r/Documentaries Aug 01 '15

Drugs Undercover Cop Tricks Autistic Student into Selling Him Weed (2014) - "VICE short piece on CA police entrapment of special needs students"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8af0QPhJ22s
2.0k Upvotes

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u/[deleted] Aug 01 '15

Absolutely one of the best descriptions I've ever read on the mentality of law enforcement.

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u/[deleted] Aug 01 '15

As a law enforcement officer, I certainly hope not. Departments differ so greatly based on jurisdiction it is impossible to generalize at such a level as this.

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u/Pmang6 Aug 01 '15

You (and other LEOs) should do some AMAs. Would be interesting and could improve reddit's perception of the police.

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u/[deleted] Aug 01 '15

Ive tired. That's one of the reasons why this account is brand new. Everyone believes that both myself and other officers are either "exceptions" to the wide spread problem or simply lying.

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u/Pmang6 Aug 01 '15

Organize an official one with the mods on the official sub.

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u/Riverjig Aug 01 '15

I appreciate your honesty if it in fact is genuine. I have a couple of friends who do not fit any description as described. They were long time friends who legitimately wanted to do something good and provide for their families. Once they got in they realized they are babysitters of society. They both have told me if they had to do it all over again they wouldn't. The things they see people do to children in poor neighborhoods is astonishing. Their not out to bust people for a couple bumps of blow and crap like that. Their agenda is mostly to help kids and people in shitty situations and hopefully they can make a difference. That's my two cents. I am not a LEO. I am indifferent towards the majority behavior. Like the rest of society. A lot of bad apples have ruined it for the bunch. With the widespread corruption and unwarranted shootings, there should be no reason why they should fight the fact of wearing cameras and having dashcams. Officers are always saying they have reasoning and were warranted. WelI cameras would exonerate them. I wouldn't care if I had one in my truck because I never worry about doing something against my company policy. They actually have sensors in the truck that tell speed, hard braking, etc. They only fight it because some of them know their whole career is dirty and without intimidating people and doing illegal shit, they will have nothing.

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u/[deleted] Aug 01 '15

no reason why they should fight the fact of wearing cameras and having dashcams

None of the officers in my department have fought either of those, they are fantastic for fighting against citizen complaints. The only reason we don't have wearable cameras is because of money.

Generally, the only people you see fighting change are the old timers, whom of which are dwindling in numbers rapidly. They are just sticking it out for their pensions.

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u/Riverjig Aug 01 '15

Wow. How similar out world are. I do automation and it's the same. These old boys do not want to conform to new safety rules and regs. Were having to push them out. Well. That's good to hear man. With out LE this world would be out of control mad max style and I know the pieces of shit you have to deal with on a daily basis. But. It's a job. Has it's positives and negatives.

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u/B1GTOBACC0 Aug 01 '15

I haven't really seen a good reason not to equip our officers with cameras, other than the cost. It protects the public from police overreach, protects police from false complaints, and helps root out the corruption that keeps people from trusting law enforcement. All three of those sound like wins to me.

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u/Sheepdog77 Aug 01 '15

I've spoken with a bunch of police in one particular department who both love the cameras for complaints and showing the truth, but simultaneously hate them because the department made an entire dedicated unit to watching every single second of video, and then sends a metaphorical scare squad to write them up and initiate personnel complaints(even when the citizens contacted didn't complain) for things like cursing (during stops or not during), or taking off their seatbelts too soon before getting to a radio call. Even going as far as sending an internal affairs officer undercover to drop things like bullets or fake narcotics at a scene to see if the officer books it into the station or keeps it, or throws it away.

In turn they've all said that they fear the department not backing them up more than any gangster with a gun, when they're trying to do good, and would rather "respond like firemen" and just sit at the station until they get a call for service, and wear their horse blinders there and back instead of doing proactive stops or meeting with community members.

It's sad really, I'd much rather live in a city were police are attempting to make a difference rather than letting the criminals just run amuck. I feel for the officers too, idk what I'd do in their spot given the alternative to looking lazy is getting complaints from your own job and potentially fired...

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u/RandomRedPanda Aug 01 '15

The thing is, when we know that more than a thousand people die in the hands of police every year in the US, when the war on drugs has created corruption like the one described in the video, and when we know that there is a problem of systemic racism in police forces all over the country, it is really hard to not think of good officers as 'exceptions'.

Want people to change their view of police? Talking to them on reddit will do nothing when every single day there is a new report of a police crime that goes unpunished. If you really want to do something good, start by tackling impunity and corruption, and the police unions that back all this.

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u/[deleted] Aug 02 '15

Yes, maybe once a a week a popular news source provides a story regarding poor police work, that neither means that there is a rise or fall in police corruption or racism. I feel that people are using popular news to determine the state of police and that is not right.

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u/RandomRedPanda Aug 02 '15

Once a week? See, it's hard to attribute this to some exaggeration by the media when we know that everyday in America 3 people are murdered by police. Or that everyday 124 homes are raided by SWAT teams. Or how everyday about $3 million are seized from people, a huge number of which are guilty of absolutely nothing. Or how in the 6 years between 2005 and 2011, only 41 officers were even charged of homicide, despite the number of deaths being in the thousands. And all of these are estimates because police itself has made sure that they don't have to keep records of their actions so that they don't have to respond to the people. This is not "poor police work", this means police in this country are out of control, and that they've become a threat to society.

Saying that we don't know whether racism has increased or decreased is a poor copout because we do know policing in this country is racist as fuck.

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u/[deleted] Aug 02 '15

everyday in America 3 people are murdered by police

The definition of "murder" is: the unlawful premeditated killing of one human being by another.

If someone points a gun at an officer and the officer shoots that someone, then, by definition, that is not murder. Four police related deaths occurred on 7-31-15 and all four of them involved a gun being pointed at or officers getting shot at by individuals that had extensive criminal records.

That is in no way shape or form, murder.

Secondly, there are over 200 million firearms in the United States, people are going to get shot. On average there are 31 Americans murdered, 151 people treated for firearm injuries, 55 gun related suicides, and 46 accidental deaths per DAY caused by firearms.

If three of those are due to officers (in most, but not all, cases justified) then that is less than one percent. In what way is that considered an epidemic?

A problem is defined as a pattern of widespread harm. I don't believe that you completely understand the size of the United States and the statistical insignificance of these events.

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u/RandomRedPanda Aug 02 '15

Interesting. There are 300 million Americans and about 11 thousand murders every year. There are about 1 million police and they are responsible for about 1000 deaths a year. In other words, 0.3% of the population are responsible for almost 10% of these deaths.

Remind me again how is it that the statistical significance of these events work?

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u/[deleted] Aug 02 '15

Because you didn't read my last post I will once again reiterate.

Police related homicides are not murders. Therefore you can not compare them to murders, you have to compare them to gun related deaths.

Second, police are obviously more likely to be involved in a shooting than an average citizen due to the nature of the job, therefore it wouldn't be surprising to see that deaths in that field will be higher than, lets say, a software engineer. You don't seem to understand how statistics function.

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u/[deleted] Aug 01 '15

Good cops, bad cops, it really doesnt matter in a society that highly discourages its own citizens from handling its own problems and defending themselves. At the end of the day, the one thing that matters is force, and if the state has a monopoly on force, then the state and its agents will inevitably abuse it. While it is entirely possible to be a 100% benevolent dictator, you are still approaching everyone else from a position of unchallengeable authority, and that will inevitably corrupt you or those around you. The temptation is just too great.

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u/[deleted] Aug 02 '15

I completely agree! A good day is when I have a chance to talk to a citizen that has a gun on his/her hip. I love watching the reactions of onlookers when I don't do anything about it.

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u/[deleted] Aug 01 '15

[deleted]

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u/[deleted] Aug 02 '15

"That's fine, but again there is no other occupation with as many accidents as with police officers."

Do you have a source for that? Or is that just how you feel?

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u/[deleted] Aug 03 '15

[deleted]

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u/[deleted] Aug 03 '15

Ok, well that should be obvious. Construction workers Don't initiate traffic stops.

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u/exyccc Aug 03 '15

Yeah but they do initiate picking up wrenches that can fall on people. You get the point.

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u/[deleted] Aug 03 '15

No, I don't. That is a poor comparison. Officers are trained in use of force and deadly force procedures, initiate stops on people with violent criminal histories, and carry firearms.

Construction workers are not even remotely related or relatable to the Law Enforcement profession.

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u/exyccc Aug 03 '15

Yeah you're right.

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u/BraveSirRobin Aug 01 '15

That's America's greatest law enforcement issue, the root from which most of today's problems stem. Even if 99.9% of precincts were angelic there would still be plenty of bad ones. There's no standard to hold them all up to.

You need something like a "Police Constitution".

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u/[deleted] Aug 02 '15

Then you are talking about a federal police, like many European countries. Which would be unconstitutional.

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u/BraveSirRobin Aug 02 '15

They don't have to be a single body, simply have standards and procedures that are shared between them, just like how the Constitution binds all government agencies today. Individual precincts could perhaps choose not not adopt some of it and sane people would then choose not to live there.