De-militarize the Police: A List of Demands

[Gumba of Liberty]

dood. you need to change your bong water.

Dream big or go home. I don't care about my list of demands reaching the media for personal reasons, all I want is a list of concrete ideas, written down, that will limit the police in a meaningful way. Looks like I came to the wrong place.

[Spikender]

I don't see the two situations as similar.

First of all, I'm not talking about denying anyone their rights to do anything. Disarming someone is violating their rights. Firing them is not. Of course, government police departments are in and of themselves violations of rights Which leads to my second point. Cops are aggressors, period. US law requires them to be. They aren't innocent. Ever. Period.

Mind you, I can imagine situations where a cop stands by and does nothing when someone is about to get killed solely because they might get fired, but the thing is, they do this anyway. Cops aren't there to protect us pretty much ever. So, I don't really see this as a valid concern. I'm having a hard time imagining a scenario in which an American cop is ACTUALLY justified in doing anything.


Even local cops have to enforce "the law" as it is written, no matter what it is. You sound like I probably sounded a year ago. But every day I get more and more anti-cop as the logic processes itself in my mind. Its time to completely dispel the "cops are good guys" myths. Cops are bad. Period. Simply because of what they are REQUIRED to do as part of their jobs.

At last, FreedomFanatic has fully come over to the Light Side.

Dream big or go home. I don't care about my list of demands reaching the media for personal reasons, all I want is a list of concrete ideas, written down, that will limit the police in a meaningful way. Looks like I came to the wrong place.

I personally like your idea and will share your original image from the first post on Facebook.

[TheTexan]

Well, all this de-militarizing talk started with the riots, right? So maybe the solution isn't de-militarization, but rather fixing the root of the problem: the rioting.

There's many ways we can get rid of the rioting:
-Better riot dispersion equipment (such as LRAD's)
-Stronger laws against rioters and illegal protests
-Nip protests in the bud before they grow into full-scale riots

[acptulsa]

First let me say I love this idea. I love it. But I have some notions about the execution of it.

Let's not do a laundry list. Pop them out one or two (related) demands at a time. For one thing, some of these ideas require some explaining. A one liner won't necessarily do. For another, this thing runs the risk of becoming a flash-bang itself. Popping a couple out a week over the course of a few months will give it time to grow and allow it to gain momentum. It will allow the conversation to build to a climax, and it will sustain it long enough to ensure it sticks with people. It will prevent some good ideas from getting lost in the crowd as people latch onto slightly better ideas and focus on them. Give each demand a chance to enjoy its own focus.

OK, reform SWAT - absolutely no warrant service (70% OF WHAT THEY DO) with the possible exception of a murder suspect, armed robber, people that are known to have and have used weapons in a crime, places they expect a firefight. use them only for barcade/hostage situations. Operative word is RARELY!
Absolutely no use at public demonstrations. Snipers and people with heavy weapons have no business where people are protesting.
Seriously BAN flashbangs. 4 children have been hurt by those in recent years. 1 dead, 3 seriously messed up. People get behind protecting children.
There are 2 main types, one burns really hot and frequently burns peoples houses down.
If cops raid the wrong house - seriously - jail time!
Transparency - every use of a SWAT team goes in the local paper with details of what happened. Then again in a monthly report. and again in a yearly report.
No more masks. Terrorists and criminals wear those things. Anyone doing a home invasion wearing a mask should be an instant walk for whoever shoots them in self defense.

-t

No federal funding. None. Local accountability is paramount. No federal carrots for DUI checkpoints. No military surplus. Members of a community know what they need; Washington does not.

No FBI action at all without local participation. The FBI is for investigation, not enforcement per se. Let it remain so. No law enforcement agency can ever burnish its integrity by violating the law of the land in the form of the Ninth and Tenth Amendments.

No hiding SWAT teams behind regional conglomerations, and absolutely no corporate SWAT teams...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/t...-records-laws/

If a jurisdiction feels the need for SWAT teams and cannot afford them, let them train regular duty officers to become SWAT team members as required. This is the way they were initially organized, and it works.

Absolutely no masks.

Abolish unions! Take on the FOP! No layer of extra-governmental bureaucracy between them and the citizens who pay them.

Allow citizens to sue individual officers for malpractice and/or malfeasance. Make every single officer personally responsible for ensuring that a raid is conducted at the correct address listed on the warrant. We are held personally accountable for obeying the law; let them be held personally accountable for obeying the Constitution.

No murder charges or assault charges for attacks on dumb animals, no matter what it costs to train them.

No charging criminals for police incompetence. If a police helicopter and a news helicopter are covering a police chase, and they collide, this is something beyond the control of the person being chased, and the accountability should land elsewhere. It is not the fault of criminals if police officers are incompetent.

No code enforcement. No one is going to pack heat because they're running their lemonade stand without a license. Let other bureaucrats write those tickets.

As long as we're shooting the moon and negotiating later, don't just require body cameras, require that they broadcast over the 'net at all times, in real time.

Restore Miranda warnings, and don't just prevent cops from lying to people, but District Attorneys (and their staffs) as well.

[Gumba of Liberty]

At last, FreedomFanatic has fully come over to the Light Side.



I personally like your idea and will share your original image from the first post on Facebook.

I appreciate it, thanks.

[Spikender]

I appreciate it, thanks.

Posted it a few hours ago and I've already got two shares and three likes from just my Fedbook friends that I know in real life. Glad to see that they are in agreement with me, was surprised to see them jump on it like that. I don't usually share political stuff on my Fedbook because I don't usually go on it. I shared it publicly so it could get more visibility.

Hopefully it'll spread through the shares and we'll get this baby rolling.

[Gumba of Liberty]

First let me say I love this idea. I love it. But I have some notions about the execution of it.

Let's not do a laundry list. Pop them out one or two (related) demands at a time. For one thing, some of these ideas require some explaining. A one liner won't necessarily do. For another, this thing runs the risk of becoming a flash-bang itself. Popping a couple out a week over the course of a few months will give it time to grow and allow it to gain momentum. It will allow the conversation to build to a climax, and it will sustain it long enough to ensure it sticks with people. It will prevent some good ideas from getting lost in the crowd as people latch onto slightly better ideas and focus on them. Give each demand a chance to enjoy its own focus.



No federal funding. None. Local accountability is paramount. No federal carrots for DUI checkpoints. No military surplus. Members of a community know what they need; Washington does not.


No FBI action at all without local participation. The FBI is for investigation, not enforcement per se. Let it remain so. No law enforcement agency can ever burnish its integrity by violating the law of the land in the form of the Ninth and Tenth Amendments.

No hiding SWAT teams behind regional conglomerations, and absolutely no corporate SWAT teams...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/t...-records-laws/

If a jurisdiction feels the need for SWAT teams and cannot afford them, let them train regular duty officers to become SWAT team members as required. This is the way they were initially organized, and it works.

Absolutely no masks.

Abolish unions! Take on the FOP! No layer of extra-governmental bureaucracy between them and the citizens who pay them.

Allow citizens to sue individual officers for malpractice and/or malfeasance. Make every single officer personally responsible for ensuring that a raid is conducted at the correct address listed on the warrant. We are held personally accountable for obeying the law; let them be held personally accountable for obeying the Constitution.

No murder charges or assault charges for attacks on dumb animals, no matter what it costs to train them.

No charging criminals for police incompetence. If a police helicopter and a news helicopter are covering a police chase, and they collide, this is something beyond the control of the person being chased, and the accountability should land elsewhere. It is not the fault of criminals if police officers are incompetent.

No code enforcement. No one is going to pack heat because they're running their lemonade stand without a license. Let other bureaucrats write those tickets.

As long as we're shooting the moon and negotiating later, don't just require body cameras, require that they broadcast over the 'net at all times, in real time.

Restore Miranda warnings, and don't just prevent cops from lying to people, but District Attorneys (and their staffs) as well.

Alright now were getting somewhere. Which two do you think we should do first? After we've decided Ill create it and share.

[osan]

Looks like I came to the wrong place.

Why? I gave you a fair to middling list of additions and mods and didn't even charge you for them.

how's about you edit and post a revised version? I am all for such a list.

[acptulsa]

Alright now were getting somewhere. Which two do you think we should do first? After we've decided Ill create it and share.

A good one, but not the best one. Save that for last.

I'm not sure if it's wiser to use the same background for all, as a sort of signature, or change it up. But a public domain image of Martin Milner and Kent McCord in their Adam 12 costumes would be a good one. Alternating between that and a SWAT platoon in their robbers' masks could be powerful.

[brushfire]

Abolishing qualified immunity would be HUGE. Having the ability to hold all government entities (officials, politicians, officers, etc) liable for their personal actions is paramount.

[tod evans]

Abolishing qualified immunity would be HUGE. Having the ability to hold all government entities (officials, politicians, officers, etc) liable for their personal actions is paramount.

Where do you envision holding them accountable?

Surely not in their courts.....

[brushfire]

Where do you envision holding them accountable?

Surely not in their courts.....

Along the same lines, how would you envision them exposing themselves illegally? Qualified immunity is not there by accident.

Still, if they could be sued, think of every wrongful stop or false arrest. That to me is a huge step in the right direction. As it stands now, cops may be penalized if they dont arrest a criminal, but there is zero penalty to arrest an innocent person. (read complete violation of an individual's rights equates to nothing more than "er...sorry?")

[tod evans]

Along the same lines, how would you envision them exposing themselves illegally? Qualified immunity is not there by accident.

Still, if they could be sued, think of every wrongful stop or false arrest. That to me is a huge step in the right direction. As it stands now, cops may be penalized if they dont arrest a criminal, but there is zero penalty to arrest an innocent person. (read complete violation of an individual's rights equates to nothing more than "er...sorry?")

The entire court system must be rebuilt from the ground up, the whole thing is corrupt and not representative of the will of the people.

Cops wouldn't be able to abridge rights without complicit courts regardless of new laws or appellate court rulings.

In my opinion it's those sleazy, behind the scene state and federal employees employed by the "Just-Us" departments across the country who are liable, from the court clerks to the supreme court judges.

The idea of courts and a court system is sound, our bastardization implementing it isn't..

Lifetime appointments, pensions and benefits have no place, yearly elections and pay contingent on local funding might be somewhat better...

[brushfire]

The entire court system must be rebuilt from the ground up, the whole thing is corrupt and not representative of the will of the people.

Cops wouldn't be able to abridge rights without complicit courts regardless of new laws or appellate court rulings.

In my opinion it's those sleazy, behind the scene state and federal employees employed by the "Just-Us" departments across the country who are liable, from the court clerks to the supreme court judges.

The idea of courts and a court system is sound, our bastardization implementing it isn't..

Lifetime appointments, pensions and benefits have no place, yearly elections and pay contingent on local funding might be somewhat better...

I hear ya... there's so much to fix, its probably better of to start over at this point.

[Anti-Neocon]

Just wanted to offer my two cents to say it's hard to create a movement around "abolishing all police". Not enough people would be interested in joining that movement for anyone to feel any pressure.

We need bold demands, but also easily understood talking points (look at Frank Luntz's work for example) to make our demands look both necessary and reasonable.

I see certain well-intentioned posters here saying "we must demand..." and yes that is definitely a good start but there are two parts of the equation: who constitutes "we", and what our demands are. And if our demands aren't presented in a palatable way for the masses, "we" will only be an inconsequential group of anarchists. Let's be honest - libertarians are historically horrible at getting movements off the ground, and there's a reason why. Let's not keep heading down that same path.

[Gumba of Liberty]

The entire court system must be rebuilt from the ground up, the whole thing is corrupt and not representative of the will of the people.

Cops wouldn't be able to abridge rights without complicit courts regardless of new laws or appellate court rulings.

In my opinion it's those sleazy, behind the scene state and federal employees employed by the "Just-Us" departments across the country who are liable, from the court clerks to the supreme court judges.

The idea of courts and a court system is sound, our bastardization implementing it isn't..

Lifetime appointments, pensions and benefits have no place, yearly elections and pay contingent on local funding might be somewhat better...

The best way to fix the court system, if we are to have such a system, is:

A. Change the title "judge" to "president" and limit his job description to keeping order in the court room.

B. Re-codify into law jury nullification. Require the judge or "president" to explain to the jury their right to disregard unconstitutional laws
and set the accused free. Allow attorneys to argue their cases to juries based on jury nullification; this enables attorneys to argue cases based on constitutional principles rather than court precedent.

C. Ban plea bargaining and require all cases to go to jury.

Re-codify juries as the sole arbiters of guilt and innocence, inform people of it, require all accused to go before a jury,
and watch the "justice system" implode in a matter of weeks.

The answers to our problems are for the most part are simple. The thieves that stole this country after Lincoln's War left in place only the checks and balances that are meaningless. Real checks on the government like money, interest rates juries, sheriffs, states and militias are nonexistent, they don't really exist in this country even if we use the words because the words themselves have been destroyed through corporate and government propaganda. Which is exactly why we must fight for them.

[Gumba of Liberty]

Here are two new ones. I'll start working on splitting up the Citizen Demand Poster this weekend. Will you guys spread these around? (FYI I know that Sheriffs and not Police Chiefs were elected but the principle is the same.)

[Gumba of Liberty]

What do you guys think about this one?

[tangent4ronpaul]

The Civil Forfeiture Reform Act was introduced on the house floor this morning.

The sponsor mentioned that 2 Billion dollars a year is stolen from the public this way.

-t