February 25, 2006

• Every time I hear the name of the state of Florida I brace myself because the news gets horrider and horrider.
• Whenever I see coppers in the country to the south it seems they're making someone kiss the pavement with their mouth.
• Great post - upon scanning some of the videos, my fear of merkin police is clearly not totally irrational. How frightening to be part of a visible minority and therefore under constant suspicion and fair game for harassment.
• Fucking pigs.
• Is not the real issue here a dangerous outbreak of journalism? I do hope the authorities will be looking into that.
• um ok stupid and possibly very naive me - trusting neither the PD's or the journalist - but hey didn't the clips get a lot shorter when he wasn't intimidated -??? Maybe I'm just all round paranoid and should go back to my nice soft white room........
• So the allegations of harrassment by Florida law enforcement during the 2000 election against mintority voters must certainly be a total SHAM! Jebby is running a nice mini-police state. Consider it a conservative "think tank" where they test out new ideas in government corruption, graft, and intimidation. Fuck the whole Bush family. At best totally naive and incompetent, and worse total nazi fuck-sticks.
• Watching that reminded me of a clip from over at the blue from Florida of a black woman being tazered a couple of times for refusing to get out of her car when she was pulled over for a traffic stop. I don't know why, but aside from the rather horrible sound of the woman screaming when she was being tazered (and not to get into a debate as to whether or not the policeman responsible should have behaved the way he did, because you'd have to be out of your mind to think the 2nd tazering was justified), the thing that stuck with me was this schmuck's comment of: imagine missy doing this in ANY OTHER COUNTRY EXCEPT FOR THE UNITED STATES.... we all know the answer to that situation. 'Missy', in this case, being the black woman being tazered, rather than the police officer. Lord, I seriously wanted to ask that guy if he truly believed that the rule of law is unknown outside the US. I got a migraine just thinking about what a police officer in Australia would go through if he was videotaped tazering someone for a traffic stop even once, let alone twice. Actually, I'm not even sure our officers have tazer guns. I know they have capsicum spray in some / all states. Same migraine applies. But, you know, apparently in every other country but the US our police officers simply empty a clipload of ammunition through the driver's side window and dump the bod(y/ies) on the side of the road. Pfeh. /derail
• my fear of merkin police... Fish, you're afraid of cops wearing pubic wigs?
• Ah, yes, America! I feel safer just watching these!
• It truly is a police state; he wasn't even black. Only three or four of those cops were wankers, most just told him they don't have a complaint form, and that he needs to speak to the Sergeant. Although the first one was scary. He should have said to him: "Well now officer, thing is I have another complaint, ahh.. this is a little awkward.. you see it's about you, could you take the details for me, you psycho motherfucker?" I know I would've.
• A man walks into the Police Station wishing to speak with the burglar who had broken into his house the night before. "You'll get your chance in court," says the desk sergeant. "No, no, no!" says the man. "I want to know how he got into the house without waking the wife. I've been trying for years!" A snail walks into the police station after just been robbed. The desk sergeant asked if he could describe what happened and the snail said "It all happened so fast!" A nun walks into the police station to report she had been graped. 'you mean raped surely' said the desk sergeant. 'no, graped' the nun says, 'There were a bunch of them'
• Fish, you're afraid of cops wearing pubic wigs? Indeed I am, ten, although the occasional constable sporting a strap-on cephalopod is not unappealing.
• Randomaction's thoughts were on par with mine -- usually we hear about cops harassing minorities, but this looked like a white, college-age guy who was clearly being polite and he was given a lot of shit at 4 of those stations. It could have been me. On the other hand, the idea of a "police complaint form" is kind of stupid... that's where carefully pointed letters or phone calls (and if money permits, an attorney) are probably better tools. Maybe it sounded so dumb to some of those cops that they thought it gave them free license.
• Police complaint forms: Boston Unknown generic complaints form What's interesting to me is that the next two ask for ethnic origin: Glendale, Arizona complaint form Albequerque complaint form The Albuquerque police department is expecting four full pages of complaints, along with expecting that the complainer will have to authorize the release of medical records! I guess you don't want to get into trouble with the cops in Albuquerque.
• The boston form is just for the MBTA (transit authority as in subway cops)
• Ah, yes. You're right on that one. Maybe that's why they don't ask for your ethnic origin.
• Oh America. You guys are so full of shit.
• Note that I may or may not also be full of shit, but we do know for certain that South Florida is full of shit.
• the idea of a "police complaint form" is kind of stupid... You're kidding, right? You'd rather have an informal complaint policy that says, "we'll gladly read your letters and take your phone calls"? Rather than a formalized process involving, as stated in the report, a solid paper trail? You might as well "go see the Sargeant."
• Yeah paper trails are cool, you get a little dinky number to take home with you. Also the, best bit, you get a copy of the compliant, to take to your lawyer when the police lose your original form. On the other hand if the police treat a complaint against an officer just as they would any other walk in, they're going to want to hear it first. Obviously a complaint against an officer is not like any other walk in. If I had been any one of those officers I would have bitch slapped that whinny white wimp, good and proper. Sadly I failed the psych test. And background check. And citizen requirements. Who knew it was so difficult to be cop?
• a horse walks into a police station. the desk sergeant says "why the long face?"
• Yep, there are plenty of bully cops out there. I haven't watched 'em all, but this one struck a chord: http://www.policeabuse.org/Media/nebraska.WMV Golly, I wasn't aware that I was required to carry ID with me everywhere I walk. Oh, that's right I'm NOT. "Vere are yor papersss??" I've gone to jail for the same thing -- declining to produce an ID while walking on the sidewalk. Unfortunately, though, most of us don't carry cameras with us 24/7 though. If a cop bullies you, or even falsely arrests you, there is no recourse. I'm very glad to see websites like this out there. Maybe it will prompt cops to step away from their unofficial "To Intimate and Subdue" policy and fully embrace their laughable slogan, "To Protect and Serve".
• "To Intimate and Subdue" *sniggers* somebody has a uniform fetish.... *runs away*
• Given how bureaucracies tend to work, one has to wonder if many of the police officers manning complaint desks (or 'public' desks in these cases), which must be considered a horrible duty post, aren't there because they aren't very good officers and thus are on the outs with their superiors. Gets a lovely vicious circle going. Interestingly enough I just read an article about how the worst offenders in most professions are a tiny minority who cause the vast majority of complaints levelled against each profession. It's a common repeating problem, as well as the fact that most professions are reluctant to deal with the offenders, for various reasons.
• chrominance - good point about a complaint form not being so 'stupid'! I stand corrected.
• UPDATE! Lauderhill Cop files lawsuit against Television Station, after he's caught intimidating and threatening a citizen on Video http://cbs4.com/local/local_story_053001510.html
• Good for him! Drum up some more press and disgrace yourself further publicly!
• Miami Chief Timoney was surprised at that response. ”I hope it wasn't my police officer. That's very serious. I'd treat it very serious.” Unfortunately, the only punishment meted out to the bad cops is time off with pay. Oh yeah, punish me harder please.
• I've had enough similar experiences to conclude that it isn't a small minority at all. In fact, it appears that self-assured arrogance is almost essential to being a cop. Even more significant, however, is that the vast majority of shitizens seem to respect such scolding, surrogate-daddy authority figures.
• Libertarian said: Even more significant, however, is that the vast majority of shitizens seem to respect such scolding, surrogate-daddy authority figures. A gun goes a long way to making people respect authority even when authority is wrong.