Comment by NickC25 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by NickC25 | Hacker News Reader

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This. So much this.

The problem is that due to the underlying need for police cooperation in unrelated cases, no sane DA or judge would dare challenge a cop (or the police union) who can claim "oh it was a malfunction" or "oh uh the battery ran out" when it comes time for video footage to be reviewed and made public in the case of a police officer breaking the law.

My proposal: make it someone's (or an anonymous board of lawyers') job to review any and all police video footage. The police union is not allowed in any circumstances to know who is doing that job, nor are they allowed to protest. Make it federal law that every officer when on duty has no expectations of privacy, and their body cam must be on 100% of the time when on duty, no exceptions.

If you are going to work (and retire) on the public's dime, using equipment the public paid for, you must without question bow to public demands of complete transparency and full accountability. I don't give a damn what the union thinks, they are on our dime.

I agree with this except I think that policing should also be a highly educated position matching the expectations. Social workers and teachers are generally required to have graduate degrees, for example. Police academies are a scant few weeks in America, and these are people who enforce complex law in the most crucial life-or-death circumstances. Cops should be the best of us.

It can be tiered, where more training allows you to do more. On the lower end you have unarmed police giving parking tickets or having to be accompanied by a more highly trained cop who is performing less critical roles.

More training is more pay and benefits, and they have to keep it current by reapplying and showing they've done recent training, like teachers.

You've never been through police academy, have you? It's like training for a fucking pentathlon.

You have to memorize and demonstrate understanding of law, pass an obstacle course, meet marksmanship standards, pass a driving test under extreme conditions, and more. It's no joke. And they have to recertify on a lot of this yearly.

Nobody's perfect. None of their critics can actually do that job. Most couldn't clear the first fence in the obstacle course. You'd hate being subject to the same surveillance at work as well.

I also don't carry a gun at work with which I can end someone's life.

I don't want my comment to be taken as anti-cop because I'm not, but an office worker being monitored all day and a cop on duty being monitored aren't really equivalent at all. Shit, if lives depended on me & my actions and I worked in a field where big, heavy decisions could fall on me at any point, I sure as shit hope there's someone or something there to document it all.

Explain then why so many cops fail to understand (or follow) the law? They have a scant understanding of constitutional rights (and usually choose to ignore them when they can get away with it).

And surveillance? Give me a break. At my job, all my keystrokes are logged. Every website I go to is logged. My email and chat are archived and searched for keywords and AI. And I'm not tasked with "Protect and Serve." I work for an insurance company. Cops have life and death power, so as Spidey tells us, with power comes responsibility. Don't like it? Don't pick up the badge...

You should look at the educational and training requirements used by European police forces. They make the "police academy" look like the joke that it is. Or look at how the military trains MPs. MPs have a much better understanding and usage of force than the majority of police forces in the US.

> You have to memorize and demonstrate understanding of law, pass an obstacle course, meet marksmanship standards, pass a driving test under extreme conditions, and more. It's no joke. And they have to recertify on a lot of this yearly.

LOL, what? Police unions have consistently fought against recertification requirements, particularly the CPAT that police and fire use (candidate physical ability test).

"Demonstrate understanding of law" - police have claimed, and courts have consistently upheld that police do not need to know the law. They repeatedly arrest photographers in public places, and it ends up in appeal after appeal while they defend their abuse of 1A, and even after all that Chiefs will still stand on court steps saying "We can't expect our officers to be constitutional lawyers".

American police training is some of the lowest standard in the developed world. It takes more time to be certified as a hairdresser in most states.

> None of their critics can actually do that job.

Get out of here with that attitude. That's right up there with "If you're not behind our military, feel free to stand in front of them" bullshit designed to shut down any criticism, valid or otherwise.

Who cares if anyone here has gone through the police academy? It's almost like training is required to do a job. Wow, what a concept!

>You have to memorize and demonstrate understanding of law

No shit...that's the entire premise of the job. Someone whose job it is to enforce the law needs to actually know the law.

>pass an obstacle course

You should see some of the cops in the cities I've lived in (Bay Area, NYC, PHX, Miami). Some are/were quite fit, but a bunch couldn't pass an obstacle course even if the only obstacle was "touch your toes" or "run a mile in under 15 minutes".

>meet marksmanship standards

You don't say? Someone whose job description includes "the ability to use lethal force when necessary" needs to know how to properly use a lethal firearm?

>pass a driving test under extreme conditions

Weaving in and out of traffic with lights blaring is NOT hard. People are required to get out of your way. You also have a great car with tons of upgrades, all paid for by the taxpayer.

>And they have to recertify on a lot of this yearly.

Good. Plenty of professionals in other fields have to do this too, and they don't get backed by a taxpayer funded union.

Hell, I’ve literally watched cops use their lights so that they could go to a damn donut shop more quickly. I couldn’t believe it as I watched them pull into a krispy kream drive-thru.

Seen plenty of obese cops too. No idea how they stay on the force.

> Make it federal law that every officer when on duty has no expectations of privacy, and their body cam must be on 100% of the time when on duty, no exceptions.

I'm not an expert, but I don't think that'd be possible at the federal level. Politics aside, local policing is controlled by states and federal control over those issues is largely limited to things like withholding funding for states that don't comply with federal program requirements.

State and Federal gov'ts have priority in prosecution. If it is true that DA or judge are reticent to prosecute, then the appropriate avenue is State/Fed

Guess where little State Prosecutors grow up? Working cases at the municipal level until they move to the minor leagues. Federal prosecutors work up the same route, so all the institutional bias and privilege is instilled early.

How many Attorneys General worked as public defenders? I bet out of the current 50 US AGs, it's probably close to zero.

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