Attached: 1 image
Black California Cop was fired for intervening when her colleague was very abusive to a black boy smashing his face into a cactus plant.
This kind of systemic fuckery is exactly why ACAB has been and remains accurate. If cops with moral fortitude are removed from their posts for standing up to cops without it, then the system is selecting for bastard cops and those that allow bastard cops to thrive.
This is accurate. I don't subscribe to ACAB, but I see the logic in it, and this certainly seems to be the case for it. The only time we hear about "good" cops are in these cases.
The fallacy I see, and the reason I don't subscribe to ACAB is that any "good" cops that exist that aren't in this situation (of being fired), go pretty much unnoticed by everyone. Nothing they do is newsworthy. The other, more personal reason that I have to not subscribe to ACAB, is that doing so would shatter the faith I have in our entire society to govern itself. IMO, one of the first and most important parts of living in a functional society is the laws and the enforcement of those laws. Police are the front line of enforcement, on the streets with the innocent and perpetrators alike. If they're unable or unwilling to do the job as detailed in the laws of the society, all criminal cases are suspect, both in what's prosecuted and very importantly, what isn't.
If they're intentionally not bringing in criminal law breakers, and intentionally bringing in otherwise innocent persons (at least in regards to any criminal charges), then the courts, where Justice actually happens, can't effectively do their job at ensuring that criminals are put into detention facilities, and innocent people are released.
Cops make mistakes. They're humans like everyone else, and the court should be keeping them in check. Making sure that when they charge an innocent person, that person is set free, and when they charge someone who is guilty, they convict them accurately with all the punishments required as dictated by the laws, written by the government which we all vote for.
Government and the laws on the books, all mean nothing if there's no way to enforce those laws. The police are just the first step in criminal cases, without them doing the job, the whole system is useless.
You have a very naive understanding of the function that police performs in our society - I'm going to go ahead and guess that you are not aware of the history of policing? Spoiler alert - it is drenched in the ideology of white supremacism and the politics of colonialism and class warfare.
Maybe I can help you understand while I feel ACAB despite letting myself have cop friends. The problem is one of elevated responsibility.
Imagine a gang for a minute. Ever seen any good gang documentaries? A lot of "members" of the less insane gangs aren't really criminals in that they just hang out and hang around. But they are in one of two real buckets, buckets that we can judge them for.
They are fully aware of many of their members are criminals, maybe even rapists and murderers, but take no action about it because they feel they can't OR EVEN because "I've never actually met the members who did this. Our group is really big".
They are not fully aware that the gang they are part of commits crimes. In this case, they are being willfully ignorant.
For police it's the same. I live in an area where the cops are generally not going around abusing minorities for the hell of it. The breakdown here are the "Thin Blue Line folks" (bullet point number 2 above), and the "we're good cops, so why would we go start trouble elsewhere?" (bullet point number 1 above) folks.
If I'm part of a subsidiary of a large organization, and my parent organization is allows for criminal enterprise, I am either complicit or fighting it.
Now the one exception I would allow for ACAB are cops who try to walk the fine line between forcing change and not getting fired. I may not agree with them in their passivity, but if in full honesty they believe they are being the most positive force for change they can without no longer being a force for change at all, I suppose I can give them that. I don't believe I've met a cop like that in person in my entire life.
1: “Expect the best and people will rise to the occasion.”
2: Good police officers like in OP are fired every month. 800,000 cops in the US… there is a police department trying to fire their good cop(s) RIGHT NOW! Why plaster ACAB everywhere and risk discouraging them?
I do imagine many would argue even the fired officer (Taisyn Crutchfield) was a bastard but that gets tough to defend.
They are fundamentally opposed like matter and antimatter. and like matter/antimatter, they annihilate eachother on contact.
If you are a good person, and a cop, You will either quickly end up forced to quit/fired as you take a stand against the institutional corruption, casual racism, ethical violations, abuse of people, and more.. Or your fellow cops end up arranging your death.
this is why police agencies have gone to court to fight for the right to NOT higher qualified candidates who know the law, who know how to behave, etc etc.
Cause they don't want respectable cops.
They want under educated highschool bully types who are quick to get down with the corruption if it means they can wax their Authoraween on the poor unsuspecting public.
In corrupt systems being corrupt isn't an option; it's mandatory.
A good example of the cadet to pig pipeline is padding overtime. Whenever you see a cop charged with anything, one of the charges will inevitably be "theft of public funds" or some such. That's padded overtime. But now imagine you're honest on your timesheet. You look like the laziest cop now.
Same thing for arrests, tickets, or any metric used to gauge performance.
I mean, this is literally a prime example of why people insist (correctly) that ALL cops are bad. Because if they're good for 3 seconds, they get fired or chased out.
this validates your opinion. the good apple has been thrown out by all the other apples, lest it unspoil the whole barrel. it's a self-healing, antifragile system designed to perpetuate abuse and lawlessness.
A month later, police responded to a call regarding Towns’ two children, one of whom was upset over their father’s recent death at the hands of law enforcement. According to the reports, one of the colleagues allegedly put one of the son’s face near a cactus-like plant. Sixteen-minute body camera footage released by the department in June shows Crutchfield subtly shoving the officer, going back and forth with one of the people at the scene.
“Officer Taisyn Crutchfield fortunately followed state-wide police training and intervened to de-escalate the situation. Officer Crutchfield deserved a commendation for her swift and heroic action, avoiding needless violence,” a press release from Crutchfield’s attorney said, the outlet reported. “Instead, she was relieved of duty and punished. Our lawsuit is about righting the wrong that Officer Crutchfield has suffered from.”
“The Pasadena Police Department proudly serves the residents of Pasadena with honor and integrity, and is proud of its diversity throughout all ranks of the Department.”
Like, this fuckin bullshit, “we’re proud of our diversity” shit—it’s so besides the fuckin point that it’s more of an insult than anything.
“Black family firebombed in their homes in the middle of the night by mob of white cops who called themselves ‘The White Knights.’”
On Mondays, The Majority Report they had a NYC whistleblower police officer who leaked recordings he made of higher ups admitting to quotas which are illegal.
Many of these abuses happen because unwritten quotas that officers must maintain or they will be disciplined. They must enforce overbearing laws against minority populations to get their quotas and if they enforce them on white populations then they are written up.
I got pulled over for 5km over the limit once in Toronto. The cop was brand new and he even told me that he had to get his quota. 25 dollar fine as well as a victim surcharge fee on top.
I didn't even bother fighting it, my time was worth more than the court time wasted with that one.
To anyone living in NY the thought of there not being quotas is laughable.
Like ok Mr.Fuzz tell me again how my seeing cops posted up everywhere trying to catch speeders near the end of every month, but not any other time is somehow not them trying to fulfill their quotas... Better yet tell me how the cop that pulled me over and then lied to the judge about what happened was not about quotas when it also just so happened to be at the end of the month...
Cops are wealth protectors first and tax collectors second. Nowhere does "serve the public interest" play into the roles they're given by the masters.
Also the standard cop defense of not having quotas isn't hey can write as many tickets as they want. Which explicitly doesn't deny the existence of a quota.
It's bad, but more nuanced than an image headline:
According to the reports, one of the colleagues allegedly put one of the son’s face near a cactus-like plant. Sixteen-minute body camera footage released by the department in June shows Crutchfield subtly shoving the officer, going back and forth with one of the people at the scene.
“Officer Taisyn Crutchfield fortunately followed state-wide police training and intervened to de-escalate the situation.
Haven't watched the video yet, but it's bad enough without sensationalizing.
EDIT Video summary: Younger brother with anger issues in public after father killed by police. Older brother (who seems more calm) confronting him. Poor mom trying to deescalate.
First officer acts well, tries to defuse. Second officer arrives and immediately begins to detain.
The cactus was all along the wall where detention occurred. The "shoved into cactus" could just be a product of the environment, could be purposeful, angles don't really show unfortunately, but the actions of officer 2 seem off. When moving the suspect away from the wall he briefly puts his hand near his throat. This could be training, I am not familiar enough with procedure, but none of the other officers do it.
Suspects suitably angry but compliant after being placed in cars.
The deescalation by the pictured officer happened after the boys were in the cars. She attempts to push officer 2 away from the mother after he says the suspects were agresive with officers. This leads me to believe there is a history with officer 2. Unfortunately for her, her action was very late, and was physical against another officer who in that moment was not being aggressive. Another officer separates them and gets them both away from the mother.
Officers (2) were in the wrong and not deescalating properly, but have also likely been conditioned to a dangerous area. Not an excuse, but still a fact that will be considered I'm sure.
Edit 2 I encourage everyone to watch the video. It's long and boring, but gives good perspective into how most of these cases go. Bad behavior happens because stuff like this is so nuanced and trained from the top down. Its usually not the big things that breed it.
It looks like a lot of this comes down to who was where and when. Officer 2 seems like the "bad cop" that Officer 1 should've chastised, and then Crutchfield arrived after the fact and was upset with Officer 2, likely per 1's testimony -- if I'm understanding correctly.
If it was just Officer 1 and Officer 2 that were responding at first, I think this touches on a different issue actually. Officer 1 can't properly restrain Officer 2 if 1 also has to handle an unruly suspect. If both of them have their hands full, one officer can't keep the other in check. Perhaps this highlights that in an ideal situation, you have at least 1 extra officer than is necessary for the scenario. The extra officer would then be free to intervene and stop bad cops.