This incident actually does a great job of illustrating one of the many problems with policing in America. The cops do something that on its face, to literally anyone watching, is incredibly embarrassing, and that any reasonable person would say was obviously the fault of the police. Instead of profusely apologizing and immediately determining how to make restitution, they turn it around and dehumanize and arrest the victim. They’re so suspicious, afraid, and spiteful of the people they are sworn to protect, that taking the least bit of personal responsibility and showing genuine respect for anyone but themselves is seen as weakness, when in fact it would be the ultimate show of strength to admit when they’ve done something wrong and to immediately try to make it right.
And they wonder why no one trusts them. Respect breeds respect. Show me genuine respect, and I’ll show it right back to you. That’s how human relationships work. But crash into my business with your patrol car, shoot my dog during a no-knock raid on the wrong address, detain me without trial in inhumane and tortuous conditions, pull over every single one of my black friends for literally nothing, all without due process or cause, and you don’t deserve my respect. You deserve my unfiltered rage, and that’s what you’ll continue to get until you show us some goddamn decency. Or quit. Just fucking quit. No one is forcing you to be a cop.
the people they are sworn to protect
Do they swear to protect still? I know the court ruled they have no obligation to protect.
https://prospect.org/justice/police-have-no-duty-to-protect-the-public/
Damn that was hard to read, thanks for sharing. I knew Scalia was a POS, but wow.
the Court ruled that that the state did not have a special obligation to protect a citizen against harms it did not create.
What a ridiculous way of thinking.
Right? Like what even is the point of the state in his twisted opinion?
they crashed into it on purpose… it was a terrorist attack…
Another fine example of police officers hard at work. Only the best and brightest.
maybe the owner shouldn’t have put his bar in the middle of the officer’s road!
Police officers like those should never be allowed to wear a badge again. And any police department that doesn’t take away their badges needs to be eliminated and rebuilt from the ground up with entirely new management. That is the only way we will ever get these transgressions to stop.
Step one in dealing with any unacceptable behavior is to make sure there are serious consequences. We are utterly failing to do that with the police.
“Who built this bar here to ruin cop cars? Arrest them!”
Does slpd have body cams?
They do, but haven’t released the footage. The lawyer for the owner has footage from bystanders and probably the bar itself that so far contradicts statements made by the police. They already demonstrated that the arresting officer lied on his PC statement which resulted in the felony charge being reduced. I don’t understand why any prosecutor would want to take this case to court, but somehow they haven’t dropped all the charges yet.
It gets worse than that. I live in StL so I got to hear all about this one. The prosecutor was recently forced out of office for screwing literally everything in the office up so badly that all but a couple of the attorneys quit. Cases were getting dismissed or delayed because DAs weren’t showing up to court on the first day of trial, because many times they weren’t being told they had been assigned the case. People weren’t getting paid, and defendants were languishing in jail for months before any action was taken on their case.
The head of the prosecutors office was not showing up to work, apparently working on a health science degree or something and was basically doing everything but her job and she fought every attempt to kick her out.
Things have started getting better since she was removed but there is a HUGE mess to clean up in the STL justice system right now so if this bar owner has to go through the courts getting any kind of resolution will take a long time. I hope he has a good attorney with a lot of patience and tenacity because he’s going to need it.
You’d think problems in the prosecutor’s office would lead to people being released, not held longer. Murrica!
Police need hobbies too ya know.
