Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

henrycountyreport.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

141–150 of 268 posts

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

#141

Post by pdkl95 »

TheSpiceIsLife wrote: post #22
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…

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…

> Maybe not all of them, but enough of them that "police are corrupt" is true.

Usually I would never generalize the actions of a subset to the entire group, but in this case there is a key difference that justifies "(all/most) police are corrupt": the failure to clean their own house of the "bad apples". When a supposedly "good" policeman gives cover and protection to a criminal in their department instead of reporting the crime, they become an accomplice. in many cases, protecting the guilty may even be a crime in itself (misprision of felony[1]).

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Misprision_of_felony#United_St...

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

#142

Post by gnaritas »

will_brown wrote: post #125
gnaritas wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I propose that... We're not in short supply of proposals, so what's the point? Everyone has ideas like this, they're meaningless because they don't address the problem, cops don't police themselves and never will.

Really? I thought the leaked documents revealed: >As early as 1998, other police officers lodged complaints regarding their beliefs that police officers were planting evidence. In other words officers were policing themselves to the point of triggering Internal Investigations. Nevertheless, if the parents proposal has no point, and you have identified the problem, what is your proposed solution?

> As early as 1998

It's 2015, lodging complaint's that go nowhere for nearly two decades isn't "policing" themselves; arresting their fellow police officers for breaking the law is policing themselves and that's extremely rare. The thin blue line is a real thing, cops shun cops who rat on cops and since cops tend to only hang out with other cops, or fireman, being shunned matters. Civilians in general don't like hanging around with cops so it's a very segregated little culture.

> In other words officers were policing themselves to the point of triggering Internal Investigations.

Meaningless ploys to cover their asses that nearly always end in nothing being found.

I used to be a cop, I've known hundreds of cops because of this, in general (meaning yes there are exceptions) they're idiots and jocks who take the job because they get paid to be bullies and they like the power. They don't give a shit about your rights or you at all, they care about their stats and how they rank in comparison with each other.. who got more busts, it's like a sport to them. They compete. It wasn't for me, I switched to IT.

> if the parents proposal has no point, and you have identified the problem, what is your proposed solution?

As I said, identifying the problem isn't the issue, never has been. There is no solution to police corruption other than the public getting fed up with them and firing them all; they will not police themselves, internal affairs is a joke, and even the good cops generally keep quite in order to not be ostracized. Time and again cops are caught doing bad things, suspended for "investigation", and the investigation finds no wrongdoing after the media storm has died down and the cop is put back on the streets.

Police are corrupt; that's simply life.

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

#143

Post by pkinsky »

dzhiurgis wrote: post #102
jacobolus wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your three-sentence story was about police battling the “explosion of mafia” using underhanded tactics, and makes no mention of innocent people. The case under discussion is police planting drugs and guns on people who were wrongly arrested and who had no prior criminal record or connection to gangsters, because the police were hateful racists. Since those two scenarios seem completely unrelated, my inference was tha…

Rather than inferring that all thugs are black, you should have inferred that mafia isn't there to help people. Anyhow, sorry if my story isn't interesting.

'thug' has some really bad associations right now. It's basically the latest euphemism for 'black person', so people read your initial comment as explicitly intended to compare the situation in your country to the situation here.

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

#144

Post by maxerickson »

jbuzbee wrote: post #86
cryoshon wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The police also stole more from people via asset forfeiture than actual burglars did last year. They are criminals.

While I agree that the police have a history of horrific abuse of asset forfeiture laws, this oft-quoted event doesn't tell the whole story. The 2104 numbers were skewed greatly based on a proper $1.7 Billion forfeiture from Bernie Madoff. Most of this money went back to his victims: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/11/23/cops-...

The $1.7 billion was a settlement between the government and JP Morgan Chase, in relation to the Madoff scheme (apparently they ignored things that they should not have).

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

#145

Post by simoncion »

jMyles wrote: post #67
KirinDave wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Um, if it wasn't drugs it'd be something else. Stolen firearms, maybe? This is a racist domestic terror group using their position of power to target a minority. Please don't shift the focus of this to some other vaguely related issue. The important part: a racist cabal formed a conspiracy to put young black men in jail. Because they hate them.

It's not "vaguely related" - drug laws are, simply put, the current form of jim crow. Drug laws were made for this purpose, and openly so. And it's ludicrous to say that "if it wasn't for drugs it'd be something else." So then abolish all criminal laws which prohibit common, consensual, adult behavior. But drug laws are the whale here, not anything else.

> And it's ludicrous to say that "if it wasn't for drugs it'd be something else."

When you've a police force that's planting evidence on marks, that knows about the planted evidence and chooses to cover it up, that has a DA that knows about the planted evidence and chooses to prosecute these cases anyway, and a system that chooses to promote those involved in the conspiracy to high office, then yes... if it wasn't drugs being planted, it's very, very, very likely that it would be almost anything else.

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

#146

Post by aagha »

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…

There's another question that should be asked: How do we find and punish those that were complicit?

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

#147

Post by bcoates »

pipermerriam wrote: post #106

This is an honest question. Realistically, how do we dismantle the police state. It seems like the NSA, FBI, and some not insignificant percentage of the police forces have gone entirely rogue or lost track of their mission entirely. It feels hopeless. So much outrage but so little actual ever changes. Does anyone have any ideas because I'd love to hear them.

The police are as much members of society as anyone else, and they require the active cooperation of you and the rest of society to survive.

You can be part of the solution by depriving them this support: Do not cooperate with them in their job. Do not call them. Decline to speak with them if they contact you. Do not associate with them officially or socially. Do not permit them to shop at your place of employment, do business with you, or join your social organizations. Do not permit their children to be friends with yours.

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

#148

Post by agf »

Dan Quan, a co-worker of mine, spoke about his experience as a police officer, and the mentality he saw from other officers, in his talk at Rocky Mountain Ruby, "Policing and Pairing: An Unlikely Preparation" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NgGaO92oIGg). While not the main subject of the talk, it's an interesting first-person perspective.

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

#149

Post by aagha »

A ton of the comments below are about how cops are abusing their power. The other group that seems beyond the reach of justice are district attorneys.

The system is setup so that DA's watch out for cops' backs and the cops for the DA's. Cops would be less likely to engage in bad behavior if they knew that DA's were less willing to support it.

Oh, and then there's the private prison system...

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

#150

Post by will_brown »

coldtea wrote: post #140
will_brown wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really? I thought the leaked documents revealed: >As early as 1998, other police officers lodged complaints regarding their beliefs that police officers were planting evidence. In other words officers were policing themselves to the point of triggering Internal Investigations. Nevertheless, if the parents proposal has no point, and you have identified the problem, what is your proposed solution?

It's 2015. If they've been doing it since 1998 those complaints really weren't that many or that effective, were they? One could serve 17 years in jail in that time.

Obviously the complaints were not effective - there were at least 3 officers who independently reported the concern of possible evidence planting - except the part about IA recommending immediate termination and prosecution of the officer, and the reopening/investigation into his cases.

My point is parent stated that officers are the problem because they won't police one another, not that officer complaints are ineffective (seemly a fair distinction). So I asked parent what his proposed solution was, and he explained the solution is to fire all police because they are inherently corrupt. I'm not taking a position, I am curious about the thought process. Do you believe as a society we are better off without police too?

Post reply on HN