I just saw this video from a DUI checkpoint last 4th of July. Sorry if its been posted before. I laughed when the cops finally found his "hidden in plain sight" iphone that was filming

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w-WMn_zHCVo

12/31/2013 10:10:30 PM

^the problem with videos like this is people think they know more than they do... is it not required to obey a police officer when he directs you where to drive on a public road?

12/31/2013 10:35:18 PM

http://www.wect.com/story/24367610/officer-involved-shooting-reported-in-boiling-spring-lakes

apparently some cops just "don't have time" to deal with a 90 lb kid any other way than shooting him

1/6/2014 11:46:15 AM

The eyewitnesses on the scene clearly state that he had a Wii controller in his hand. He heard a knock at the door. He asked who it was, there was no response so he opened the door and upon opening the door he was immediately shot in the chest

http://www.wsbtv.com/news/news/local/attorney-teen-was-shot-having-wii-controller-hand/ndSrL/

2/19/2014 11:13:38 AM

Just another story about corrupt psychopaths with badges. Amazingly, justice was served:

http://abclocal.go.com/wabc/story?section=news/investigators&id=9440401#

2/22/2014 7:18:08 PM

^ wow! thx for posting. at least they uncovered the tape before the guy got sent to jail.

[Edited on February 22, 2014 at 7:29 PM. Reason : ``]

2/22/2014 7:28:40 PM

^^^wasnt there a story out of Wilmington like 7 years ago or so that was similar to that?

2/22/2014 10:24:23 PM

Shit happens all the time. It's amazing how often dash cam tapes are "lost" or somehow aren't rolling, etc.

I'm of the opinion that all police should be required to wear body mounted cameras that run all the time and are automatically uploaded to a cloud server that is not accessible to the police. There are already some municipalities doing something similar, and not surprisingly complaints of police misconduct there have plummeted.

I'm also of the opinion that if there is no video of a traffic stop and the officer making the stop has a dashcam in the vehicle the charge should be automatically thrown out due to lack of evidence.

We have the technology to make policing much more objective, it's just a matter of forcing the police unions to accept its implementation.

2/23/2014 2:12:54 PM

Having them all wear cameras is a good idea, but there is still the opportunity for them to damage the camera or wipe the memory. They could just throw it on the ground after a scuffle and claim it happened on accident. It would need to have gyro sensors and be tamper proof. This would add cost. But it's really the best way to police the police.

2/23/2014 4:30:30 PM

its pretty hard to accidentally damage flash memory

2/23/2014 8:32:06 PM

They don't even try make excuses like that when footage is intentionally destroyed. How many times have you heard that the footage was "lost"?

[Edited on February 24, 2014 at 3:12 PM. Reason : l]

2/24/2014 3:12:01 PM

That's why I'm saying it need to be constantly uploaded to some kind of third party or cloud based storage. As long as the police investigate themselves and have access to things like audio and video recordings there is always the risk that it gets "lost" or "damaged"

2/24/2014 5:19:48 PM

Quote :

"I'm also of the opinion that if there is no video of a traffic stop and the officer making the stop has a dashcam in the vehicle the charge should be automatically thrown out due to lack of evidence. "

This is a little of an extreme expectation, IMO.

We give police great responsibility as it is, and part and parcel to this is trusting them. It's possible to trust the police at their word, while also being able to keep them accountable.

We can use analytics to not make cops (they ARE people too-- doing their jobs) feel empowered, trusted, and give them the ability to use good judgement, but also making sure there's not abused.

Cameras are good, it would be fair to require them to have them on during operations/stops, but I don't see any police group agreeing to 100% monitoring. I wouldn't agree to it if I were a cop, I don't think most individuals would, and I think it belies the reality that we as a society gives these people power, they are humans too, and they shouldn't be micromanaged by the voting public.

We should be able to trust the system, in the sense of hiring good bosses (sheriffs, commissioners, etc.) and expect they will run their groups well, and have high penalties for abusing their positions of responsibility and power. Not micromanage the grunts.

[Edited on February 24, 2014 at 6:08 PM. Reason : ]

2/24/2014 6:08:47 PM

Quote :

"and have high penalties for abusing their positions of responsibility and power."

I agree, sadly that will never ever happen, SCOTUS assured us of that many years ago. As a result you have police forces the nation over with so little concern about accountability that you need other things like video to make sure that they are held accountable.

Police unions are a massive, massive problem as well but that's a whole separate issue.

2/24/2014 6:23:38 PM

http://www.thewire.com/national/2014/02/cops-shooting-unarmed-70-year-old-man-deemed-appropriate-response/358579/

canes are dangerous, yo

2/26/2014 11:46:22 PM

What if I told you

that cops don't need real guns. Pepper spray, tasers, and rubber bullets wold suffice.

2/27/2014 10:03:02 AM

I'd tell you that you are completely wrong and point you to this documentary:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9bOQitInC84

2/27/2014 10:31:15 AM

Lol @ cops that can't carry guns against an armed populace.

Our military takes it too far sometimes too. Maybe we should take their arms away. I bet pepper spray would be pretty effective against the Taliban.

2/27/2014 11:00:06 AM

That's such a bad comparison it makes my head hurt. Big difference between warfare and policing. At least, there is supposed to be.

2/27/2014 1:18:00 PM

that comparison is exactly why there is an issue in the first place

cops aren't soldiers and soldiers aren't cops

[Edited on February 27, 2014 at 2:16 PM. Reason : that's better]

2/27/2014 2:10:19 PM

Swat teams would still have guns, but they would be restricted to situations with known armed and dangerous suspects.

Cops are for enforcing the law and apprehending suspects. They should not have the power to be judge, jury, and executioner. There are too many fucking cops killing innocent people.

2/27/2014 2:26:18 PM

I don't agree that cops shouldn't have firearms. I think cops should be held liable and more accountable in all aspects of their duties, but allowed to carry firearms that are capable enough to handle the likely scenarios for their location. I also think SWAT is necessary for larger departments to have, but should be used only when absolutely necessary. As said above, cops are not soldiers and the militarization of police departments, even small ones, is quite scary. Cops are being given more power and leniency when the exact opposite should happen. SCOTUS takes much of that blame.

[Edited on February 27, 2014 at 2:35 PM. Reason : .]

2/27/2014 2:34:55 PM

Yup, SWAT is pretty much used for everything now. There are so many incidents of SWAT unnecessarily shooting animals, people, into neighbors houses, etc. when serving a warrant for non-violent crimes. Stop kicking down doors and start arresting people outside their homes. You're apparently surveiling these people in order to get the necessary info to get the warrant, why not nab them when they're coming home from somewhere or when they're leaving the house. Why are you kicking down doors at 2AM with kids at home?

Police militarization is a huge issue, and our drug policy is almost entirely to blame.

2/27/2014 3:02:24 PM

^ this

2/28/2014 12:22:48 AM

^^As a cop, I agree. SWAT teams don't rescue dope, they rescue people.

2/28/2014 6:55:26 AM

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/02/26/no-charges-for-michigan-cops-who-fatally-shot-homeless-man-11-times-over-stolen-coffee/

This infuriates me. They shot at him 47 times ("only" hitting him 11 times. Nice aim, pigs!), and he only had a fucking pocket knife. Really? Really?? Why could this not have been resolved with a taser or something?

[Edited on March 2, 2014 at 11:35 PM. Reason : .]

3/2/2014 11:34:25 PM

Did you see what that cup of coffee did to that woman at McDonald's? That shit's a deadly weapon, yo

3/2/2014 11:37:56 PM

http://www.policymic.com/articles/88537/disturbing-images-show-a-cop-choking-an-unresisting-college-student-until-he-falls-unconscious

4/29/2014 12:35:22 AM

Quote :

"BEAUMONT: Jury weighs police pepper spray that blinded woman"

Quote :

"A Riverside jury is expected to begin deliberations Wednesday over whether a former Beaumont police officer was using excessive force or doing his job when he permanently blinded a woman with a high-powered pepper spray gun. Enoch Clark, 38, is on trial on four felony counts of assault by a police officer and causing great bodily injury. Clark attempted to arrest Monique Hernandez, 34, Feb. 21, 2012, on suspicion of drunken driving as she was pulling away from her Beaumont home. After she resisted Clark’s attempts to handcuff her, Clark used his department-issued JPX gunpowder-propelled pepper spray weapon and fired it less than a foot away from her face. The blast of pepper spray gel sliced her right eye in half, fractured her right orbital bone and severed the optic nerve in her left eye. “Every single day, she goes to bed at night, dreaming of a time when she used to be able to see,” Deputy District Attorney Michael Carney said. “When Monique Hernandez wakes up, the world is still dark because her sight was violently taken from here. Her eyeballs were literally blown into pieces, and the person who did this was a police officer.” Carney on Tuesday during closing arguments showed the jury a police dashcam video in which Hernandez was seen with her hands behind her back while Clark asked about her blood alcohol concentration. Clark told her to stop resisting or he would “JPX” her. Hernandez told Clark she wasn’t resisting. As Clark attempted to handcuff Hernandez, the video shows Clark shining a laser toward her face and firing a double-barrel charge of pepper spray. Hernandez’s family audibly gasped in the courtroom. Hernandez sat in the second row of the courtroom and had to be escorted in and out of court. Clark no longer works for the city of Beaumont or the Police Department. Hernandez has filed a lawsuit for damages against Clark and the Police Department. That lawsuit, being heard in Los Angeles, is separate from the criminal trial. The Beaumont Police Department was the only Inland department that issued the JPX guns, Clark’s attorney Steve Sanchez said. He said the department did not properly train Clark or other officers how to use the less-than-lethal weapons and argued that Clark was making a split-second decision. Though police officers were told not to fire the guns less than 5 feet away, Sanchez said they didn’t know how the guns worked. The Beaumont Police Department has said it ceased use of the JPX guns after the incident. Sanchez argued Tuesday that Hernandez’s testimony during the trial was rehearsed as the family prepared for a lawsuit. “Most jurors can’t convict cops because police have the right to use force. It’s part of their job,” Sanchez said. “No one in this courtroom is happy Monique Hernandez is blind. But even when police are doing their job the right way, injuries happen.”"

http://blog.pe.com/breaking-news/2014/05/13/beaumont-jury-weighs-police-pepper-spray-that-blinded-woman/

[Edited on May 19, 2014 at 10:34 AM. Reason : l]

5/19/2014 10:34:21 AM

^ OK, so this guy is a trained law enforcement officer but he is using the excuse that he did not know how his weapons work....

If you do not know how a weapon works, you should not even pick it up, let alone wear it around on duty. It is common knowledge that "less than lethal" weapons can be deadly when used improperly.
http://www.cnn.com/2004/US/10/22/fan.death/

5/19/2014 11:21:12 AM

I don't know how this gun works. Better shoot somebody in the face to find out.

5/19/2014 12:07:25 PM

I know how OC spray works; I leave it in my glove box.

5/19/2014 6:58:11 PM

http://m.montereycountyweekly.com/blogs/news_blog/updated-videos-show-officer-involved-shooting-warning-graphic-content/article_8d7018e8-e07c-11e3-8da9-001a4bcf6878.html?mode=jqm

Man shot and killed for brandishing garden shears. Police continue to show they have no idea of how to handle threatening mentally ill people without shooting them. Don't try to knock the shears out of his hand with your baton or anything.

5/21/2014 1:51:48 AM

Quote :

"Don't try to knock the shears out of his hand with your baton or anything."

You first.

5/21/2014 6:41:46 AM

made the cops wait to long, therefore justified shooting

[Edited on May 21, 2014 at 9:47 AM. Reason : to too whatever]

5/21/2014 9:47:46 AM

somebody swings a blade towards me and I have a gun aimed at him then yes I am going to fire.

5/21/2014 11:51:44 AM

Quote :

" MIAMI, FL — A torturous “punishment” session turned fatal for a mentally-ill prisoner, when prison guards forced him to stand in a tiny shower stall while being blasted by scalding hot water until his skin began to shrivel away from his body and he died. Fellow inmates say he begged for his life before collapsing in the shower. * * * * * Darren Rainey, 50, died while incarcerated a the Dade Correctional Institution. He was serving a 2-year sentence for a victimless crime; possession of cocaine. At the time of his death, he had only one month to go before his release. Rainey, who suffered from mental illness, was accused of defecating in his cell without cleaning it up. The Florida’s Department of Corrections often comes up with cruel and imaginative punishments for prisoners — allegedly ranging from starvation diets to forcing prisoners to fight so the guards could place bets. Rainey’s punishment was to stand confined in a narrow chamber, being blasted with hot water and steam, and left to suffer there for over one hour. “I can’t take it no more, I’m sorry. I won’t do it again,’’ Rainey screamed over and over, the Miami Herald discovered from a fellow inmate’s grievance complaint. The Miami Herald reports that it was DOC Officer Roland Clarke who was on video placing Rainey in the shower at 7:38 p.m on June 23, 2012. He was found dead at 9:30 p.m. When Rainey’s body was found, his skin was cooked to the point where it was coming loose from his body, a condition known as slippage. The facility then did its best to cover up the death. Sources say that it was alleged that Rainey had a heart attack, yet DOC refused to perform an autopsy. The official cause of death has never been announced. “Two years is a very long time to wait to find out why your brother was found dead in a shower.” Conveniently, the camera outside the shower “malfunctioned” right after Rainey was forced in. The Rainey investigation has remained open since 2012, with no explanation about why it has taken so long. No one has been charged with the death of Darren Rainey. “Two years is a very long time to wait to find out why your brother was found dead in a shower,” said Rainey’s brother, Andre Chapman. When a fellow inmate tried to provide information to police and the media about the Rainey case, he was threatened with punishments of his own. Numerous other inmate complaints paint a disturbing picture of what justice looks like in Florida’s prisons. Justice seems to be a fleeting concept in a society where people are imprisoned for non-violent, victimless offenses, and housed by sadistic torturers who themselves belong in a cage."

http://musingsfortheopenminded.blogspot.com/2014/05/florida-man-cooked-to-death-in-scalding.html


Not the police this time, but this is disgusting if there is any truth to it whatsoever.

[Edited on May 22, 2014 at 7:13 PM. Reason : l]

5/22/2014 7:12:59 PM

http://reason.com/blog/2014/05/30/sheriff-in-burned-baby-raid-wants-your-p

Yeah, fuck you guys.

Listen, as long as the media and the public don't call these people to account it won't stop.

5/30/2014 8:53:10 PM

^^"hey we have no evidence about what happened but we heard some shit from fellow inmates so we are just going to take their word"

^the felons who were housing that baby put it in danger in the first place.

[Edited on May 30, 2014 at 11:36 PM. Reason : ]

5/30/2014 11:35:00 PM

Except that the guy they were looking for wasn't even in the house, and may in fact not even live there. Oh, and they didn't find shit there. You had better believe that if they had found anything in that house they would have made mention of it immediately.

There are legitimately occasions when the actions of a suspect put innocent people in danger, but far too often the police put a violent situation into action by not simply picking guys up somewhere other than home, by not researching who else is in the house, by raiding the wrong address, etc.

This is exactly what happened here. If you're supposedly researching and have enough evidence for a warrant and an arrest you should at least know whether or not the guy you're looking for is there before you throw flash bangs into the window and barge in guns drawn.

It's interesting that this shit almost only ever happens with small time suspects who they don't really need to take like this. When they take down mafia guys or drug kingpins they do shit like pick them up at a cafe or get him when he's in the shower and it's just him and his mistress in an apartment.

It's really just an excuse to use the SWAT team because you have one and you want to play with the new toys that you have to justify having just bought.

[Edited on May 30, 2014 at 11:51 PM. Reason : sdfsdf]

5/30/2014 11:50:13 PM

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-watch/wp/2014/05/30/drug-task-force-that-burned-a-toddler-this-week-also-killed-an-innocent-pastor-in-2009/

A former "officer" on the drug task force that burned the baby murdered an innocent man in 2009. He had no firearms or lethal force training. Naturally.

That's just the beginning of so much rage-inducing shit in that article.

5/31/2014 9:57:01 AM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JbqUJNAlqIY#t=150

5/31/2014 12:52:23 PM

http://edition.cnn.com/2013/05/19/us/philadelphia-police-rape-charge

5/31/2014 1:21:02 PM

^^Good thing he didn't get scared of the cops and pull a knife or something. Or that post would have actually been relevant.

5/31/2014 4:27:33 PM

Quote :

"^^"hey we have no evidence about what happened but we heard some shit from fellow inmates so we are just going to take their word""

I wouldn't say there's no evidence if there is, in fact, a smoking gun body. The medical examiner has failed to do an autopsy and the DOC says they won't investigate without the results of one. Lack of an investigation and lack of evidence are two different things.

This type of journalism is important because it may be the only thing that can trigger a proper investigation.

6/1/2014 8:18:12 PM

Quote :

"^^"hey we have no evidence about what happened but we heard some shit from fellow inmates so we are just going to take their word" "

From the article:

Quote :

" The Miami Herald reports that it was DOC Officer Roland Clarke who was on video placing Rainey in the shower at 7:38 p.m on June 23, 2012. He was found dead at 9:30 p.m. When Rainey’s body was found, his skin was cooked to the point where it was coming loose from his body, a condition known as slippage."

Instead of writing that we "have no evidence", perhaps you should have written "I reject the evidence claimed in the article". But it would probably be better to just admit that you're wrong.

It's rather shocking how clear-cut the case is, to be honest. From the comments:

Quote :

"I'm George Mallinckrodt, the only former staffer at Dade CI to come forward publicly about the egregious behavior of guards in the psych unit called the Transitional Care Unit. As a result of the stories broken by the Miami Herald's Julie Brown, it is comforting to know I'm not alone anymore in bringing the abuse, beating, torture, and murder of inmates to the attention of the public. Almost two years ago, after I answered my phone with a typical "Hello," my former coworker blurted out, "They killed him!""

Someone would have to be really trying in order to avoid a quick resolution to such a case through our legal system. Here, it looks like the whistleblowers have the right of it. An enabling public, particularly people like you, are the problem.

6/2/2014 10:58:35 AM

http://www.mediaite.com/tv/video-surfaces-of-texas-police-executing-handcuffed-prisoner/

Anyone want to try to explain why the cop drew his weapon? And why he never faced manslaughter charges?

6/17/2014 6:31:30 PM

Was the victim eating the one officer's finger? Just asking, not trying to make a point.

6/17/2014 6:54:34 PM

Bath salts, bro

6/17/2014 7:04:25 PM

Nothing about biting. Here's more:

Quote :

"Flores' intent, Darnell [Flores' attorney] said, was to show force and command Saenz to stop resisting. Flores' gun was accidently struck by the civilian and the gun went off, Darnell said. "The civilian has reported Officer Flores said 'Oh my God it was an accident,'" Darnell said"

I didn't know it was policy to whip your gun out because you're tired of someone's shit.

6/17/2014 7:23:51 PM