up too, of course. In some cases this occurred anyway because of the growth of the town, but from my own associations with cops up there (they got to know me pretty well) it was the expansion of DUI laws that brought all the cash in.

It was a police officer who collared me the third time who sat me down and listened to me about my problem. He gave me advice and a number to call for help. Some cops aren't that bad. You also need to know your rights and limitations when dealing with police.

Artman you really have my support and my respect for your honesty and fair treatment seen in this post. I admire people like yourself.

Fellows

[giant]

The police in Chicago are currently so corrupt it is beyond disturbing. There has been a steady stream of incidents for a long time now suggesting that the Chicago police are current as or more corrupt and dangerous as any police force in US history. I could start the list of incidents that I'm aware of through news stories and accounts from friends/acquaintances (which are likely only a tiny fraction of the incidents actually occurring), but I'd seriously be typing for an hour or more.

[MarcUK]

I read the other day that historically, revolution has only occurred in countries where there is a majority young male population. I dont know about the US, but in Britain, we are averagely getting older and older, so I think you can safely assume that there will be no revolution here.

I see some old grannies are being jailed for not paying their council-tax though, but, still, the revolution never came on the zimmer frame.

BTW, the officer goes on rather alot like my father used to towards me. He was a wannabee cop. An utter prick like that officer.

I kind of feel that, and I know some school friends that went into the police force, that the police force draws in the weak and bullied of society, who feel a great injustice was levied towards them in life, and the force is the way they regain their power. It all probably starts off as a genuine wish to do right, but seems to end in extreme stupidity.

[SpamSandwich]

I read the other day that historically, revolution has only occurred in countries where there is a majority young male population. I dont know about the US, but in Britain, we are averagely getting older and older, so I think you can safely assume that there will be no revolution here.

I see some old grannies are being jailed for not paying their council-tax though, but, still, the revolution never came on the zimmer frame.

BTW, the officer goes on rather alot like my father used to towards me. He was a wannabee cop. An utter prick like that officer.

I kind of feel that, and I know some school friends that went into the police force, that the police force draws in the weak and bullied of society, who feel a great injustice was levied towards them in life, and the force is the way they regain their power. It all probably starts off as a genuine wish to do right, but seems to end in extreme stupidity.

I believe there will eventually be a revolution in China due to their imbalance in the population.

[@_@ Artman]

Artman you really have my support and my respect for your honesty and fair treatment seen in this post. I admire people like yourself.
Fellows

Thing is, I could go on forever with links of abuses by police. But whenever I think of it it, I think of the cop who helped me and my nephew who was killed by a drunk driver and the officers who enforce the DUI laws properly and with civility.

I have witnessed the dark side of policing here in downtown Philly and it's scary shit. But I have seen compassion and understanding. This country is teetering on a precipice as far as our freedoms go and the public should be made aware that. When the police become less faithful to the "Protect and Serve" motto we are in serious trouble.

[giant]

When the police become less faithful to the "Protect and Serve" motto we are in serious trouble.
Well, then we are in serious trouble here in chicago. No joke. I'm as worried about the Chicago police as I am about chicago gangs, and that's just talking about the cops for who don't fit in both categories.

I'm really curious why there isn't more of an uproar about it here, too. We've had a few high profile cases in the past year or so, but there is also a steady stream of incidents over the past couple of years that are "pending investigation" that seem to just disappear in the news cycle. The corruption isn't new, but the sheer brazenness and randomness is becoming unreal. They don't even bother sticking to people who can't defend themselves. Suburban white folks and tourists are just as vulnerable at this point.

I'm somewhat curious about what it's like these days in LA and New York. They both have lower crime rates than Chicago (New York's is about 1/2). There are more films and TV shows about corruption in those two cities, and that's likely why the extreme corruption here gets less attention.

[@_@ Artman]

Well, then we are in serious trouble here in chicago. No joke. I'm as worried about the Chicago police as I am about chicago gangs, and that's just talking about the cops for who don't fit in both categories.

I'm really curious why there isn't more of an uproar about it here, too. We've had a few high profile cases in the past year or so, but there is also a steady stream of incidents over the past couple of years that are "pending investigation" that seem to just disappear in the news cycle. The corruption isn't new, but the sheer brazenness and randomness is becoming unreal. They don't even bother sticking to people who can't defend themselves. Suburban white folks and tourists are just as vulnerable at this point.

I'm somewhat curious about what it's like these days in LA and New York. They both have lower crime rates than Chicago (New York's is about 1/2). There are more films and TV shows about corruption in those two cities, and that's likely why the extreme corruption here gets less attention.

Well, how about Arizona...

Dog Day Afternoon (http://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/2004-08-05/news/dog-day-afternoon/full)

Sheriff Joe 's goons launched an assault to make a misdemeanor arrest. The Raid left a burned house, a terrified neighborhood and a dead dog.

It was shortly after noon on July 23 and several men dressed in black jeans and green shirts were getting out of an unmarked white Suburban, casually putting on flak jackets and helmets.

Soon the men were lingering in front of his neighbor's house in the upscale gated subdivision of quarter-million-dollar homes.

Delfino never would have guessed that he was witnessing the final preparations by the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office SWAT team moments before it unleashed a barrage of tear gas grenades into his neighbor's home.

"They looked unprofessional. They were getting dressed on the scene. They weren't organized," Delfino, 22, says.

From his vantage point inside his home, Delfino couldn't see that deputies had rolled an armored personnel carrier into the neighbor's front yard as they prepared to storm the house.

Delfino could see no readily visible insignia on any of the men, so he figured the scene must be a prelude to a prank on the two men and a woman with a toddler who lived in the two-story stucco house across the street.

"I thought, these must be their friends and they are going to try and shoot paint balls at them," Delfino says.

But soon he knew that what he first thought was a gag must be about something deadly serious.

"I saw one of the guys was perched and aiming a gun at the window," he says. "All of a sudden, he fires off a tear gas round into the upstairs window.

"I immediately called 911. I didn't know what was going on."

Delfino says the men -- who he next thought must be members of a gang -- continued firing tear gas canisters through three upstairs windows in the front of the house. He saw others wearing flak jackets go around to the back of the house, where he heard them fire two more rounds at the upstairs windows of a back bedroom.

After a few minutes on the phone with a 911 operator, Delfino says, he was told that the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office was serving a search warrant on the house and "not to worry."

That's when Delfino really got nervous. With good reason.

Delfino tells me he didn't know whether a huge gun battle was about to erupt 20 yards from his front door. No one from the sheriff's office had alerted him -- or any of his neighbors -- to evacuate.

Or...


The Federal War on Marijuana Becomes a War on Children (http://www.hightimes.com/ht/legal/content.php?bid=703&aid=3)

Automatic weapons. Check. Helicopters. Check. Dogs. Check. Bulletproof vests. Check.

You may not buy the government's characterization of its campaign against medical marijuana patients as a "war on drugs," but increasingly violent, militaristic tactics in recent months offer a troubling glimpse into the federal law enforcement community's mentality: To them, this is war.

Raids on medical marijuana dispensaries throughout California July 17 by federal Drug Enforcement Administration agents, often with local law enforcement officers in tow, seemed designed to send a clear signal that the feds were deliberately escalating their war on medical marijuana patients.

The enemy, then, are people like Ronnie Naulls, a Riverside medical marijuana patient who owned two of the dispensaries raided that day.

A church-going family man who used medical marijuana to ease chronic pain from injuries sustained in a 2001 car accident, Naulls already had two successful businesses – one as an IT consultant and another as a real estate property manager – when he established the Healing Nations Collective to save fellow Corona patients the hours-long drive to Los Angeles for medicine.

By all accounts, Naulls ran his collectives with exemplary scrupulousness. He maintained strict dress codes and professional standards for all employees. He paid state taxes on the dispensaries – amounting to several hundred thousand dollars a year – even when loose tax regulations allowed other dispensary owners to slip through the cracks. Profits from the dispensaries went to local and national cancer organizations.

Nevertheless, at 5:50 a.m., July 17, Naulls' home and businesses were invaded by DEA agents armed with shotguns, automatic rifles – even helicopters. They seized everything he owned: His businesses. His property. All of his accounts.

But that wasn't the worst of it. County child protective services came along on the raid and took Naulls' three daughters, aged 1 to 5, and charged him and his wife with child endangerment. They weren't even accused of breaking any state laws.

Oh, and that guy who posted the "Missouri cop caught on tape" video can't get anyone to represent him in court (http://www.expertlaw.com/forums/showthread.php?t=30533) because Missouri ACLU and other public defenders are stretched beyond their means (http://www.showmenews.com/2007/Feb/20070227News012.asp).

Like I said, i could go on forever...:no:

[Splinemodel]

The main problem with the police around the world, as far as I can tell, is that they have too much money to not bother with petty shit, but not enough money so that they aren't motivated to write fines and tickets for mostly benign activity. So police departments outside of urban areas are overstaffed.

They salivate whenever they get the chance to bring in some more revenue via fines. It has become a part of their culture so much so that it has morphed from basic self-preservation to bravado.

I would support any legislation that grants some oversight, and ideally redistribution, to petty fines. For example, funnel traffic violations to the DOT, and not the local police departments. I don't see why the police department should profit from the fact that, for example, I'm speeding or am missing a tail light.

[giant]

Like I said, i could go on forever...:no:
Indeed. The SWAT situation is way, way out of hand. It's beyond dangerous and there seems to be a steady stream of deaths and other fucked up situations due to it.

The thing about chicago, though, is that it's not even SWAT-level. Patrol cops will beat your ass and get away with it. They rob people, they deal drugs, they beat people for no reason. One woman I know, a manager at a software company, quit her entire career and became an attorney after a ridiculous arrest and assault a couple years ago. Examples of news stories just printed in the past couple of days: 1 (http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-cophitsep07,1,4770356.story), 2 (http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-robbery_websep08,1,1539751.story), 3 (http://www.suntimes.com/news/metro/546465,CST-NWS-cop07.article). The first one demonstrates how ingrained this kind of corruption is and the claims made by the CPD in the second one might be remotely believable if this stuff wasn't becoming so common. For example, this from last month (http://cbs2chicago.com/local/local_story_228124445.html).

Seriously, that's just a handful of recent stories that have made it to the news. Just sticking to news stories over the past year I could go on and on, but the public stories are just the tip of the iceberg. I knew about this incident of police beating 4 guys in a bar (http://cbs2chicago.com/topstories/local_story_083134452.html) months before it became public. That and another similar beating by a police officer of a female bartender were fortunately caught on tape.

[SDW2001]

The main problem with the police around the world, as far as I can tell, is that they have too much money to not bother with petty shit, but not enough money so that they aren't motivated to write fines and tickets for mostly benign activity. So police departments outside of urban areas are overstaffed.

They salivate whenever they get the chance to bring in some more revenue via fines. It has become a part of their culture so much so that it has morphed from basic self-preservation to bravado.

I would support any legislation that grants some oversight, and ideally redistribution, to petty fines. For example, funnel traffic violations to the DOT, and not the local police departments. I don't see why the police department should profit from the fact that, for example, I'm speeding or am missing a tail light.

Well, the fine itself is not the issue. I've gotten two tickets in the last year. One was speeding (I was going 20 mph over, but he wrote it for 5) and the fine was $25 or $35. But the total was $117.00 (no points). That's from the admin costs and whatever else is on there. I forget exactly what they are, but there are about four "non fine" things that quadruple the actual ticket. My second one was for making an illegal left turn (I was guilty as sin on that one) and it was the same deal. $25 fine and over a hundred bucks total.

So I think a lot does go to the state and what not.

[Fellowship]

The main problem with the police around the world, as far as I can tell, is that they have too much money to not bother with petty shit, but not enough money so that they aren't motivated to write fines and tickets for mostly benign activity. So police departments outside of urban areas are overstaffed.

They salivate whenever they get the chance to bring in some more revenue via fines. It has become a part of their culture so much so that it has morphed from basic self-preservation to bravado.

I would support any legislation that grants some oversight, and ideally redistribution, to petty fines. For example, funnel traffic violations to the DOT, and not the local police departments. I don't see why the police department should profit from the fact that, for example, I'm speeding or am missing a tail light.

I could not agree more. I am very impressed with this idea.

Fellows

[SpamSandwich]

BUSTED: The Citizen's Guide to Surviving Police Encounters (http://youtube.com/watch?v=yqMjMPlXzdA)

Even though the presentation is geared toward pot smokers, it's completely relevant to maintaining our civil liberties and being more informed about how ignorance about the law and your rights can get you trampled.

[Splinemodel]

So I think a lot does go to the state and what not.

It goes to local government, usually on the town level. Hence, policemen are encouraged to write tickets and find ways to impose fines, particularly for out-of-towners. Don't tell me you've never heard stories about out-of-state drivers being predated upon by traffic cops. . . It happened to me, when I was driving through the stretch of I-10 that passes near a little town in jerk-water Louisiana (Henderson).

The policeman picked me out of same-speed traffic (florida plates), and blatantly lied and altered my speed so that I'd have to pay a large fine -- $343. Obviously there was no way that I was going to fight this. To make matters worse, I had to sent a letter -- by snail mail -- to the town because the person I had to correspond with via the phone number on the ticket apparently didn't like working. That's the tip of the iceberg. I'm just one of the countless who have been screwed by local law enforcement for the direct agenda of bolstering municipal coffers.