Our Police State

[Chicks]

Arizona police watched a man drown. Uvalde police stood outside the school. What are cops even for?

https://www.independent.co.uk/voices...-b2096045.html

What is the point of the police if they will not rescue an obviously drowning man or even rush in to protect the children of our nation? The answer seems pretty obvious to me. The police are meant to keep working-class people in line and protect property. It’s why you see a militarized police presence during uprisings, like those we saw after the murder of George Floyd, and it is also why police refused to risk their lives in Parkland, Uvalde, and more recently in Tempe.

Simply put, the police are not on the side of you and me. They are on the side of the elites. It is perhaps unsurprising, then, that a 2018 University of Chicago study found that working class people are more likely to experience police use of force than wealthier individuals, and “Black residents with incomes of less than $20,000 were significantly more likely to experience exposure to police shouting, cursing, threatening arrest, and handcuffing than Black residents with incomes of $20,000–$49,000 and $50,000 or more, controlling for sex and age.”

[RickeyM]

I agree that one's economic standing often affects one's interactions with LEO's. In response to situations that seem excessive the reply is often that the cops were just following their training. In this case it bears weight. If someone is not trained in water rescue they should NOT attempt it. If you jump in even with good intentions of saving someone if you're not properly trained one drowning victim can often become two drowning victims. That being said the police should have in their patrol vehicles some sort of flotation device. I don't know if ships still carry them but they did have life preservers (rings) so people wouldn't have to jump in to save someone.

[Chicks]

The Supreme Court gives lawsuit immunity to Border Patrol agents who violate the Constitution
Egbert v. Boule is a severe blow to the proposition that law enforcement must obey the Constitution.

https://www.vox.com/platform/amp/231...atrol-immunity

[Chicks]

Justice Dept. to probe La. police over alleged abuse of Black suspects
Ronald Greene, 49, was beaten, dragged and shocked with a stun gun at the hands of state police in 2019

https://www.washingtonpost.com/natio...ronald-greene/

The racist MAGA World will NOT be happy.

[Chicks]

Uvalde Shows Once Again That Cops Are Just Armed Bureaucrats
What happened in Uvalde is part of a pattern, not an aberration.

https://reason.com/2022/06/10/uvalde...d-bureaucrats/

Police unions emphasize heroic "thin blue line" themes, as they portray officers as the only thing standing between civil society and disorder. Individual police occasionally act courageously, but such portrayals are vastly overblown. In my years covering these issues, I've found officers almost always behave like self-protecting bureaucrats rather than selfless heroes.

[donquixote99]

Pic is snip from Dayton Daily News today. Cop in question has an interesting record. He was named officer of the year in 2019, for 2018. Later in 2019 he was convicted of operating a vehicle while intoxicated and suspended without pay for a month.

But I really want to remark on the "We are fair but firm" motto. Beyond the irony, I find the motto a disturbing substitution for the classic "we serve and protect." Hadn't noticed it before, but I now see police departments everywhere are adopting it, they seem to like it a lot. I'll just note that in English usage, what comes after the 'but' takes precedence, it modifies and can even totally cancel what comes before. I suspect 'limited fairness, unlimited firmness' would be a fair reading.

[icenine]

The real motto should be "We Get Pensions And Early Retirements".

That is probably why most people become police officers in today's world of disposable employees. Who wants to work in an Amazon warehouse?

Have you noticed that police tend to pull over African Americans when they are doing training evolutions with new employees?. That's how some African Americans got killed.
Of course indoctrinating new police officers must include teaching them what type of citizens to pull over....

[RickeyM]

Why don't police unions work to remove bad cops from the force instead of shielding them.
Asking for a friend.

[Chicks]

Oakland County deputy being investigated after incomplete search for mom, 2 sons who froze to death
https://www.clickondetroit.com/news/...roze-to-death/

[donquixote99]

This is about the US national police, the FBI. A particular representative, one Charles McGonigal, has been indicted for sanctions violations and money laundering, all regarding a Russian Oligarch. But this isn't just any FBI guy, McGonigal has held top counterintel posts.

Here, from the NY Times: "A former senior F.B.I. official who oversaw some of its most secret and sensitive counterintelligence investigations in New York was accused on Monday of taking money from a former Albanian intelligence employee and from a representative of a Russian oligarch."

From same story: "Before he retired in 2018, Mr. McGonigal had been the special agent in charge of the F.B.I.’s counterintelligence division in New York. In that post, he supervised investigations of Russian oligarchs, including Oleg V. Deripaska, the oligarch whom the U.S. attorney’s office in Manhattan on Monday charged him with aiding."

And further, the Times notes "Mr. McGonigal’s arrest shocked former colleagues. They said he primarily investigated Russian counterintelligence and espionage during his lengthy career."

Wonder how long he's been dirty? Possibly in 2016 when he headed the probe into the Trump campaign-Russia connection? Deripaska was in the middle of all that. Also, he was in that job when FBI guys leaked dirt on Hillary, "forcing" Comey to announce a "reopened" investigation just before the election. This might blow a pretty big lid off of some things--if we're lucky.

Another link from when this was just a ticking bomb:
https://www.businessinsider.com/excl...ripaska-2022-9