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Police Misconduct Catch All Thread

Judge throws out man’s guilty plea after bodycam footage reveals NYPD drug planting

Brenda Alexander
Tue, November 2, 2021, 6:45 PM·3 min read


The bodycam footage shows an officer planting drugs in the cupholder of a car
A Staten Island man is getting a much-deserved second chance after a judge vacated his 2018 conviction.
Body camera footage shows an NYPD officer in the arrest of Jason Serrano seemingly planting marijuana in the car he was riding in March 2018, Gothamist/WNYC reported. At the time, Serrano was arrested and charged with drug possession, resisting arrest, and obstructing governmental administration.
Serrano eventually plead guilty to the resisting charge three months later. He did so as a way to avoid being sent to the notorious Rikers Island. He was unaware of the body camera footage. Prosecutors shared the footage with Serrano’s attorneys months after his guilty plea.

And what's going to happen to the cop? This should be career-ending + face at least the same penalty the guy would have.
 
Judge throws out man’s guilty plea after bodycam footage reveals NYPD drug planting

Brenda Alexander
Tue, November 2, 2021, 6:45 PM·3 min read


The bodycam footage shows an officer planting drugs in the cupholder of a car
A Staten Island man is getting a much-deserved second chance after a judge vacated his 2018 conviction.
Body camera footage shows an NYPD officer in the arrest of Jason Serrano seemingly planting marijuana in the car he was riding in March 2018, Gothamist/WNYC reported. At the time, Serrano was arrested and charged with drug possession, resisting arrest, and obstructing governmental administration.
Serrano eventually plead guilty to the resisting charge three months later. He did so as a way to avoid being sent to the notorious Rikers Island. He was unaware of the body camera footage. Prosecutors shared the footage with Serrano’s attorneys months after his guilty plea.

And what's going to happen to the cop? This should be career-ending + face at least the same penalty the guy would have.
The officer's behavior violates state and federal criminal statutes. However, if the Federal or State Attorney chooses to NOT file criminal charges (which will likely be the case), at best the criminal cop will be fired or disciplined for violating PD policy. Qualified Immunity currently does not allow the victims of the officer's criminal behavior to sue the officer for violating their rights in Federal court, so there is no recourse there.
 
Whistleblower featured in USA TODAY 'Behind the Blue Wall' series ousted from police union

An Illinois police union on Wednesday ousted from its membership an officer facing criminal charges for exposing a squad car video that showed his fellow officers slapping and cursing a man dying of a drug overdose.

The case of Sgt. Javier Esqueda, a 27-year veteran of the Joliet Police Department, was featured in September as the first installment of the USA TODAY series “Behind the Blue Wall,” an investigation involving more than 300 cases of police officers over the past decade who have spoken out against alleged misconduct in their departments.

A subsequent story published this week outlined patterns of retaliation against such officers in departments large and small across the country, highlighting how some within law enforcement use internal affairs investigations and other forms of retaliation and intimidation to punish those who break the code of silence.

Esqueda told USA TODAY that he’s become a pariah among his coworkers since July 2020, when he shared with a television reporter footage from January of that year showing how officers treated a handcuffed Black man in medical distress. Officers slapped Eric Lurry, restricted his airway and shoved a baton in his mouth hours before his death. Esqueda faces up to 20 years in prison after department officials opened a criminal investigation into his actions and prosecutors charged him with four counts of official misconduct.
 
I will say that the Black Lives Matter protest I went to was very fun. If you ever think about going to one, though, make sure you learn to move very fast on your feet. The truth about CS gas is that it spreads slowly and then disperses quickly in open air situations, so if you retreat fast and thereby avoid exposure, you can regroup fast and thereby effectively stymie attempts by police to keep you from being where you want to be.

For me, one place where the police really crossed the line was when they tried bringing out mounted police officers. I screamed that the horses could get seriously hurt in this situation, calling out to both the police and the crowd, and when the dumbasses tried to do a charge the crowd, anyhow, the horses balked. So much for the cops having control over their mounts. The horses are not robots. They are people and not particularly bright ones. To their credit, after I loudly lectured the crowd on how badly those horses could get hurt, the cops apparently heard and backed off after that, but I was furious. They were not in an appropriate situation for that maneuver.

Anyhow, one important thing to keep in mind about these types of protests is that, as nice as it sounds to say that people with disabilities should have a voice, we had issues with people that had seizure disorders, breathing disorders, and outright being bound to a wheelchair disorders. Police are like horses, and by that, I mean that they are people with unpredictable people emotions and are kind of stupid and are therefore likely to make profoundly dangerous errors in judgment. Their training is designed for dealing with teenage and twenty-something athletes at the prime of their lives. Police do not have abstract thought. They don't know what to do with a person that has a disability unless they are specifically trained. If you have a disability that keeps you from being able to sprint about a city block, then please, in the name of our sanity, either watch from a balcony where you can help with eye-in-the-sky intel, or help by trucking in water and other supplies, thank you.

Anyhow, the good thing is that police are not really likely to start using lethal agents like nerve agents or blister agents. I don't really chalk this up to their graciousness or humanity, but I think they just recognize that if they seriously threatened the lives of more than one thousand disaffected civilians, then those civilians would quickly become bloodthirsty combatants and kill them very dead. If you are in reasonably good health, then the police are not likely to gas you with anything that they themselves are not routinely exposed to as part of their training. CS gas is inconveniencing and annoying, but it will not permanently damage you unless you are subjected to very heavy long-term exposure and do not have the presence of mind to get away from the stuff until it has dispersed.

The police are not really going to get away from you if you and your friends run about one city block in all directions, and there are enough people watching from balconies and drone-cams that you will be able to find your cop friends again. Do not be tempted to stay there huffing gas, you inattentive douche-rocket. Tactics, logistics, and intel are how you beat them. Again, that stuff disperses very fast. You are not running away, but you are regrouping for another charge.

Hydrate, hydrate, and hydrate some more. It really annoys me when people at protests pass out from dehydration. Come on, people.

Throwing water bottles at body armored police officers...um...okay. Right. Friggin' kids. Friggin' puerile. Grumble grumble.

So about police misconduct, I want to say that, while I generally like police, I also like the fact that, when too many police have ignored basic social boundaries, the people are able to organize an effective civil uprising. By that, I do not mean an uprising to overthrow the government or to disrupt the democratic process, but I mean an uprising aimed at demonstrating that the people, if they choose to unite, are stronger than the government. The purpose of such uprisings is not to overthrow the government but, instead, to remind the government that their authority is based on trust, which is conditional, revocable, and not given for free.

As far as defunding police, don't misunderstand me when I say this, but I think it's actually brilliant. When local police are actually endangering people's lives due to chronic misconduct or acting with the demented belief that they are the ruling elites of an east Asian dictatorship, then we would better spend their wages on education, public works, new equipment for the fire department, and so on. If they don't want to lose their wages, then they can stop taking their wages for granted. They are not going to improve their behavior unless it is clear to them that there will be lasting consequences if they fail to improve their behavior.

However, I also think that the right application for defunding is at the local level, and I also think that police should be rewarded for innovation, improved community engagement, and otherwise responding in visible ways to social pressure. I don't think the "defunding" argument should go only one way. If police are revolutionizing how they do their jobs, then that is actually worthy of being rewarded. If they are willing to actively take part in reforms directed at making them more of a part of our communities, then I am aware that those kinds of improvements are more resource-intensive and require them to work longer hours. I am aware that more extensive training costs money.

Nevertheless, it actually is necessary to push for defunding when police are actually murdering civilians and not even allowing those crimes to be given thorough investigation. When civilians die and the details of their deaths are brushed under the rug and explained away with some buzzwords and bullshit, then seriously, fuck that with a nailboard.

People say, "If you don't want the police to arrest you, then don't commit crimes," but I say, "If you don't want the people to riot, then don't commit crimes against them." Actions have consequences. The police and their supporters have forgotten that that principle works both ways, and until they have acknowledged that the principle works both ways, they will continue having problems.
 
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Myth: protesting against police means we hate police,

Reality: protesting against police actually means we have hope that they will listen if we make it clear that we are unified and serious.

Myth: defunding police is the same as disbanding police.

Reality: defunding just means redirecting part of police funding to other components of government, such as education, which are likely to be more effective mean of crime reduction than a police force that has developed a toxic culture. Also, full funding can always be restored when police agree to comprehensively restructure their strategy for engaging with the community.

Myth: these protests are intended to be violent.

Reality: protesters are prepared for violence by police, but most violence against property is opportunistic vandalism during chaos caused primarily by police.
 

I'm pro police. However, the above is insane.


This reminds me of a theory a local homeless dude pitched to me last weekend he dubbed mockflasion. In short, the theory is that the powers that be are always squeezing wealth out of the have-nots & whenever the government attempts to help they (the powers that be) scream inflation then raise their prices so they can get a piece of the free fiat money. So in effect, they create the environment then profit from it.

He's one very entertaining MF.
 

A Massena police officer accused of purposely damaging a suspect’s car has resigned.

Video of then-Officer Brandon Huckle was posted on Facebook by the car owner’s lawyer. It happened during a search in March.

Mayor Timothy Ahlfeld says Huckle resigned in early August. That ends a disciplinary proceeding. He had been suspended since shortly after the incident.

He still faces a felony charge of criminal mischief.

 
Well he had a knife and was shoplifting.
I mean shit... I carry a staff everywhere I go.

That is like saying "well he was breathing and shoplifting". It is a clear excuse.

If them having a knife was a real motivation for fatally shooting someone, then there would be no encounters with police that end without fatal shootings.

I somehow bet that fucker who door'd that guy's car still has his job, too.
 
Well he had a knife and was shoplifting.
I mean shit... I carry a staff everywhere I go.

That is like saying "well he was breathing and shoplifting". It is a clear excuse.

If them having a knife was a real motivation for fatally shooting someone, then there would be no encounters with police that end without fatal shootings.

I somehow bet that fucker who door'd that guy's car still has his job, too.
Is that for me or the whole ? I don't post enough for people to know my sarcasm.
 

A Massena police officer accused of purposely damaging a suspect’s car has resigned.

Video of then-Officer Brandon Huckle was posted on Facebook by the car owner’s lawyer. It happened during a search in March.

Mayor Timothy Ahlfeld says Huckle resigned in early August. That ends a disciplinary proceeding. He had been suspended since shortly after the incident.

He still faces a felony charge of criminal mischief.


Let’s go Brandon!
 
Video of the wheelchair guy shooting from two angles. Eight shots, a pause, and then a ninth, just for good measure.

 
Video of the wheelchair guy shooting from two angles. Eight shots, a pause, and then a ninth, just for good measure.


Wow. As if an officer can't figure out how to disarm someone in a fucking wheelchair, with help?

My first immediate reaction is that someone needed to walk up to those officers and do exactly as they had done.

I accept this reaction is 'too much'. But holy shit. Anyone who watches that and does not decide "these cops need to be ended in some way" needs to be treated exactly like someone who says "trump Won the Election".

It's like the second officer just wanted to make sure one of the bullets in the corpse was his.
 
St. Louis Cop Sentenced For Beating Black Undercover Officer
A federal judge gave a white former St. Louis police officer less than half the prison time his own defense lawyers had asked for on Monday after he was convicted for his role in the beating of an undercover Black colleague during the 2017 racial justice protests in the city.

Dustin Boone, 37, was sentenced to one year and one day in prison for aiding and abetting the deprivation of civil rights under color of law of undercover officer Luther Hall. He was convicted in June after a nine-day trial.

What Black Undercover Officer Beaten By White Cops - YouTube was about. Toward the end, host Cenk Uygur claimed a surprising reason for excessive policing. He claims that a Baltimore ex-cop told him that the Baltimore police department had arrest quotas for its cops to meet, presumably as a way to demonstrate that the cops were doing a good job. They didn't arrest many people in white neighborhoods, because there was a risk of arresting someone important, so they arrested people in black neighborhoods instead. They arrested people that had the least risk of fighting back in court.

How common is that?
 
Video of the wheelchair guy shooting from two angles. Eight shots, a pause, and then a ninth, just for good measure.


Wow. As if an officer can't figure out how to disarm someone in a fucking wheelchair, with help?

My first immediate reaction is that someone needed to walk up to those officers and do exactly as they had done.

I accept this reaction is 'too much'. But holy shit. Anyone who watches that and does not decide "these cops need to be ended in some way" needs to be treated exactly like someone who says "trump Won the Election".

It's like the second officer just wanted to make sure one of the bullets in the corpse was his.


So they were supposed to just sit back and let the guy get a hostage? The pursued while there was no danger, when the guy went towards potential hostages they fired. It's not like they can just go up to him and take the knife away, that's a good way to get yourself stabbed.

You're focusing on the wheelchair and ignoring the knife.
 
Video of the wheelchair guy shooting from two angles. Eight shots, a pause, and then a ninth, just for good measure.


Wow. As if an officer can't figure out how to disarm someone in a fucking wheelchair, with help?

My first immediate reaction is that someone needed to walk up to those officers and do exactly as they had done.

I accept this reaction is 'too much'. But holy shit. Anyone who watches that and does not decide "these cops need to be ended in some way" needs to be treated exactly like someone who says "trump Won the Election".

It's like the second officer just wanted to make sure one of the bullets in the corpse was his.


So they were supposed to just sit back and let the guy get a hostage? The pursued while there was no danger, when the guy went towards potential hostages they fired. It's not like they can just go up to him and take the knife away, that's a good way to get yourself stabbed.

You're focusing on the wheelchair and ignoring the knife.

No. They were supposed to get to the front, and disarm him. They have stout sticks, and their power comes with the expectation that they also assume risk. That's why we give them armor, you know. They could as easily have grasped the chair from behind and dumped him out of it as well. The fact that neither of these people who were given guns of the public trust thought to do any of the MANY things, risky or no to immediate self, that would have prevented their use is damning.

It's kind of hair-pull level to dump a guy out of a chair, but it's absolutely nonlethal.
 
Video of the wheelchair guy shooting from two angles. Eight shots, a pause, and then a ninth, just for good measure.


Wow. As if an officer can't figure out how to disarm someone in a fucking wheelchair, with help?

My first immediate reaction is that someone needed to walk up to those officers and do exactly as they had done.

I accept this reaction is 'too much'. But holy shit. Anyone who watches that and does not decide "these cops need to be ended in some way" needs to be treated exactly like someone who says "trump Won the Election".

It's like the second officer just wanted to make sure one of the bullets in the corpse was his.


So they were supposed to just sit back and let the guy get a hostage? The pursued while there was no danger, when the guy went towards potential hostages they fired. It's not like they can just go up to him and take the knife away, that's a good way to get yourself stabbed.

You're focusing on the wheelchair and ignoring the knife.

No. They were supposed to get to the front, and disarm him. They have stout sticks, and their power comes with the expectation that they also assume risk. That's why we give them armor, you know. They could as easily have grasped the chair from behind and dumped him out of it as well. The fact that neither of these people who were given guns of the public trust thought to do any of the MANY things, risky or no to immediate self, that would have prevented their use is damning.

It's kind of hair-pull level to dump a guy out of a chair, but it's absolutely nonlethal.


So you expect them to teleport? Hint: Those power chairs tend to be able to move pretty quickly.
 
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