Cops behaving badly

[Pyperkub]

Let's let the cops sell military weapons to the bad guys so they can get more military weapons!

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/police-sel ... s-posties/

[Pyperkub]

And now making crack??? WTAF?

https://cbs12.com/news/local/broward-co ... e-attorney

"Broward Co. to vacate convictions for people who bought crack made by the Sheriff's Office"

[Smoove_B]

There's an Amazon strike in NY today and the cops are apparently assisting to make sure Amazon business can continue. They've put up barricades to corral picket lines and allow contractors to access the Amazon site and they've also physically put themselves in front of Amazon trucks and are arresting people.

https://bsky.app/profile/hellgatenyc.co ... o7n2ppx22j

I know I shouldn't be surprised that the cops are doing what they're doing, but I guess maybe I am?

A few years back I participated in a strike and right before it was initiated we underwent all kinds of training from the union on what to expect and how to act when the police arrived. It never escalated to that level (thankfully), but what I'm seeing on Blue Sky is exactly what we were warned against. Crazy times.

[LordMortis]

Should picketers be allowed to disrupt business, either on public egress points or on private land? I thought we lived in an age where they can picket but they can't disrupt. That's the way it's been around here. Blocking egress is moving from striking to protesting and doing so in a manner that is "civilly disobedient" where you would expect legal consequences.

That said, I tacitly support stronger unionization of Amazon employees. *shrug*

[Smoove_B]

If you're on public property (like a sidewalk) the police can f off.

They should absolutely be able to disrupt business; that's the whole point. Yes, they are rules on how they can do that but sending in police officers to bust up the strike is gross.

[Max Peck]

What happens when a police union goes on strike? Do they draw straws to see who pickets and who scabs to disrupt the pickets?

[Max Peck]

On the lighter side...

After “glitter bomb,” cops arrested former cop who criticized current cops online

Things have gotten a little wild in the Chicago suburb of Orland Park, Illinois, where local cops accused a former cop of impersonating a current cop on Facebook. The department also noted that a top police official had "a glitter bomb sent to him anonymously at the Police Department" and "was contacted by a suicide prevention hotline as a result of a spoofed call."

So, in a bit of a freak-out over this alleged harassment and impersonation, the Orland Park police investigated and eventually sought charges against the former cop—who said that all he had done was to create a parodic Facebook page critiquing the current departmental leadership.

The whole case was eventually tossed by a judge, who said that the Facebook page wasn't criminal, and now the former cop is suing the current cops for going after him.

Got it?

[Daehawk]

Is it the Keystone dept?

[Punisher]

Is it the Keystone dept?

Queue the Benny Hill song..

[Pyperkub]

Tenn Police Dept apparently covered up for serial rapist and child pornographer for almost a decade...

How Police Let One of America’s Most Prolific Predators Get Away
When a prosecutor began chasing an accused serial rapist, she lost her job but unravelled a scandal. Why were the police refusing to investigate Sean Williams?...

...she was puzzled by how meagre it was, and by how little detectives had done to investigate the allegations. “A screaming, shoeless woman runs into the arms of a cop,” Dahl said. “They don’t go up and interview Williams. They know it’s him. They never follow up. On what planet does that make any sense?” ...

...Last month, Johnson City agreed to a twenty-eight-million-dollar settlement with victims of sexual violence, an enormous sum for a small city. “The amount will likely prompt skepticism about their denials,” Kelly Puente, who has written about the case for the Tennessean, told me. A lawyer connected to the case told me that the sum “is far more than the cost of defense—perhaps this victims’ settlement will finally get the agencies’ attention.” The confidential settlement, a version of which was obtained by The New Yorker, includes strict provisions that the victim should “not discuss this settlement or disparage the JCPD, its officers, or any investigation of her sexual assault.” A statement from the plaintiffs’ lawyers, released at the city’s behest, cited a “substantial risk of not meeting the applicable burdens of proof” in their decision to dismiss their claims and settle. In response to questions about the allegations, a city spokesperson referred to the statement. People involved in the case told me they stood by its strength and feared that the city had paid its way out of accountability. One plaintiff told me, “Unanswered questions remain, and the circumstances uncovered during discovery deserve to be acknowledged rather than buried.”

If a deeper investigation is ever undertaken, Williams said, “there’s a big, wide trail of money that’s gonna be easy to find.” But federal and state officials have mostly refused to say whether the corruption allegations are still being pursued. The F.B.I. and the T.B.I. initiated investigations, but an official involved in the Williams case told me that he was aware of no ongoing inquiries by either agency. Dahl believes that a culture of mutual protection and deference among law-enforcement agencies may have contributed to the apparently limited efforts. “The fact that the Johnson City community is no closer to transparency about what happened and who enabled Williams to operate as long as he did is a disgrace,” she said. Vanessa Baehr-Jones, an attorney for Williams’s accusers, told me that the F.B.I. interviews with officers accused of corruption were “in some cases only three minutes long, and consisted of the F.B.I. and T.B.I. agents asking the officers whether or not they stole money. When the answer was no, they closed up the file and went on home.

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