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In Baltimore, Brazen Officers Took Every Chance to Rob and Cheat

nytimes.com

81–90 of 222 posts

Re: In Baltimore, Brazen Officers Took Every Chance to Rob and Cheat

#81

Does a citizen have any legal recourse or entitled to compensation if a citizen's house was raided multiple times on false pretenses or a fabricated warrant by these fine upstanding officers (The ones being indicted)? I'm asking for a friend.. :-/

Tell your friend to ask a lawyer and not a web forum.

Surely there could be a laywer on the vast world wide web.

Re: In Baltimore, Brazen Officers Took Every Chance to Rob and Cheat

#82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Police unions are the only strong unions left in the country. The conservatives will come for them at some point too...until then you have places like Philly that, at least used to, have complaints against police be heard by the union before they are passed on to internal affairs. Bmore takes the cake, though...just wtf all over and back again.

> The conservatives will come for them at some point too... I really really doubt that. All the conservatives I know love the police and think they can do no wrong.

In general I agree, but the Cliven Bundy incident showed that there can be inconsistencies in what they support.

Re: In Baltimore, Brazen Officers Took Every Chance to Rob and Cheat

#83
post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>Hard to believe actions like that were taking place in the U.S. Is it? I'm a Canadian and everything I hear about the US police terrifies me - SWATing leading to innocent people being killed, unarmed black men being shot, no-knock warrants, civil forfeiture, the impossibility of convicting police for just about anything. If the worst thing they were doing was selling drugs that'd be an improvement as far as I can t…

Has anyone been charged with the false report of the scissors hijab attack?

No. What possible reason would they have for charging a child?

Re: In Baltimore, Brazen Officers Took Every Chance to Rob and Cheat

#84

Baltimore police were stealing drugs from Baltimore dealers and selling the stolen drugs to dealers in Philadelphia. Hard to believe actions like that were taking place in the U.S. Sounds like something straight out of a Narcos episode.

It’s actually the exact plot of the shield (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Shield) which is based on a true story. So, not surprising.

Re: In Baltimore, Brazen Officers Took Every Chance to Rob and Cheat

#85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The difference is that a secret police is used by a dictatorship to keep the dictator in power by systematically attacking the opposition and any grass roots movements. Plainclothes detectives are simply police that are not in uniform ('undercover'), they are still part of the regular police force.

Detectives that just wear civilian clothes aren't quite undercover though. Much of what they do will involve identifying themselves as police (which is not a cover, it's fact). In the US at least, "undercover" implies that they are not identifying themselves as police.

Right, sorry about that, so strike the 'undercover' bit, too late to edit.

Re: In Baltimore, Brazen Officers Took Every Chance to Rob and Cheat

#86

Adding to this common problem in larger metropolitan police forces in the US is their rapid militarization. Shaking down kids while cruising around in a black and white is one thing. Being equipped with military gear including armored cars opens up a whole new level of control issues. http://www.businessinsider.com/photos-the-rook-armored-cater...

> Shaking down kids while cruising around in a black and white is one thing. Being equipped with military gear including armored cars opens up a whole new level of control issues.

I'm not sure which one of those two does more damage to society in the longer term. The second obviously has problems but the first chips away at the foundations and I suspect that long term that one will have far more potential to do damage.

Re: In Baltimore, Brazen Officers Took Every Chance to Rob and Cheat

#87

Why is there not more transparency? It makes zero sense. What is going to stop something like this occuring again? Officers going to jail?

Problem is partly that crime is pretty bad in Baltimore and tax base doesn’t help combat it. Officers are constantly having to bend the rules to make any impact. Slippery slope into bad behavior. Also, few well trained and talented police officers want to work in such an environment due to personal risk and stress. The few that do want to be rewarded for the hell they go through.

There is another side to this story, though I agree the behavior is mostly inexcusable.

Re: In Baltimore, Brazen Officers Took Every Chance to Rob and Cheat

#88
At the risk of oversimplifying, I believe increasing crime rate is a good proxy for police corruption. As an example, East Palo Alto in CA was the crime capital of the country back in the 90s. Then a police force that included parties from surrounding cities was formed to address it and now the city is essentially crime-free.

Re: In Baltimore, Brazen Officers Took Every Chance to Rob and Cheat

#89

Does a citizen have any legal recourse or entitled to compensation if a citizen's house was raided multiple times on false pretenses or a fabricated warrant by these fine upstanding officers (The ones being indicted)? I'm asking for a friend.. :-/

Ianal and couldn't answer any particular in your case. I do have a lawyer friend who makes a regular income suiting the Oakland police department.

The broader issue is naturally the police have a lot of leverage on your average court system, police are often not liable for even the most egregious mistake, only actual malice is required and occasionally then legal contortions can justify various behaviors and so-forth.

But even more, if someone wins a suit against the police of town X, town X pays the fine and that money comes out of money for parks and libraries of town X, not say, from the pay of cops of town X, who can thus merrily ignore even a successful suit.

Re: In Baltimore, Brazen Officers Took Every Chance to Rob and Cheat

#90
post #58
post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>Hard to believe actions like that were taking place in the U.S. Is it? I'm a Canadian and everything I hear about the US police terrifies me - SWATing leading to innocent people being killed, unarmed black men being shot, no-knock warrants, civil forfeiture, the impossibility of convicting police for just about anything. If the worst thing they were doing was selling drugs that'd be an improvement as far as I can t…

I’m a Canadian too. The 49th is just a line in the sand. Here’s a reminder: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Dziekański_Taser_inci...

Having lived in both places there is a notable difference in how authority behaves in each country.
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