
In Secretly Recorded Phone Calls, Officers Say Innocent People Were Framed - danso
https://gothamist.com/news/mount-vernon-police-tapes-innocent-people-were-framed
======
RcouF1uZ4gsC
> Caught on tape by a whistleblower cop, the officers said they witnessed or
> took part in alarming acts of police misconduct, from framing and beating
> residents to collaborating with drug dealers, all as part of a culture of
> impunity within the department’s narcotics unit.

Probably the single most effective thing to reduce police abuse in America
would be to end the war on drugs and decriminalize drugs.

No-knock warrants were originally used to try to catch drug dealers before
they could flush the drugs down the toilet.

Civil forfeiture was originally created to try to take money from drug
dealers.

The war on drugs has taken a wrecking ball to the Fourth Amendment
restrictions on search and seizure.

~~~
swiley
I’m honestly pretty pissed off with the Democrats picking a candidate that’s
not pro legalization.

The one alternative we have to the republicans is just doing the same crap.

~~~
Ididntdothis
Democrats haven’t had the courage to take a real position for a long time.
Their program is basically to run as the slightly better Republicans.

Obama wrote a really nice article a few days ago. But when he was running
things he basically did nothing to improve the situation although the issues
with police were well known.

~~~
germinalphrase
The Obama administration was supportive of consent decrees which _force_
reforms (with penalties) on otherwise recalcitrant police departments. The
current justice department will not such consent decrees, and this is exactly
the wall we in Minnesota are going to run into As we attempt to force change
on our police department.

~~~
dragonwriter
> The current justice department will not such consent decrees

Well, plus the current administration outright abandoned investigations and
publicly stated that it opposed the _idea_ of investigating local law
enforcement for systematic issues. It's not just an issue of neglecting an
important tool of enforcement when the department now fairly overtly opposes
the _idea_ of enforcement.

~~~
pnw_hazor
Can't Minneapolis do its own investigation? And institute the reforms it
needs?

~~~
dragonwriter
To the extent that it is a systemic problem in Minneapolis, self-investigation
would be compromised. Could Ferguson have investigated itself? Sure, and it
did. Unsurprisingly, that investigation by the system that the federal
investigations found deeply and thoroughly broken somehow missed the problems
with the same system that the federal investigation found.

But, yes, and the State of Minnesota could also investigate.

~~~
pnw_hazor
Hire outside investigators, appoint/deputize independent lawyers to be special
prosecutors, etc.

Most states of cities with police problems have very strong civil rights laws
(often stronger than federal protections) -- they have the legal tools to make
real change happen.

They don't need the DOJ to fix their problems. Relying on the DOJ makes sense
if the local government is supportive of the bad policing -- like back in the
civil rights/segregation era. Some states would not comply so the feds had to
make things happen. You don't have that situation today.

~~~
tsimionescu
Again, the problem is that localities with systemic police problems almost by
definition lack the will to investigate and fix those problems.

~~~
mcguire
It looks like the Minneapolis City Council is up for election next year?
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minneapolis_City_Council](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minneapolis_City_Council))

If everyone hasn't forgotten all about this by that time, you could make
police reform a major election issue. And then hold them to it.

But, odds are, everyone will have forgotten by then.

------
foxfired
I want to remind people of Chris Dorner[1]. Chris Dorner was a black police
officer that based on his manifesto, had witnessed many use of excessive force
by his colleagues. When he reported them, he was fired in retaliation.

When the manhunt begun, the police started shooting at people that vaguely fit
his description. The police shot 102 bullets at a mother and daughter
delivering newspaper. People had to paint messages on the back of their truck
so the police don't shoot at them.

Watching it at the time was unreal. The police and media portrayed him as a
psycho, while the people whose car he stole had a different story.

In the last stand off, he was in a cabin and the police burned it to the
ground. The police denies burning it down, but they did use tear gas and in
the police recording, you can hear a man say "use the burners".

One year later, LAPD chief Charlie Beck, admitted that 8 LAPD officers had
violated the use of force policy.

[1]:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Dorner_shootings_a...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Dorner_shootings_and_manhunt)

Edit: as the comment pointed out, Dorner killed 4 people, including 2 officers
and the daughter of a police captain. I did not omit this information, it is
included in the very first paragraph of the wiki.

~~~
skrebbel
You accidentally forgot to mention that the manhunt wasn't because of his
manifesto but because of the people he killed.

Doesn't excuse the behavior of the police, but it's a weird thing to skip
over.

------
ordinaryradical
My theory on how to fix this is to maintain the adversarial nature of the
courts. Don't force the DA to prosecute cops. Have them maintain the
relationship as it currently works and let the DA become the the cops' lawyer
by default while the Public Defenders' office take over the role of
prosecuting police.

Since the PD and DA are already set-up this way in relationship to policing,
this makes more sense than trying to wring impartiality out of the DA; they
have to work hand in hand with police to convict criminals and need to
maintain a cozy relationship. The simplest solution would be to keep the
dividing lines the way they are.

~~~
macintux
My suspicion is the Public Defenders’ offices are nearly universally
underfunded and overworked, so the only way to make this work is to make sure
they’re resourced appropriately, which would be a tough battle politically.

~~~
ciarannolan
>My suspicion is the Public Defenders’ offices are nearly universally
underfunded and overworked [...]

By design.

------
Drip33
> Prosecutors have a constitutional obligation to disclose information to
> defendants that could help establish their innocence. But there’s a big
> debate in criminal justice circles about when police misconduct allegations
> in unrelated cases fall under that requirement.

Contrast that with Prosecutorial immunity

>Prosecutors cannot be sued for injuries caused by their own misconduct. For
example, even if a prosecutor deliberately withholds exculpatory evidence in
violation of professional ethics and a defendant’s constitutional rights, and
this willful misconduct results in an innocent person spending decades behind
bars for a crime of which they are subsequently exonerated—the prosecutor
remains immune from civil liability.[0]

What incentive do they have to provide the evidence? If prosecutor happens to
be caught hiding evidence the remedy is dropped charges nothing more. They'll
move onto the next case and do the exact same thing.

[0] [https://fedsoc.org/events/prosecutorial-
immunity](https://fedsoc.org/events/prosecutorial-immunity)

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prosecutorial_immunity](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prosecutorial_immunity)

~~~
Pxtl
I assume they can still be disbarred for professional misconduct.

In general the justice system seems to have extensive functionality built to
prevent its inner workings from facing the kind of personal liability that
everyone else faces.

~~~
raincom
There are two extremes: (a) hiding evidence that helps defendants; (b)
prosecutorial discretion to help their allies by not pressing charges. One may
get disbarred for(a); however, no one gets disbarred for (b).

------
splitrocket
Here's the police lying to the NY Post:
[https://twitter.com/keithcalder/status/1268204578421407750](https://twitter.com/keithcalder/status/1268204578421407750)

Police: $2.4 million in Rolexes stolen. Rolex: No watches were stolen. Only
broken windows.

~~~
bufferoverflow
I believe the police in this case. Why would people break into a Rolex store
and not steal expensive watches that are close to impossible to track.

~~~
filleduchaos
No offence, but even basic perfumeries will clear out their window displays
and put them in safes or other secure storage for the night, to talk of a
store that sells watches with price tags in the thousands of dollars - unless
your argument is that the alleged looters were kitted out for a full-on
burglary heist and not, as is usually the case, simply lashing out
opportunistically.

Beyond that, there are other holes in the story like how exactly the police
managed to come up with the $2.4M figure apparently without any collaboration
from the store itself, or what motive Rolex SA would have to lie about losing
$2.4M in merchandise.

But as always, people are primed to believe that the police _must_ be telling
the truth somehow, even in a post about a whistleblower laying out years of
lies and deception on their part.

------
boomboomsubban
I can never find the survey, but I remember reading that something like 80% of
officers think they've never arrested the wrong person for a crime. Which
would imply that these officers thought they were just closing loopholes that
would let these criminals go free.

That is what makes these stories truly terrifying. The cops still probably
think they're righteously pursuing justice.

~~~
metalliqaz
this is human nature, and it's why criminal protections exist in the first
place

it applies elsewhere too. I'd be willing to be a lot of HN readers have broken
the rules governing code quality because they felt it was justified by the
outcome, ignoring the reasons those rules were put into place

~~~
dec0dedab0de
_I 'd be willing to be a lot of HN readers have broken the rules governing
code quality because they felt it was justified by the outcome, ignoring the
reasons those rules were put into place_

Which rules are they again?

~~~
metalliqaz
They are different wherever you happen to work. Most teams have development
standards in place, and in places where software is certified (aerospace,
automotive, medical devices, etc.) those standards are formalized.

But you what I mean. Skipping reviews, bending rules around complexity, data
concurrency, style, and so on.

------
Buttons840
Whistleblower cops should receive $500,000 for every fellow cop or
administrator their testimony helps convict. As a tax payer, I will happily
pay my portion of that award to help keep my local police clean.

~~~
mythrwy
Wow it's looking like you'd be broke pretty quick. At least at first.

------
fchu
This unfortunately isn't surprising anymore: 1\. State and local governments
wanted order above all 2\. They created laws and regulations that gave too
much leeway to police with little oversight 3\. Cops think they can act with
impunity.

In this moment of reckoning, I wonder if the US will be able to undo some of
these terrible policies

Relevant References:
[https://www.joincampaignzero.org](https://www.joincampaignzero.org)
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=km4uCOAzrbM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=km4uCOAzrbM)

------
annoyingnoob
It should be obvious by now that our 'law and order' approach over the last
several decades has gone too far. We did this in Los Angeles less than 30
years ago and here we are again. When will we learn?

------
leereeves
> Prosecutors have a constitutional obligation to disclose information to
> defendants that could help establish their innocence. But there’s a big
> debate in criminal justice circles about when police misconduct allegations
> in unrelated cases fall under that requirement.

Why is this debated? If there is convincing evidence that an officer committed
perjury or fabricated evidence, isn't there reasonable doubt about anything
else they've done?

~~~
downerending
Playing devil's advocate for a moment, information from unrelated cases is
often excluded from trials. For example, you generally cannot discuss a
victim's prior sexual history in a rape trial, etc.

The debate, then, would be about which cases such exclusions should be
appropriate in and which not. There's general agreement that neither "all" nor
"none" is an appropriate answer.

~~~
seiferteric
Isn't evidence that establishes a witnesses credibility relevant and allowed?
Wouldn't this information ruin their credibility?

~~~
greggyb
Generally character evidence is avoided in most cases. Often, character
evidence that is negative against an individual is excluded as unduly
prejudicial. Trials determine legal facts and judge whether these facts
constitute a crime or liability (depending on whether a criminal or civil
case). What a person is like is not a legal fact. Even so far as "being the
type of person who has been convicted of a crime in the past" is not a legal
fact in a case of "did this person do this new thing?"

There are two common exceptions.

The first is establishing the bona fides of an expert witness - you want to
establish the individual as an expert in the eyes of the court. Only an expert
may opine (offer an opinion) regarding facts to which they were not a witness.
Lay witnesses may only testify to facts which they have observed.

The second is with regard to truthfulness, as you have mentioned. If a
witness's credibility can be called into question, then this can cast doubts
on the veracity of their testimony. Having an established history of lying, or
having perjured oneself in the past can be valid character evidence to cast
doubt on testimony.

------
blacksqr
"Let us abolish policemen who carry clubs and revolvers, and put in a squad of
poets armed to the teeth with poems on Spring and Love."

\--Mark Twain, 1900

~~~
stronglikedan
So, instead of bludgeoning or shooting them, bore them to death!

~~~
jandrese
In violent cases they will send out the S.W.A.T. team. Song Writers Against
Terrorism.

------
mythrwy
Part of the problem may be the budgets of cities.

Real policing, with councilors, with recording, with community involvement may
be prohibitively expensive. Especially with those kick the can down the road
pension plans.

I suspect this has resulted in the strategy of hire goons, don't pay them that
much (yes I know cops in CA are well paid), let them bust the occasional head
to keep the rabble somewhat down and the goons happily employed and stick your
fingers in your ears and go la la la until the whole scheme blows up.

As another poster mentions, ending the drug war may go a long way towards
freeing up resources for better policing.

------
jes5199
defund, demilitarize, disband

------
justinclift
> ... the officer said he was unwilling to go further with [the FBI] because
> he did not want to wear a wire or take a polygraph test.

Why is the FBI still using widely discredited tech (polgraphs)?

------
netsharc
It's bad news for the protesters where police departments are corrupt; if the
cops are dirty, they will fight hard against reform and accountability
(because if someone actually audits them they might go to prison). I suppose
it's the same with the Trump-enabling GOP politicians...

The book "Thieves of State" (a long review/synopsis of it:
[https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/01/19/corruption-
rev...](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/01/19/corruption-revolt) ; an
AMA by the author:
[https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/2t244h/iama_anticorru...](https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/2t244h/iama_anticorruption_expert_w10_years_working_on/)
) is eye-opening; as an example, in Egypt police officers had to pay their
higher-ups monthly a cut of their racketeering money, and this continues all
the way up to the minister level. So when the revolution happened, the police
fought hard to keep the regime standing, because they would've been personally
held accountable too.

------
rlewkov
I'm shocked, shocked I say

------
magwa101
Defund Police.

------
pnw_hazor
Bad policing or bad police is a consequence of bad governance.

Bad local policing is the consequence of bad local governance.

It seems that the urban cores with the most problems are under complete
control by a combination of democratic politicians or democratic socialists.
In many cases, they control the county and state of the cities with the most
problems.

Why won't democratic constituencies hold their own politicians accountable?

edit-to-add:

I expected the insta-downvotes, but why is no one addressing the issue?

It would take one local election cycle in most urban cores to start fixing the
police. Or, at least one police contract negotiation, assuming progressives
already control the local government (e.g., Seattle, San Francisco,
Minneapolis, and many more).

Why is the blame directed toward those who have little if any influence in the
governance of local police in urban cores?

~~~
anigbrowl
_I expected the insta-downvotes, but why is no one addressing the issue?_

Because nobody is obliged to take your bait.

