Suspect Freed After Exposing Cop's Facebook Status

longacre writes "A man on trial in New York for possession of a weapon has been acquitted after subpoenaing his arresting officer's Facebook and MySpace accounts. His defense: Officer Vaughan Ettienne's MySpace 'mood' was set to 'devious' on the day of the arrest, and one day a few weeks before the trial, his Facebook status read 'Vaughan is watching "Training Day" to brush up on proper police procedure.' From the article: '"You have your Internet persona, and you have what you actually do on the street," Officer Ettienne said on Tuesday. "What you say on the Internet is all bravado talk, like what you say in a locker room." Except that trash talk in locker rooms almost never winds up preserved on a digital server somewhere, available for subpoena.'"

Comments

What the hell?

[DurendalMac]

That defense actually WORKED? Sorry, but that is nothing more than "locker room talk". If silly bits and pieces like that are valid in court, then the idiotic judge just opened a massive can of worms. Nice precedent, asshole. No more joking on the internet because someone could take it seriously!

Re:What the hell?

[Stoutlimb]

All that's usually needed is a reasonable doubt.

Re:What the hell?

[Anonymous Coward]

That defense actually WORKED? Sorry, but that is nothing more than "locker room talk". If silly bits and pieces like that are valid in court, then the idiotic judge just opened a massive can of worms. Nice precedent, asshole. No more joking on the internet because someone could take it seriously!

I know! This really ticks me off! I totally want to grab a handgun and take out a large handful of innocent bystanders before turning the gun on myself. Or maybe I'll start a blog!

Re:What the hell?

[s0litaire]

Ok if i ever have a FaceBook page the status is gonna be set to "That cop set me up" or "I'm innocent" That should get me set free!! :D

Re:What the hell?

[DaMattster]

Due to the fact that it was made as a public announcement on a publicly viewable board, it looses the "locker room talk" argument. Officer Ettiene admitted to bias in his police work and judgement. Training Day is a prime example of extremely poor police work, judgement, and ethics; needless to say outright criminality. By not sending a message to this officer, we silently condone him. An officer that exhibits bias cannot be trusted to fairly and impartially enforce the law and has therefore abused the public trust put in him. Officer Ettiene showed incredibly poor judgement and will most likely loose his job for it.

Re:What the hell?

[east coast]

No more joking on the internet because someone could take it seriously!

Show me where I can joke in front of a cop without taking the chance of him taking it seriously and taking action based on it.

And you know, I agree, it sucks that it's come down to this but everyone is so uptight anymore and the cops like to flex their muscles a little too much. This is the end result of a bunch of old high school jocks with a chip on their shoulder and the people who get sick of their 10th grade antics with a badge.

Sorry for any cops that read this and think they're above that kind of thing, you just might be, but too many of your brothers in blue are nothing less than what I've described above. Most of us know police only when they meet them in a bad situation and all too often the asshole cops are the ones to be the most vocal. We rarely see the cop that lets small infractions slide.

Re:What the hell?

[Theaetetus]

Due to the fact that it was made as a public announcement on a publicly viewable board, it looses the "locker room talk" argument. Officer Ettiene admitted to bias in his police work and judgement. Training Day is a prime example of extremely poor police work, judgement, and ethics; needless to say outright criminality. By not sending a message to this officer, we silently condone him. An officer that exhibits bias cannot be trusted to fairly and impartially enforce the law and has therefore abused the public trust put in him. Officer Ettiene showed incredibly poor judgement and will most likely loose his job for it.

Yeah. Personally, I just wonder what his Fark or 4Chan handle is.

(and it's lose, goddamn you! Loses the locker room talk, loses his job. Loose is what you do to the hounds)

Re:What the hell?

[Mr. Slippery]

Sorry, but that is nothing more than "locker room talk".

What, "locker room talk" isn't valid evidence? If I'm in the locker room and confess to a crime, my confession doesn't count?

If a cop lies in the locker room, why would I believe he's telling the truth in court?

No more joking on the internet because someone could take it seriously!

If you're a cop? Yes, no joking about following proper procedure and respecting people's rights, on the net or in meatspace. If you can't take the topic seriously, you're in the wrong line of work. (Yes, this may apply to most cops. I'll stand by the conclusion that most people wearing a badge today, ought not to be.)

Re:What the hell?

[pugugly]

I've known too many cops - hell yes that defense would work.

One thing I've noticed about assholes with authority is that they *do* brag about how they are assholes with authority, and how they're going to screw up someones life. I've learned over the years - when someone claims that's the way they are, they are generally being honest.

Quite often, that's the only warning you receive, before they screw up your life.

Pug

Re:What the hell?

[east coast]

Police are there to enforce the law. Not interpret it.

Impossible. Just by the fact that you can define an event (such as a crime) you've already built a personal interpretation. Why do you think there is so many squabbles around here that sound like two lawyers going at it in a court room?

Re:What the hell?

[GrpA]

  The defendant had better hope never to see:

  Officer Vaughan Ettienne's MySpace "mood" set to "vigilante"

  GrpA

Re:What the hell?

[SterlingSylver]

As the officer himself said, "I feel it's partially my fault...It paints a picture of a person who could be overly aggressive. You put that together, it's reasonable doubt in anybody's mind." If your judgement and demeanor are key to your job, don't go immortalizing your idiocy to the entire planet. If you're a cop who wants to be taken seriously, don't make public statements attached to your Real Name in which you discuss the "proper" way to punch a handcuffed subject. This case isn't all that different from folks who want to interview for jobs while their Facebook profile picture is them doing a bong stand that act surprised when they don't get the job.

Re:What the hell?

[Mozk]

Please, no! Just kill the people!

Re:What the hell?

[east coast]

I was making the bigger point about police who know the right time and place to get in a suspects face instead of using his better judgment and understanding that people aren't always going to follow the letter of the law but that at the same time it's not done in the name of malice.

And overall it has nothing to do with this case in particular either. Everyone on the streets has their opinion of cops. Cops get a lot of shit thrown on them because of the ex-high school jock that I described up-thread. I think a lot of your better cops know this all too well and it makes their life just as rough as the asshole cop makes the life of the little guy.

Re:What the hell?

[MrNaz]

I don't think GP meant that letting small infractions slide is what distinguishes nice cops from the assholes.

The point I believe he was making was that cops who enforce with overzealousness the black letter of the law to the point where adherence is impossible are being unfair. The choice is that the law has to either stay well clear of the actual boundaries and allow for leniency, or go right up to them and enforce them rigorously.

Take speed limits. Do we want cops armed with super accurate speed detectors (assume they have such devices) trailing a car for 100 miles while it traveled under the limit, only to pull it over for breaking the limit by 0.5mph for a few seconds as it went down a steep hill? Personally, that's a small infraction that I think society as a whole would be better off letting slide because it would engender resentment towards law enforcement and, also, remember that issuing fines and the admin overhead of enforcement is a net cost to society. Having thousands of such cops on the streets means police resources are no longer used to track down real crime.

The specific principles of the Rule of Law as conceived in a modern society must take into account the reasonableness of expecting compliance, and to what degree compliance is possible. To put it bluntly, sufficiently small infractions can, and should, be let slide.

Re:What the hell?

[Theaetetus]

Most of us know police only when they meet them in a bad situation and all too often the asshole cops are the ones to be the most vocal. We rarely see the cop that lets small infractions slide.

We rarely see the cop that even enforces small infractions without making them a big deal. Part of their training is supposed to include not escalating a situation into violence.

Re:What the hell?

[Anonymous Coward]

A couple days ago, there was an article in the local paper. Someone (college athlete) had been cited for DUI but the charges were dropped. Why? Well, the arresting officer's report claimed he was visibly drunk, couldn't stand, was falling over, etc. None of which was corroborated by his own video taping of the event.

The alleged drunk driver refused a breathalyzer test at the time, which some people consider an admission of guilt. Now, I don't know if he was drunk or not, but consider this: can a police officer who lies on his police report be trusted to accurately report the breathalyzer result? (Keep in mind there's no evidence, just a number he writes down.)

Re:What the hell?

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry, GP is right. Courts are built to interpret, police are hired to enforce. If there's a dispute in enforcement, then the Courts are brought into play to further interpret.

Re:What the hell?

[Anonymous Coward]

On the one hand, yes, it is little more than "locker room talk".

On the other hand, if there had been a recording of similar "locker room talk" where a cop boasts to his friends about learning from Training Day and comparing prisoner abuse techniques shortly before the arrest, you can bet it would be used (legitimately) by the defense.

It may not be a strong defense in either case (and from the little info in the article, it doesn't seem like it was in this case) - but it doesn't seem like there's anything surprising or invalid here, much less a new precedent.

The only 'new' thing is that this wasn't overheard in a bar or a phone conversation. As the summary indicates, people forget the Internet is, for some purposes, a large scale recording device.

Re:What the hell?

[AndrewNeo]

I just wonder what his Fark or 4Chan handle is.

On 4chan, I'm going to take a stab in the dark and say it's Anonymous .

Re:What the hell?

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

If we, as a society give you a gun, a badge, and powers of arrest, I think we can fairly hold you to a reasonably high standard of behavior.

Re:What the hell?

[Marful]

Exactly how many laws are on the books in the state where you live?

20,000?
50,000?
What about federal laws?

Does anyone honestly know?


The point is, that there are so many laws on the book, it is impossible to not be guilty of one of them. And also given the fact that a vast majority of them are punctuated with discretionary conditions in them, such as "what an average person would believe" or "Probable Cause" or "Credible Suspicion", etc., who is to say definitively? Afterall, the officer has sole discretion in interpretation of these conditions.

Re:What the hell?

[DustoneGT]

Your reply says more about you than it says about the original poster, cops or me.

Re:What the hell?

[Anonymous Coward]

Police are there to enforce the law. Not interpret it.

This attitude is why I left civilian law enforcement. Policing is not law enforcement, too many people in policing these days think they are a soldier, the job is that of a community protector, not the kings solider to be used upon the subjects. I was taught Officer Discretion; not every drunk needs a dui, not every speeder needs a ticket, not every pot head needs to go to jail. You examine the circumstances and make a judgement call, this art is being replaced with mindless enforcement.

Most of the kids that start the job these days are more interested then finding criminal acts to enforce as they ignore protection of the community. A good example of this is traffic, although there are no quotas, it is a highly encouraged enforcement activity due to the enormous amount of dollars it brings home to the local government. Were I worked a dedicated traffic car brought in 4x its annual operation cost in fine revenue. That isn't policing, that's being an armed tax collector.

As far as the original story, no surprise, kids these days need a little humbling. There will be a pile of AC's who will endlessly post pointless defences of the police, most of them will be cops or have some kind of police affiliation, they will all be under 35, with no military service. They are trained this way, to feel that this is how it should be, its normal, challenging this assumption will result in them "teaching" you a lesson.

Its too bad they don't understand their oath, or likely even remember taking it, much less understand how to keep it.

Re:What the hell?

[WCguru42]

That little yellow square is not a posted speed limit, it is simply a recommended speed. Therefore, not going 45 is in fact, not a violation. On the other hand, traffic cops are given the right to cite people based on their judgement so even going 50 in a 50 speed limited zone could lead to a speeding infraction.

Re:What the hell?

[HiThere]

He's right, but he's also wrong.

It's impossible to enforce most laws as written. They require interpretation. The official intent is that police should enforce, but not interpret, the law. This, however, is totally impossible.

It has also been asserted, though I haven't seen it formally proven, that there are many situations where there is no possible choice of action that doesn't break some law or other. At one point it was illegal to use the social security number for any purpose other than social security business. And it was also a requirement that one include ones social security number on one's income tax form. That's no longer the case (they lifted the requirement that the social security number only be used for SS business), but it's a good example of what I'm talking about.

Re:What the hell?

[DigiShaman]

Sorry for any cops that read this and think they're above that kind of thing, you just might be, but too many of your brothers in blue are nothing less than what I've described above. Most of us know police only when they meet them in a bad situation and all too often the asshole cops are the ones to be the most vocal. We rarely see the cop that lets small infractions slide.

About ten years ago, I've been known to be a little speed racer on the highways here in Houston, TX (ahh, my youth). As such, I've had my fair share of run-ins with the police. Almost always they are polite but stern. They will listen so long as you don't give them a line of BS as they will always see through it. Hell, it's their job to sniff out and isolate the BS. Most of the time, an officer will have written me up a speeding ticket (I deserved it), and others they will yell at me till I formed a pile of goo in my driver seat. Yet, that same officer will have closed our little "meeting" with just a formal warning. I guess he thought yelling at me was punishment enough.

However, there has been a few times where an officer will have gave me a hard time for no good reason. Once, it was to impress how badass he was to a fellow partner that rode in the same patrol car. The other I felt he randomly pulled me over to fulfill his monthly ticket "quota". In all cases however, always prefix and end your conversations with "yes sir" and "no sir". Never get into an argument with an officer. Let me repeat... Never get into an argument with an officer. You will lose that battle every fucking time. Don't bother being sadomachoistic about it. Even if you're 101% in the right, just state your case once (politely) and let the chips fall where they may. But if you must, save your temper and proceed with a court hearing instead. Trust me; I've played this song and dance. You will not enjoy it when the tempo gets ugly.

Re:What the hell?

[russotto]

Why? Well, the arresting officer's report claimed he was visibly drunk, couldn't stand, was falling over, etc. None of which was corroborated by his own video taping of the event.

Go to court a few times and you'll realize something interesting... for a lot of cases with the same charges, the officer's story is exactly the same, only with a few details changed to make it applicable to the particular defendant. Someone booked for DUI will always be slurring their speech, staggering, have bloodshot eyes, etc. Someone booked for resisting arrest will always have been waving his arms and cursing, etc. This isn't because all the offenses are the same. It's because the officer's testimony has no relation to the truth. He's simply telling the story that gets a conviction.

Re:What the hell?

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

The term is "testilie".

Re:What the hell?

[zappepcs]

Interesting how much of what the police can charge you with relies solely on the officer's report of it. Would it not be prudent that such stewards of community safety be at least reprimanded harshly for implying that they could be 'in a mischevious mood' or that they are 'watching training day for pointers' etc.

Whether it is bullshit bravado or not, what is different from this situation and that officer talking in the locker room about 'fucking niggers' and managing to arrest a disproportionate number of blacks? A bias demonstrated in the locker room or on the Internet is still a bias. The officer is clearly too stupid to be allowed even on Myspace, but nobody stopped him, now he got caught^H^H^H^H^H^H^H knows better.

This is little different than political correctness finding its way to the Internet via the court. Is it right? Perhaps not. Finding yourself the prime suspect in a murder investigation is exactly when you don't want someone telling the cops that they heard you say "I'll kill that SOB" about the victim.

It's a delicate balance indeed, but public figures should expect just a bit more scrutiny. On that note, lets smile now that we know exactly why video surveillance of all the population will cause as much problem for the 'law' as it will for anyone else.

Lets face it, there just are somethings you shouldn't be putting on the Internet. You can guess how many cops in that precinct will have myspace accounts now... can't you?

Re:What the hell?

[SirGeek]

But as a 2nd. I see the police brake the law a few times a week. They will pull up to a stop light, Stop, turn on their lights, go thru the Stop light, then turn their lights off. All this with out any need to. They Interpret the laws when they want too for their own good. You don't report them, or you will start getting speeding tickets.

I still think that whenever a police car has its lights turned on, the station house should be notified. If he doesn't immediately call in, they assume its an issue and send backup (they pretty much ALL have a GPS now, right ?)

If it isn't a REAL issue then the office is written up for improper use of his police siren (or something).

Re:What the hell?

[sjames]

In South Carolina, there is a law STILL on the books that when approaching a blind intersection, a motorist must exit the vehicle and discharge a rifle into the air to warn others that they'll be crossing the road.

An infraction is an infraction, they'd better get writing those tickets.

Meanwhile, some blind intersections in S.C. are in areas where it's illegal to discharge a firearm. Which law should they enforce there? According to you, both!

To go with your child analogy, let's say the rule is no yelling in the house. For some reason the young boy's pro football hero appears at the door one day and he lets out an excited yell. Do you REALLY think it's wrong to let it slide just that once?

Really, it's much better for society if the police avoid taking action in marginal cases.

Re:What the hell?

[fractoid]

This is so very painfully true. What makes me really, really angry is that if you (as a defendant) lie in court, it's perjury and you're in deep shit. If the police officer lies in court, the judge smiles and nods. If you call them on it, the judge says "ok, well we'll ignore that bit".

Justice system: 1. Justice: 0.

Re:What the hell?

[Mr_eX9]

Learn the difference between "lose" and "loose." One applies to you, the other applies to your mother :)

Re:What the hell?

[hairyfeet]

Oh, it is MUCH worse than a little "testilying", which is frankly bad enough. Did you read the TFA?(I know, but I got bored). Check out this quote from the cop after watching a video of another cop roughing up a handcuffed suspect:"If he wanted to tune him up some, he should have delayed cuffing him." He added: "If you were going to hit a cuffed suspect, at least get your money's worth 'cause now he's going to get disciplined for" a relatively light punch."

Now does THAT sound like a cop just joking around to you? Sure as hell don't to me. Sounds like somebody who likes to take his roid rage(yes he is also on steroids) out on the occasional suspect. Add to the fact that he felt comfortable enough with these beliefs to post them under his own name on the Internet and I'd say we got a cowboy here. As someone who has had his skull cracked because some cop didn't like "damned long haired freaks" I may be a little biased here, but he sure as hell don't sound like one of the good guys to me just by his own words. He sounds like another bully with a badge.

Re:What the hell?

[Warll]

What a coward...

Re:What the hell?

[Alarindris]

We rarely see the cop that lets small infractions slide.

And how do you treat officers when you are pulled over? If you are defensive and angry, you will get fucked.

If you are light and cheerful, you are free to go.

I've been pulled over at least a dozen times in the 11 years I've been driving, and only come away with a ticket once. Half the time I was definitely over the limit.

You treat them with respect and make their job easy and they will return the favor.

Re:What the hell?

[pangloss]

The alleged drunk driver refused a breathalyzer test at the time, which some people consider an admission of guilt.

Not to take away from your point, but according to the Chicago Sun-Times report, the driver requested a breathalyzer test on the scene, but the officer claimed he didn't have a breathalyzer device in his squad car. The driver only refused the test later, at the police station.

Re:What the hell?

[jd]

If they do, they would have legal grounds for getting the officer investigated (vigilantism has been a crime for a while, and "terroristic threats" were added shortly after 9/11), possibly kicked out the force, and maybe even jailed.

This should not be considered a bad thing. Getting rid of bent cops is the only way you can ever ensure law enforcement is free of corruption. If the corrupt advertise their corruption, do not excuse them for it, nail the bastards to the courtroom wall.

You want to know the reason nobody trusts those with power, and why power seemingly corrupts? Easy. Power doesn't corrupt, the corrupt seek power, and society hands that power to those who brag the best (ie: are the least stable). If you want those with authority to be responsible, then do not permit the irresponsible within a mile of authority.

Re:What the hell?

[jd]

Au contrare. The precident set in this case would say that your facebook status shows prior knowledge of the action and therefore would secure your conviction.

Now, if the cop who arrested you had a facebook page status of "I need 3 more arrests to make my quota for the month", you might have an easier time of it. Who, in their right minds, is going to take the sworn testimony of a cop needing to make up numbers seriously?

In your example, the situation is reversed. Who is going to take YOUR sworn testimony seriously if you accuse someone of setting you up before the event in question took place? My guess is that your credibility would be zero, just like this cop's.

Re:What the hell?

[twostix]

always prefix and end your conversations with "yes sir" and "no sir".

This has always baffled me about you Americans, you viciously and readily proclaim yourselves as a nation of citizens over state power and the freest people on earth, but every single time a thread like this comes up people say baffling things like the above. Why would you, a free and presumably upstanding citizen of the community call a public servant "Sir" - in a manner that's really a bit too close to groveling for comfort?

How does having to grovel to police officers lest you upset them and they ruin your life (apparently they have this much power in your country) make you the freest people on earth?

I don't know about general social mores in the US, and perhaps calling people Sir is something that everyone does, but here in Australia nobody calls anybody Sir except for people employed in the service industry and some children to adults. If I was being bailed up by the police and I started calling them Sir, it'd probably make things worse. Either they'd think I was a spineless lick-spittle trying to suck up to them and so not worthy of ANY respect, or they'd think I was taking the piss and being a smartarse and so worthy of a hard time.

Whenever I've had association with police on either side of the law (more often than I'd like to admit now that I think about it), I speak to them in exactly the same manner that I would speak to any other reasonable and upstanding adult that I have just met. With general politeness and general respect, no more and no less, they're not gods and treating them as such is probably half the reason your police run around thinking they are. Wouldn't you get a bit of an ego if people were falling at your feet calling you Sir everywhere you went just because of some government power you wield?

Of course you're entirely correct about the temper and arguing, but attempts at gentle correction of inaccuracies in the officers claims are perfectly reasonable, they're just people after all and may well be wrong. And if they're a reasonable person and officer they'll listen to what you have to say. If they're a prick then all bets are off anyway temper or not.

I enjoy the internet, sometimes it lets me see how much better my own country is than others in various things, (the opposite too).

Re:What the hell?

[niko9]

Exactly how many laws are on the books in the state where you live?

20,000?

50,000?

What about federal laws?

Does anyone honestly know?

The point is, that there are so many laws on the book, it is impossible to not be guilty of one of them. And also given the fact that a vast majority of them are punctuated with discretionary conditions in them, such as "what an average person would believe" or "Probable Cause" or "Credible Suspicion", etc., who is to say definitively? Afterall, the officer has sole discretion in interpretation of these conditions.

I know this might only seem like a small consolation, but the fifth amendment was designed to protect against this very type of situation. One of the most invaluable things I have *ever* seen since being on the internet is this video by law professor James Duane: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4097602514885833865

He also gives half of his lecture time to a police officer in hope that he might discredit anything he has said. Pay close attention to him quoting a Supreme Court justice and what that man has to say about the fifth.

P.S. I make it a point of watching this video at least once a year. Every US citizen should do the same.

Re:What the hell?

[jd]

Well, cops (in the US) have guns and dead people don't tend to take the stand a whole lot.

Also, an arrest does more damage to a person's reputation than a conviction. This means arrests must be done with as much consideration for the law as humanly possible. Those found innocent afterwards never fully recover, so you want as few such cases as you can.

Lastly, the cops are not hired to be thugs. They are hired to keep the peace, not beat the living daylights out of it. If all you want are enforcers, then organized crime is generally better equipt than police forces, and often does a better job. No sane populace opts for this, because enforcement should be the smallest component of policing, not the largest. It is also why countries like the UK have opted for community policing (which is 99% helping people and only 1% cops-mash-up-robbers) to reduce actual crime.

Re:What the hell?

[Daniel Dvorkin]

The fact that anyone would truly believe that line of reasoning is what's wrong with today's society...

Well, you're entitled to that opinion. Some of us understand that what's wrong with today's society is that there are so many cowards like you out there who are willing to cede any power to the State so long as they tell you it's for your own good.

it's also why we're greeted by the astounding news that the criminal was actually allowed to subpoena anything so completely unrelated to the charge.

The officer in question described, in detail and in public, the thinking that motivated his actions in the case. If you think that's "unrelated to the charge," then I have to wonder what would be related in your mind.

Do you really not understand the facts of the case? The officer lied. The suspect never had the gun. The officer made the story up.

Sorry, should have been tossed out. We don't have time, nor should we have any tolerance or patience, for this kind of nonsense.

Yeah, that pesky "civil rights" thing, and that "police officers should uphold the law" nonsense -- such a time-waster ... Indeed. Why should we tolerate such silly ideas?

Re:What the hell?

[DigiShaman]

Why would you, a free and presumably upstanding citizen of the community call a public servant "Sir" - in a manner that's really a bit too close to groveling for comfort?

My mannerism to a public servant (be it Police, Fire, EMT, Politician, and Military) is out of respect in that they put their life on the line for me, or have been elected in a democratic fashion.

An American police officer is a very risky job and comes with shitty hours, high divorce rate, and a paycheck that doesn't match. While I may not agree with how they conduct themselves at all times, the profession has earned my respect. In no way is my mannerism toward them groveling.

Re:What the hell?

[Daniel Dvorkin]

I'm a highschool teacher. Sometimes I'm in a bad, homicidal, don't-even-talk-to-me humour and that has NEVER made me fail a student or even treat them poorly.

I can be angry without being biased. I can do my job in a respectful, fair manner, no matter what my mood is.

So now what? Any policeman having a bad day is biased? Should they be sent home just because they had a rough day?

Do you make jokes on Myspace about, say, wanting to beat up your students?

Do you cite fictional portrayals of abusive teachers as role models?

If you do these things, and then one of your students accuses you of assault, do you think it might, maybe, possibly, have a bearing on the outcome of the case?

Re:What the hell?

[Suisho]

In Southern United States- everyone who deserves respect is Sir, period. It starts when your tiny- everyone who is an adult is yes sir, no sir. It carries on throughout life. It actually proclaims a position LOWER for the person who is saying sir, and puts the other person in a place of authority. I *still* out of habit say yes mam , no mam to people especially if they are giving me a command and/or I am in some sort of trouble, even though I'm an adult and do not live in the southern US anymore. Though, I have to say once I moved out of the south I've gotten weird looks for it.

Re:What the hell?

[icannotthinkofaname]

When you see people drunk, they look, waddle, and quack like ducks? Man, you know some frickin' strange drunk people, Aranykai.

Re:What the hell?

[caitsith01]

I find this mentality totally mystifying too.

You pay their salaries. They are subordinate to the executive branch of government, which is subordinate to the legislature, which is subordinate to YOU and every other citizen.

They should be calling you sir. You should be dealing with them in a polite but not deferential manner. Otherwise you are recognising that they hold some form of authority 'at large' over you, rather than merely an authority which is activated by a combination of the valid application of democratically passed laws and your conduct.

Re:What the hell?

[Mistshadow2k4]

Everyone tells me that I DON'T stagger or have bloodshot eyes when I'm drunk, but I do slur my speech. I also slur my speech when I haven't slept in over 24 hours. So if I don't smell of liquor and I'm slurring my speech, am I drunk? If you're a cop and you automatically answered yes, then you're exactly the sort of cop the original poster was talking about.

Re:What the hell?

[Lloyd_Bryant]

They should be calling you sir. You should be dealing with them in a polite but not deferential manner. Otherwise you are recognising that they hold some form of authority 'at large' over you, rather than merely an authority which is activated by a combination of the valid application of democratically passed laws and your conduct.

As a rule, police *do* address people as sir/ma'am (until/unless people start getting belligerent, at which point it becomes "scumbag" :)).

As for recognizing that they hold some form of authority over you, well, there's an old joke:
Q. What do you call a six foot negro with a seven foot spear?
A. Sir!

The simple fact that police carry lethal weapons has more than a little to do with the "sirs"...

Re:What the hell?

[gandhi_2]

Or he just knows people who know how to party.

Re:What the hell?

[BrookHarty]

Its not a Justice system, its a Legal System. And the law is foobar'd.

Re:What the hell?

[Anonymous Psychopath]

We rarely see the cop that lets small infractions slide.

Correct me if I am wrong but an infraction is still an infraction. The law was setup with punishments for every infraction that are suitable for the crime.

I'm sorry that crime has become so common place that we think that a "small infraction" deserves no punishment. Its like a child who pushes the limits of your patience day after day until you give in. Then you can no longer punish the child since you have set a poor example in the past.

As far as this particular case, possession of a weapon is a very serious issue and is by no means a "small infraction."

You know what, I would have loved to see what you would have said if you were arrested for getting a blow job from your wife in Utah or one of the other 8 states where it was illegal until 2003.

Well, I did say from your wife, so obviously that's a purely hypothetical scenario with little bearing on reality... but still, my point is that there are so many laws that (1) cops can't possibly understand them all and (2) some laws are so archaic that they aren't relevant.

Re:What the hell?

[zombie_monkey]

Did you even read the GP comment? He was refering to what the policemen claim in their testimony. And you were even modded up.

Re:What the hell?

[Belial6]

"An American police officer is a very risky job and comes with shitty hours, high divorce rate, and a paycheck that doesn't match."

The same could be said of the guy working at the QuikyMart. Do you treat them with the same 'respect' that you do the police?

Re:What the hell?

[Anonymous Coward]

Its neither. Its a revenue source. True guilt or innocence does not matter one whit. Want to be proven innocent regardless if one did a crime or not? Pony up for a good legal team who has manpower to do research and find any dirt on the witnesses being paraded so the jury discredits them.

This is why Madoff will never see a day in jail.

Re:What the hell?

[Ihlosi]

Someone booked for DUI will always be slurring their speech, staggering, have bloodshot eyes, etc.

Great. How about a defendant who can prove that he can still talk properly and walk on a straight line even with 0.2% BAC because he's an actual alcoholic?

Re:What the hell?

[hkmwbz]

I also slur my speech when I haven't slept in over 24 hours.

In which case you shouldn't be driving in the first place. Fatigue is as bad as alcohol in traffic, research shows.

Re:What the hell?

[Jafafa Hots]

Sorta like the arrest report I have that I've saved for over 20 years.

Reality: I'm sitting quietly on some church steps with a girl, a cop car pulls up on the lawn, I look up to see the cop's mouth move but can't tell what he said, so I ask "would you like us to leave officer?" (it was not unusual for cops to shoo teens along around that neighborhood.) He grins, says no, he wants ID, I have none, he arrests me.

His police report: says I was making a disturbance, refused repeated requests that I leave until finally he was forced to arrest me.

I'm lucky that's all it was, he threatened to add resisting arrest (which I of course didn't do.)

In the car on the way to the station I find out why I had just been arrested for sitting on church steps. Turns out I had made some wisecracking unflattering comments about the town's cops' weight and age in the presence of an undercover cop (who was busy checking someone else out at the time...) and the arresting cop says to me "how about we let you meet with him alone in a room and talk about just how fat and old you think we cops are?"

I was guilty of being a cynical 19 year old wiseass, is all.

COPS LIE. ROUTINELY.

Re:What the hell?

[TapeCutter]

"Officer" is the Aussie equivalent of "Sir"

I'm also an Aussie, the correct way to address an Aussie cop is "Officer", "Yes officer", "No officer", "I should know better officer", "I tell my kids the same thing officer". Try it next time one pulls you over and you KNOW you are in the wrong. Never have I been more sorry than when as a long-haired freak in the 70's I turned to my g/f and said (just a little too loudly) "the dipshit is checking my rego because he thinks I stole the bike".

However I agree, if you think you are right keep using "officer" to adress them and treat them as reasonable human beings while stating your case ONCE, leave the arguments for the court room. Oh and if you do find yourself in court don't lean on the wittness box and talk to the judge as if you were down the pub talking to your mates, trust me when I say pissing a judge off is much worse than arguing with a cop.

Notice also that the cops over here will call you "Sir" on certain occasions, usually when they are deadly serious about what they are asking you to do and haven't yet established your name. Does the phrase "Can I see you license sir" ring any bells or do they use that language on me because I'm an old fart?

None of this is subservience it's plain old fashioned respect (both ways). Also a healthy dose of humility when you know your in the wrong doesn't hurt anything, except maybe one's ego.

Re:What the hell?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's intensely hard to NOT resist slightly when someone shoves you hands behind your back and throws you to the floor or closest wall/car bonnet.

Try it - have one of your mates do it to you and see if you can resist the instinct to struggle. All your trying to do is get your arms out in front of you to stop your face taking the brunt - but this is resisting according to police.

It doesn't require you to have done anything threatening or violent for cops to act this way when arresting you - it just takes an arrogant arresting officer who is already sure you're scum.

*captcha: enforcer - don't tell me computers don't understand irony.

Re:What the hell?

[maj1k]

a few of my cousins work as cops up here in canada. they've told me that the hardest to catch drunk drivers are the chronic alcoholics ... they don't show visible signs of being drunk even though they've had over a dozen drinks. you might not know any of these people but be sure they exist.

Re:What the hell?

[tapanitarvainen]

if you (as a defendant) lie in court, it's perjury and you're in deep shit.

Really? In which country? In places I know of (European only, I'm afraid), the defendant does not (is not even allowed to) swear he's telling the truth nor can be punished for lying to defend himself. Only witnesses can be charged with perjury, not defendants.

Re:What the hell?

[Aladrin]

To be 'over the limit' and legally drunk you don't have to be anywhere close to showing those symptoms.

Re:What the hell?

[damburger]

Cops are in it for the power. Remember the kids at school who swaggered down the halls looking to pick on any kid who looked a bit different? Back then they were 'policing' the school (i.e. beating up smaller kids) in the name of the 'community' (i.e. the consensus of normality reached by the population of the school which few if any people really adhered to).

Someone just gave them a uniform is all.

Re:What the hell?

[damburger]

"Resisting Arrest" is one of the nastiest part of the law. Basically, if they wrongly arrest you - that is they attack you without provocation - then by trying to protect yourself even by raising your hands to stop yourself being hit you are still in the wrong - because you DARED to try and defend yourself against the state sponsored thug.

I the UK its a staple of police procedure; they look for some kid from the estates who has by necessity learnt to resolve shit with his fists, back him into a corner, and intimidate him until he either tries to run or push one of the pigs just to get away. Then he is cuffed and dragged off for resisting arrest/assaulting an officer despite the fact they had no reason to approach him in the first place. Magistrates just wave this through (I know, I used to work at a magistrates court) and the police hoover up easy arrests at the expense of some of the most vulnerable people in society. Sickening.

Re:What the hell?

[luder]

Well, I got totally drunk last night and I surely don't remember having any of those symptoms...

Re:What the hell?

[packeteer]

This is such a misunderstanding of alcohol related injuries I am not sure how to get through to you. I can however start explaining. Alcohol related crashes are almost never when a drunk person cannot stay on the road and goes off and hits something/someone. It is almost always a situation that might have caused a sober person to crash but definitely will cause a drunk person to crash. Someone not seeing the drunk driver or the other way around. All kinds of other risks are involved here and alcohol is just the one that seals the deal.

One of the big reasons we have so many alcohol related crashes is because people get up to somewhere above the legal limit but they say "hey the law doesn't know wtf they are talking about, I'm fine to drive". Then once they get home they don't trust the limits at all. Eventually someone is going to get hurt doing that and in your entire life it may never be you. It's when people think they are the exception that things really start to get dangerous.

Re:What the hell?

[drinkypoo]

I remember when I lost my faith in the police. I was in third grade and a girl came in to tell us a story about her dad getting pulled over for speeding going 5 mph over while people were zipping past him. He asked the cop why he was the one pulled over and the cop literally said "you were easier to catch". From that moment, I have never trusted authority. It has been an excellent policy for me.

Re:What the hell?

[drinkypoo]

Actually, research shows that Fatigue is worse than being at the legal limit for driving (0.08 where I live.) I've driven nearly-drunk (well-buzzed) once and medium-buzzed once, both were scary but not as scary as the accident I was in where I was very tired and in the rain and couldn't properly see the road. Luckily I only hit a barrier, and not hard enough to render the car undrivable. These days, I slow down and take it easy in situations like that. Stupidity is the actual cause of 100% of accidents.

Re:What the hell?

[damburger]

I hate "sir". I am much more comfortable with "oi, you" which is a happy coincidence, living in England.

Re:What the hell?

[Zironic]

It's also very interesting to see this behavior from a Swedish point of view, our equivalent of the word "sir" hasn't been in common use for atleast 50 years, we also don't use lastnames or titles if we can avoid it so the only way to sound polite without sounding like you belong to a b&w movie is by actually being polite :O

Re:What the hell?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's unfair to call someone corrupt because of a status in My Space. Are cops never allowed to be in a devious mood? This could have been attributed to a countless number of scenarios the cop was in. I agree getting rid of bent cops is the only way to prevent corruption, but I don't think it's fair to say this man is a bent cop because of his My Space status.

Re:What the hell?

[MBGMorden]

I don't know about general social mores in the US, and perhaps calling people Sir is something that everyone does, but here in Australia nobody calls anybody Sir except for people employed in the service industry and some children to adults. If I was being bailed up by the police and I started calling them Sir, it'd probably make things worse. Either they'd think I was a spineless lick-spittle trying to suck up to them and so not worthy of ANY respect, or they'd think I was taking the piss and being a smartarse and so worthy of a hard time.

Depends on your location. Down South (where we're usually known for good manners, if anything) we do indeed call just about everyone Sir or Ma'am. It's just a form of respect. The guy at Arby's who asks if I want extra ketchup with my sandwich gets a "No, Sir." reply. The janitor at work who asks if there's anyone else in the bathroom after I leave gets a "No, Ma'am.". It's just the way we're brought up.

Re:What the hell?

[Tony Hoyle]

It was Bird flu?

Re:What the hell?

[Andy_R]

The defendant is under oath in a British court, I know because I was once (wrongly) accused of a crime here and relied on that very fact.

When I got to the important facts the prosecution tried to shut me up and I got the court's permission to carry on (against the magistrate's initial ruling) by pointing out that I'd be breaking the 'Solemn Oath I'd sworn on the Holy Bible with our Lord Almighty as Witness' tell the whole truth if I was stopped from doing exactly that. The magistrate allowed me to carry on on religious grounds. I carried on pointing out the holes in the case and cleared my name, thankful that I was never asked if I actually believed in any of that god stuff.

Re:What the hell?

[Antique Geekmeister]

Or he could list 'Nazi'. This is not a classic 'Godwin' statement: a number of British police were revealed to be members of the 'British National Party' when a membership list was revealed on Wikileaks (http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2008/nov/19/bnp-list). That's the Nazi party of the UK, and it's illegal for police to be members of it.

Wikileaks is wonderful for publishing criminal or abusive facts that 'those with the secret privilege' would like to never see revealed, and I applaud their work.

Re:What the hell?

[bsane]

Of course, I've never hung out with dirtbags, never associated with people with publicly-known criminal records, never mouthed off to a cop, never done drugs, so I'm sure it's just COINCIDENCE that this never happened to me?

No doubt those activities minimize the risk, but no one other than a police officer and his family are safe from the risk of police abuse. Good luck, and I hope you never are. From your description of yourself you probably have a high chance of never ending up on the wrong side of some petty cop, but its not 100% certain.

Also just a guess that your not from the US, if you were you'd also know that being black or brown would be tick against you, and make you more likely a target of this kind of abuse.

Re:What the hell?

[nidarus]

You want to know the reason nobody trusts those with power, and why power seemingly corrupts? Easy. Power doesn't corrupt, the corrupt seek power, and society hands that power to those who brag the best (ie: are the least stable).

I think both are true. There was an experiment where they randomly divided the test subjects into "prisoners" and "guards", and those who became "guards" quickly started acting in a sadistic manner towards the "prisoners".

Re:What the hell?

[drinkypoo]

Great. How about a defendant who can prove that he can still talk properly and walk on a straight line even with 0.2% BAC because he's an actual alcoholic?

I am not for a minute defending drunk driving, but many people like that are far safer on the roads than plenty of people for whom it is legal to drive. For example, if you can't turn around to look behind you, you can NOT safely back up a car, yet there are many elderly (and simply disabled) people who physically cannot do this. Arguably, it should be illegal for them to even operate a vehicle which must be driven in reverse. They can have a prototype Tucker, but they shouldn't be driving so much as a fucking Honda Civic, which is still dangerous enough to be considered a deadly weapon if you try to run someone over with it.

The idea of drunk driving legislation is kind of ridiculous to me, because it is based on an arbitrary measurement. Some people can't drive safely at 0.03% (just to make up a number) and for that matter, some people never fucking drive safely. I was behind a woman driving a small car yesterday, going the same speed in my land yacht, she was over a foot over the double yellow while I was always in the lane. Unfortunately the cops came around the blind curve on the one curve she wasn't crossing - I live to see those people get tickets. I live in Lake County where we have [half of] a road called the "Hopland Grade", which is a portion of CA Highway 175 between Lakeport and Hopland. It is twisty and narrow and they fly a Cessna over the mountain and take aerial photographs of people driving over the line, then give them a big. fat. ticket. of about $240 for crossing that SOB. People crash in the road center all the time on that road, and many people also try to dodge the asshole in their lane and go off a big cliff, and the mystery is never solved. Some wanker wrote in to a paper about it being a secret toll road - the unanimous response was to stay the fuck home, we don't need you in our county. Point is, people are over that line generating revenue all day, and most of them are sober. They just think that the rules were invented to stop them from having a good time, and so they should not apply to them.

Re:What the hell?

[GogglesPisano]

If it looks, waddles and quacks like a duck...

So, logically, it's made of wood.

And, therefore, a witch.

BURN IT!

Re:What the hell?

[drinkypoo]

Yah, my dad told me that joke, too. Except his punchline was "You were the only one stupid enough to pull over".

Every good joke is based on the truth. On the other hand, this wasn't a joke. Nobody laughed. She was obviously upset by the experience. I believe her name was Bethany, but I don't remember the last name (or if I'm even right.) This was at Mar Vista Elementary School in Aptos, California. I don't remember a lot of detail from that period of my life, but the look on her face is one thing I will probably never forget - I certainly haven't so far, and I don't remember much else from that class except that the teacher was a prick who would have me "sit quietly" when I was done with my work; apparently, giving me something else to do would be disruptive of the other children. Then again, looking around the classroom was apparently something I did which was disruptive to other children. WE ARE DONE WITH YOU, CHILD UNIT. ENTER C1 SUSPEND MODE UNTIL NEEDED. Mr. Knudsen, you're a child abuser.

Re:What the hell?

[Dolohov]

If he can still perform fine with that BAC, he probably wouldn't have been pulled over in the first place.

Re:What the hell?

[Norwell Bob]

Way to generalize.

As it so happens, every single police officer I know on a personal level is the polar opposite of that stereotype.

But then, I've never personally been molested by a Catholic priest, or had my money embezzled by a Republican, or lacked rhythm because I'm white or been in any other way victimized by one of the stereotypes that it's OK to believe in.

Re:What the hell?

[JoeMerchant]

"An American police officer is a very risky job and comes with shitty hours, high divorce rate, and a paycheck that doesn't match." The same could be said of the guy working at the QuikyMart. Do you treat them with the same 'respect' that you do the police?

If you don't, what does that say about you as a human being?

Re:What the hell?

[drinkypoo]

One of the big reasons we have so many alcohol related crashes is because people get up to somewhere above the legal limit but they say "hey the law doesn't know wtf they are talking about, I'm fine to drive".

Another big reason is the people who say "I should be below the legal limit, I'm fine to drive" and even worse per individual but probably less numerous are those who say "my fifty dollar breathalyzer which I used improperly says I'm safe to drive". Just because you're under the legal limit it doesn't mean you're safe to drive. IIRC if you are in an accident they have the right to test your blood (in California, anyway; arguably, when you get a driver's license you are agreeing to blood testing... fucking leech bastards aren't satisfied with draining your wallet, or making you wait a month for an appointment for said draining so you can drive around in an unregistered car in the mean time) and if you are over 0.02% it's considered to be alcohol-related. This is essentially a facetious concept, because (at least according to the MI police, who have a vested interest in being correct) the machines [used for testing BAC of blood] can be no more than .02 percent accurate.

It's when people think they are the exception that things really start to get dangerous.

Too true. "It can't happen to me" have got to be some of the most common last words (right behind "shit", "fuck", and "oh no"...)

Re:What the hell?

[torkus]

Actually something like speeding that has no direct victim shouldn't be illegal in the first place.

If you're going down that same hill at 20, 30, or 40 over and there's no one around, you're not even endangering anyone (excluding yourself, but you can legally smoke, drink, and play with knives) much less hurting someone. If common sense was more common the vast majority of traffic laws could be replaces with "don't do stupid things and you're responsible for your actions".

Re:What the hell?

[cerberusss]

[...] in the rain and couldn't properly see the road. [...] These days, I slow down and take it easy in situations like that.

Reminds me of my late grandpa (God bless him). He was of the old school. Sure you could drink all you want, and still drive. But, he assured me, you have to use common sense and adjust your speed!

Fortunately for the rest of the road users, his speed wasn't that high to begin with. So after a copious meal with four glasses of wine, he would drive home with about 5 to 10 miles per hour....

Re:What the hell?

[Sun.Jedi]

The point I believe he was making was that cops who enforce with overzealousness the black letter of the law to the point where adherence is impossible are being unfair

I took away the clear fact that cops are certainly 'above' the small infractions in the eyes of their brethren. Why shouldn't the general public be afforded the same extension?

I'll answer that question; because the general public doesn't belong to the biggest, most malicious, law breaking gang in America: the thin blue line.

Re:What the hell?

[mdwh2]

The magistrate allowed me to carry on on religious grounds. I carried on pointing out the holes in the case and cleared my name, thankful that I was never asked if I actually believed in any of that god stuff.

Yes, that bit does sound quite bizarre - he let you carry on on religious grounds, but not on the grounds of justice, you know, what the whole point of the court is for...

Re:What the hell?

[thebigbadme]

http://www.prisonexp.org/

Stanford University

iirc they had to shut it down early because it got out of hand

Re:What the hell?

[jockeys]

It was the same for me growing up in the South. (in a military family, no less.)

Saying sir or ma'am is simply good manners, and it costs nothing to be polite.

Re:What the hell?

[swb]

I've had the same experience. The cop I know best personally was a high school jock, his dad was a cop, and he's a very conservative catholic as well as a die-hard Republican. Despite all that, and being a police officer in a very diverse population, you simply cannot goad him into being a stereotypical mean spirited cop, a racist, or any of the other mean stuff you'd normally expect.

I've gone on a few ride alongs with him and he's very much the public servant with both crime victims and when he's made arrests.

About the worst thing I ever saw him do was take down a door-door "salesman" who had been canvassing our neighborhood well after dark (the cop and his wife lived up the block at the time). The cop's wife called me and complained that some weird guy banged on her door and wouldn't go away. I told her to call her husband who was at work (we live in the precinct) and I'd watch for him outside. He knocked on more doors as he moved down the block, and when the cop got to our neighborhood the "salesman" ducked between houses when he saw the squad and ran to the back road. They cut him off and stopped him on the street. They asked him what he was doing and who he worked for and he refused to answer or provide ID (he wasn't wearing the usual embroidered sales polo and had no sales materials or flyers), so the salesman got handcuffed face down on the hood of the squad and they searched him and his wallet, ultimately finding a business contact that verified who he was (some lame window company) and then they let him go and urged him to make his sales pitches when it was light out and respect people who said no.

I was the only witness (a half block away) and his wife had felt threatened by the sales guy -- they easily could have tuned him up and thrown him in jail on a resisting beef and nobody would have cared, but he didn't do it.

Anyway, I agree -- the blanket accusation that all cops are assholes and power mad jerks isn't true from what I've seen. Some are kind of weapons geeks, but that doesn't make them mean.

Re:What the hell?

[arekusu_ou]

Interesting, I'm in MA, USA.

And in traffic court, the judge started out for the day announcing to everyone that based on the Cop's statement and claim of the speed gun reading, you're already guilty, and you need to prove your innocence. How exactly are you to prove you weren't speeding?

Having hard enough time fighting a parking ticket by private company handling the city's parking. You need to prove your innocence.

Re:What the hell?

[Sancho]

Similar (and safer) experiments have been performed using the ability to remotely shock a person and actors who would pretend to be shocked. On average, given permission to be sadistic, most people are.

Re:What the hell?

[VoxMagis]

Actually, yes.

I'm an American. I believe in the principles of my country. I also believe that everyone deserves a level of respect, until they show me a reason not to.

A police officer, a cashier, a gas station attendant, no matter what color, race, religion, etc. will get a 'sir' or 'ma'am' from me until they choose to not respect me, or do something that is disrespectful.

I'm really sorry if that bothers people, but I really recommend people try it out. It's amazing what kind of payback you get. Too many people out there never get these small recognitions of their humanity. I have never understood those who feel that they are too important or too special to respect others.

Re:What the hell?

[thesandtiger]

I've seen footage from the Milgrom experiment, which is what you're referring to.

It isn't about people being "given permission to be sadistic" - it was about people caving into authority figures when told to do something that they didn't agree with. The vast majority of the people who were being told to give extreme shocks were actually arguing with the researcher and refusing several times to keep going, but eventually they gave in. Far from being sadistic (taking pleasure in inflicting pain), the participants were nearly hysterical in several instances, begging to not be made to continue shocking a person they thought was seriously hurt or dying, and in several cases nearly physically assaulted the researcher, or threatened violence.

What it demonstrated was that most people, when they are confronted with an authority figure telling them to do something they know is wrong but that they've already kind of done anyway, will eventually give in and do the wrong thing.

This isn't really relevant to the thread, but it irks me that the experiment was so incredibly poorly represented in your post as something that it absolutely wasn't.

As he often says on "The Simpsons"

[Chris Tucker]

<NelsonMuntz>"HA-ha! Stupid Cop is Stupid!"</NelsonMuntz>

Re:On the plus side,

[Kinky Bass Junk]

Too bad it was used to defend a career criminal.

Raises the bar for law enforcement.

[TheFlyingBuddha]

People are always keen to say "such and such" is just talk but the fact is the language we use about ourselves has a profound impact on our behavior. If a cop enjoys all that bad-ass posturing in art, and then builds that persona for their self, there is little doubt in my mind that at some point, no matter how much they might deny it, that kind of stuff will appear in their actual behavior on the job. I am NOT saying in this case it follows that the officers actually planted a weapon. But I don't really see a problem with someone being given pause over this kind of posturing. They do an important job and maintaining certain professional standards in their behavior keeps us safer all-around.

Re:Raises the bar for law enforcement.

[Mr. Underbridge]

People are always keen to say "such and such" is just talk but the fact is the language we use about ourselves has a profound impact on our behavior.

That's about the same logic as the wingnuts who claim that video games lead to real-life violence.

It's just make-believe. People with proper psychological functioning can easily compartmentalize fantasy from reality.

Re:Raises the bar for law enforcement.

[TheFlyingBuddha]

Obviously it is not a private area. Strictly speaking, his information is on display and is fair game. I believe however that ideally speaking there would be some degree of respect for what is essentially a personalized space. Of course we hardly live in an ideal world.

Re:Raises the bar for law enforcement.

[TheFlyingBuddha]

Hardly. While you could make the connection eventually, my point is not that *watching and enjoying a film* caused his behavior. When he *chooses* to take an image from media and emulate it with his language about himself, he has begun to internalize that image. It is still a *choice.* If I play and enjoy Grand Theft Auto games, I do not become a criminal. If I then create an image of myself which emulates the characters in these games and begin to use it in other spaces, then I've created a problematic situation. You're right, tons of people manage to compartmentalize these images. Using language to describe yourself as an emulator however, is the first sign that you aren't doing that at all.

Re:On the plus side,

[Lehk228]

too bad the cop sounds like a career douchebag.

Then Mr. Lesher tracked down comments Officer Ettienne had made on the Internet about video clips of arrests. An officer should not have punched a handcuffed man, Officer Ettienne wrote. "If he wanted to tune him up some, he should have delayed cuffing him."

He added: "If you were going to hit a cuffed suspect, at least get your money's worth 'cause now he's going to get disciplined for" a relatively light punch.

I get it

[SupremoMan]

So when the system uses this kind of bs to keep you from a job it's fine and dandy. But as soon as you turn it around on the system, all of a sudden people are outraged?

Re:I get it

[mabhatter654]

a girl showing her boobies 3 years ago when she was a sorority girl is not the same as somebody who's a cop right know joking about beating suspects or planting evidence.

The last 3 presidents openly admitted to smoking pot... What would be so different about it in 15 years when somebody digs up somebody's old facebook post from Freshman year?

'Locker Persona' is Real Persona

[Sarusa]

The persona you show in the locker room or internet is your real self, or at least a closer version of it than what you show on the streets when anyone else but the guy you're screwing with is watching. I've seen fine upstanding cops like this lie their asses off in court enough to believe that if he jokes that 'Training Day' is great training that he more than halfway actually believes it.

The suspect, Waters, is obviously not a great guy, but I'm not convinced I can trust anything a guy like Ettienne says either.

Re:'Locker Persona' is Real Persona

[Anubis350]

Oh, the cop was definitely an idiot for posting something like that, his job *requires* more discretion than that. WHile the reasonable doubt makes sense (which even the cop admits to), to think you can base your opinion of his policing ability and trustability on what's pretty obviously a facetious facebook comment...

Hell, I work in a research group in bio-chem modeling, and not to long ago I had a status that read "Everything I know about DNA I learned from Gattaca" - I do hope that any future employers arent facebook-reading idiots...

Re:'Locker Persona' is Real Persona

[Sarusa]

I guess it boils down to whether someone thinks you're joking or you're 'joking ha ha wink wink'. As a bio-chem researcher your Gattaca comment obviously trips the nerd humor trigger because it's so ridiculous. But we catch corrupt cops all the time. How about that Republican party member who made 'just a joke' about Obama's Easter watermelon hunts? Or if you'd snickered instead that you were 'falsifying COX2 inhibitor research results'?

Cops are given an amazing amount of power - I've seen that if there's no evidence otherwise the judge will take their word over anyone else's, but they're caught lying and falsifying evidence quite often. Given that, joking on your Facebook page about using Training Day as a model he is are makes me go 'Ha ha ha... ha?' because it does happen. It is an admitted prejudice of mine, but I've never met a single good cop (and there are plenty of those too) who ever joked, even in private, about how corrupt they were.

Re:'Locker Persona' is Real Persona

[martinX]

His job doesn't require more "discretion", it requires ethics and honesty. "Discretion" implies it's OK to be unethical and dishonest as long as you can get away with it.

No messing around

[NotQuiteReal]

This is the kind of news that keeps me on track. When I release an SBD, I maintain a poker face.

Damn skippy!

[Anonymous Coward]

Tough titty. If you're a public official, you have to live up to a higher standard than everyone else - it's part of the deal. Even the appearance of unfairness or impropriety is unacceptable, insofar as it relates to your position.

To this end, I have compiled a list of analogous examples of facebook status lines, as depicted by their various professions:

- Catholic Priest: "Off to work for me...Long day ahead of corn-holing a bunch of kids."

- Astronaut: "Launch time is tomorrow morning. This time tomorrow, I should be safely in orbit, pulling my pud and spewing my wad into someone's EVA glove."

- Programmer for Microsoft: "Damn I got coder's block. Time to find something useful inside the linux kernel."

- Local baker: "I just fooled around for two hours with my raunchy girlfriend and haven't washed my hands. Gonna go bake some bread."

- Medical examiner: "I'm just so bloody horny lately and dammit the online dating just isn't working out for me."

- County Judge: "Feeling a bit woozy right now after sampling everything out of the medicine cabinet."

- Airline pilot: "Life sucks and I want to die."

- Cthulhu: "Sometimes i just want a hug."

One of My Experiences with the Police

[desinc]

I was waiting patiently outside of a coffee shop with my puppy while my girlfriend was inside getting a couple White Mochas.

As I sat on the bench, two cops came and sat down right next to me. They were in the middle of a conversation, which I couldn't help but overhear.

Cop 1: "Why'd we arrest that guy again?"

Cop 2: "Man I don't even know!"

Cop 1: "Eh, whatever. He had it coming to him. They'll sort it out at the station."

Re:One of My Experiences with the Police

[tsotha]

That may not mean what you seem to be implying. It could mean they really didn't have anything to arrest him on. More likely it means there were so many different possible charges they didn't know where to start. In those cases they usually just kind of pick the most egregious thing and let the DA draw up the complete list once the suspect is in custody.

Re:One of My Experiences with the Police

[bentcd]

That may not mean what you seem to be implying. It could mean they really didn't have anything to arrest him on. More likely it means there were so many different possible charges they didn't know where to start.

It could also be that they were assisting in an arrest where someone else had the lead while they themselves had little idea how the whole thing started or why the guy in question needed to be arrested.

Re:FACE it....

[kyjl]

*sunglasses*

YEEEAAAAAAHHHHHH

Re:Personal Responsibility

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

Sometimes, protecting the rights of suspects means following a process that fails to convict a criminal. The justice system is imperfect. Crank up the sensitivity high enough to eliminate false negatives and you'll get a whole pile of false positives.

Concern for the innocent should be reason enough; but if it isn't, remember that every innocent person convicted for a crime means a guilty person not convicted for that crime.

Of course that defense worked.

[jeko]

What you say in a public forum, ESPECIALLY as a public official in a critical position of trust, matters. Make a joke about crashing planes on the TSA website, see what happens. Make any kind of joke in any kind of public forum about possibly harming the president of the United States and the Secret Service will absolutely pay you a visit.

How would you feel to know your doctor cruelly jokes about involuntarily euthanizing people over 40? A kindergarten teacher making jokes about molesting the kids? A contractor who jokes about building houses to fall in the first earthquake? I'm a network engineer, and I can assure you I don't joke about crashing the 911 systems or bringing down the hospitals and airports I'm the lead engineer for.

I love Bill Hicks. I thank God for Penn Gillette. Richard Pryor is a certified genius. We will not see the like of Jonathan Swift again. But when my wife is in the middle of a c-section, I don't wanna hear the anesthesiologist go "Hey Dude, do you want a hit of this too?" It would be hilarious, and I would have to kill him.

A police officer who jokes about beating people and planting evidence does not have the temperment or trustworthiness for the job.

When it comes to jury duty..

[nexuspal]

Remember what your peers on here have said about slights committed by police officers. Give the guy/gal on the defense an extra benefit of the doubt, they really need it in cases where the police take it apon themselves to "help" get a conviction.

Re:When it comes to jury duty..

[DomainDominator]

This is just more proof that we are handing our society over to the criminals!

Re:When it comes to jury duty..

[atraintocry]

The ones in orange or the ones in blue?

Re:When it comes to jury duty..

[mrchaotica]

You mean like the criminals here in Atlanta who murdered* an old lady after lying to get a warrant to do a no-knock raid on her house?

(*Of course, they got the charges reduced to "voluntary manslaughter" and "violating civil rights" because they happened to be cops in addition to being criminals.)

Re:Personal Responsibility

[asdfman2000]

every innocent person convicted for a crime means a guilty person not convicted for that crime.

Except for victimless crimes. In those cases (drugs, speeding, etc), the only positive of punishing an innocent is monetary fines. Why else are most victimless crimes punished with fines instead of jail time?

Dangerous Precedent

[Suisho]

IMNAL- But, I was looking and frightened by this. Due to imlications for future trials, like in a rape case. I can easily seeing this being used as proof to validate the facebook profile being used against the victim. Look- she said she was feeling sexy and horny- *that* made it consensual. And on her myspace page she talks about promiscuity.
Dangerous, Dangerous territory.
Does the facebook profile point out behaviors people don't want to see in cops- YES. Does it point out that the defendant didn't have a weapon? Absolutely not. They are different events at different times.

Re:Dangerous Precedent

[mrchaotica]

IMNAL- But, I was looking and frightened by this. Due to imlications for future trials, like in a rape case. I can easily seeing this being used as proof to validate the facebook profile being used against the victim. Look- she said she was feeling sexy and horny- *that* made it consensual. And on her myspace page she talks about promiscuity. Dangerous, Dangerous territory.

What if it actually was consensual? What if the "victim" was actually the man, falsely accused because the woman got pissed off at him later? If it's otherwise her word against his (which is skewed way in her favor nowadays), then that facebook profile might be the only thing that keeps an innocent guy from getting his life ruined.

A "Weapon" isn't what you think it is...

[jeko]

Hard-core gadget geek here. If it says Surefire, Victorinox, Wenger, Leatherman, Nitecore or Spyderco, it's probably a good Christmas present idea for me. I doubt I'm alone on this on this board. I routinely carry a Surefire E1B (a very bright small flashlight the size of a roll of Lifesavers) and a Leatherman. You can't trace a cable you can't see, and the usefulness of a Leatherman around networking gear should explain itself.

The problem is that the laws as they are written define a weapon roughly as "anything the officer wants." People have been arrested for carrying Swiss Army Knives the officers chose to call a "hidden dirk or dagger." People have been arrested for carrying Surefire 6Ps (a six-inch long flashlight. Turns out the officer wanted to "confiscate" an expensive piece of gear). A couple of summers back, an off-duty police officer working private security told my wife she couldn't bring a six-pack of cokes into the amusement park because the aluminum can could be used as a weapon. The vendors were selling cans of cokes not 50 feet from the gate, of course.

When you hear "weapons violation," you used to think hidden foot-long boot daggers, rifles illegally converted to full auto, sawed-off shotguns, live grenades and the like. Today, more often than not, being arrested for "carrying a deadly weapon," means you were holding a Maglight to see your way to your car in a dark parking lot.

You think I'm joking? Anyone remember the terrorist Lite-Brite Toy Incident in Boston?

 

Re:A "Weapon" isn't what you think it is...

[glennpratt]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_Boston_Mooninite_Scare

GP might have been referring to that. Two were arrested and charged with FELONYS! That is ruin your life shit right there. Seems a trend, eh?

Terminology

[jonaskoelker]

I thought the term was "bald-faced lying scumbag", but then again I'm ANAL and not good with language ;-)

Re:Terminology

[MadDogX]

Obviously, because the expression "I'm ANAL" doesn't make much sense, except to tell us that you are extremely anal. ... Are you?

Re:Fuck the Police

[Anonymous Coward]

So you can go fight freedom?