Chicago Police Hid Mics, Destroyed Dashcams to Block Audio, Records Show • Hacker News Board

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

#271

Post by logfromblammo » Thu, Jan 28, 2016, 7:48 PM UTC

toomuchtodo wrote: post #230

jMyles wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> then what you have is not a police force, but a criminal organization. This is the only reasonable conclusion, and it's neither new nor particularly controversial. The real question is: what to do about it?

Leave. Frictionless and painless. (I left Chicago after living there for ~2 decades)

I left after only 2.5 years. I didn't even have any watershed experiences. I just eventually heeded the voice in my head that whispered "get out of here" on a regular basis.

So I left, and I didn't exactly stop hearing that voice, but at least it said "this is pathetic" instead.

It didn't shut up entirely until I moved again.

I can barely even stand to drive around Chicago on the tristate tollway now.

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

#272

Post by pessimizer » Thu, Jan 28, 2016, 7:48 PM UTC

13thLetter wrote: post #245

Doing a ctrl-F for "emanuel" or "daley" in this comment section produced zero results, which is unfortunately rather telling. Chicago has been run by the same political party since 1931. If the police are this bad and you keep re-electing the people running the city anyway, you are part of the problem. Throw the bastards out, don't just grump on message boards and then keep obediently pulling the same lever in the vo…

There are no good choices. The challengers are generally people who have heard that Chicago/Illinois are great places to feed. In Chicago, there's The Machine: a system for raising large numbers of votes for Duh Mare's candidates from people who don't care who wins, they just want their Alderman to respond to their phone calls. Outsiders like Blagojevich and Rauner at the state level are just as awful.

The amount of Republican pond scum that Illinois has had to deal with easily compares to the amount of Democratic pond scum that it has had to deal with, it's just a matter of upstate/downstate/collar counties preference which scumbag you vote for. They're all ultimately friends anyway; I think Emanuel once worked for Rauner.

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

#273

Post by tptacek » Thu, Jan 28, 2016, 7:53 PM UTC

A reminder that the primary election for Anita Alvarez, one of the country's worst states attorneys and the person with the most discretion in pursuing cases like this, is this March.

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

#274

Post by leoc » Thu, Jan 28, 2016, 7:58 PM UTC

neves wrote: post #243

bbarn wrote: post #74

Let's see.. in the 20 odd years here in Chicago, the sum of my police interactions are: 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 7-1…

First world problem there. In Brazil we had the "Caso Amarildo": https://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caso_Amarildo They locked a humble worker without proofs, tortured him, killed him during the interrogatory, erased the cameras recording, turned off the GPS of the police cars that got rid of the body, and bribed a woman to commit perjury.

It's not as bad as that, but New Mexico did have the man who was "forgotten about" in police custody for two years: http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/03/06/17212442-man-left...

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

#275

Post by Lawtonfogle » Thu, Jan 28, 2016, 8:02 PM UTC

pc86 wrote: post #48

ghufran_syed wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Part of what stops police from routinely infringing civil rights in the pursuit of justice is the legal doctrine that evidence obtained illegally is inadmissible, as is all evidence gained from further (lawful) investigation based on that evidence [1]. what is needed is a law that operates in a similar way, that states that in any lawsuit or complaint against the police, there is a presumption of guilt on the part of…

> Although the Constitution of the United States does not cite it explicitly, presumption of innocence is widely held to follow from the 5th, 6th, and 14th amendments. See also Coffin v. United States and In re Winship. [0] One does not sign away Constitutional rights because they become a police officer. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presumption_of_innocence#The_f...

Then just make it an 'administrative ruling' so that the Constitution no longer applies. That is all the fad with prosecutors these days (same reason being put on the SO registry can be retroactively applied/extended without it violating ex post facto laws).

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

#276

Post by Lawtonfogle » Thu, Jan 28, 2016, 8:05 PM UTC

gnaritas wrote: post #113

forgotpwtomain wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The curious thing is that police-forces are paid for by state and local taxes. Why is no one advocating cutting their funding until come into compliance with certain higher standards?

Because that's "being soft on crime" which will lose you an election here. The propaganda machine makes it very hard to oppose the police.

So what you are telling me is that the people are being represented by who they elect. If the people want hard on crime to the point of violating civil rights and they get what they want, what is the issue? That a minority has to suffer because of the will of the majority... that is an inherent issue with democracy.

Isn't there a quote that goes something like: People are ruled by the government they deserve.

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

#277

Post by fapjacks » Thu, Jan 28, 2016, 8:05 PM UTC

uremog wrote: post #235

sixothree wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The worst years of my life were living next door to an Orleans Parish Sheriff. He would follow my friends home, he would spit out his gum onto my sidewalk, he let my dogs out of the yard every day for a week, he would blow his leaves onto my yard, he would let his dog bark all day and all night, he would hang his running leaf blower on the fence at 8:00 in the morning on a weekend. I really could go on and on. There…

Funny, I lived next to a police officer once. He was the only one with illegal fireworks every New Year's Eve (in Hawaii, where aerial fireworks are illegal).

Now that's true, but I will say that HPD on Oahu are the most professional and legit police officers I've ever had to deal with. I lived in town for six years and had run-ins with the law and no complaints about their behavior, including a couple of times when I thought that surely I would end up being taken advantage of.

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

#278

Post by hwstar » Thu, Jan 28, 2016, 8:05 PM UTC

ihsw wrote: post #159

hwstar wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There needs to be seals on the cameras, and a connection to the police radio in the car which reports tampering back to the dispatch room. Any deliberate destruction should lead to disciplinary action up to and including termination.

Good luck proving deliberate destruction -- "accidents happen" and noisy hand-waving will result in nothing beyond three-day suspensions and desk jockeying.

If there's a pattern, then a second hidden camera can be installed watching the first camera.

You are correct when it comes to discipline, the police union will stand up to bad actor's behalf. That cultural issue will be a tough nut to crack.

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

#279

Post by izzydata » Thu, Jan 28, 2016, 8:06 PM UTC

Juz16 wrote: post #217

branchless wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have to say America just seems like a dreadful mess.

The thing to keep in mind is that America isn't as homogeneous as a European country, it's as diverse as the entire European continent. Would you say that Denmark is a dreadful mess because of the crime rate in Serbia? Probably not.

Almost every city is drastically different in America.

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

#280

Post by Terr_ » Thu, Jan 28, 2016, 8:08 PM UTC

eric_h wrote: post #138

__jal wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another poster already alluded to the point, but I'd like to make it explicit: if you believe Chicago is exceptional in this, you are wrong. The NYPD is almost as bad (as far as we know, the NYPD doesn't have an off-the-books torture chamber[1], rather preferring to sodomize arrestees with brooms in the regular jails on a more ad hoc basis). But just as life-destroying are the things that go on in smaller communities…

The worst part of the "few bad apples" deflection is that when used, everyone is dropping the second part of that idiom. It's "a few bad apples spoil the bunch|barrel"

"It's just a few pints of Ebola-blood."