Comments on: Hidden camera footage of police officers hindering citizens who try to file complaints

By: David

David — Sun, 04 Mar 2012 23:56:00 +0000

And folks still question whether tazers and pepper spray (i.e. non-lethal methods to force compliance) are easily overused. Something needs to be done.

By: matlockexpressway

matlockexpressway — Sat, 03 Mar 2012 21:05:00 +0000

Right. Nice straw man, though.

The original comment was “You have to stand up and accuse the wrongdoer.”

Nowhere in those words is it obviously implied that you have to accuse the wrongdoer to the wrongdoer’s face. Rather, you simply have to stand up and accuse the wrongdoer to someone with the power to censure them… as you deftly recognize.

By: Pedantic Douchebag

Pedantic Douchebag — Fri, 02 Mar 2012 21:06:00 +0000

It’s good that you’re fixating on the important things. I like you.

By: Pedantic Douchebag

Pedantic Douchebag — Fri, 02 Mar 2012 21:05:00 +0000

Having had a pretty shitty experience with a free legal aid service that was too scared to take on my criminal landlord, I am doubtful that such an organization would be much help against the police. I hope I’m wrong.

By: Pedantic Douchebag

Pedantic Douchebag — Fri, 02 Mar 2012 21:01:00 +0000

The NYPD scares me. They have combat aircraft, a small navy, an in-house CIA, and officers posted all over the world, paid for by the US Department of State.

By: Pedantic Douchebag

Pedantic Douchebag — Fri, 02 Mar 2012 20:58:00 +0000

Paragraph breaks are your friend.

By: Pedantic Douchebag

Pedantic Douchebag — Fri, 02 Mar 2012 20:55:00 +0000

Hang on, I have a comb you can borrow.

By: Deborah Parks

Deborah Parks — Fri, 02 Mar 2012 05:13:00 +0000

Are they all just nosy busy bodies and want to know everything? There is no protection against abuse when they all protect each other. There is NO SAFETY

By: benenglish

benenglish — Fri, 02 Mar 2012 04:22:00 +0000

Lessee if I’ve got this straight.

Somebody goes to a govt agency, asks for a form to make a complaint, gets harrassment, threats, etc. That’s bad.

I propose that if somebody goes to a govt agency and asks for a form to make a complaint, just give ‘em the form. And that’s derided as “the bureaucrat’s shield”.

IOW, there’s no solution to the problems shown in the video.

I reject that notion but, just out of curiosity, what’s your solution? Give out the form, don’t give out the form, or some third state of assistance that I can’t really imagine at the moment?

Or have I completely misunderstood and your use of the phrase “the bureaucrat’s shield” was not derisive but, instead, positive?

I’m confused. Help me out here.

By: Marja Erwin

Marja Erwin — Fri, 02 Mar 2012 00:36:00 +0000

Making complaints, formal or otherwise, makes us vulnerable to retaliation: harassment, false arrest, watchlisting, and in some cases murder. I brought up the fate of Duanna Johnson above. I would not suggest it unless you are rich, white, male, cis, and straight, for starters…

By: BlackPanda

BlackPanda — Fri, 02 Mar 2012 00:04:00 +0000

I have had dealings with a police officer who used to frequently regale us with his macho tales about how fun it was to start “turf wars” between teenage pot dealers by telling them “such and such grassed you up” whenever they had occasion to search them, and has a bizarre obsession with “outing” crossdressers.

By: EnglebertFlaptyback

EnglebertFlaptyback — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 22:59:00 +0000

Nuance? Sarcasm? You missed them.

By: Juan Navarro

Juan Navarro — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 22:13:00 +0000

I will say this: FILE THE COMPLAINT NO MATTER WHAT. Cops are afraid of them in the long run, enough of those, and it can make their career a nightmare. It won’t get them fired, but any and all promotions or shifts in position, payroll, or schedule can be influenced by that. On to of it it put them under scrutiny for cases. Also, most cops that are assholes to you, tend to be shoeless to their co-workers, and if they do make an enemy ( and yes, they’re job is HIGHLY politicized) they find it to exploit and cause havoc.

And if by chance, they are investigated, those are thing that will brought into court and use against them by any half-decent lawyer.

So complain, do what you gotta do, but get it on paper, in the long run it can lead to these bullshit “peace officers’ going the way of the dodo.

By: LYNDON

LYNDON — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 22:13:00 +0000

You have to stand up and accuse the wrongdoer.

I think that’s what the form is for.

By: EH

EH — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 20:19:00 +0000

It’s not so much the blue code of silence as an Omerta, a much older concept.

By: EH

EH — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 20:14:00 +0000

You might consider talking to a professional about your catastrophizing and absolutist reasoning.

By: EH

EH — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 20:07:00 +0000

You must be a prison guard.

By: Sean Mangan

Sean Mangan — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 20:06:00 +0000

How many people got beat to death the first time they heard that?

Scary how close we get sometimes to various dystopian fictions.

By: Robert McCallum

Robert McCallum — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 19:50:00 +0000

If you dont like what America has become, DONT LEAVE IT, CHANGE IT! That is our DUTY to change what is wrong, to stand up to abuse of it’s citizens by the authority.

But, by your view, if we lose all our rights and property is stolen, if our founding documents get crapped on, we should abandon our country to our enemies?

By: simonbarsinister

simonbarsinister — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 19:30:00 +0000

If she had refused the search, as was her legal right, she might have sat in a jail cell with a broken nose that evening. That cop didn’t sound very stable.

By: Matthew Hutson

Matthew Hutson — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 19:08:00 +0000

Police obey the “blue code of silence”: they don’t rat each other out.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Code_of_Silence
Perhaps allowing someone else to make a complaint is treated the same as making a complaint oneself.

By: Daniel Burns

Daniel Burns — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 19:06:00 +0000

For those that can afford it (and I know many can’t, especially those who are often targeted and harassed by Police regularly) use a lawyer to file a complaint with the police. In larger cities there may be a legal aid service that will help even the indigent with this.

By: Laura Chandler

Laura Chandler — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 18:28:00 +0000

Uhhhh WRONG. You are NOT required to make the complaint to the actual officer. Rape victims don’t need to go over their assualters house.. You have the right to face your accuser in COURT. This whole video is police doing their jobs badly. Stop making excuses for police corruption and maybe we will have less of it.

By: sarahnocal

sarahnocal — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 18:15:00 +0000

Without a form there is no record. You could say something and they could say you said something else. Written proof is something completely different than verbal proof. I would not want to say anything that might have legal ramifications, I would certainly want my words clearly written in this case. And a copy for me.

By: Joshua Bardwell

Joshua Bardwell — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 18:05:00 +0000

FWIW, he did not have the right to search your car or person without your consent (or probable cause, which he certainly lacked).

By: Joshua Bardwell

Joshua Bardwell — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 18:03:00 +0000

Good point. “Fill out form X73-dash-4″ is the bureaucrat’s shield.

By: Joshua Bardwell

Joshua Bardwell — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 18:01:00 +0000

Let me be the first to say, “If you don’t like America, why don’t you leave it!”

Oh. Wait. What?

By: Joshua Bardwell

Joshua Bardwell — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 17:59:00 +0000

What’s worse – the chance for teenagers pranking cops or the chance that a grievous abuse of authority on the part of a cop goes unreported because the citizen is intimidated and refused a form?

+100000000

If you truly were a victim of police abuse, do you really think you’re going to tell the first cop sitting at the desk about the incident? What are the chances that cop is with internal affairs? What are the chances that cop is buddies with the exact same cop who abused you, and is going to do his/her best to shuffle this away? Not rocket science here. Any system for reporting police abuse needs to have the option of protecting the complaintant from the very cops who abused him or her. If that produces false positives so be it. That’s for internal affairs to sort out. I mean, if cops themselves were capable of dealing with complaints against themselves, then we wouldn’t have internal affairs at all, would we?

By: James

James — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 17:54:00 +0000

Never said that. I just agreed that in a literal fight, they’d probably win.

By: Martha Bridegam

Martha Bridegam — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 17:32:00 +0000

Try the Human Rights Commission at http://www.sf-hrc.org/ . One thing about San Francisco: there’s always somewhere to take your complaint. (The original “Mau-Mauing The Flak Catchers” essay was written here. A very long time ago.)

Guy I knew twenty years ago decided not to go to law school when he realized that in San Francisco it was harder to get someone a shelter bed than a lawyer. He became an organizer. Doubt he’s regretted the decision.