How Do Bad Cops Stay in Power? Just Look at Miami.

[C_Clayton_Jones]

There's like 130,000 cops in America.

Being a cop is an extremely complex job that involves even deadly force at times.

With those kind of numbers and the complexity of the job, mistakes are going to be made here and there.

Which in no manner excuses or mitigates misconduct and crimes committed by sworn officers.

Sworn officers are not above the law – they must be held accountable when they violate it.

 

[fncceo]

That depends on whether what they are asking you to do is something you are required to do.

If you have a problem with what you're being asked to do ... make a complaint. Lots of people believe they know what they are and are not required to do based on what they saw on TV ... TV is always wrong.

If you're not being asked to surrender your virtue or donate an organ against your will, what do you have to lose by waiting until you can make a complaint?

If you get into a fight with a cop you aren't going to win, even if you are in the right.

 

[EvilEyeFleegle]

It's bad enough I have to police the low lifes ... I sure don't want to live next to them.

Sorry for your luck..BTW..you don't get to 'police' anyone..that's the mindset that is at the heart of the problem. Some Dept's are like occupying armies--with nothing but contempt. Those cops need to go..they're burned out.
I bet it never occurred to you that if more cops lived in those 'shitholes' they might not be such shitholes?

 

[fncceo]

you can slam that door in the cop's face.

 

[fncceo]

There's like 130,000 cops in America.

Much closer to a million sworn members in America.

 

[pknopp]

If you have a problem with what you're being asked to do ... make a complaint. Lots of people believe they know what they are and are not required to do based on what they saw on TV ... TV is always wrong.

No it isn't.

If you're not being asked to surrender your virtue or donate an organ against your will, what do you have to lose by waiting until you can make a complaint?

If you get into a fight with a cop you aren't going to win, even if you are in the right.

Today that cop loses his job and you get millions.

 

[EvilEyeFleegle]

If you have a problem with what you're being asked to do ... make a complaint. Lots of people believe they know what they are and are not required to do based on what they saw on TV ... TV is always wrong.

If you're not being asked to surrender your virtue or donate an organ against your will, what do you have to lose by waiting until you can make a complaint?

If you get into a fight with a cop you aren't going to win, even if you are in the right.

Yes you can...if you pick your fight..and make sure your battleground is the courts. That's why qualified immunity has got to go..it covers up too much abuse.

 

[JGalt]

Or by refusing to accept that there are only 2 'sides', he didn't simply enforce the problem.

Political tribalism is probably the biggest impediment to the sort of reforms this thread is calling for happening at 'the top'.

Political non-alignment is every bit as much a cult as supporting an existing party. Those folks also seem to be more smug about the fact that they aren't taking one side or the other.

Personally, I just think most of them are just felons and lost the right to vote

 

[EvilEyeFleegle]

View attachment 558191

Done it..more than once. Good luck with forcing entry unless you hear screaming or have a warrant. I have a camera right on my porch..and it records sound.
Both times i shut the door in the cop's face it was because they wish to interview me about some neighbor's allegation against some other neighbor. Not my affair.
Cops are not God almighty..although many seem to think so~

 

[TheParser]

Ahh..some of that good old corrupt policing..just like the the good ole days:

How Do Bad Cops Stay in Power? Just Look at Miami.

“This is my neighborhood and I run this shit the way I want to,” police Capt. Javier Ortiz allegedly told a man who wanted to file an Internal Affairs complaint against him.

www.politico.com

In a police department with a history of brutality, Captain Javier Ortiz holds a special distinction as Miami’s least-fireable man with a badge, a gun and a staggering history of citizen complaints for beatings, false arrests and bullying.
Over his 17 years on the job — including eight as the union president of the Fraternal Order of Police in South Florida — 49 people have complained about him to Internal Affairs as he amassed 19 official use-of-force incidents, $600,000 in lawsuit settlements and a book’s worth of terrible headlines related to his record and his racially inflammatory social media posts, many of which attacked alleged victims of police violence.
Yet Ortiz has repeatedly beaten back attempts to discipline him. He returned to work in March from a yearlong paid suspension during which state and federal investigators examined whether he “engaged in a pattern of abuse and bias against minorities, particularly African Americans … [and] has been known for cyber-stalking and doxing civilians who question his authority or file complaints against him.” The investigation was launched after three Miami police sergeants accused him of abusing his position and said the department had repeatedly botched investigations into him.
But investigators concluded their hands were tied because 13 of the 19 use-of-force complaints were beyond the five-year statute of limitations, and the others lacked enough hard evidence beyond the assertions of the alleged victims. The findings underscored a truism in many urban police departments: The most troublesome cops are so insulated by protective union contracts and laws passed by politicians who are eager to advertise their law-and-order bona fides that removing them is nearly impossible — even when their own colleagues are witnesses against them.
As a police officer with an encyclopedic knowledge of labor law and grievance procedures, Ortiz shielded himself over the years with the extensive protections woven into the local union’s collective bargaining agreement and Florida’s “Law Enforcement Officers’ Bill of Rights,” a police-friendly law that passed decades ago and has been continuously beefed up with bipartisan support. He has also availed himself of a controversial judicial doctrine, called qualified immunity, which shields police from certain forms of liability.
Among the special provisions that have made policing Florida’s police so difficult is a rule in the bill of rights that says all investigations must be wrapped up in 180 days. Critics say the rule is a vehicle for sympathetic colleagues to protect an officer simply by dragging their feet. In its review of Ortiz, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement reported that between 2013 and 2018 seven citizen complaints against him were voided because the department failed to finish investigating within the prescribed time limit.

Yes, there are lots of arrogant cops.

After all, it is only natural that sadists would be attracted to cop work.

But why do many ordinary citizens seem less than interested in complaints against these bad cops?

Well, one reasoning might go like this: If we have a choice between these bad cops and the violent predators that roam our streets day and night, then I guess I have to be on the side of the former.

*****

Here in Los Angeles, three predators a few days ago had the temerity to smash the sliding glass doors of the house belonging to a so-called "star" of some silly reality show and force her to turn over some valuables.

When they get caught, nothing will happen to them. The chief prosecutor in this area weeps copious amounts of tears for the dear sweet victims of society.

Now if some sadistic cop were to administer his own brand of justice to them, chances are that many people would not be especially upset.

 

[Montrovant]

Political non-alignment is every bit as much a cult as supporting an existing party. Those folks also seem to be more smug about the fact that they aren't taking one side or the other.

Personally, I just think most of them are just felons and lost the right to vote

Even in this reply, you continue to assume there are only 2 choices. News flash: There are more than 2 political parties in the US.

Of course, there's every possibility you're just trolling.

 

[JGalt]

Even in this reply, you continue to assume there are only 2 choices. News flash: There are more than 2 political parties in the US.

Of course, there's every possibility you're just trolling.

Other parties are only there for people who like to register the "protest vote." They seldom if ever change anything, aside from drawing voters away from the other two. Just how much have these other parties been involved in governing, legislating, and leading?

 

[pknopp]

Other parties are only there for people who like to register the "protest vote." They seldom if ever change anything, aside from drawing voters away from the other two. Just how much have these other parties been involved in governing, legislating, and leading?

I'm not sure I would brag that I helped vote in those who have created the mess we are in.

 

[Montrovant]

Other parties are only there for people who like to register the "protest vote." They seldom if ever change anything, aside from drawing voters away from the other two. Just how much have these other parties been involved in governing, legislating, and leading?

Unfortunately we live in a country where a large number of people think there are and only can be two 'real' political parties. The parties themselves help keep the appearance of a binary paradigm, of course, but it's still the voters who have decided that they prefer things to remain as they are.

Both parties spend and leave it for future administrations to worry about paying for their spending. Both parties continue to look for new ways for government to control things, whether it's the Patriot Act or NSA surveillance or continuing qualified immunity, etc. etc. But partisans find a way to blame the 'other side', ignoring that so many of the problems continue when their preferred party is in power.

To be fair, there are a lot of crappy independent/third party candidates. How much of that is because the Democrats and Republicans have such a tight stranglehold on our political system, though?

When our choices for president (and there are so many more elections than president, but it seems to be the only one most people pay attention to) are Clinton - Trump, then Trump - Biden, and voters are still unwilling to even consider voting for a candidate outside of the big 2 parties...well, it leaves me with little hope of ever seeing a real change in partisan party politics in the US. And that is an unfortunate thing.

 

[JGalt]

I'm not sure I would brag that I helped vote in those who have created the mess we are in.

Any incompetent third-party candidate could have done much worse. look how much support Bernie got in 2016. Is that the kind of asshole Marxist POS you want running this country?

 

[pknopp]

Any incompetent third-party candidate could have done much worse.

Sure, an incompetent one could have done worse than the incompetent ones you elected.

 

[DukeU]

An apolitical Law Enforcement Dept. and apolitical enforcement of law~
Divorce the Justice Dept. from the cabinet--have zero appointive positions..merit based from top to bottom. Oversight and accountability via non-partisan board overseen by Civil service..with an emphasis on transparency.
Do the same at the lower levels..State, city, county.
It would help to have a judicial system that's based on the truth..a non-adversarial system akin to the military..where getting to the truth is the goal...instead of gaming the system.

Works good on paper. The problem is, EVERYONE has biases....... IDK

 

[Dragonlady]

Bad cops are better than no cops. Be respectful and you'll never have a problem with any cop.

I guess you haven’t been paying attention to the videos that have been going around for the last 10 years. Polite people getting beaten and killed.

 

[JGalt]

I guess you haven’t been paying attention to the videos that have been going around for the last 10 years. Polite people getting beaten and killed.

#Don'tCareBecauseItAin'tMe

 

[YoursTruly]

There wouldn't be as many bad cops, if there weren't so many bad citizens. Just sayin.