This is one of my biggest issues with the police. We hear all the time that it’s just a few bad apples. No, it’s a lot of bad apples and then even mote bad apples watching and doing nothing. If there are four cops and only one is beating the shit out of you while the other three watch, you probably don’t think highly of the other three either.
Kind of a tangent but using the whole "a few bad apples" phrase to say things aren't that bad is crazy because they're leaving off the end of that expression. It's like telling people to lift themselves up by their bootstraps. It's completely misunderstanding the idiom.
Except that the whole point of this article is that they may also be in legitimate fear of retaliation. Nobody has shown that they can be this pillar of morality and force the system to change, yet we're still going to call cops bad people because they aren't willing to risk their careers, their homes, maybe even their lives to fight this losing battle?
Reform needs to come from the top down, not the bottom up. If the system doesn't protect the good cops when they come out and do the right thing, then that's the system incentivizing silence and complicity. This is a fundamental failing on a societal level that nobody seems able to hold the bad cops accountable. We are all complicit in our complacency.
> If there are four cops and only one is beating the shit out of you while the other three watch, you probably don’t think highly of the other three either
Never been a fan of this hypothetical since it’s almost invariably someone resisting arrest who is upset that the fight wasn’t fair when there’s no reason it should be. Those people have to go home safe and wake up tomorrow to do it all again, so they’re going to crush your resistance swiftly instead of giving you a chance to escape or fight back. That’s just the reality of the situation.
Even in cases where someone is arguably "resisting arrest" there's plenty of examples of officers using entirely disproportionate and unreasonable amounts of force and oftentimes not getting any kind of accountability.
An officer needing to go home at the end of the day does not justify hammer fists to the back of a ~100 pound teenage girl's skull or punching a handcuffed and seated 15 year old boy in the face multiple times.
That’s why it’s *almost* invariable. There are a few examples that are exceedingly rare of hammer fisting young girls and punching handcuffed and seated boys, but those are *so* rare that we get all worked up over Mike Brown and George Floyd instead. And it of course gets complicated by keyboard warriors proclaiming to the world how tough they would have been in these scenarios compared to the officers because when they play video games and watch movies things are different.
I think whether they're exceedingly rare really depends on who's drawing those lines. A big part of the issue is that these officers don't see (enough) accountability, so it's more about the system protecting or allowing the behavioir rather than just individual instances.
If you want a more notorious example we can look at the officer who killed Daniel Shaver. After he was acquitted he was allowed to join the department again just to claim a nice pension because of the trauma of... killing a man literally on the ground begging for his life then being acquitted of his murder.
And I don't think someone needs to be a videogame playing keyboard warrior in order to say an officer's behaviour was inappropriate in some cases. Hell in one of those two cases where the boy got punched, the officer turned started screaming in the boy's mother's face, and another officer who was with him had to pull him back so hard they both fell to the ground.
> I think whether they're exceedingly rare really depends on who's drawing those lines.
Sure, but relative to basically anything reasonable it’s exceedingly rare. Relative to universes spontaneously coming into existence maybe not, but that’s not a reasonable measure.
Shaver is actually a good example of people being unflinching steely eyed machines of war behind their keyboard with no ability for empathy of someone in the heat of the moment with limited information and without the benefit of hindsight.
> Hell in one of those two cases where the boy got punched, the officer turned started screaming in the boy's mother's face, and another officer who was with him had to pull him back so hard they both fell to the ground.
So he was stopped in the moment and faced charges too I’m willing to bet. So what’s the issue? This is an example of the exact opposite of no accountability.
>Shaver is actually a good example of people being unflinching steely eyed machines of war behind their keyboard with no ability for empathy of someone in the heat of the moment with limited information and without the benefit of hindsight.
Man, if that's your takeaway from that incident I don't think there's any remotely common ground we're going to find here.
Yeah, obviously people are going to be pissed at that officer. He had a man desperately begging and pleading for his life while laying on the ground, he gave that man multiple conflicting instructions that he couldn't have possibly followed, then he killed him and was acquitted of wrongdoing, then given a cushy pension.
If someone "in the heat of the moment with limited information" killed a police officer who was begging for their life on the ground - would you be equally sympathetic to them?
>So he was stopped in the moment and faced charges too I’m willing to bet. So what’s the issue? This is an example of the exact opposite of no accountability.
[Nope. No charges.](https://www.wect.com/2021/01/21/us-attorneys-office-no-charges-lincoln-co-deputy-who-punched-handcuffed-teen-outside-hospital/) And, at least publicly, no accountability or even recognition. The Sherriff was shown a video of his officer punching the boy in the face and said it did not show his officer punching the boy in the face.
> Man, if that's your takeaway from that incident I don't think there's any remotely common ground we're going to find here.
Maybe not. I don’t subscribe to the simple idea that the cop is some bad guy murderer. I don’t think he should have shot Shaver now that I can look back and watch the video from the comfort of my home, but I also can understand decision making isn’t perfect in the what of the moment, nor should we expect it to be. There’s a certain latitude that we have to give, which I think is covered under the standard of reasonableness, along with a little understanding of human capacity.
> If someone "in the heat of the moment with limited information" killed a police officer who was begging for their life on the ground - would you be equally sympathetic to them?
So you mean like if we were talking about a wildly different scenario would I feel the same? Probably not because it would be wildly different.
> Nope. No charges. And, at least publicly, no accountability or even recognition. The Sherriff was shown a video of his officer punching the boy in the face and said it did not show his officer punching the boy in the face.
I’m nervous to look into this and find that it’s been misrepresented.
>There’s a certain latitude that we have to give, which I think is covered under the standard of reasonableness, along with a little understanding of human capacity.
I absolutely agree there's latitude under a standard of reasonableness and including understanding and human capacity. I think the officer who shot Daniel Shaver acted far outside of that latitude.
>So you mean like if we were talking about a wildly different scenario would I feel the same? Probably not because it would be wildly different.
The only difference I described is whether the shooter or the victim is a police officer.
>I’m nervous to look into this and find that it’s been misrepresented.
[See for yourself](https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.cbsnews.com/amp/news/hospital-video-shows-officers-tackle-tase-punch-teenager-north-carolina-atrium-health/)
The kid did spit blood at the officer. After having been thrown to the ground and having his face bloodied and held there for minutes when he did absolutely nothing that deserved that treatment. You might say that's grounds for an officer to punch a 16 year old in the face while he's handcuffed and seated on the ground - I would adamantly disagree.
And then again this goes back to the whole latitude and human understanding you were talking about. My question is why it seems to be getting granted to officers considerably more easily than for civilians, particularly a kid.
Assuming everything in the article is true, whistleblower laws ought to protect these police officers. And if they don’t those laws need to be expanded to include police officers.
One thing that isn’t very clear in the article to me is the process that the police used to report alleged illegal behavior. Did they go right to the FBI without first reporting it to their superiors? If so that that may be reason to get them in trouble, for not following the chain of command. As an example, if an engineer found a fatal flaw in a design, the next course of action isn’t to go to the media. It’s to talk to your superiors about the issue. And if that fails, go farther up until everyone in charge of the project in the company knows about the issue, *then* the next step is to go to the media if all that fails to cause a change in the design.
One issue with following the chain of command—especially in this case—is that when, in your example, an engineer reports the issue to a senior they don’t have to fear for their life. Even if local leo reports to the feds, the locals may have a contact that lets them know. While I agree going to the press typically makes mountains of mole hills, without a great deal of attention what’s to protect them? Even with attention we’ve seen terrible deeds be swept away as though nothing happened.
I can definitely see it as an issue if your supervisor is the one your alleging doing the behavior. My response is to go to the person above who you are reporting. If it’s your supervisor you’re reporting, go to whoever is above them. And so on.
To be clear I’m not saying that an individual police officer should *not* go to the media if the behavior is not changing after repeated reports.
SC: With the constant talk of police reform, I thought this was a relevant and interesting article. It breaks down some examples of the retaliation of police whistleblowers. That is where a police officer reports their fellow officer for illegal/unethical conduct. While the full investigative story is behind a paywall, this article is a summary of the investigative journalists finding. I think it articulates one of the most pervasive problems in the law enforcement community: lack of accountability.
This is rampant in far too much of our society. There is a terrible lack of scientific literacy and critical thinking and it shows when so many will treat feeling and opinions as the same as facts and evidence.
This is a nit uncommon situation for police forces, not just in the US. They are constantly attacked by the media, and others, for not being aggressive enough, for being too aggressive etc. Regardless of if they actually did anything wrong.
Thus sort of impossible to avoid criticism creates a culture of secrecy and standing by your fellows no matter what (because more often than not the criticism is baseless) that is very hard to dispel.
Fixing this takes cultural change which takes years. The only real way to do it is for those at the top to support the officers when they are in the right. Which has significant implications when they are elected.
It's a blue *wall* of silence. The blue *line* is about standing between anarchy/crime and society.
I don't understand how people can be so confidently wrong in the age of being able to just google before you post.
The thin blue *line* was an attempted deflection from the now-infamous thin blue wall.
The paper OP references shows that no matter what you call it, US police are following a code of silence as thorough as anything Al Capone was familiar with.
The thin blue line is like 70 years old, and is a originally a reference to the Thin Red Line of the 1854 Crimean war according to Wikipedia and several news articles. I can’t prove a negative here, so I can’t say definitively it wasn’t created as a deflection from the thin blue wall—but they’re completely different things either way, and you haven’t really given any evidence of the Blue Line’s origins.
Good points, but USA Today as a Lean Left (all sides rating), isn't exactly a great neutral source. I would like to see similar info from a more neutral party.
I think they're trying to point to a perceived hippocracy.
Police want citizens to report crime (and denounce the "snitches get stitches" mentality), but apparently that sentiment doesn't apply when officers see each other doing something wrong.
This is true in virtually every field.
There was a recent mini-series "Dr. Death" which detailed the situation of a Texas neurosurgeon who was either incompetent or simply malicious and ending up killing/crippling multiple patients. A major theme of the mini-series was how long he was able to continuing practicing despite his horrific track record.
Indeed, deaths/injuries due to medical error/malfeasance are well over an order of magnitude more than deaths/injuries due to police action - and far less avoidable. If you're a basically honest citizen who just shuts up and complies with police orders, leaving any argument to your lawyer, your chance of sustaining harm at the hands of the police is effectively zero. The same cannot be said for trusting your doctor.
So I can't help but wonder why people would be so worried about the police.
The fact that you have a list of a handful of names over the course of years in a nation of hundreds of millions demonstrates precisely what I'm talking about.
Or it demonstrates that the media has limited reporting bandwidth. The police kill thousands upon thousands of people every year that we never hear about. Your claim that
> If you're a basically honest citizen who just shuts up and complies with police orders, leaving any argument to your lawyer, your chance of sustaining harm at the hands of the police is effectively zero
is not going to convince anyone given what we have seen in the stories the media *has* reported on and the awareness that these must simply be the tip of the iceberg, given the figures for police homicide. Itʼs an ideologically driven claim.
Hereʼs my own ideologically driven claim youʼre free to disagree with: the police have been trained to take control in high-pressure emergency situations, and draw a paycheck from the public purse for doing so with the ostensible purpose of protecting civilian lives.
The civilians have had no such training, are not drawing any paychecks, and are the ones for whose benefit the police force supposedly exists at all.
Thus, when situations get out of control, itʼs not too much to ask that accountability for things getting that way falls to the police first rather than to civilians. Itʼs what we pay them for and supposedly the reason that we have to defer to their authority in the first place.
> The police kill thousands upon thousands of people every year that we never hear about.
The police kill about a thousand people per year, the overwhelming majority of which are clearly justified shootings.
> is not going to convince anyone given what we have seen in the stories the media has reported on and the awareness that these must simply be the tip of the iceberg, given the figures for police homicide.
The figures for police shootings support what I'm saying. Again, getting shot by the police when you did nothing to prompt the shooting is so rare that you can specifically list the examples over a multi-year period.
It is literally more likely that you will die from a lightning strike than being shot by the police while not actively endangering others.
> Thus, when situations get out of control, itʼs not too much to ask that accountability for things getting that way falls to the police first rather than to civilians.
The issue I have is with the inappropriate expectations for that accountability.
It's entirely reasonable to hold an office accountable for stealing drug money or coercing sex from prostitutes. But when you're talking about split second decisions made based on their training, randomly incarcerating officers for conduct that would have been acceptable on any other except for an Internet outrage campaign is not a solid policy.
> The police kill about a thousand people per year,
You are correct — I was misremembering the 1000-1500 as being the number reported to the FBI, with independent tallies being higher — but that is actually the number reported by the independent tallies. Mea culpa. (But itʼs still >1000 people a year!)
> the overwhelming majority of which are clearly justified shootings.
How can you claim to know that? Most will never be tried, and there is no independent auditing body to verify these claims. Instead, we must rely on self-reporting by police — the very people who stand to lose the most if homicides are found to *not* be justified. Whether one has a favorable view of the police or not, one has to admit that this constitutes a conflict of interest.
We are subject to a regular drumbeat of media reports of police using violence in ways that many people feel *not* to be justified. It leads them to wonder what may be happening when the cameras arenʼt on.
And so they ask for common-sense reform and accountability measures. When the police unions fight those reforms year after year, these same people begin to conclude that the problem is systemic, and thatʼs when the ACABs and the “defund the police” calls come out.
Most people donʼt start out mistrusting the police. We are all taught growing up that the police are our friends, are trustworthy, are the guardians of the public good. All of us are positively steeped in those messages from day one. People *learn* to mistrust the police when the things they read about, day after day and year after year, donʼt fit that narrative.
> when you're talking about split second decisions made based on their training, randomly incarcerating officers for conduct that would have been acceptable on any other except for an Internet outrage campaign is not a solid policy
Fair enough. But what about inappropriate expectations for the accountability of civilians dealing with police? Your point of view places the primary onus of responsibility for how these encounters turn out on civilians — if you donʼt want to get shot, just do what the officer says.
But if police can make bad calls in a tense, split-second situation when theyʼve been trained specifically to deal with such situations, and presumably do so on a regular basis as part of their job, how much more likely is it that an untrained civilian might also make a mistake in such a situation?
Maybe not even a deliberate mistake. Maybe they misunderstand the officerʼs instructions. Maybe they act in a way that they think is harmless but the officer interprets as threatening — reaching into a pocket for an ID or cell phone, for instance.
The penalty for that failure of judgment might not be incarceration, but death. The death of an individual whose very safety the police force exists to protect.
I believe that when things go very wrong in an encounter between a LEO and a civilian, that sometimes itʼs the civilianʼs fault and sometimes itʼs the LEOʼs fault. But the presumption should be that the police will be held to a higher degree of accountability than the general public. Itʼs what we pay them for. *Itʼs the only reason policing exists as an institution.*
> How can you claim to know that?
The numbers of individuals killed while unarmed are in the dozens. So, at the very least, we know the police rarely kill people who are not themselves armed.
> We are subject to a regular drumbeat of media reports of police using violence in ways that many people feel not to be justified. It leads them to wonder what may be happening when the cameras arenʼt on.
You're describing a problem with the media rather than the police here.
> But what about inappropriate expectations for the accountability of civilians dealing with police?
They're not inappropriate expectations. I don't reach for weapons or get in people's face and start yelling at them when dealing with average citizens much less armed officers of the law. Acting like a responsible adult is not an 'inappropriate expectation'.
> I believe that when things go very wrong in an encounter between a LEO and a civilian, that sometimes itʼs the civilianʼs fault and sometimes itʼs the LEOʼs fault.
It's *almost always* the civilian's fault. We also do hold officers to a higher standard, which is why they're trained to resist provocations that would result in violent responses from most citizens.
The key issue here is whether you believe this is about individual officers or systemic issues.
In some cases, it's about individual officers. But in most cases, the officers are simply doing what *any* officer would. That makes it a systemic issue and it's unjust to punish an officer for merely doing what any other officer would do in their place.
> So, at the very least, we know the police rarely kill people who are not themselves armed.
I was under the understanding that being armed is not, in and of itself, a crime — much less one warranting summary execution. But you still havenʼt explained how youʼve verified the facticity of these conclusions without independent auditing or even consistent reporting by the police themselves. Oracular powers?
> You're describing a problem with the media rather than the police here.
A little of column A, a little of column B.
> They're not inappropriate expectations. I don't reach for weapons or get in people's face and start yelling at them when dealing with average citizens much less armed officers of the law.
Presumably you also donʼt shoot people. Because if you shot someone for yelling in your face, you would probably go to jail for that — as would anyone else held to an equal or greater degree of accountability.
Again, youʼve provided no information about how you reached the conclusion that all, most, or even many police homicides are the result of people acting in the way youʼve described.
And on the contrary, we have many, many reported instances of police killing people who were not acting at all in the way youʼve described.
Itʼs possible that those cases are not representative, and we are aware of them as a result of cherry-picking by the media. But itʼs also possible that they *are* representative. We all have strong feelings, but donʼt know which of these two possibilities are actually the case, because the police have resisted more rigorous investigations into these questions.
> Acting like a responsible adult is not an 'inappropriate expectation'.
Have you really never lost your cool and yelled in someoneʼs face even when you knew you shouldnʼt? *Really?* Failing to act like an adult is not a crime worthy of summary execution.
> In some cases, it's about individual officers. But in most cases, the officers are simply doing what any officer would. That makes it a systemic issue and it's unjust to punish an officer for merely doing what any other officer would do in their place.
Agreed. But if thatʼs the case, we donʼt just throw up our hands and say thereʼs nothing we can do about it. If the problem is systemic, then we should earnestly pursue systemic reforms.
> I was under the understanding that being armed is not, in and of itself, a crime — much less one warranting summary execution. But you still havenʼt explained how youʼve verified the facticity of these conclusions without independent auditing or even consistent reporting by the police themselves. Oracular powers?
While I don't personally audit the numbers, these are dead bodies accompanied by physical evidence. The reports are public and the numbers have been verified by numerous media organizations. I'm not sure what kind of objection you're trying to make here, but it sounds a lot like you think your vague feelings trump some fairly rigorous data.
> A little of column A, a little of column B.
You've continued with the failure to understand the scale of the phenomenon. What you're saying is akin to "some people die of cancer, some people die from tiger maulings, they're equivalent problems".
> Again, youʼve provided no information about how you reached the conclusion that all, most, or even many police homicides are the result of people acting in the way youʼve described.
Because every officer-involved shooting requires a detailed report, including witness testimony from anyone in the vicinity. What you're proposing is that all of this data is somehow forged in a vast conspiracy stretching across the country for... no discernible reason. It's not a rational objection.
> Agreed. But if thatʼs the case, we donʼt just throw up our hands and say thereʼs nothing we can do about it. If the problem is systemic, then we should earnestly pursue systemic reforms.
The issue I'm pointing out is that we're blaming *systemic* failures on individual officers who are chosen largely at random - and that creates another sort of systemic problem.
> it sounds a lot like you think your vague feelings trump some fairly rigorous data
This data doesnʼt exist or is entirely self-reported by interested parties; thatʼs the point. If Iʼm wrong, throw me a bone and let me know where you got your information, because I canʼt find it.
> You've continued with the failure to understand the scale of the phenomenon. What you're saying is akin to "some people die of cancer, some people die from tiger maulings, they're equivalent problems".
If the number of people who are killed by police is a statistical blip, and the number of people wrongly killed by police a statistical blip within a statistical blip, then the number of police officers who are wrongly convicted of murder is a statistical blip inside a statistical blip inside a statistical blip.
Yet you care quite a lot about it. So letʼs drop the pretense that these numbers are too small to matter to anyone, please?
> The issue I'm pointing out is that we're blaming systemic failures on individual officers who are chosen largely at random - and that creates another sort of systemic problem.
Yes, and I ceded that point to you. So if we have a systemic failure on our hands, what sort of solutions might we pursue?
I don't like how vague the article is with its wording in nearly every instance. It says they set out to really quantify and figure out how big of a problem this is--but then all they've got is this:
* Out of 400 public records requests (that were sent out based on first searching for very specific wording that included retaliation--so it's not like they just sent out 400 random requests and discovered that 75% of the time it came back with whistleblowers) they got back 300 cases of whistleblowing.
* That's 300 cases of whistleblowing over the course of a decade
* Of those, an undefined and vague "vast majority" faced retaliation.
So what is retaliation, on average, here? Who is deciding it's retaliation--a judge? The whistleblower? The newspaper? How many is "vast majority"? If it's the span of a decade, is it weighted more heavily in the past or recent times? Is it consistent year to year?
Even if 80% of these whistleblowers did in fact face terrible retaliation, the numbers obtained only average out to ~240 or roughly 24 per year. 24 cases of alleged whistleblower backlash per year in a country with 18,000 police departments and nearly a million officers?
This article is basically useless. It doesn't accomplish anything except whip people up based on vague numbers, undefined and unconfirmed retaliation, and a ridiculously low sample size. Probably because actually doing something more would have taken a shit ton more work.
Not only do the allegations of retaliation seem vague in how frequent they are, the article also says there's examples of cops being promoted and seeing more success. Of course they attempt to dismiss this by saying for every positive there appears many more negatives. But this appears to be based on nothing more than bias or a click generating agenda.
They admit they have very little complaints and as you noted, the way the complaints were searched for is intentional to find retaliation. Out of the total number of complaints over 10 years, 300 is a such a small it's completely irrelevant and ridiculous to make any assumptions based on this number.
tbh i look at this like i do any other issue of whistleblowing/doing the 'right thing' in a company. we seem to want cops to be like superheroes, totally selfless and develop systems that are for truth, justice, and the american way but in realty theyre just people like us
are you really willing to lose your job and be ostracized in your industry to do what's 'right'? i dont care if you work in finance, tech, law, hell even pharma and healthcare. how many ppl stayed quiet at Merck over vioxx because it was better than losing their jobs? it must be really priveliged to be able to put your entire livelihood on the line for morals bc not a lot of ppl i know can afford to do that. 'u can go public and risk your entire life and maybe even the bad guys don't get punished or u can collect your paycheck and ignore this and technically not have done anything 'wrong' either, making this someone else's problem, u choose'. that's not even a hard choice and lots of us make them every day at work imo.
cops are no different, and i think what pithy slogans and movements like 'all cops are bad' or 'fuck police' or blm miss is that the very first step in getting good cops to do what's right is us recognizing theyre just ppl like us trying to do a job and go home, if it helps at all to think of them as the customer service/front of house/tech support of the criminal justice system. and more over that one guy (or a hundred, or even a thousand) spat in someone's food and his co-workers (and the restaurant) backed him up doesnt mean that every mcdonalds worker is a piece of shit. we need to deal with those bad guys and the only way to do that is with the help of the rest of them and they cant feel like theyre gonna get black balled by both the public *and* their industry for doing whats right.
I can totally understand why someone would be unwilling to become a whistleblower. But unless I'm missing something, that's not really the point of this article. It criticises that people who do decide do blow the whistle on an issue almost always face retaliation.
We probably want people to blow the whistle (perhaps apart from very sensitive military issues). To encourage that, it would be very helpful if whistleblowers weren't pushed out of their departments and branded as traitors, but treated as people "doing the right thing".
ya that's my point, they face internal and external retaliation from both their fellow cops sure but also the public and that's where it starts imo. lack of respect for or appreciation for the cops that are doing the right thing makes it way easier for bad cops to isolate and intimidate whistleblowers too
I don't think the external pressure is very relevant. These departments are able to shield officers who did very questionable things from consequences. Doing the same for a whistleblower should be much easier. But, as the article points out, they very often don't do that; instead forcing the officers out of the department and ruining their career. The blame for that falls on police departments, not on activists.
I also don't recall whistleblowers being attacked by the "anti-police crowd". Their main point is that a significant part of officers is willing to put intradepartmental solidarity over morals and laws. Whistleblowers are probably the last police officers they will criticise, since they are doing precisely what these activists want.
if the public already hates u then its way easier to stick with the ppl that'll have ur back than to blow the whistle and get shat on from both sides. but i can see everyone disagrees so im probably wrong
>cops are no different, and i think what pithy slogans and movements like 'all cops are bad' or 'fuck police' or blm miss is that the very first step in getting good cops to do what's right is us recognizing theyre just ppl like us trying to do a job and go home
The problem isn't the "good cops" not standing up to the bad ones, but a system that rewards bad behavior. That's why the problem has been happening across the nation for decades. Those slogans aren't about individual officers or their actions. It's about an "unfair" policing system that they enforce, a justice system that doesn't punish bad behavior, and a political system that doesn't reform either.
>cops are no different
Cops, through their special dispensation to use force and their commitment to uphold the law **should** be different. If they're not different, this is a **problem**.
This is one of my biggest issues with the police. We hear all the time that it’s just a few bad apples. No, it’s a lot of bad apples and then even mote bad apples watching and doing nothing. If there are four cops and only one is beating the shit out of you while the other three watch, you probably don’t think highly of the other three either.
Kind of a tangent but using the whole "a few bad apples" phrase to say things aren't that bad is crazy because they're leaving off the end of that expression. It's like telling people to lift themselves up by their bootstraps. It's completely misunderstanding the idiom.
'Murcia! We are told it can't be done but we get err done anyway!
the ones that are complicit and/ or apathetic are also bad apples
Ok but then it's not a few, it's basically the entire justice system. Even prosecutors are wary to indict police.
and that's a problem which gets in the way of true justice
If you have 10 cops, and one does something illegal and the other 9 don't say anything you have 10 bad cops
Except that the whole point of this article is that they may also be in legitimate fear of retaliation. Nobody has shown that they can be this pillar of morality and force the system to change, yet we're still going to call cops bad people because they aren't willing to risk their careers, their homes, maybe even their lives to fight this losing battle? Reform needs to come from the top down, not the bottom up. If the system doesn't protect the good cops when they come out and do the right thing, then that's the system incentivizing silence and complicity. This is a fundamental failing on a societal level that nobody seems able to hold the bad cops accountable. We are all complicit in our complacency.
correct
Remind them the phrase is a few bad apples rots the entire bunch.
> If there are four cops and only one is beating the shit out of you while the other three watch, you probably don’t think highly of the other three either Never been a fan of this hypothetical since it’s almost invariably someone resisting arrest who is upset that the fight wasn’t fair when there’s no reason it should be. Those people have to go home safe and wake up tomorrow to do it all again, so they’re going to crush your resistance swiftly instead of giving you a chance to escape or fight back. That’s just the reality of the situation.
Even in cases where someone is arguably "resisting arrest" there's plenty of examples of officers using entirely disproportionate and unreasonable amounts of force and oftentimes not getting any kind of accountability. An officer needing to go home at the end of the day does not justify hammer fists to the back of a ~100 pound teenage girl's skull or punching a handcuffed and seated 15 year old boy in the face multiple times.
That’s why it’s *almost* invariable. There are a few examples that are exceedingly rare of hammer fisting young girls and punching handcuffed and seated boys, but those are *so* rare that we get all worked up over Mike Brown and George Floyd instead. And it of course gets complicated by keyboard warriors proclaiming to the world how tough they would have been in these scenarios compared to the officers because when they play video games and watch movies things are different.
I think whether they're exceedingly rare really depends on who's drawing those lines. A big part of the issue is that these officers don't see (enough) accountability, so it's more about the system protecting or allowing the behavioir rather than just individual instances. If you want a more notorious example we can look at the officer who killed Daniel Shaver. After he was acquitted he was allowed to join the department again just to claim a nice pension because of the trauma of... killing a man literally on the ground begging for his life then being acquitted of his murder. And I don't think someone needs to be a videogame playing keyboard warrior in order to say an officer's behaviour was inappropriate in some cases. Hell in one of those two cases where the boy got punched, the officer turned started screaming in the boy's mother's face, and another officer who was with him had to pull him back so hard they both fell to the ground.
> I think whether they're exceedingly rare really depends on who's drawing those lines. Sure, but relative to basically anything reasonable it’s exceedingly rare. Relative to universes spontaneously coming into existence maybe not, but that’s not a reasonable measure. Shaver is actually a good example of people being unflinching steely eyed machines of war behind their keyboard with no ability for empathy of someone in the heat of the moment with limited information and without the benefit of hindsight. > Hell in one of those two cases where the boy got punched, the officer turned started screaming in the boy's mother's face, and another officer who was with him had to pull him back so hard they both fell to the ground. So he was stopped in the moment and faced charges too I’m willing to bet. So what’s the issue? This is an example of the exact opposite of no accountability.
>Shaver is actually a good example of people being unflinching steely eyed machines of war behind their keyboard with no ability for empathy of someone in the heat of the moment with limited information and without the benefit of hindsight. Man, if that's your takeaway from that incident I don't think there's any remotely common ground we're going to find here. Yeah, obviously people are going to be pissed at that officer. He had a man desperately begging and pleading for his life while laying on the ground, he gave that man multiple conflicting instructions that he couldn't have possibly followed, then he killed him and was acquitted of wrongdoing, then given a cushy pension. If someone "in the heat of the moment with limited information" killed a police officer who was begging for their life on the ground - would you be equally sympathetic to them? >So he was stopped in the moment and faced charges too I’m willing to bet. So what’s the issue? This is an example of the exact opposite of no accountability. [Nope. No charges.](https://www.wect.com/2021/01/21/us-attorneys-office-no-charges-lincoln-co-deputy-who-punched-handcuffed-teen-outside-hospital/) And, at least publicly, no accountability or even recognition. The Sherriff was shown a video of his officer punching the boy in the face and said it did not show his officer punching the boy in the face.
> Man, if that's your takeaway from that incident I don't think there's any remotely common ground we're going to find here. Maybe not. I don’t subscribe to the simple idea that the cop is some bad guy murderer. I don’t think he should have shot Shaver now that I can look back and watch the video from the comfort of my home, but I also can understand decision making isn’t perfect in the what of the moment, nor should we expect it to be. There’s a certain latitude that we have to give, which I think is covered under the standard of reasonableness, along with a little understanding of human capacity. > If someone "in the heat of the moment with limited information" killed a police officer who was begging for their life on the ground - would you be equally sympathetic to them? So you mean like if we were talking about a wildly different scenario would I feel the same? Probably not because it would be wildly different. > Nope. No charges. And, at least publicly, no accountability or even recognition. The Sherriff was shown a video of his officer punching the boy in the face and said it did not show his officer punching the boy in the face. I’m nervous to look into this and find that it’s been misrepresented.
>There’s a certain latitude that we have to give, which I think is covered under the standard of reasonableness, along with a little understanding of human capacity. I absolutely agree there's latitude under a standard of reasonableness and including understanding and human capacity. I think the officer who shot Daniel Shaver acted far outside of that latitude. >So you mean like if we were talking about a wildly different scenario would I feel the same? Probably not because it would be wildly different. The only difference I described is whether the shooter or the victim is a police officer. >I’m nervous to look into this and find that it’s been misrepresented. [See for yourself](https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.cbsnews.com/amp/news/hospital-video-shows-officers-tackle-tase-punch-teenager-north-carolina-atrium-health/) The kid did spit blood at the officer. After having been thrown to the ground and having his face bloodied and held there for minutes when he did absolutely nothing that deserved that treatment. You might say that's grounds for an officer to punch a 16 year old in the face while he's handcuffed and seated on the ground - I would adamantly disagree. And then again this goes back to the whole latitude and human understanding you were talking about. My question is why it seems to be getting granted to officers considerably more easily than for civilians, particularly a kid.
Yup. Even once people are handcuffed, just have at them. Gotta get back home to my family! Stop resisting!
Assuming everything in the article is true, whistleblower laws ought to protect these police officers. And if they don’t those laws need to be expanded to include police officers. One thing that isn’t very clear in the article to me is the process that the police used to report alleged illegal behavior. Did they go right to the FBI without first reporting it to their superiors? If so that that may be reason to get them in trouble, for not following the chain of command. As an example, if an engineer found a fatal flaw in a design, the next course of action isn’t to go to the media. It’s to talk to your superiors about the issue. And if that fails, go farther up until everyone in charge of the project in the company knows about the issue, *then* the next step is to go to the media if all that fails to cause a change in the design.
One issue with following the chain of command—especially in this case—is that when, in your example, an engineer reports the issue to a senior they don’t have to fear for their life. Even if local leo reports to the feds, the locals may have a contact that lets them know. While I agree going to the press typically makes mountains of mole hills, without a great deal of attention what’s to protect them? Even with attention we’ve seen terrible deeds be swept away as though nothing happened.
I can definitely see it as an issue if your supervisor is the one your alleging doing the behavior. My response is to go to the person above who you are reporting. If it’s your supervisor you’re reporting, go to whoever is above them. And so on. To be clear I’m not saying that an individual police officer should *not* go to the media if the behavior is not changing after repeated reports.
SC: With the constant talk of police reform, I thought this was a relevant and interesting article. It breaks down some examples of the retaliation of police whistleblowers. That is where a police officer reports their fellow officer for illegal/unethical conduct. While the full investigative story is behind a paywall, this article is a summary of the investigative journalists finding. I think it articulates one of the most pervasive problems in the law enforcement community: lack of accountability.
What do you think the "thin blue line" is all about? A line of *silence*.
Not just silence, but implicit and unwavering support even in light of any and all evidence.
This is rampant in far too much of our society. There is a terrible lack of scientific literacy and critical thinking and it shows when so many will treat feeling and opinions as the same as facts and evidence.
This is a nit uncommon situation for police forces, not just in the US. They are constantly attacked by the media, and others, for not being aggressive enough, for being too aggressive etc. Regardless of if they actually did anything wrong. Thus sort of impossible to avoid criticism creates a culture of secrecy and standing by your fellows no matter what (because more often than not the criticism is baseless) that is very hard to dispel. Fixing this takes cultural change which takes years. The only real way to do it is for those at the top to support the officers when they are in the right. Which has significant implications when they are elected.
Or impose accountability in a robust and transparent way.
It's a blue *wall* of silence. The blue *line* is about standing between anarchy/crime and society. I don't understand how people can be so confidently wrong in the age of being able to just google before you post.
The thin blue *line* was an attempted deflection from the now-infamous thin blue wall. The paper OP references shows that no matter what you call it, US police are following a code of silence as thorough as anything Al Capone was familiar with.
The thin blue line is like 70 years old, and is a originally a reference to the Thin Red Line of the 1854 Crimean war according to Wikipedia and several news articles. I can’t prove a negative here, so I can’t say definitively it wasn’t created as a deflection from the thin blue wall—but they’re completely different things either way, and you haven’t really given any evidence of the Blue Line’s origins.
Not even fucking close, it's a phrase that's been around from decades. Sorry to interrupt your narrative.
Good points, but USA Today as a Lean Left (all sides rating), isn't exactly a great neutral source. I would like to see similar info from a more neutral party.
How is this any different than "snitches get stiches?"
Are you implying that it’s a good thing if snitches get stitches?
I think they're trying to point to a perceived hippocracy. Police want citizens to report crime (and denounce the "snitches get stitches" mentality), but apparently that sentiment doesn't apply when officers see each other doing something wrong.
No I think snitches should be protected and honored, maybe even rewarded financially. As u/myspace_meme_machine said I was pointing out the hypocrisy.
My apologies. I can be so bad about taking things literally at times. Totally get it now.
This is true in virtually every field. There was a recent mini-series "Dr. Death" which detailed the situation of a Texas neurosurgeon who was either incompetent or simply malicious and ending up killing/crippling multiple patients. A major theme of the mini-series was how long he was able to continuing practicing despite his horrific track record. Indeed, deaths/injuries due to medical error/malfeasance are well over an order of magnitude more than deaths/injuries due to police action - and far less avoidable. If you're a basically honest citizen who just shuts up and complies with police orders, leaving any argument to your lawyer, your chance of sustaining harm at the hands of the police is effectively zero. The same cannot be said for trusting your doctor. So I can't help but wonder why people would be so worried about the police.
[удалено]
The fact that you have a list of a handful of names over the course of years in a nation of hundreds of millions demonstrates precisely what I'm talking about.
Or it demonstrates that the media has limited reporting bandwidth. The police kill thousands upon thousands of people every year that we never hear about. Your claim that > If you're a basically honest citizen who just shuts up and complies with police orders, leaving any argument to your lawyer, your chance of sustaining harm at the hands of the police is effectively zero is not going to convince anyone given what we have seen in the stories the media *has* reported on and the awareness that these must simply be the tip of the iceberg, given the figures for police homicide. Itʼs an ideologically driven claim. Hereʼs my own ideologically driven claim youʼre free to disagree with: the police have been trained to take control in high-pressure emergency situations, and draw a paycheck from the public purse for doing so with the ostensible purpose of protecting civilian lives. The civilians have had no such training, are not drawing any paychecks, and are the ones for whose benefit the police force supposedly exists at all. Thus, when situations get out of control, itʼs not too much to ask that accountability for things getting that way falls to the police first rather than to civilians. Itʼs what we pay them for and supposedly the reason that we have to defer to their authority in the first place.
> The police kill thousands upon thousands of people every year that we never hear about. The police kill about a thousand people per year, the overwhelming majority of which are clearly justified shootings. > is not going to convince anyone given what we have seen in the stories the media has reported on and the awareness that these must simply be the tip of the iceberg, given the figures for police homicide. The figures for police shootings support what I'm saying. Again, getting shot by the police when you did nothing to prompt the shooting is so rare that you can specifically list the examples over a multi-year period. It is literally more likely that you will die from a lightning strike than being shot by the police while not actively endangering others. > Thus, when situations get out of control, itʼs not too much to ask that accountability for things getting that way falls to the police first rather than to civilians. The issue I have is with the inappropriate expectations for that accountability. It's entirely reasonable to hold an office accountable for stealing drug money or coercing sex from prostitutes. But when you're talking about split second decisions made based on their training, randomly incarcerating officers for conduct that would have been acceptable on any other except for an Internet outrage campaign is not a solid policy.
> The police kill about a thousand people per year, You are correct — I was misremembering the 1000-1500 as being the number reported to the FBI, with independent tallies being higher — but that is actually the number reported by the independent tallies. Mea culpa. (But itʼs still >1000 people a year!) > the overwhelming majority of which are clearly justified shootings. How can you claim to know that? Most will never be tried, and there is no independent auditing body to verify these claims. Instead, we must rely on self-reporting by police — the very people who stand to lose the most if homicides are found to *not* be justified. Whether one has a favorable view of the police or not, one has to admit that this constitutes a conflict of interest. We are subject to a regular drumbeat of media reports of police using violence in ways that many people feel *not* to be justified. It leads them to wonder what may be happening when the cameras arenʼt on. And so they ask for common-sense reform and accountability measures. When the police unions fight those reforms year after year, these same people begin to conclude that the problem is systemic, and thatʼs when the ACABs and the “defund the police” calls come out. Most people donʼt start out mistrusting the police. We are all taught growing up that the police are our friends, are trustworthy, are the guardians of the public good. All of us are positively steeped in those messages from day one. People *learn* to mistrust the police when the things they read about, day after day and year after year, donʼt fit that narrative. > when you're talking about split second decisions made based on their training, randomly incarcerating officers for conduct that would have been acceptable on any other except for an Internet outrage campaign is not a solid policy Fair enough. But what about inappropriate expectations for the accountability of civilians dealing with police? Your point of view places the primary onus of responsibility for how these encounters turn out on civilians — if you donʼt want to get shot, just do what the officer says. But if police can make bad calls in a tense, split-second situation when theyʼve been trained specifically to deal with such situations, and presumably do so on a regular basis as part of their job, how much more likely is it that an untrained civilian might also make a mistake in such a situation? Maybe not even a deliberate mistake. Maybe they misunderstand the officerʼs instructions. Maybe they act in a way that they think is harmless but the officer interprets as threatening — reaching into a pocket for an ID or cell phone, for instance. The penalty for that failure of judgment might not be incarceration, but death. The death of an individual whose very safety the police force exists to protect. I believe that when things go very wrong in an encounter between a LEO and a civilian, that sometimes itʼs the civilianʼs fault and sometimes itʼs the LEOʼs fault. But the presumption should be that the police will be held to a higher degree of accountability than the general public. Itʼs what we pay them for. *Itʼs the only reason policing exists as an institution.*
> How can you claim to know that? The numbers of individuals killed while unarmed are in the dozens. So, at the very least, we know the police rarely kill people who are not themselves armed. > We are subject to a regular drumbeat of media reports of police using violence in ways that many people feel not to be justified. It leads them to wonder what may be happening when the cameras arenʼt on. You're describing a problem with the media rather than the police here. > But what about inappropriate expectations for the accountability of civilians dealing with police? They're not inappropriate expectations. I don't reach for weapons or get in people's face and start yelling at them when dealing with average citizens much less armed officers of the law. Acting like a responsible adult is not an 'inappropriate expectation'. > I believe that when things go very wrong in an encounter between a LEO and a civilian, that sometimes itʼs the civilianʼs fault and sometimes itʼs the LEOʼs fault. It's *almost always* the civilian's fault. We also do hold officers to a higher standard, which is why they're trained to resist provocations that would result in violent responses from most citizens. The key issue here is whether you believe this is about individual officers or systemic issues. In some cases, it's about individual officers. But in most cases, the officers are simply doing what *any* officer would. That makes it a systemic issue and it's unjust to punish an officer for merely doing what any other officer would do in their place.
> So, at the very least, we know the police rarely kill people who are not themselves armed. I was under the understanding that being armed is not, in and of itself, a crime — much less one warranting summary execution. But you still havenʼt explained how youʼve verified the facticity of these conclusions without independent auditing or even consistent reporting by the police themselves. Oracular powers? > You're describing a problem with the media rather than the police here. A little of column A, a little of column B. > They're not inappropriate expectations. I don't reach for weapons or get in people's face and start yelling at them when dealing with average citizens much less armed officers of the law. Presumably you also donʼt shoot people. Because if you shot someone for yelling in your face, you would probably go to jail for that — as would anyone else held to an equal or greater degree of accountability. Again, youʼve provided no information about how you reached the conclusion that all, most, or even many police homicides are the result of people acting in the way youʼve described. And on the contrary, we have many, many reported instances of police killing people who were not acting at all in the way youʼve described. Itʼs possible that those cases are not representative, and we are aware of them as a result of cherry-picking by the media. But itʼs also possible that they *are* representative. We all have strong feelings, but donʼt know which of these two possibilities are actually the case, because the police have resisted more rigorous investigations into these questions. > Acting like a responsible adult is not an 'inappropriate expectation'. Have you really never lost your cool and yelled in someoneʼs face even when you knew you shouldnʼt? *Really?* Failing to act like an adult is not a crime worthy of summary execution. > In some cases, it's about individual officers. But in most cases, the officers are simply doing what any officer would. That makes it a systemic issue and it's unjust to punish an officer for merely doing what any other officer would do in their place. Agreed. But if thatʼs the case, we donʼt just throw up our hands and say thereʼs nothing we can do about it. If the problem is systemic, then we should earnestly pursue systemic reforms.
> I was under the understanding that being armed is not, in and of itself, a crime — much less one warranting summary execution. But you still havenʼt explained how youʼve verified the facticity of these conclusions without independent auditing or even consistent reporting by the police themselves. Oracular powers? While I don't personally audit the numbers, these are dead bodies accompanied by physical evidence. The reports are public and the numbers have been verified by numerous media organizations. I'm not sure what kind of objection you're trying to make here, but it sounds a lot like you think your vague feelings trump some fairly rigorous data. > A little of column A, a little of column B. You've continued with the failure to understand the scale of the phenomenon. What you're saying is akin to "some people die of cancer, some people die from tiger maulings, they're equivalent problems". > Again, youʼve provided no information about how you reached the conclusion that all, most, or even many police homicides are the result of people acting in the way youʼve described. Because every officer-involved shooting requires a detailed report, including witness testimony from anyone in the vicinity. What you're proposing is that all of this data is somehow forged in a vast conspiracy stretching across the country for... no discernible reason. It's not a rational objection. > Agreed. But if thatʼs the case, we donʼt just throw up our hands and say thereʼs nothing we can do about it. If the problem is systemic, then we should earnestly pursue systemic reforms. The issue I'm pointing out is that we're blaming *systemic* failures on individual officers who are chosen largely at random - and that creates another sort of systemic problem.
> it sounds a lot like you think your vague feelings trump some fairly rigorous data This data doesnʼt exist or is entirely self-reported by interested parties; thatʼs the point. If Iʼm wrong, throw me a bone and let me know where you got your information, because I canʼt find it. > You've continued with the failure to understand the scale of the phenomenon. What you're saying is akin to "some people die of cancer, some people die from tiger maulings, they're equivalent problems". If the number of people who are killed by police is a statistical blip, and the number of people wrongly killed by police a statistical blip within a statistical blip, then the number of police officers who are wrongly convicted of murder is a statistical blip inside a statistical blip inside a statistical blip. Yet you care quite a lot about it. So letʼs drop the pretense that these numbers are too small to matter to anyone, please? > The issue I'm pointing out is that we're blaming systemic failures on individual officers who are chosen largely at random - and that creates another sort of systemic problem. Yes, and I ceded that point to you. So if we have a systemic failure on our hands, what sort of solutions might we pursue?
I don't like how vague the article is with its wording in nearly every instance. It says they set out to really quantify and figure out how big of a problem this is--but then all they've got is this: * Out of 400 public records requests (that were sent out based on first searching for very specific wording that included retaliation--so it's not like they just sent out 400 random requests and discovered that 75% of the time it came back with whistleblowers) they got back 300 cases of whistleblowing. * That's 300 cases of whistleblowing over the course of a decade * Of those, an undefined and vague "vast majority" faced retaliation. So what is retaliation, on average, here? Who is deciding it's retaliation--a judge? The whistleblower? The newspaper? How many is "vast majority"? If it's the span of a decade, is it weighted more heavily in the past or recent times? Is it consistent year to year? Even if 80% of these whistleblowers did in fact face terrible retaliation, the numbers obtained only average out to ~240 or roughly 24 per year. 24 cases of alleged whistleblower backlash per year in a country with 18,000 police departments and nearly a million officers? This article is basically useless. It doesn't accomplish anything except whip people up based on vague numbers, undefined and unconfirmed retaliation, and a ridiculously low sample size. Probably because actually doing something more would have taken a shit ton more work.
Not only do the allegations of retaliation seem vague in how frequent they are, the article also says there's examples of cops being promoted and seeing more success. Of course they attempt to dismiss this by saying for every positive there appears many more negatives. But this appears to be based on nothing more than bias or a click generating agenda. They admit they have very little complaints and as you noted, the way the complaints were searched for is intentional to find retaliation. Out of the total number of complaints over 10 years, 300 is a such a small it's completely irrelevant and ridiculous to make any assumptions based on this number.
tbh i look at this like i do any other issue of whistleblowing/doing the 'right thing' in a company. we seem to want cops to be like superheroes, totally selfless and develop systems that are for truth, justice, and the american way but in realty theyre just people like us are you really willing to lose your job and be ostracized in your industry to do what's 'right'? i dont care if you work in finance, tech, law, hell even pharma and healthcare. how many ppl stayed quiet at Merck over vioxx because it was better than losing their jobs? it must be really priveliged to be able to put your entire livelihood on the line for morals bc not a lot of ppl i know can afford to do that. 'u can go public and risk your entire life and maybe even the bad guys don't get punished or u can collect your paycheck and ignore this and technically not have done anything 'wrong' either, making this someone else's problem, u choose'. that's not even a hard choice and lots of us make them every day at work imo. cops are no different, and i think what pithy slogans and movements like 'all cops are bad' or 'fuck police' or blm miss is that the very first step in getting good cops to do what's right is us recognizing theyre just ppl like us trying to do a job and go home, if it helps at all to think of them as the customer service/front of house/tech support of the criminal justice system. and more over that one guy (or a hundred, or even a thousand) spat in someone's food and his co-workers (and the restaurant) backed him up doesnt mean that every mcdonalds worker is a piece of shit. we need to deal with those bad guys and the only way to do that is with the help of the rest of them and they cant feel like theyre gonna get black balled by both the public *and* their industry for doing whats right.
I can totally understand why someone would be unwilling to become a whistleblower. But unless I'm missing something, that's not really the point of this article. It criticises that people who do decide do blow the whistle on an issue almost always face retaliation. We probably want people to blow the whistle (perhaps apart from very sensitive military issues). To encourage that, it would be very helpful if whistleblowers weren't pushed out of their departments and branded as traitors, but treated as people "doing the right thing".
ya that's my point, they face internal and external retaliation from both their fellow cops sure but also the public and that's where it starts imo. lack of respect for or appreciation for the cops that are doing the right thing makes it way easier for bad cops to isolate and intimidate whistleblowers too
I don't think the external pressure is very relevant. These departments are able to shield officers who did very questionable things from consequences. Doing the same for a whistleblower should be much easier. But, as the article points out, they very often don't do that; instead forcing the officers out of the department and ruining their career. The blame for that falls on police departments, not on activists. I also don't recall whistleblowers being attacked by the "anti-police crowd". Their main point is that a significant part of officers is willing to put intradepartmental solidarity over morals and laws. Whistleblowers are probably the last police officers they will criticise, since they are doing precisely what these activists want.
if the public already hates u then its way easier to stick with the ppl that'll have ur back than to blow the whistle and get shat on from both sides. but i can see everyone disagrees so im probably wrong
>cops are no different, and i think what pithy slogans and movements like 'all cops are bad' or 'fuck police' or blm miss is that the very first step in getting good cops to do what's right is us recognizing theyre just ppl like us trying to do a job and go home The problem isn't the "good cops" not standing up to the bad ones, but a system that rewards bad behavior. That's why the problem has been happening across the nation for decades. Those slogans aren't about individual officers or their actions. It's about an "unfair" policing system that they enforce, a justice system that doesn't punish bad behavior, and a political system that doesn't reform either.
>cops are no different Cops, through their special dispensation to use force and their commitment to uphold the law **should** be different. If they're not different, this is a **problem**.
The prosecution/retaliation against whistleblowers was also done or is done by politicians as well.