The Day I Found His Secret Box

[Xipe Totec]

It was the day my belief in the police system shattered


https://medium.com/%40evelynfogleman/the-day-i-found-his-secret-box-28b1c5855acc

This is really, really messed up.

Take a moment to read it.

[Nevilledog]

1. Well worth the read. Thank you!

[malaise]

2. MUST READ

Rec

[CaliforniaPeggy]

3. Absolutely must read. It only took me a few minutes and now I see. n/t

[Blue_true]

6. What the cop in the article was doing get repeated over and over for other things.

For example, here in Florida having Pot without a Medical Marijuana prescription is a felony. Black and Brown kids get arrested out of proportion to White kids, so the POC kids get the first line on a rapsheet. There are a few exception, if the kid is a high caliber ball player, he likely will get end up having someone in the system get him off or get charged reduced to something less than a felony. The Pot law here is stupid, that is why if Legal Pot is on the November ballot, I will vote for it, even though I prefer decriminalization, it is just that if the choice is between legalization and what we have now, in my mind legalization will win every time. There are other chicken-crap things that cops do, like citing a Black or Brown kid until the family can’t pay the fines or the kid fails to appear in Court - that leads to a warrant for arrest, so then a kid shows up as “wanted” if stopped by a cop.

[FM123]

4. Chilling.

When I read this sentence, I thought of the young cops looking at Derek Chauvin trying to read his face as he kept his knee on George Floyd's neck...

Young cops were being raised up under bad cops, and so the poison was just going to keep spreading.

[Miigwech]

5. They all need to be fired, start over

[Blue_true]

7. They would need to be fired top to bottom and new cops would have to be

drawn from the tiny few academies that actually frown on such nonsense. One new thing that big cities that are relatively close together (within 150 miles of each other) is set up their own shared police academy that is answerable to city administrators, only cops that graduate from that academy, to it’s standards would be hired for police forces in the cities that are maintaining the academy. NYC may have it’s own academy, but it is clear that department need to be ripped apart from top to bottom, including the academy, and be rebuilt.

[Progressive Jones]

17. Put together new PDs without the knowledge of those currently employed.

As soon as the new group is ready, fire the current ones, effective immediately.

Also make it impossible for police unions to do anything other than negotiate salaries.

[Blue_true]

19. I believe getting a Police Chief or Commissioner who is committed to reform and

is ready for battles with the police unions is the first step. Politicians really mess that up, like the NYC Mayor did when he picked a new Commissioner recently. Then, Captains have to be forced to leave or retire and they get replaced by reformers. All the while, the only officers that get hired are from the reformed academy and the only officers that get promoted are the ones that do their jobs effectively and don’t log valid citizen complaints against them. I believe with such a system, a police department will improve every year and be totally reformed and effective in five to ten years.

Sometimes I get so mad that I would be ok with mass firing, but that likely won’t work out well.

[Progressive Jones]

20. You make good points.

I would also like to see the highest authority in any PD be civilian. Period.
Chiefs and Commanders come up from the same cesspool as crooked pigs.

[uponit7771]

8. +1, when this was done in Dallas PD the whole dept turned around and were a part of the ...

... community after 5 of them got killed they gave out water bottles and hugs.

[uponit7771]

9. There's no freedom without equal voting access, we have the right to vote but not equal access to

... voting resources

[alwaysinasnit]

10. K&R Thanks for posting.

[safeinOhio]

11. Was married to one for

a couple of years. They are a gang.

[Stonepounder]

12. I might get clobbered for this

But I think that a) police departments do NOT need all that surplus military equipment and b) I would be VERY careful about hiring ex-military. Before you go bananas over that last comment please understand I have nothing but respect for our military and our military veterans. But from the first day of boot camp they are taught how to kill, not how to 'defuse' a situation. And I didn't say don't hire any veterans, I just said 'be careful'.

Note: My wife of nearly 25 years was married to career top Sergeant before he died. He was in the Catering Corps, yet even so he had to do target practice and hand to hand regularly. He never had to practice 'defusing' a situation.

[Tommymac]

13. K & R

[blueinredohio]

14. There are a few good cops but it is a good old boys club.

And it's not only cops it's lawyers, judges etc.

[Lonestarblue]

15. I remember reading some time ago that police also keep guns around to plant on people.

If they kill someone, they can add a gun to the scene and say it was self defense. Or they have some drugs to plant to make arrests. I’m beginning to believe that we need to start all over with police departments. What we have seems too corrupt to fix.

[Progressive Jones]

21. I can absolutely assure you that this goes on. nt

[Progressive Jones]

16. Shitty cops deserve the title of "PIG". nt

[Enoki33]

18. This is only one example of the injustice that has become so

widespread that it has become a culture problem within the force we pay to supposedly protect us.

[PoliWrangler]

22. Good article nt

[WhiskeyGrinder]

23. ACAB. Abolish it all.

[crickets]

24. Wow. K&R for the post and the discussion.