Some of the worst thugs are the police, at least in the city of Baltimore

[southernhybrid]

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/06/us/baltimore-police-corruption.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Fus&action=click&contentCollection=us&region=rank&module=package&version=highlights&contentPlacement=1&pgtype=sectionfront

BALTIMORE — Stacks of bills, $100,000 in all, taken from a safe.

Garbage bags full of stolen prescription drugs dumped on the black market.

A motorist robbed of $25,000.

The crimes were not carried out by normal criminals, but by Baltimore police officers. They are among the dozens of revelations in one of the most startling police corruption scandals in a generation. In a trial in Baltimore federal court, witnesses and even the officers themselves have described an elite squad gone rogue, taking every opportunity to rob those they were supposed to be policing or protecting, and barely bothering to cover up their deeds.

The daily disclosures of dangerous, embarrassing and shameless acts come at a particularly bad time for the Baltimore Police Department, which is battling a runaway crime problem in an environment already poisoned by deep mistrust in the police.

The department was in fact under investigation by the federal government for systemic civil rights violations while the officers carried out many of their crimes — which include selling seized guns and drugs back onto the streets, sending innocent people to jail, recruiting civilians to rob drug dealers and using GPS devices to track and rob the innocent.

Six officers have pleaded guilty; four are testifying against the two who are now on trial.

The case fits a pattern of corruption scandals involving anti-crime units that rack up arrests and praise, but do not have enough supervision, said Peter Moskos, a professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York, and a former Baltimore police officer who went to the police academy with one of the accused officers. But this one is far worse, he said. “It’s shocking what they’ve done and how long they’ve been doing it.”

Is it a wonder why people, especially in urban areas don't trust the police? This makes me wonder if a similar situation exists in other high crime urban areas? It appears as if some of the worst thugs are the police. This makes me think of the late Marvin Gaye's old school soul hit, What's goin' on.

 

[Mumbles]

I like the idea in the NYT article that, yet again, it's the *reporting* that creates mistrust among the people who actually deal with out-of-control police on a daily basis. Much like the laughable "Ferguson effect" was somehow caused by BLM, rather than people refusing to cooperate with violent, dangerous police. Well, no, the actual residents had hated the police for years, and had told the city government about the problem for years or decades. In BMore's case, this was essentially ignored until the FBI became involved, while in Ferguson, the city government was a willing beneficiary of white supremacist police misconduct.

 

[bilby]

The last, and arguably most important, of Robert Peel's nine 'Principles of Policing' (as set out in the 1829 "General Instructions" issued to every new police officer in the Metropolitan Police) reads: "To recognise always that the test of police efficiency is the absence of crime and disorder, and not the visible evidence of police action in dealing with them".

Anti-crime units that "rack up arrests" in an environment where crime remains endemic, are a total failure, and unworthy of praise. While the press and the public fail to grasp this principle, corruption is inevitable.

Police forces that disregard the Peelian Principles are no more than street gangs with better access to arms and financing than their rivals. They create crime, both indirectly and deliberately, and they have no incentive to do otherwise while their existence and financing depends upon high arrest rates and visible police action.

 

[rousseau]

As a Canadian, when I cross the American border it feels somewhat like stepping into an alternate universe where everyone does everything wrong on purpose. It'd be difficult to compile a list of everything that's broken in the U.S. As far as I can tell this is because the political culture where most decisions are derived from is rarely rooted in sound theory or empirical data. Usually just dumb, kinda racist, selfish people.

So you get a situation where people running say, a police force, don't actually know how or have the political will to do so properly.

 

[J842P]

As a Canadian, when I cross the American border it feels somewhat like stepping into an alternate universe where everyone does everything wrong on purpose. It'd be difficult to compile a list of everything that's broken in the U.S. As far as I can tell this is because the political culture where most decisions are derived from is rarely rooted in sound theory or empirical data. Usually just dumb, kinda racist, selfish people.

So you get a situation where people running say, a police force, don't actually know how or have the political will to do so properly.

The best way to understand the US is to think of the modern day country as essentially populated by the same people/attitudes that were associated with "the Wild West", except with modern technology and a whole-lot more wealth.

 

[Horatio Parker]

I recommend "The Seven Five", a documentary about police corruption in Brooklyn.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt4136056/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1