re: Officer in Eric Garner case: I never used a choke hold

quote:

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Dealing with an a-hole cop? Comply. In a couple of years find an attorney with my background and own him and more importantly his agency. That is how you fight police misconduct.

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Ya know, that sounds great and all. But one of the primary points in this conversation is the lattitude LEO's receive in a legal environment. You (of course, not YOU) can write your report in such a way that the entire burden of proof is on the "criminal" to prove wrongdoing. And in general, the statement of an LEO is given much heavier weight than an oral account from a single suspect, and you're human, so you're going to write that report in such a way that it will cover your arse. It's essentially he said/she said at that point, and you win that every time. Videos like this are a rare occurence, and then we see continued efforts from police to restrict videos, or flat out destruction of evidence like in the Denver case. Just in the past 10 days, Illinois damn near unanimously passed a law making the recording of officers a much easier "crime" to prosecute. It's the second attempt b/c the first attempt was shot down by the state supreme court, so they used much more ambiguous language this time, but IMO the intent is pretty clear.

LINK

The deck is completely stacked against someone wanting to "comply, then fight it in court", not to mention the finances involved with such an endeavor.

Add in the lack of enforced accountability from your unions and disciplinary bodies (which I have seen you speak out against on this board), in addition to everything I mentioned above, and is it really surprising the level of distrust is where it is?


ETA: Another like taken in a no-knock raid for drugs that were never found. Posted on the OT. Just ridiculous at this point.