Chicago Police Hid Mics, Destroyed Dashcams to Block Audio, Records Show

We have a national body. It's called the citizenry. But, sadly, few people are rising up because it isn't happening in their back yard, or to their children.

Sure there will be comment threads on HN or some Facebook liking, but these are weak responses, and without more, change will come very slowly, and in the meantime thousands more will be trampled on, abused, violated or murdered.

The majority of people who are rising up are only the marginalized people who are the primary victims of police abuse and injustice. All you have to do is look on Twitter and look at the color of people who do the most tweeting about police injustice.

There is no way this would or could continue if a significant amount of the privileged population rose up.

Hit by a white shirt (supervisor) who came out of an alley on clark st while in a bike lane - somehow my fault, detained.

Hit on foot, by a car with no lights on in a residential neighborhood while crossing at a crosswalk - somehow my fault for being outside while there was "a suspect being hunted"

Watching officers on foot in 7-11's, local shops, etc, just walk in, take what the want, and leave.

Helping a friend move to another city because he ended a relationship with a cop who made his life a living hell after they broke up.

Being accused of trying to "make the neighborhood look bad" when I called the fire department because my neighbor had smoke coming out of the door in his apartment (turns out he was just passed out drunk and left a pizza in the oven, but what else do you do when you bang on a door pouring smoke and no one answers?)

So yeah, once my S/O finishes what she needs to to change jobs, we're out of here I think. The police force here is really the icing on the cake of so much else that's overpriced, corrupt, or just plain sucks about Chicago. All the good things it's supposed to have just seem completely irrelevant to me anymore.

The prosecutors and the officers they're charging may be drinking buddies, or at least have collaborated professionally before. Prosecutors may also fear other officers being unhelpful in the future to the person who charged the latters' buddy.

The prosecutor may also fear having to open every case that officer was involved in to retrial. The prosecutor, themselves, may have logged those cases as wins.

In the end, the system will never work unless an independent prosecutor, with the power to investigate and bring charges, exists for police crimes.

I was dating this girl a couple of years ago and we were pretty early on, but she wanted to spend the night. And we were cool so it wasn't an awkward thing, but what I figured out as that she didn't necessarily want to stay the night as much as she was afraid to go home at night. Her reasoning, "My mom just broke up with a police officer and they harass us now." Shes from a super small town with a police force with a reputation for having nothing to do, but staying busy. But even when she said it I thought she might be being dramatic. Now I get it. This type of behavior is ridiculously childish and it might not be the norm, but it seems like something someone could stop.

I spent a couple years in Chile. They cops there walk around with machine guns (they're called "carabineros") but are professional, uncorrupt and trustworthy. The difference is palpable.

Also felt much safer around the Polezi in Germany.

But leaving the country has its own costs.

I'm thinking maybe remote work will become more of a thing and a small town somewhere relatively rural might be better... but then small town cops in Louisiana were pretty bad in my youth.