If you get hauled in, you were usually breaking the law
You’re not a big believer in innocent until proven guilty?
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The next revelation is usually a rape room. Unless they manage to cover that up… Beria and Dzerzhinsky hid theirs until well after their deaths, although of course Stalin knew all about it.
I don’t think it’s rare for people who enjoy beating helpless prisoners to be sexual sadists. And of course it’s well documented that cops are far more likely to be wife beaters or child abusers than the general population. As our cops are becoming increasingly militarized and immune to prosecution, we can expect them to become more and more vicious, and we can expect far fewer good people to be willing to do the job. If there’s no rape room today, there will be soon enough.
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Tracy Siska, a criminologist and civil-rights activist with the Chicago Justice Project, said that Homan Square, as well as the unrelated case of ex-Guantánamo interrogator and retired Chicago detective Richard Zuley, showed the lines blurring between domestic law enforcement and overseas military operations.
Does anyone have any more info on the CJP? Seem like the right place to donate to help fight this:
http://chicagojustice.org/getinvolved/donating
Also, contact the ACLU:
https://www.aclu.org/legacy/contact-us
Also, probably needs some good, old fashioned civil disobedience to bring more attention to it.
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Again with the twisting of words.
Of course I believe in innocent until proven guilty.
My point is that most of the time, you have to go out of your way to get arrested in Chicago. This is what I have observed first hand, that the police generally don’t want to arrest anyone unless they have to.
Therefore, you should not fear or hate the police in Chicago. When you interact with them, you should treat them like human beings instead of oppressive overlords to be railed against.
I also believe that there’s a huge disconnect in the power dynamic of the private citizen and your average police officer. If you’re a dick to cop, they have the discretion to find some law you’re breaking and bust you for it. That’s a problem with the system that allows the unscrupulous to abuse it.
While I believe that most cops are decent human beings, you won’t catch me being a dick to one.
It swings the other way, too. If you’re nice to the police, they will often not bust you when you were breaking the law.
Is that sufficiently nuanced for you? I don’t think this is all that contentious. Do you generally have a problem with authority? (Not accusing, just asking)
I’d call that “implausible deniability”. Since I am not in Illinois, nor a cop, and I know about it - It’s hard for me to credit that there would not be some talk about this. When people are in police custody, there is a paper trail. If the trail goes dark, a thinking person will ask questions.
Anyway, ignorance of wrongdoing is hardly a defense for ordinary people, so ideally police will apply this same rigor to prosecute their own department.
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[quote=“caryroys, post:45, topic:52458”]
I also believe that there’s a huge disconnect in the power dynamic of the private citizen and your average police officer. If you’re a dick to cop, they have the discretion to find some law you’re breaking and bust you for it. That’s a problem with the system that allows the unscrupulous to abuse it.[/quote]
No, it “swinging the other way” means that when one encounters police acting unlawfully - one arrests them.
Do you generally consider police to be authoritative? The average citizen, like it or not, is the ultimate authority. The people lend their authority to the charters of government, who in turn lend their authority to police. The great problem is politicians who resent serving the people, and using police against them. It’s not a new problem, it has always been this way in the US. Where crime was not a big problem even when municipalities did not have police departments.
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I believe that most cops are decent human beings
That’s where you and I differ.
If the majority of cops were good apples, then corruption wouldn’t stand a chance because the majority would seek prosecution for the few bad apples.
When the majority of cops are bad apples, then the good apples are afraid to stand up for what’s right and corruption takes over. If the Chicago PD is corrupt, then that’s because most cops are corrupt.
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So that’s a “Yes” to you having a problem with Authority…
I’m sure you do.
No, don’t put words in my mouth. Perhaps I disagree with your understanding of the term.
I have a problem with people assuming authority, which is not at all the same thing. Authority, not unlike credit or respect, is something offered rather than taken. If people need me to credit or respect them, they need to earn this. The alternative is a form of behavior which I call “belligerence”.
If you think that authority coming from the people is a problem, then this is your problem rather than mine. You should take responsibility for your views rather than trying to distort mine.
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Disarm the police. OK, let them have singlesticks and shields, but no weapons that leave the hand. Problem solved.
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Any comment from Rahm Emanuel? Or is he too busy getting re-elected?
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If you think that authority coming from the people is a problem
And yet, you accuse me of putting words in your mouth, when you repeatedly are doing so with me.
My understanding of the term Authority is perfectly technical, but I appreciate your attempt at pedantry:
Authority in this case is delegated, because police officers are not elected officials. That authority is delegated by people whom we do actually elect.
What you are describing, I think, is “respect”, which is an emotion, and quite different from the constructs of the legal system. Fair enough, saying police need to earn your respect!
In a perfect system, that would be the case. I’m not aware of a system that actually functions this way, given the imperfect individuals that make up human society.
If you can point to a better example of how to structure a law enforcement system, I’d be interested in reading about it.
Yeah, I thought about that, but it seems just a little too close to actual revelations at this point. Organized death squads of some sort seems to be the last real surprise we haven’t yet had.
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No, you inferred it, but thanks to your followup post it is now clear that you were speaking from ignorance. If you had started your statement with “I’ve heard that” or “local friends have said”, your declaration that people should stay off the el line that services a significant number of black neighborhoods wouldn’t have seemed quite as pointed.
Clarification is always good. I’m still unsure whether or not you’ve ever ridden the el anywhere but the north side and downtown, but at least now it’s clear you’re not up on current public transportation issues in general.
Any of the el lines can be sketchy late at night, for the obvious reason that there are fewer riders acting as passive witnesses and potential defenders. There was no reason to correct you about the red line, because it’s just as dangerous as any other.
Oh, hysterical me.
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Correct.
Do they not count as an organized death squad if the deaths weren’t planned? Because it sounds like they were organized and there may have been at least one death.
(And from the sounds of things, it’d surprise me if there haven’t been multiple deaths, with some of them being more-or-less intentional. One of the things about operating something like this to avoid oversight, is that nobody is dodging oversight in order to be nicer to people in custody.)
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FWIW, my original understanding of the Red line being the worst seems to be correct:
Pretty much anywhere that doesn’t kill that many minorities for no reason, has no death penalty, and no torture rooms (that we know of yet, granted)?
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