The Police Brutality Thread

[Northwestcoug]

Good call. Your FB post will probably tip the scales leading to his firing.

Ha! No post, but I did move my thumb to place an angry face emoji on a friend's post. That way I can still be in the angry mob but not of it, or something like that.

[falafel]

The guy was working his second job as a truck driver and was involved in an accident caused by a car fleeing the Utah state police. The SLCPD wanted to collect a blood sample from the truck driver/cop to prove he wasn't driving under the influence. In other words, the SLCPD was trying to help out a fellow member of the brotherhood of police.

Yeah, maybe that's what they were doing.

[Jeff Lebowski]

Ha! No post, but I did move my thumb to place an angry face emoji on a friend's post. That way I can still be in the angry mob but not of it, or something like that.

Oh come on. If you are going to signal your virtue you need to link the video on your timeline and express just how angry you are.

[wuapinmon]

The guy was working his second job as a truck driver and was involved in an accident caused by a car fleeing the Utah state police. The SLCPD wanted to collect a blood sample from the truck driver/cop to prove he wasn't driving under the influence. In other words, the SLCPD was trying to help out a fellow member of the brotherhood of police.

Or perhaps this was a CYA blood sample.

[New Mexican Disaster]

look we get it, you got a 3.8 in evidence

I just watched the video and didn't read the article. I've seen many warrants for less than being involved in an accident.

[Topper]

I just watched the video and didn't read the article. I've seen many warrants for less than being involved in an accident.

Well there is the warrant judge that hands out warrants like they are candy. That doesn't say much.

[Northwestcoug]

Oh come on. If you are going to signal your virtue you need to link the video on your timeline and express just how angry you are.

I'll do better at the next outrage, I promise.

[Topper]

I'll do better at the next outrage, I promise.

I did not see you next to the SLC mayor.

http://www.deseretnews.com/article/8...es-arrest.html

[BlueK]

Obviously police should get rougher.

[Eddie]

The officer is still on active duty "pending an internal investigation".
The Department of Public Safety officers did nothing.
The University of Utah officer did nothing.

People don't like cops because cops seem to rarely suffer consequences when they abuse their authority and cops always seem to protect, rather than police, their own first.

Cue the usual defenders of all things law enforcement in 3, 2, 1...

Here's the thing - the police are losing the trust of the public. And until they start calling each other on their bad behavior from the beginning (instead of after the video is released), that trust will continue to drop.

What we're learning, over time and via experience, is that cops don't actually know the law. They don't understand what our rights are or the limits of their own authority. What we're learning is that when other cops see a cop make a mistake or worse - misbehave - they will back him. Even when they believe he is wrong and has stepped over the line.

I get the concept of not wanting to argue in front of a potential arrestee. Kind of like parents not disagreeing on discipline for a child in front of the child. You don't want to undermine the authority of a fellow officer. But if we're being completely honest here - what's happening is that because they DON'T correct bad behavior and decision-making, they are allowing the authority of ALL officers to be undermined.

And that's unfortunate. Because I know a lot of guys who are pretty good cops. Who don't have tiny penis syndrome and don't feel the need to demonstrate their power and authority over everyone they come into contact with - but who actually care about doing good police work. But because they back their brothers in blue - they are taking on the stink of the worst of those brothers' reputations.

[BlueK]

Here's the thing - the police are losing the trust of the public. And until they start calling each other on their bad behavior from the beginning (instead of after the video is released), that trust will continue to drop.

What we're learning, over time and via experience, is that cops don't actually know the law. They don't understand what our rights are or the limits of their own authority. What we're learning is that when other cops see a cop make a mistake or worse - misbehave - they will back him. Even when they believe he is wrong and has stepped over the line.

I'm afraid that for the minority who are actually bad cops, it's worse than that. They do know the law. They just choose to abuse it, which is why they're bad cops. They bank on the idea that the public doesn't know their rights. Cops know criminal law and civil rights. That became clear to me when I served on a grand jury for my county in Texas for the first six months of 2016. We met once a week for those six months and would be presented 30-50 cases each week to decide on whether to indict or not. It's drilled into them, at least where I live. The reason is because if due process isn't followed not only will the conviction be much harder or impossible to get at trial, chances are good even the grand jury will throw it out before it can go to trial.

In Texas every felony has to be brought before a grand jury to determine if there is enough evidence to push the case forward to trial. Cops would come give their testimony each week on the case they worked on. Yes, often it was a supervisor, but it was also very frequently the cop who made the arrest and did the investigation who testified. I was impressed that they knew their stuff when it came to the law and to the suspect's rights. So whenever I see a story about a cop acting badly it's hard for me not to think they just lost their cool and went against their training and knowledge of the law through not being in control of their emotions. Or even worse, in a few cases they're a sadistic individual who probably acts the same in their personal life.

[wuapinmon]

This guy didn't speak English and had his hands up:

[Omaha 680]

This guy didn't speak English and had his hands up:

I hadn't heard about this one yet. Just read a couple articles. Have they released the 911 call yet?

Edit: calls have been released. I listened to most of the calls from the guys who got killed. First call was him speaking to a 911 operator through an interpreter. Second call was a bilingual operator calling him back and speaking to him while the police approached. He claimed he wanted to turn in a gun to the police (apparently he was due in court in a couple weeks on a charge of leveling that gun at someone). Unfortunately, he refused to put the gun down and insisted that him telling the operators that it wasn't loaded should be enough. Apparently he had the gun in his hand when he was shot but I'm not sure about that.

It's a tragedy but the calls put the situation in better context. I Don't know if he was drunk or the bilingual operator that called him back wasn't very good but she spent 5 minutes trying to convince him to leave the gun inside when he met the officers. Really awful.

[Sleeping in EQ]

http://www.cnn.com/videos/us/2017/10...orig-vstan.cnn

[Uncle Ted]

gotta fire the guy

Done...

http://fox6now.com/2017/10/10/utah-p...from-hospital/

Utah police officer fired after handcuffing, dragging nurse from hospital

A Utah police officer has been fired after handcuffing and dragging a nurse from a hospital.


A Salt Lake City police spokesman said Chief Mike Brown made the decision Tuesday following an investigation into Detective Jeff Payne, who made the arrest that became a flashpoint in the ongoing national conversation about police use of force. Payne’s lawyer, Greg Skordas, has pointed to the officer’s decorated 27-year history and questioned whether his behavior warranted termination.


Payne in early September was fired from his job as a part-time paramedic. Now, he’s been fired from the police department.


Detective Jeff Payne’s July arrest of Alex Wubbels, the charge nurse at the University of Utah Hospital burn unit, was captured on bodycam video and later drew national attention, prompting apologies from Salt Lake City’s mayor and police. It happened after she refused to let officers draw blood from an unconscious patient.
[...]