Leaked Documents Reveal Police Department Planted Drugs for Years, DA Complicit • Hacker News Board

Re: Leaked Documents Reveal Police Department Planted Drugs for Years, DA Complicit

#31

Post by taurath » Wed, Dec 02, 2015, 2:00 AM UTC

jacobolus wrote: post #21

dzhiurgis wrote: post #15

After the collapse of Soviet Union, in my country there was explosion of mafia. Police were incapable and this is exactly how police dealt with them. Draconian drug laws meant that cops could easily put gangsters to jail for a long time. Basically if thugs play dirty, cops are playing dirty as well.

Are you suggesting that the hundreds of black men falsely convicted and imprisoned by corrupt white supremacist police and prosecutors were culpable because they are “thugs playing dirty”? WTF?

When such corruption is completely normal and the assumption is that the state is always in the right somehow, you get opinions like the above.

Also you can't really convince people that hold these opinions otherwise, since when endemic corruption REALLY IS everywhere its quite foolish to assume the best of people, except somehow in this case, the grandparent commenter is assuming that despite all odds the police were doing the right thing, just through illegal means.

Re: Leaked Documents Reveal Police Department Planted Drugs for Years, DA Complicit

#32

Post by datashovel » Wed, Dec 02, 2015, 2:01 AM UTC

Keep the leaks coming world!

The joke is that anyone who is truly qualified to run for office doesn't want the job.

I hope that the more leaks like this that come out, more qualified people will realize they can't just stand by idly thinking the system will just fix itself.

I imagine Snowden leaks alone have gotten far more "qualified" people engaged in civic activities than we'll ever truly comprehend, and have taken a bit of the "fear of rebellion" out of those who might not have spoken up in the past.

Re: Leaked Documents Reveal Police Department Planted Drugs for Years, DA Complicit

#33

Post by beeboop » Wed, Dec 02, 2015, 2:01 AM UTC

hackuser wrote: post #8

It seems like there is a smoking gun in this case (though I didn't review the evidence thoroughly). Widespread availability of video recording and distribution has provided many more smoking guns. Certainly, there are many more incidents where no smoking gun evidence is available. For a long time, black Americans have been claiming that such things happen and were widely ignored or disbelieved. It was and is a grave…

1) Most of society doesn't care, isn't aware, or approves of what the police are doing (similar story to mass surveillance)

2) Nothing since no one cares etc. You can vote to express your opinion but have fun losing every time to the majority who make their voting decisions based mostly on TV ads.

3) A lot of things, but again nothing can really be done since most people don't hold those in power accountable

I don't think stuff like this is going to change any time soon. Society is too busy looking at their phone.

Re: Leaked Documents Reveal Police Department Planted Drugs for Years, DA Complicit

#34

Post by Alex3917 » Wed, Dec 02, 2015, 2:01 AM UTC

hackuser wrote: post #8

It seems like there is a smoking gun in this case (though I didn't review the evidence thoroughly). Widespread availability of video recording and distribution has provided many more smoking guns. Certainly, there are many more incidents where no smoking gun evidence is available. For a long time, black Americans have been claiming that such things happen and were widely ignored or disbelieved. It was and is a grave…

> About what issues are we making the same mistake right now?

Wasn't there an article on HN about the government trying to rebrand Islamic State as Da'esh just a couple weeks ago?

Re: Leaked Documents Reveal Police Department Planted Drugs for Years, DA Complicit

#35

Post by steveklabnik » Wed, Dec 02, 2015, 2:02 AM UTC

Frondo wrote: post #27

TheSpiceIsLife wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Opinion: 1) Police are corrupt. Maybe not all of them, but enough of them that "police are corrupt" is true. This will always be the case. Police don't fight crime, nor prevent it. They create it. If you think this isn't so you haven't had enough exposure to them. Maybe my opinion is coloured by my experience: illegal search of person, car, and house. They ransacked my house, stole money and property from me. It took…

A lot of police are corrupt, and there is an absolute ton of racism in this country so we believe it when the cop tells a lie that implicates a black guy. Not racist like we're out in klan hoods on the weekend, and it's definitely not like we're consciously choosing to be racist--this is just lifetimes of unexamined biases, media information, etc. We have these little biases that tell us not to trust the black guy's…

  > Not racist like we're out in klan hoods on the weekend,

Don't worry, police have that covered too https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2015/09/01/police-chief-...

Re: Leaked Documents Reveal Police Department Planted Drugs for Years, DA Complicit

#36

Post by xexers » Wed, Dec 02, 2015, 2:03 AM UTC

Is there a better source for this story?

Re: Leaked Documents Reveal Police Department Planted Drugs for Years, DA Complicit

#37

Post by Retra » Wed, Dec 02, 2015, 2:03 AM UTC

rewqfdsa wrote: post #28

> black Americans have been claiming that such things happen and were widely ignored or disbelieved Black Americans commit a wildly disproportionate amount of crime. Black men make up 1 million out of 2.3 million people in prison. 4.7% of all black men* are in prison. A black man has a 70% chance of being in prison at some point in his life. Are you suggesting the police are framing all of these people? While police…

If police officers can be made corrupt just by doing their jobs, then we really need to change how that system works.

Re: Leaked Documents Reveal Police Department Planted Drugs for Years, DA Complicit

#38

Post by jacquesm » Wed, Dec 02, 2015, 2:05 AM UTC

rewqfdsa wrote: post #28

> black Americans have been claiming that such things happen and were widely ignored or disbelieved Black Americans commit a wildly disproportionate amount of crime. Black men make up 1 million out of 2.3 million people in prison. 4.7% of all black men* are in prison. A black man has a 70% chance of being in prison at some point in his life. Are you suggesting the police are framing all of these people? While police…

Well, it's not exactly the black people's fault that the police decided to be corrupt. So now they've made their own bed and they'll have to lie in it: if they could have categorically said 'this does not happen' they would have had a strong position. Now everybody that gets in trouble with the police can muddy the waters by saying that the evidence was planted. And in some of those cases that will be the truth.

These officers have all but destroyed the reputation of their force and that's something that they're not going to recover easily - if at all.

So, let's have a productive public conversation: How will guarantees be provided that something like this can never happen again, how will the people affected by this be properly compensated for the crimes done to them, how will everybody involved in these affairs be charged, tried and punished, from high to low and how will the police force change it's inner culture so that if there is another instance of such a thing it will be immediately and swiftly dealt with before another culture like the current one can take root?

All that has nothing to do with the arrest rates of blacks, elevated black criminality and the black community at large, this is a police problem, and only a police problem, the people evidence was planted on are called victims and you don't get to blame those for any misconduct of the other party.

I'm assuming that if they plant evidence they plant evidence where-ever they feel like and if they want to arrest people for no good reason that they'll do that too to whoever they feel like. If they do that more often to blacks than to others then there are yet more problems but these are significant enough by themselves to be extremely damaging.

> While I of course condemn polite misconduct, I can understand how repeated interaction with a recalcitrant criminal element could harden and corrupt a police officer.

I can't. If you can't stand the heat stay the fuck out of the kitchen. Good police officers can not function if their not-so-good colleagues spoil the reputation of the whole department like this.

To those that downvoted this comment: feel free to explain your reasons.

Re: Leaked Documents Reveal Police Department Planted Drugs for Years, DA Complicit

#39

Post by oneJob » Wed, Dec 02, 2015, 2:05 AM UTC

mintplant wrote: post #12

[deleted] wrote: post #10

[deleted]

> Once the examiner has an adequate series of charts to evaluate, he will begin the scoring process. This is done most often using a numerical scoring method which evaluates the subject's physiological responses to the Relevant and Control questions. The computer polygraph may also use an algorithm developed by the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory or other researchers to score the examination. The…

JHU APL does tons, well primarily, highly sensitive defense contracting work. For instance, you can actually head on over right now to Linkedin and apply for their "Combat Systems Kill Chain Engineer" position. [1] Security is thus a big requirement.

From Wikipedia: "APL is primarily a defense contractor. It serves as a technical resource for the Department of Defense, NASA, and other government agencies."

There is a very strained relationship with some parts of the JHU community due to this. At the offices where they control the Hubble Space Telescope for instance there is a deli with a tip jar for, tongue in cheek, COINTELPRO.

[1] https://www.linkedin.com/jobs2/view/70728662?trk=jobs_jserp_...

Re: Leaked Documents Reveal Police Department Planted Drugs for Years, DA Complicit

#40

Post by taurath » Wed, Dec 02, 2015, 2:05 AM UTC

hackuser wrote: post #23

taurath wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any policy changes will be opposed by an army of well-paid lobbyists and advocacy groups that are incredibly good at spreading fear uncertainty and doubt, and in the end justice will not likely come for those already effected or in jail, unless there is hard smoking gun evidence. Its not in any cops's interest to have all their actions even in the heat of the moment put under a microscope. The good is that this could…

> Its not in any cops's interest to have all their actions even in the heat of the moment put under a microscope. Honest police may feel it's in their interest. It protects them from false accusations, and from leal and reputational consequences of being associated with dishonest associates. Being honest, they might also want to see dishonest, criminal actions stopped and punished.

To play devil's advocate: if I were the most decent nicest cop in the world I could see why I wouldn't want my every word and action on camera. It'd severely limit things I could say in confidence to anyone, and if I were say speaking to a victim of a crime its difficult to comfort people with a camera in their face. I'd be worried to being reduced to essentially the role of a call-center employee with every interaction graded not only for not screwing up, but also adherence to rigid policy.

Its dehumanizing and eats away at the core of any intelligent person wanting to ever be a cop.