my new tag is: policing in the USA

[rose_griffes]

• Free e-book (Kindle or epub): The End of Policing
• Free PDF download of the book The Growth of Incarceration in the United States
• I found that second link thanks to this twitter thread about the USA’s “war on drugs” (as a means to incarcerate black people)
• article: How Tear Gas Became the White Supremacist’s Favorite Poison

• To the good cops: 
• Jay Park, who knew Georgia’s laws about intoxication better than his superiors, so he didn’t arrest drunk college kids. He got fired for not making what he knew would be illegal arrests.
• the NYPD’s Adrian Schoolcraft, the only cop many people on his beat knew because he tried to engage them in conversation. He was harassed by his colleagues and placed against his will in a psychiatrist facility after speaking up about arrest quotas and wrongful arrests.
• Cariol Horne stopped her Buffalo PD colleague from choking a handcuffed man. She lost her job and pension; he kept working. Later, when he pleaded guilty to federal charges, he was allowed to keep his pension.
• In 2011 Kyle Pirog spoke out about a fellow officer in their New Jersey township PD who committed perjury to obtain a search warrant, strip-searched a minor, and targeted people of color for traffic stops. Pirog was demoted and then suspended. His chief made Pirog report to that same officer whose conduct he had spoken out about. Eventually Pirog was forced to resign in 2014; he then filed suit. (It looks like he got his job back finally. I’m guessing that details have been suppressed but there’s a 2018 photo of Officer Pirog on Facebook and it’s labeled as a fun run for the Bedminster PD.)
• Regina Tasca stopped a fellow officer from beating a mentally ill young man. She was fired.

I currently have a Washington Post subscription so if any WaPo article links are paywalled for you, let me know and I'll get you the text.

Comments

[senmut]

More of them than I'd seen. The gentleman that was fired for refusing to shoot is the most reported one in that vein.

[rose_griffes]

Yes, I deliberately left Stephen Mader off the list, since he's one of the best-known examples of police being fired for acting with sense and compassion.

[ioplokon]

re: your last point, professional wrestler Mustafa Ali used to work for the Chicago PD. He implemented a program where they would call people with outstanding warrants & ask them to come in voluntarily. Many people didn't know they even had a warrant (or their mothers answered the phone and made them come in!). This had the effect of reducing police violence because it reduced the number of times the cops pulled people over or grabbed them on the streets.

He was forced to end the program by senior officers. So he quit and did pro wrestling full-time.

[rose_griffes]

So I listened to a podcast interviewing him, and oh my goodness! One, what a lovely person! Two, I am just... out of adjectives (again) about him leaving the PD over an effective idea that he started.

[ioplokon]

Was it the Lilian Garcia one? She's such a good interviewer, especially with wrestlers. But yeah, Mustafa Ali seems like a solid dude & he's just a natural babyface (not that I don't think it's genuine; it's both that he is a lovely guy and he knows how to come across well, too).

[ioplokon]

AND A new statement from Mustafa Ali

(Not sold on community review as a complete solution - I cannot think of one community review board that has had the power to impose meaningful consequences on the police - but still something worth considering)

[rose_griffes]

It was the Lilian Garcia interview. And yes, Ali obviously knows how to make a good impression.

If community boards had more real power, it could make a real difference. I'd like to see them not only review actions already taken by the police but also set agendas on what the community desires the police to do.

[ioplokon]

I just mention his natural babyface qualities because it's seriously unfathomable to me that promotions would cast him as a heel. In wrestling, as in life, it's so much easier to get people to hate you than to get them to love you, so it's like, he really is something special. (Also, there's a larger discussion to be had about wrestling pandering to the white gaze but I don't want to overwhelm you with that!)

And yes, I agree that if they had teeth, community boards could do a lot of good - but you have to either change or nullify police contracts and/or make criminal prosecution (& ideally civil as well, imo) against officers easier & more common. Basically, it's just like... even if you get the thing you ask for from your city... you're gonna have to follow up to make sure it's actually having an impact bc this shit's so entrenched.

[yourlibrarian]

That's the saddest part of that, is how people who do the right thing have the wrong done to them -- with little fanfare or protest.

[rose_griffes]

It's heartbreaking. And so many of them WANTED to be those helpers.

[rosaxx50]

It's saddening to see how temporally spread the acts are. It's systemic, it's generational, the entire police departments are rotten top to bottom, and all those cops that got away with things in 2011 are probably heading up their departments now and making life miserable for anyone who wants to change things.

[rose_griffes]

Agreed: police officers who do the worst often make it the furthest, and those who wanted to make a positive difference end up leaving. Voluntarily, if they're fortunate...

[tinny]

Oh man this is so much worse than I had thought. But maybe making more things public will help, eventually. /o\