Recent articles about police abuse, for those interested (feel free to ignore these too, seifer):
Here's an excellent article on "puppycide", which involve cops killing any dog that slightly bothers them, a practice which is
appallingly common. Again, there is never any accountability for this abuse (one of the dogs in the first article was chained and quite calm before the cop started bothering it). There's not even any training at most police departments to deal with dogs, whereas the US Postal Service, for instance, has annual dog training.
There are definitely some very good cops. The problem is mob mentality overrides any sense of justice when it's the police officers who do something wrong.
This story illustrates that point very clearly. One cop started questioning why another cop was pulled over and tested positive for a BAC above the legal limit... but wasn't cited for it. Take a wild smurfing guess which officer was investigated and fired.
City pays $200k due to a 2007 police shooting. The circumstances in this are just mind-boggling. The home owner comes out to confront what he thinks are drug dealers on his front lawn. They are in fact undercover cops posing as drug dealers who were, if I remember correctly, using his property to plan a deal. The cops killed him, and an eyewitness said the cops shot before the man (did I mention he was 80-years-old?) even pulled his gun. Oh yeah, one of the cops involved has been since fired for being part of a scam.
Atlanta is an especially notorious place ever since the
Kathryn Johnston murder (where police shot and killed a 92-year-old woman in a botched drug raid and tried to cover it up). The city is now going to
pay $20,000 to a 62-year-old woman who was told to move from the sidewalk where she and her friend were talking about a funeral, and then was arrested for asking the inexcusable question of "why?" Of course the department concedes to no wrong-doing, and even emphasizes that the cop acted just fine. This quote is just amazing:
Quote:
"Those [national] guidelines are based on a set of proven standards that take into account the difficult situations police officers face every day, and the split-second decisions they must make to protect citizens and reduce their own personal risk,” APD public affairs director Carlos Campos said in an e-mail.
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Which just obviously relates to walking up to two old ladies talking calmly in a sidewalk. Obviously a split-second decision had to be made!