> The whole police immunity for murder and violence needs to stop.
The punishment for crimes committed by police officers should be harsher than the punishment for the same crimes committed by regular citizens. And the law should be actually enforced, not conveniently ignored. It would probably only take a few high profile cases where they make an example of the officer to change the attitude in the police force.
Right now, some police, who are meant to protect, are trigger happy because they know that their colleagues "have the backs," and they will be let off the hook with a suspension in the worst case. They don't analyze a situation carefully enough before reaching for their guns. There are shortcuts taken far too often by police, such as entering properties without warrants, arresting people who have not committed or are even suspected of committing crimes. The police think they're a different tier of citizen, and well, they are, because they can violate citizen's rights with almost immunity.
It is understandable that mistakes can be made, but it this is precisely why they need to be made an example of, to prevent the mistakes recurring.
The system that exists is unequal protection. The police are protected by a culture of the State looking after itself and its public servants. There is supposed to be an independent body which investigates police crimes, but the two are hand in hand in letting their men off the hook.
This is also a slippery slope in the other direction. If they know they are essentially immune, then their limiters are removed in their behavior - making them more likely to be negligent and cause accidents, which in turn, they get let off for, strengthening the idea that police are mostly immune from prosecution.
One could argue that a police officer could voluntarily give up their "equal protection" right as a pledge for entering the force. If they are committed to serving and protecting, then such declaration could give confidence to those are meant to be being served. Right now, almost everyone is sceptical of the police in one way or another. The system is rigged and it stinks.
I agree except your 3rd paragraph, because I dont think that would have the intended result. It breaks the findamental concept.
I read your comment as agreeing with Equal Protection. In the end we are talking about the penality for framing or depervation of rights under the color of law. It should apply to everyone. It's easy to point out the problem, but proposing a slution is much harder. Juries are the real firewall, but they depend on the knowledgebase of the jurors.
It's one of these things that a direct "of x then y" prob isnt going to work. Giving the public direct access to lower level raw information is what I would like to start with: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23232250
Imagine if we could script Pacer stats....
EDIT: hit my comment limit for the night, good point about the DA; in that case, it's the next level up from juries; the electorate. The DA is only accountable to them if they make them so, and public opinion does not always wait until the next election, bad PR is fixed astonishingly quickly if the DA's boss feels the pressure. If you have another idea, please propose it.
It doesn't feel right for me to comment about an account in response to someone else's post. Maybe I'll say a general thing instead:
We rate limit accounts when they post too many low-quality comments too quickly and/or get involved in flamewars—and we're happy to remove the rate limit when people commit to following the site guidelines in the future. hn@ycombinator.com is the best place to contact about this.
HN is a moderated site. Whether that's censorship or not is mostly a word game; people use that word when they don't like a thing and different words when they do.
The punishment for crimes committed by police officers should be harsher than the punishment for the same crimes committed by regular citizens. And the law should be actually enforced, not conveniently ignored. It would probably only take a few high profile cases where they make an example of the officer to change the attitude in the police force.
Right now, some police, who are meant to protect, are trigger happy because they know that their colleagues "have the backs," and they will be let off the hook with a suspension in the worst case. They don't analyze a situation carefully enough before reaching for their guns. There are shortcuts taken far too often by police, such as entering properties without warrants, arresting people who have not committed or are even suspected of committing crimes. The police think they're a different tier of citizen, and well, they are, because they can violate citizen's rights with almost immunity.
It is understandable that mistakes can be made, but it this is precisely why they need to be made an example of, to prevent the mistakes recurring.