• BertramDitore@lemmy.world
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    5 months ago

    Damn, that says so much about them. Their one job is to protect the public, but instead they fight to make it even harder to protect themselves from a manageable risk.

    I pretty firmly believe there are two types of cops: one who joins out of a genuine desire to protect the community, but those are often pushed out or silenced by the second type who joins because it’s the way for them to “legally” murder, bully, extort, exploit and/or harass whomever they want with little to no consequences. In a just society, they would be considered the criminals. Your link is a great example.

    • octopus_ink@lemmy.ml
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      4 months ago

      Your link is a great example.

      So I have to admit - I learned something new from that link, but also it left out one of the most disgusting details I knew about.

      Here’s the bit that was new to me:

      The most severe revelations against Metzler relate to his handling of a bystander complaint about Hopp’s use of force at the scene of the incident. “Metzler did not take the complaint or document the concern from the citizen as directed by LPD policy,” the report noted. Further, “Metzler’s demeanor with [the bystander] was disrespectful and discourteous. Metzler failed to hear out [the bystander] and talked over him multiple times.”

      According to the report, “Metzler changed the case number on his [body camera] footage, which recorded the citizen who complained about the arrest, to an unrelated incident number. This removed the footage from the Garner case file available to LPD and the District Attorney. In addition, by reclassifying the footage to an ‘incident’ rather than a case, Metzler changed the retention lifespan of the footage from 10 years to one year.”

      Do you know how many times I’ve seen police claim they can’t alter anything about the body cam footage? So now we’ve learned that if they want, they can just click a checkmark (or choose a different menu option, or whatever) and now you’ve only got a year to build your case against them and submit a request for the footage. And you’ll never even know until you go asking for it 1 year and 1 month later and are told it’s gone.

      WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK??!! How many times has this loophole been used?

      Here’s the most disgusting part of all, which the article either didn’t mention or glossed over.

      The article says this:

      Garner who was 73 and suffered from Dementia and sensory aphasia—a condition that can make speaking and communication difficult—did not receive medical care for six hours after sustaining injuries that included a broken arm and dislocated shoulder.

      This is what was going on during those six hours, and my understanding is that they were within earshot of her as they laughed at her and mocked her pain:

      “Ready for the pop?”