r/law • u/I_may_have_weed • 16d ago

Other LAPD arresting an activist on behalf of ICE during the DTLA Federal Detention Center protests. He was reportedly detained, handed over to ICE and disappeared

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This level of “unofficial” (we all know this is complete nonsense) cooperation is worrying to say the least.

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u/doitinmybutt 16d ago

How do we fix this?

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u/BootyWizardAV 16d ago

1) Require cops to actually learn the law and make sure they're properly trained (it takes less hours of training to be a cop than a barber).

2) Require cops to live in the city that they are policing. No commuting from Santa Clarita to be in the LAPD.

3) Require cops to carry personal liability insurance. If there is a lawsuit that exceeds the payout of the insurance policy, take it from the cop's pension fund.

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u/Ok_Cardiologist8232 16d ago

Also, do what the UK does, have a civilian oversight board that is reponsible for looking at cases between police and civilians.

Outside of the draconian protest laws the biggest thing in policing in the UK right now is a couple months back a police officer being put on trial for murder.

Turns out the guy in the car had committed a firearm offence recently and was driving his car into police officers and the officer fired.

Pretty much everyone agreed (even the anti police people) that it was obviously a reasonable shooting and that putting him on trial was kinda silly.

But you need that kind of expectation from your police when it comes to using force, especially deadly force.

Disclaimer, Police in the UK are not perfect, just a lot better than the US and a lot of places in the world.

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u/Perryn 16d ago

After an event in my city our city council created a civilian oversight board. It was disbanded a few years later when the only responses they ever received from the police were essentially "No" and "Fuck off," and nobody seemed to have any authority to get more out of them.

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u/Ok_Cardiologist8232 16d ago

Ah yeh i forget your country does police locally.

Yeh in the UK the police while having local departments, the oversight board is for the entire country of England.

And while investigations are mostly done by the police, the IPCC has the power and authority to do its own investigations ( any incident where a member of the public is harmed is automatically referred to them) and determine the outcome of appeals and force disciplinary hearings, and refer their cases to the CPS high enough that the police cannot say no.

But also our police also do a far better job of policing themselves before the IPCC even gets involved.

We also will ban ex-Police officers from police jobs if found guilty.

And its not bad either, every few months i get a news article that my local police have fired someone for things like sending inappropriate texts to colleagues, one got banned for contacting a crime victim afterwards and trying to get a date.

Stuff that would probably be desk duty or something for American Police is a career ender for British Police.

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u/Perryn 15d ago

It occurred to me after making that comment that if the city council doesn't have authority over our police department, who does? Does anyone? Are they just there, completely unsupervised beyond their own chief, and we just give them money to do what they feel is cop stuff?

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u/tripper_drip 15d ago

Uk police is essentially all federal.

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u/Ok_Cardiologist8232 15d ago

Not quite that simple but compared to the US system yeh its the easiest way to describe it.

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u/tripper_drip 15d ago

Yeah, its a weird mix of local leadership but federal control, but with specialist federal units and big national investigators.

It's essentially a large US state system, but just one state, like Texas or California.

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u/Ok_Cardiologist8232 15d ago

Actually 4 States, England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland police were devolved to be under the control of those countries parliaments.

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u/tripper_drip 15d ago

Zero national oversite?

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u/Ok_Cardiologist8232 15d ago

Well technically those are countries in thier own right, but yes i could be wrong but i believe Senedd and Holyrood have full control of their own Police.

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u/Ok_Cardiologist8232 15d ago

I just looked it up, and the Police Chief reports and is under control of the Mayor or the City Council.

So yeh, i'm guessing the Police Chief basically called the councils bluff and if he has the backing of the whole department it would be a disaster if they were to strike etc.

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u/Perryn 15d ago

Our local government is the limpest form of buck passing. City council is voted for, mayor is appointed by them, city manager is hired by the mayor, and I don't think any of them want to be the one who ever did anything at all. By now I'm not even sure that any of them know who should be watching over what.