Originally published at: Texas police chief put on leave after raid on random family's house | Boing Boing
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Well at least it wasn’t completly random. That would be horrifiying for police to just pick a home to invade for training/fun.
Invading a family’s home because the guy you were looking for visited it is also incredibly inept but at least a slight step down the horrifying rung.
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We can only hope that municipal displeasure ends up being just a footnote compared to the eventual behavior of entities that actually handle criminal charges.
It’s absolutely not false that the workplace protections enjoyed by the police are expansive and substantially unwarranted; but that would be a much smaller concern if it weren’t so often the case that any sort of actual charges are treated as off the table from the get go. It would be a bad look if the only reason they cleaned up the payroll is because convicted felons can’t carry sidearms anymore; but I’d take that if the chances of conviction were there.
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So basically he gets rewarded with a 10-day paid vacation. I’m sure that’ll stop him from doing it again 
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Maybe next time they’ll really crack down hard and hit him with a 20-day vacation.
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Awesome. Can’t wait to hear the response and find out why the Gravy SEALS were required to destroy someone’s home.
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Not completely random, but a slow-motion SWATting on a house the “suspect” didn’t even live in, which is just as bad. 
I certainly hope there will be charges against the “eyewitness” as well as removal of those police who facilitated this fiasco.
ETA: Ripping out wiring? Do they just go for the electrical junction box first thing so they can disable any cameras?
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Can’t comment on the situation, but the picture…
If I asked an AI to “imagine” what a Texas Police chief looked like based on previous negative tropes…
THIS PICTURE is what it would give me.
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Stealin’ that for future use; thanks.
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Dude. One day as I was going to take my kid somewhere, I noticed a van full of SWAT drive by my street. I followed them and they turned left down the street behind mine.
I was like -that is weird…
Then when I got home shortly after, I looked behind my house, and the house behind me and across the street (which I could see via my deck which is higher up) had SWAT crawling around it.
I ended up calling around, and I think found the answer from a local news person who called the cops and found out it was just a training exercise on a vacant house.
Still a bit unsettling.
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I guess I was just coming at it as at least it wasn’t completly malicious it had some ineptitude thown in there. Both equally bad but for different reasons.
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That’s pretty close to damning with faint praise. I mean maybe, maybe, if you were in hot pursuit of someone who was definitely the guy, but …
They say the suspect was a man by the name of Cameron Vargas who had visited Rios’ home but left hours earlier.
The Galveston County District Attorney’s office now saying Vargas was misidentified and is not a suspect.
“The original suspect, Cameron Vargas, is no longer a suspect. After the DA’s Office consulted with Galveston PD, they decided not to move forward with charges against Mr. Vargas,” said Kevin Petroff with the Galveston County District Attorney’s Office.
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Happy to provide a service.
On a somewhat related note i’ve noticed for the past year that memes online of the ACAB nature are weirdly sparse. Had to dig around for a while to find the one that i posted
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I don’t get that you are reading my comments as faint praise. I was compairing what I thought I read to what the acuality was.
For clairification if you didn’t get it, I’m straight up calling them stupid and violent instead of straight up violently evil. The best thing I said is that it’s not on the level of horrifying as it I originally reads.
It’s not like I’m giving cops points for being stupid vs being straight up evil and invading homes just 'cause.
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Indeed, they are.
As a graphic artist, I must rectify that issue.
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“a possible failure of communication”
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And is, of course, unlikely to ever happen… 
From Beyond the Fringe. A Scotland Yard Inspector is interviewed about the Yard’s investigation of The Great Train Robbery. They discuss using the Identikit to create a likeness of their suspect.
Thanks to the Identikit…we have pieced together an extremely good likeness of the Archbishop of Canterbury.
Then His Grace is your number one suspect?
Well, let me put it this way: His Grace is the man we’re currently beating the daylights out of down at the Yard.
And he’s still your number one suspect?
No, I’m happy to say the Archbishop, God bless him, no longer resembles the picture.
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I “love” that the police response to alleged criminality on the part of the chief is to just say, “Oh, he would never let anyone knowingly do a crime, so it’s all good!” Oh, okay then, case closed! Never mind that this means the criminality (or just absolutely spectacular levels of incompetence) was going on in the ranks without his knowledge, which also isn’t exactly exculpatory when you’re the police chief…
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