Originally published at: Alabama cop who murdered suicidal man jailed for 25 years | Boing Boing
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God damn. That is a line that even police officers cannot cross.
Oh wait…
Da fuq? At least justice was served…eventually…
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I’d say no, justice has yet to be served. The police “incident review board”, Police Chief/Sheriff/whomever was in charge of the police department & Huntsville Mayor hasn’t been restaffed yet and/or charged with malfeasance.
Continuing to blindly cheer the police, no matter how bad their conduct is, will encourage this kind of thing to continuing to happen. If the Chief/Mayor approves of this behavior, no meaningful changes will happen in the department. The fact that they lost a senior officer to the incident should be an easy to see wake-up call.
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Yeah, now it’s time to investigate the review board and sue the city for that money. the city will settle.
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Good.
Now prosecute the department brass for accessory to murder.
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It should be practice that if an internal review clears an officer (basically condoning the actions) and those same actions are later found criminal, the people involved in the internal clearing should be a) immediately put on suspension, b) investigated for malfeasance/corruption/dereliction of duity c) likely charged with conspiracy to conceal a crime (under the colour of law perhaps)
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and the city of Huntsville provided an extra $125,000 for his legal defense
Just fascinating how right-wingers who drone on and on about protecting the taxpayer go silent when money is wasted on bad policing.
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So, probably out in 5 and, with our luck, elected to congress in 7.
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Clearly, not acab.
but the union, and the leadership,
they are.
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A police “incident review board” cleared Darby of wrongdoing following the shooting and punished the other officers instead.
That sends a clear message to anyone thinking of stepping out of the Thick Blue Line.
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Holy shit. Haven’t heard about this until now, but wow is that egregious.
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From the sound of it, at least the judge, jury and prosecutors treated this about right. So it’s “only” the police department / city government who took the traditional, blatantly fascist approach.
It’d be fucked up to count that as “progress,” but it’s not quite as bad as the worst outcome I might have guessed.
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The whole story is so heart-rending, maddening and generally aggravating, but all the apologists’ attempts to claim the officer did nothing “wrong,” and “followed his training,” really make a great argument for defunding the police. If the “correct procedure” to answering a call about a suicidal man is to kill him, then that becomes proof positive that cops shouldn’t be sent on those calls. Or, by that logic, on any calls at all where the reasonable response to the situation doesn’t involve shooting someone in the face. But that’s most calls the police go on. So by their own arguments, cops shouldn’t be sent out in most of the situations they’re called out for, and that money should be going to someone else to do so instead. This example makes it blatantly clear that police apologists can’t have it both ways.
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I’d like to follow along and see how former cop/murderer Darby fares in prison.
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Joins / starts white supremacist gang.
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The mere fact of the city and the police department completely backing up a officer who clearly crossed the line is disturbing. Disturbing that those in charge find this behavior completely acceptable. Even worse is their refusal to even back down after the guy is convicted. And disciplined the other officers who were actually trying to descalate instead of escalate as is the norm! As always, I find internal affairs reviews to be a complete joke and a slap in the face of the public. I literally believe they just write something up and call it a day and file the report and go home.
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They refused to release bodycam footage to the public, paid him his salary until two months after his conviction, and the city of Huntsville provided an extra $125,000 for his legal defense
Huntsville DA, mayor, and PD may have seen that as a (comparatively tiny) investment in saving Derby and, by extension, attempting to effect a favorable outcome in the inevitable civil suit that would otherwise be won by Parker’s family to the tune of millions. City budget eclipses justice.
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the simpler explanation is that they blindly support the ability of police to use violence to solve any and all problems
if they were only doing some sort of mathematical equation, then they would have radically reshaped policing long ago. it’s not like this is some weird one bad apple incident
these situations are part and parcel of the american justice system. and mostly people are complacent about or supportive of this violence
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