VIdeo: Cops beat compliant suspect and plant drugs on him

I don't know why anyone would believe or trust a cop at all.

They're the largest gang (pejorative sense of the word) in the city, and accordingly, a decietful bunch of corrupt jerks.

 

Yet for some reason people want more government involvement into their lives.

 

Its possible he figured that the video could be expunged later or if he got in trouble he could use that as evidence in his own defence by saying he was ordered by hirer ups to plant drugs. I wouldn't rule out plain stupidity though. Police aren't immune from that with prime evidence being the cop who sent in the racist rant about Dr. Gates to the Boston Globe.

 

I am frequently critical of police but the majority of them are good people doing a difficult job. Like any other professional there are bad apples who make things worse. Also given how stressful the job can be it shouldn't be surprising that sometimes police don't behave as professionally as they should.

I strongly believe in holding police accountable but I wouldn't presume that most are corrupt or thuggish.

 

Same ol', same ol'....

Some previous banter

More

 

Police corruption is government corruption. This is the same power that you want to save you.

 

Wow...is this 1959 or 2009? In Chicago too....

This is really scary. Soon we're gonna have to start changing the way we hire cops and who can become a cop.

 

Should have been changed long ago.

 

Cops should be fired automatically for this. Not because of what they did, but because they did it in front of the police car. Have they not learned?

 

what?

 

Do you have any evidence to support that most bad cops aren't held accountable?

 

"Most" is subjective, unfortunately. And I regret implying it as gospel.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cases_of_police_brutality

Take a look. A good deal result in "settlements" without police officer retribution.

 

I'd suggest that it's likely the case simply due to lack of evidence. Without video like what we have here, abuse is virtually impossible to prove. For example, take the cops in the original video. How many times before have they done this without getting caught? They seemed to all communicate with each other nonverbally pretty effectively, suggesting they've done it before. If they had done it 5 times before getting caught, you have a situation were they got away with it 80% of the time.

 

An excellent point. I was really only referring to "after they are caught". How many are never caught? Why on earth would you presume the one cop you are dealing with or "see on TV" is a good cop and not a bad one? There is no longer an impetus to tow the 1950s era party line of "cops are your friends".

 

I wonder if anyone will go back and look at all the arrests the cops in the original video made, and look how many weed arrests they find. Realistically, every one of those should be suspect now and re-looked at - there's more than enough "reasonable doubt". But my guess is that won't happen.

 

So Rhad and Major neither of you have solid evidence supporting your contention that most police are corrupt but are basing it on subjective evidence. Also consider in the Wikipedia link you provided the time period it covers and how during that time how many encounters between police and the public take place. If police brutality and corruption where so widespread wouldn't that list be much longer?

While its an unsettling list I don't that counts for .001% of police and public interaction. I'm not sure from there that we can make the inductive leap that because we have seen corrupt and thuggish police most are except they haven't been caught.

I don't doubt that there are a corrupt police, and probably a fair amount of them, but frankly I find your assertions somewhat paranoid. I also find that type of thinking undermines faith in our justice system leading to problems like what we've seen with Dr. Gates and Officer Crowley. I am all for accountability among officers but I find a presumption that most officers are corrupt and none should be trusted disturbing. What if you find yourself the victim of a crime where do you turn to if you think the police can't be trusted?

As I've said before I've trained and trained with police officers and for the most part they were good people. Having known police is why I take a somewhat harder opinion on issues where it looks like police are abusing their power but I don't buy the argument that all or even most police are corrupt. Unfortunately in an age of YouTube police misconduct is more widely disseminated and visible. While this is bad I don't think its an epidemic.

 

Judoka:

At the heart of it - the question is whether or not one can trust a cop. The adage of "a cops word against yours" is thoroughly unfairly slanted to the cops. The argument (for me) is not about the % of cops who are bad, but the inability to distinguish or trust anymore.

 

Well they should get fired for what they did, but you're right in that they should be fired for signaling and doing this directly in front of the dash board camera. Funny how they cop actually looks back at the camera as if it see whether it was looking at him or not.