This is the bread and butter, where the rubber meats the road. These are the issues with law enforcement that most people don’t see until they are pointed out to them, if they are not brainwashed enough to ignore them. The issues that cause real problems for the citizens as a whole. So lets get started.
Everyone on the states side is on the same side
Cops, prosecutors, judge, and public defenders all work for the same organization. This means the cop arresting you the prosecutor charging you and the judge that over sees the trial all answer to the same organization. In addition if you cannot afford a private attorney, your defender will also be a person who works for the same organization. As well your private attorney is governed by the bar association who ultimately is also under government regulation.
So how can you trust them to do anything but cover their own people when something wrong happens. If for no other reason than they need to maintain working relationships with the different sections of the organization, so they don’t want to prosecute cops or cops don’t want to arrest prosecutors, or judges throw out cases for them etc. When everyone works for the same organization there is not only a monopoly, but there is an unavoidable bias that the citizens have to take on faith wont be acted on.
Cops get special treatment
Laws are often written with exceptions for law enforcement. Special laws are also passed specifically for cops. If a law bans certain items such as knives or certain firearms, cops are always exempt. If they kill someones dog its not a crime and only civil issue. If someone kills a police dog its killing a police officer. If a cop roughs up someone even if they are not arrested its not an assault but if you shove or fight fight back against a cop its not only assault its assaulting a police officer, and if they kill someone “accidentally” its only an accident and again only a civil issue.
Cops always say they they are people too and want to remind everyone that they are individuals, but then have all these benefits and protections built up for them and given authority that citizens don’t have.
Cops getting hanged for doing the right thing
Now in defense of cops for a moment, The very few that are good, and do the right thing by the citizens, will usually get hung out to dry. Especially if it goes against an order even if the order was illegal or immoral. Greg Anderson is a prime example of this from recent history.
All the while the cops that allow them selves to get used to harass the citizens, are rewarded. This is because cops job is no longer to keep the peace but to enforce the law and follow orders. So when a kid has a lemonade stand, thats an unlicensed business That needs to be shut down. See link > https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/asa-baker-lemonade-stand-shut-down-police-permit-b2145610.html People will typically call this a bad cop.
And when you see the opposite in the same situation > https://abcnews.go.com/US/police-called-kids-lemonade-stand-sweetest-reaction/story?id=65265878 you get the “these are good cops.” When in reality they most likely went against the law in their jurisdiction by doing nothing even though this the right thing to do. Depending on their command staff or city council they could have been fired for that.
Incentives and operational priorities are skewed
Setting aside the constitutionality question of DUI check points and check points in general which is questionable according to some lawyers. Many states, local jurisdictions, and the feds have programs for law enforcement where they get bonuses for DUI arrests. More arrests = more money, so there is an incentive for them to potentially fabricate DUI arrests, especially when “Under the influence” in many states is not a set blood alcohol level but the officers opinion on your driving ability.
Which in terms of arresting impaired drivers is necessary, due to other substances that impair driving. This is why you can be given DUI for things other than alcohol. Here is one example of a cop allegedly intentionally arresting someone who is not DUI at a DUI checkpoint. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CA1NitQ5QNA
In a jurisdiction without dash cam or body cameras this is all the easier to pull off, but as many will attests body cameras have an uncanny ability to turn off when the cops do something questionable.
Outside of the cops realm, improper incentives also apply to the prosecutors whose entire performance is dependent on their successful prosecution count regardless of whether they are innocent or not. They have no incentive to drop charges if evidence comes out that the defendant is innocent as long as they still think they can win or get them to plead guilty.
No responsibility personally or departmentally
Starting at the department level there is very little if any responsibility for any of their actions whether necessary, intentional, accidental or otherwise. For instance, This incident in Colorado that started from a shoplifting call And ended with an uninvolved family without a home and no one to pay for the damages. https://www.denverpost.com/2019/10/30/swat-team-destroyed-greenwood-village-familys-home-police-dont-have-to-pay-for-damages/
The Homeowners insurer, did eventually pay the family a partial payment of $345,000 for the damage to the house was not close to enough to cover all the costs associated with the demolition, property losses or even the appraised cost of the $580,000 home.
The police also caused roughly $70k in damages to the neighbors house as well and offered $2,000 dollars in compensation when the homeowners insurer refused to pay anything. Sure seems like serving the public right? Over a shoplifting charge the police will do almost 3/4s of a million dollars in damages to unrelated peoples homes, to bring the person to “justice” and then leave the homeowners on the hook for the damages they caused. Of course the pendulum seems to have swung the other way on this one in most places and now they don’t arrest anyone for shoplifting period.
Now should the criminal be liable for damages too? Sure, but fiscally that will never payout in most cases. Unfortunately if a civil case is ever won in any situation involving cops its always the taxpayers ultimately footing the bill. So the cops never feel anything repercussions.
Personally
Now on the individual level, for the most cops are given the benefit of the doubt from the courts and a good amount of the public, when it comes to bad or flat out wrong decisions and I do get it. They do make split second decisions and that cannot be judged with 20/20 hindsight all the time, but there is plenty of examples just listed already where decisions they have made were not hard to see that they were wrong.
However even if they do, rarely will they be charged sentenced or fired even if they did commit wrong doing or criminal activity, often allowing them to resign and go to a different departments. This stops any questions from being raised about that individuals cases and whether they need to be reopened or questioned allowing the other records to stay in tact, when depending on the situation those cases should be reopened and looked at again if the officer is doing something wrong.
Look everybody makes mistakes I get hat but when cops make mistakes or commit wrong doing it usually results in tragedy rarely with any repercussions, no restitution, not even a demotion, or docked pay.
Take a look at just a hand full of incidents where SWAT teams raided the wrong house.
https://www.foxnews.com/story/minneapolis-swat-team-raids-wrong-house
This one the person was killed.
https://www.newsweek.com/robert-dotson-familys-furious-police-assassination-wrong-house-1796281
Check out
https://thefreethoughtproject.com/cop-watch/who-pays-the-price-for-botched-swat-team-raids-we-do
For further reading on this subject specifically.
Whether they were acting on bad info from a detective or they unknowingly went to the wrong house, Either way they are either lazy and not doing their own recon or confirmation, or they are flat out don’t care and are negligent. But if your going to do a no knock or any warrant service and shoot anyone who shoots at you or fights back you better be damn sure you are at the right house, and that you are not being intentionally or negligently mislead by who ever is requesting you do the warrant service.
Restitution
So they are doing something wrong? Take it up with the judge is always their response.
So what do you do? You take them to court.
You sue them, and if you win? guess what you paid for it.
The individual cops who make the mistake rarely ever feel any judgement laid down because the department or city/county/state foots the bill thanks to qualified immunity for the officer themselves. So lets say they destroy someones life and even their courts cant justify it and you win a settlement. Where do the departments get their money? Taxes. So they just took the money that was forcibly taken from you and gave it back in a settlement. Their budget doesn’t change, The officers are not personally responsible, and the machine keeps on rolling.
While there is reason for qualified immunity, though I do not fully agree with them as the judge could ultimately throw out cases that were frivolous or hand no standing but they give a blanket immunity instead. So is there any incentive for them to dO right by the citizens? Not really and Part 5 will cover wHat makes this even worse.
Help us grow and share our content to your timelines and feeds.
The first of our merch is live on the shop now with more to come go to the link below and pick up yours now
https://modern-barbarian.com/shop/
Follow us at