
Baltimore Cops Kept Toy Guns to Plant Just in Case They Shot an Unarmed Person - ryan_j_naughton
https://www.theroot.com/baltimore-cops-kept-toy-guns-to-plant-just-in-case-they-1822546984
======
ralusek
Body cams on police and actual consequences for misconduct. Some of the videos
of people (of all colors) being unlawfully murdered have led to absolutely
zero consequence for those responsible. Those with authority granted by the
public should have HIGHER accountability and more severe consequences, not be
able to subvert them altogether. It's not difficult to imagine the level of
misconduct that is likely occurring in the cases where no video evidence is
even available.

And while the racial component of police shootings has been portrayed in a way
which differs sharply from the actual data on race/crime/police lethal force,
there IS still some element of uncertainty in the exact figures. The fact that
there is any uncertainty at all in police killings being reported correctly is
absolutely INSANE to me. This is not an area where we can have sloppy data. If
a government agent is responsible for the death of a citizen, it is
unacceptable that we not have a very clear record of all surrounding
circumstance.

~~~
mathattack
The price for this should be massive. Doing this once or twice corrupts the
justice system and destroys public trust in police. This invites gangs to
become the law and order. Look how that’s worked out in Chicago.

~~~
TeMPOraL
Yes.

I increasingly believe there are kinds of anti-system crimes which should be
punished with highest sentences. I'm thinking of crimes that have
disproportionate, negative impact on stability and security of society. Like
this. Or fucking with vaccinations, like CIA people did.

(Incidentally, I also believe that the guy responsible for fake bomb detectors
(from the other thread on the frontpage today) should get at minimum a murder-
level sentence, for willfully putting lives of lots of people in danger.)

~~~
icc97
Perhaps I'm taking what you say too literally, but you couldn't equate it with
murder. It would be mass attempted manslaughter. So it would have to be at
that level.

That's not to say we shouldn't treat it as seriously just that it's a
different intent.

~~~
TeMPOraL
Yeah, I meant the less literate version. It's obviously _not murder_ , but I
believe it should be treated at least as seriously.

~~~
Fnoord
Murder? Quite frankly, that's either _akin to_ terrorism or it _is_ terrorism.
It destabilises entire regions of harmless civilians.

The CIA did this as well in Central and South America in the previous century.
They got away with it as well, of course. The series Narcos and movies
American Made and Che Part One and Che Part Two are albeit partly about these
subjects. Not to mention more recently the collateral murder video.

I'm not entirely sure why? I guess if you got the military and economic high
ground you get away with doing things like that?

------
minxomat
> It is not just Baltimore cops. It is cops. They will shoot you in the face
> in front of your infant daughter. They will choke you to sleep for selling
> cigarettes.

This is the tone and conclusion of this article. If you want the actual story,
read the original report here:
[http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/crime/bs-md-ci-
gun...](http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/crime/bs-md-ci-gun-trace-
task-force-gttf-testimony-highlights-20180126-story.html)

~~~
pornel
The article is about people literally trying to get away with murder. The last
two sentences are references to well-documented cases of police officers
killing non-dangerous citizens. There's no reason to be polite about this.

~~~
ckastner
The article is about a sub-group of these people, but the tone to me as well
was one of sweeping generalizations.

Edit (instead of replying to all of the individual replies):

I'll be the first to acknowledge that there are systemic problems in police
forces worldwide, just like there are systemic problems in any large
organization, especially one endowed which so much executive power.

However, any argument that paints a picture of "uniform equals bad" is, in my
opinion, not only delusional, but is also a severe injustice to the good
apples in public service, that is: in service to the public.

~~~
piva00
I'm originally from Brazil and I hear that same argument about cops over
there, that bad ones are a minority, that we shouldn't generalise.

I don't buy it, the system itself enables this, if it didn't then those bad
apples would have been detected and expelled before they could cause so much
damage. It can be a minority doing that but they have affected so much that
the whole itself is no longer trustworthy and requires reconstruction from the
ground up, the foundations themselves have been damaged and as it would be for
a structure or a car, when the base structure that supports everything else
cannot be repaired you need a new one.

That's what should happen in Baltimore, that's what should happen with the
Brazilian military and civilian police, their foundations aren't good enough
to be trusted anymore.

~~~
alphabettsy
Well the saying is bad apples spoil the bunch, and obviously in some cases the
whole bunch is spoiled but we refuse to believe it, and instead still think
we’re at the few bad apples part.

------
jopsen
Why not clean house?

At this point I can't imagine the local community, particularly minorities,
have any trust in the authorities. Isn't that failure, why not train a new
police force with new uniforms and then phase out the old?

~~~
arethuza
That's pretty much what happened in Northern Ireland as part of the Good
Friday Agreement:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Police_Service_of_Northern_Ire...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Police_Service_of_Northern_Ireland)

~~~
pjc50
Hmm. Population of NI: 1.8m. Population of Baltimore: 600k (declining! as
shown by a helpful google graph). So NI is three Baltimores.

Worst year of Troubles: 1972, 479 troubles-related deaths. I'm unclear as to
whether that includes "background" non-political crime, so I'll round it up to
500 (current NI murder rate is about 1/100k pop).

Current Baltimore murder rate: 373 in 2017.

Murder rate for three Baltimores: 1119.

That makes today's Baltimore twice as lethal as Troubles NI, with all its
carbombs and troops on the streets.

It's a mess that to me would seem to warrant national intervention.
[https://www.economist.com/news/united-
states/21724399-americ...](https://www.economist.com/news/united-
states/21724399-america-gets-safer-marylands-biggest-city-does-not-crime-and-
despair-baltimore)

~~~
duncanawoods
That is a fascinating comparison but one aspect that may not make it a fair is
comparing NI region vs. city. It would be interesting to compare just Belfast
to Baltimore because thats where the majority of deaths happened.

edit: add a dodgy esimation

Belfast poulation in 70's: 431k

% of troubles deaths in Belfast : 43%

=> murder rate: 479 * 0.43 / 431 = 44 homicides per 100k

But as you note, the NI figures is only the political murders so it can only
really be compared against a similar subset of Baltimore homicides e.g. "gang
violence".

------
nukeop
This isn't a problem with cops, or blacks, or whites, or anything like that.
This is a problem with the USA. In some countries the entire police force of
the country combined uses fewer bullets per year than the average police
officer in the States. The homicide rates can be 40 times smaller in European
countries than there. There's just something fundamentally wrong with that
country and it would be a mistake to attribute it to something simple like
race relations.

~~~
mikepurvis
It's insane seeing videos of routine traffic stops in the US where both
officers leap from their vehicle with guns drawn, ready to escalate the
situation at the slightest provocation.

Future, more civilized, societies will one day study the ruins of America with
bafflement. Like, what were they thinking? Was this what liberty was to them?

~~~
coolso
> It's insane seeing videos of routine traffic stops in the US where both
> officers leap from their vehicle with guns drawn, ready to escalate the
> situation at the slightest provocation.

Routine traffic stops, or felony traffic stops? I've never heard of that
happening for the former, although there may be a few examples out there, but
it's far from the norm. But that is indeed normal for a felony traffic stop,
like when pulling over a stolen car, or after chasing a suspect from the scene
of a crime, or if the car waited a really long time to pull over, or if an
outstanding warrant was found when they ran the plates.

~~~
nukeop
In civilized countries the cops do not expect everyone to carry a loaded
firearm.

------
daedlanth
Our US society is sick beyond belief.

~~~
squarefoot
The problem goes way beyond the US borders, and is a clear sign of corruption
among the ruling class. When a cop is acquitted for murdering some innocent
thanks to some intervention form above, he could become in the future a pawn
of a private army for whoever was helping him/her from above. Suppose you're a
high profile politician who needs some dirty job to be done, who would you
trust more, some thugs recruited around or ex cops who don't serve jail time
because of you?

~~~
chmod775
> The problem goes way beyond the US borders

Name one more western first world country besides the US, where cops shooting
someone is hardly news. And no, the problem probably isn't guns.

In the US there's about 1 gun per resident, Germany 0.3, UK 0.06, and Canada
0.3. Meanwhile there were about 987 fatal shootings by cops in the US in 2016,
compared to 13 in Germany, 4 in the UK, and 9 in Canada. Even adjusting these
numbers for population and number of guns per resident, you will still be off
by an order of magnitude.

~~~
GrantSolar
>And no, the problem probably isn't guns.

The biggest factors do revolve around guns though. Not just numbers, but the
culture which feeds into itself and the perception that guns are not a
problem, but a solution ("The only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good
guy with a gun"). Of course, this then provokes a "Have-a-go-Harry" take on
confrontation where people who are woefully ill-equipped to deal with a
situation attempt to do so. The lack of training, the fetishisation of guns,
and the sheer number of guns are all extremely significant factors in gun
crime. Take away any one of these and the rate of gun crime would drop
significantly. Unfortunately, any solution has to work within the framework of
"no further regulation" to even get close to implementation which rules out
swathes of methods

~~~
thirdsun
I agree - from afar there seems to be a very unique culture of fear and urge
to "protect" prevalent in the US.

I was reading a reddit discussion some time ago, where most commenters
concluded that it's fine to shoot a burglar entering your house at night,
which feels very alien to me. Sure, it's a frightening situation, but in my
mind a burglary clearly doesn't justify the, potentially deadly, use of a gun.
Those are not equal actions and measures.

~~~
DrScump

      burglary clearly doesn't justify the, potentially deadly, use of a gun
    

Problem is, you can't _know_ if it is "just" a burglary until after the
perpetrator leaves.

------
jagtesh
I'm glad the cops in Toronto are paid extremely well. A Constable can earn
$90k. There's less likelihood of a cop going to such extents if they don't
need to. Of course that's not the only reason, but is likely part of the
solution.

~~~
Clubber
Police in big cities get paid well to. Its the FOP union. Cops in my mid sized
city make over $100K after 10 years. That's with full health and pension.

------
thriftwy
Should not police departments have something like internal investigations
department to catch things like these before public have to be involved?

~~~
rsynnott
I always suspect that a big part of the problem with the US police system is
that it's made up of loads of regional forces. In countries with national
forces, internal investigations are easier; just bring in people from the
other side of the country, who have no particular loyalty to the people
they're investigating.

------
andrewjl
The Wire needs to do a new season and incorporate this. Truth is stranger than
fiction.

------
NiklasMort
I am so happy I don't live in the "land of the free", seems like one dark and
dangerous country.

~~~
sheraz
Sure, if you only ever consume terrible news then it would seem that way.

I can cast sweden in a similar light. Or even Disneys magic kingdom.

~~~
NiklasMort
I am very aware of that but overall it still looks like it if you have a look
at all topics, personal stories and experiences etc. I'd be rather fearful to
go the the US, starts at the border, then their cities and then I'd be fearful
of their police. Not to mention all the other issues this country seems to
have. The poverty in the USA is worse than in some ex 2nd world countries, so
bad that even the UN called upon it.

~~~
sheraz
How many hundreds of thousands pass through American borders with little
hassle every day? That is not news (but maybe it should be as well).

Also, one cannot paint with such a wide brush as "The USA." It is the same
mistake as any American visiting London, Paris, and Berlin -- and then saying
they have seen "Europe." They didn't see Europe -- they saw globalized mega-
regions that happened to be located on the European continent.

Unfortunately, Baltimore is an outlier when it comes to violent crime,
corruption, and poverty. It is an urban center in decline and in need of all
kinds of help. (This is where I stop, else it becomes political very quickly).

Compare Baltimore to places like Denver, Dallas, or Phoenix, and you will see
very different cities. The US is huge in geography, population, and economics.
Pinpointing an outlier and concluding that the entire country is poor and
dangerous does not make for constructive conversation.

We would do ourselves a favor to talk more about the specific problems
Baltimore faces, and then look at the broader American context to see which
sister similar cities have tackled similar problems.

------
wallace_f
I recently learned that the homicide rate in Japan is lower than the rate at
which police are killing people in the US.

~~~
Judgmentality
Japanese crime statistics are probably not very reliable.

[http://articles.latimes.com/2007/nov/09/world/fg-
autopsy9](http://articles.latimes.com/2007/nov/09/world/fg-autopsy9)

~~~
onion2k
Statistics on killings by US police officers may not be very reliable either.

[https://psmag.com/social-justice/how-many-people-are-
killed-...](https://psmag.com/social-justice/how-many-people-are-killed-by-
police-in-the-united-states)

------
cafard
"Throw-away pieces", i.e. real guns that could be used for such a purpose were
spoken off long ago.

------
tobyhinloopen
Ignoring the content of the article, why are so many articles on sites like
these written so "weird"? There is lots of text and it seems there is very
little actual content.

It is like only a few lines actually have something to say, but the rest is
just filler content. It is like someone wrote an article of a few lines, and
someone else just extended it with random sentences to fill a page.

To make matters worse, usually the page is also polluted with advertisements
and referencing articles in between paragraphs.

~~~
chatmasta
Because the article is not a primary source, and it’s published on a website
that rarely if ever “breaks” a story. The only way for the site to stay in
business is to publish glorified rewordings of whatever primary source
published a set of facts today. The further you get from the primary source,
the more “filler” content is required to justify yet another piece about the
same subject.

------
rburhum
Although this is a topic that is easy to get angry about, I can't honestly
trust anything that I read from theroot.com since I have seen many articles
that are just racially charged and completely biased. Just a few days ago,
they posted something about the ousting of London Breed here in SF
([https://www.theroot.com/london-breed-had-a-clean-shot-at-
bec...](https://www.theroot.com/london-breed-had-a-clean-shot-at-becoming-san-
francisco-1822369280)). The problem with that article, is that it blames the
ousting purely on racial issues. I feel neutral against London Breed, but I
have several SF teacher friends that straight out don't like her. Why? Not
because of the color of her skin, but because of some policies that she was
supporting. Long story short, the teachers union had a deal with the city to
finally get a super crappy raise amount. Something was better than nothing (I
still think they are completely underpaid), but to add insult to injury, the
raise was dependent on a new property tax to be passed. Since the new property
tax is not popular for various valid reasons, London Breed had the bright idea
to tell the teachers that "if they wanted the raise", they "had better go out
and campaign". This ended up being completely unpopular with the teachers.
Stuff like this is IMHO why she lost support. Of course, it is easier to tell
a story that she got ousted because she is a woman of color that got knocked
out by the rich white man... zero mention of any of these issues. That to me
is theroot.com, so I can't take it seriously. Just another Fox News.

~~~
epmaybe
someone above posted a link to the baltimore sun that just presents the
evidence. Let me know what you think of it:
[http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/crime/bs-md-ci-
gun...](http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/crime/bs-md-ci-gun-trace-
task-force-gttf-testimony-highlights-20180126-story.html)

~~~
rburhum
Yeah this really sucks and really messed up. This source is far more legit.

------
fsloth
So basically the system is built so that officers can steal from suspects if
the money they have is acquired through illegal means. Is there a racial
subtext here? Obviously this could not continue unless a significant portion
of the police community was fine with it. What's the common police officers
pay in Baltimore? How long are they trained? Are they trained professionals
(lots of training) or just thugs with guns (very little training)?

I have no experience in this field but I would guess they have a low pay
(financial incentive) and very little training (leading to lack of
professionalism). Is it so?

