Bad Cop in Trouble for Beating A Man Filming in Las Vegas.

Then how about we just give death sentences to anyone who beats someone up while we're at it?

Your idea of "fair sentencing" is bullshit. Everything is essentially a death sentence. Would you consider robbery, assault, or murder to be a stupid law? What about DUI?

Barkey: Heathen has no interest in society where anything resembling law is enforced. He is one of those types. It is not worth it to bother discussing it with him.

edited 23rd Apr '11 11:07:35 AM by TuefelHundenIV

Then again. Any human who decides they should enforce the law should face much harsher punishment when they break the law.

Simple assault and abuse of authority are different beasts.

Assault can be dealt with through restitution+punitive damages, or with county jail.

Abuse of authority, on the other hand, should be met with exemplary punishment. It's something that should not be tolerated at all. A slap on the wrist does not cut it.

edited 23rd Apr '11 1:07:06 PM by SavageHeathen

I have no problems with cracking down on them and throwing them in the slammer with nice big fat felony for their permanent record.

When I first read that, I thought it said "throwing them in there with a nice big fat felon."

That could work too. Possibly even better.

edited 23rd Apr '11 1:03:31 PM by TotemicHero

@Barkey

Perhaps the attitude of what you can get away with relation to excessive force isn't the best kind of attitude to be held by police officers?

Basically they were discussing how close to the line they could get with force and not cross it. I have had a similar discussion with folks on use of force. This is usually reserved for very "unpleasant individuals" you come across.

^^

Perhaps the definition of excessive force needs to be changed. Some people really do deserve a good asskicking. The civilian world is very sue-happy, I have found out recently.

"Oh no that big mean cop broke my leg with his baton!"

"Yeah, I accidentally broke his leg with my baton, since he was resisting after I tried to arrest him for stabbing someone."

It's the same idiotic line of thinking that gets burglars money when they sue for being hurt in a home they are burglarizing. I wish there was a way the judge could be like "Your law suit is void. You deserved your ass-kicking the cops gave you after mugging that old lady."

edited 23rd Apr '11 4:39:28 PM by Barkey

Yeah they are. A cut down on frivolous law suits would be nice.

Sigh....if only; throw in corporal punishment for schools.

If you want authority, you should expect strict scrutiny.

This.

I'm tired of watching videos of cops beating up on some guy huddled on the ground shouting "Stop Resisting"

This stuff must not be tolerated. That means more scrutiny and more accountability.

An important question, though, is how representative those videos are of the overall picture. The times when things go well and everyone's being polite aren't generally interesting enough to film, after all.

I'm not gonna agree on the corporal punishment so we'll skip that point.

I feel the police shouldn't be allowed to use excessive force as a form of punishment, the legal/justice system is what metes out the punishments. Restraining force should be just that, to restrain.

And the question to that is how representative are the police reports to the overall picture?

(Though to be fair, almost anybody, police, insurance, politician, customer support, they all lie in reports...)

Hey, I don't trust those either. I was thinking more in terms of what actually happens, tough as that might be (well, is) to record. And a series of vids focusing exclusively on the negative doesn't give you a great perspective on that.

Neither do the cops trying to suppress people who do try to record an event.

Some places, apparently they're trying to make that act criminal.

edited 23rd Apr '11 5:33:51 PM by blueharp

I agree that bad cops give the good ones bad names. Fortunately, with the modern age filled with cell phones in every direction, there's a much higher chance of catching the abuse on film, so it's not just their word against the cop.

The problem is getting these scumbags held accountable for their actions.

Far too often I see nothing being done, or slap on the wrist 'Suspensions' getting handed out.

Even firing these people aren't enough.

There should be real criminal consequences for this kind of abuse of authority.

Yeah, and as Barkey stated, stricter punishments won't cut it because complaints of abuse are often misconstrued as actual abuse, inspiring the fellow officers to protect their own. Not surprising, it's what anyone would do.

So what would it take to get regular officers to turn in their buddies who are legitimately abusing their power?

Let bystanders record LEO actions without any sort of reprisal. Let those records surface.

Throw abusive cops in the slammer without as much as a second thought, and without any sort of special protection.

I would be fine with that. There is plenty of proof that knowing you are being watched by cameras and other recording devices modifies your behavior to some limited extent.

This is an article I found last month Body Cams for Cops. Dash Cams for your body.

@Ratiz: Two ideas:

1. Make not turning in a cop who's broken the law itself a punishable offense.
2. Meta-cops to police the cops. The normal cops police the meta-cops. Hopefully the equilibrium is that everybody stays within the law.