Brad Balzan died a violent death in his own backyard. Some are calling it "the worst outcome imaginable of proactive policing".

Alternative title: NSW cops murder a kid because he ran home when 4 people in plain clothes pile out of a car and accost him. For wearing a hoodie.

  • brisk
    1671·
    9 months ago

    The inquest heard that due to shortages, only Officer B took a body camera that day, but did not wear it for any of the searches he conducted. He told the inquest his priority was “to get out of the car quickly due to the way Bradley was walking”.

    If we ever want to be able to have a just police force, this sort of thing needs to be considered sufficient evidence of intent to commit a crime. Either you have a body camera on, or you are a civilian, not a cop

    The whole the article is incredibly damning; an illegal stop, a “proactive policing” policy which can so obviously only ever lead to injustice, violation of the right to walk away, targeting without sufficient evidence, police lying about callouts on the radio

    • naevaTheRat@lemmy.dbzer0.comOP
      55·
      9 months ago

      Yeah like the consequences on one side: idk a kid with a can of spraypaint gets away? maybe worst likely case someone runs off with a handbag of replaceable, material, things.

      OTOH a child is murdered under shady circumstances and the killers get off due to lack of evidence.

      • Ilovethebomb@lemm.ee
        16·
        9 months ago

        maybe worst likely case someone runs off with a handbag of replaceable, material, things.

        I think you’re seriously understating how scary something like that can be to the victim, to be honest.

        • naevaTheRat@lemmy.dbzer0.comOP
          13·
          9 months ago

          I’ve had someone let themselves into my house while I slept and steal my adhd medication, I’ve been hunted over the course of several hours by a gang of young men who were beating me up to let me run to chase me over and over again before being left to die in a gutter (saved by a cab driver, 1 person of several hundred who drove by), I’ve been held hostage as part of a shakedown, I’ve been mugged at knife point.

          I’m not unfamiliar with being a victim of a crime, it sucks. The fear doesn’t go away just because someone gets caught later on. There is no world in which catching someone bolting with a handbag/laptop/whatever is worth not having body cam footage because of situations like this. If you want police to actually stop crimes from happening in the first place in dangerous areas then I put to you that a marked car and uniformed officers wearing cameras would be far more effective.

          They executed someone in their backyard for no reason and there is no evidence. This is literally the most terrible sort of crime that can happen and there is no fucking evidence because this chud was more concerned with being a hero (allegedly, of course maybe he wanted no evidence while he murdered someone). There is no excuse.

    • grue@lemmy.worldEnglish
      47·
      9 months ago

      The whole the article is incredibly damning

      Yeah, like this part:

      On the first day of the inquest, the lawyer for the other male officer, Officer A, asked that he be excused from giving evidence due to a serious mental health condition.

      WTF? If he had a “serious mental health condition,” why the Hell was he working as a cop?!

    • zik@lemmy.world
      36·
      9 months ago

      If police don’t have a working body cam there should be an automatic presumption of guilt on their part.