THE POLICE PROBLEM
The police problem is that police are policed by the police. Cops are accountable only to other cops, which is no accountability at all.
99.9999% of police brutality, corruption, and misconduct is never investigated, never punished, never makes the news, so it's not on this page.
When cops are caught breaking the law, they're investigated by other cops. Details are kept quiet, the officers' names are withheld from public knowledge, and what info is eventually released is only what police choose to release — often nothing at all.
When police are fired — which is all too rare — they leave with 'law enforcement experience' and can easily find work in another police department nearby. It's called "Wandering Cops."
When police testify under oath, they lie so frequently that cops themselves have a joking term for it: "testilying." Yet it's almost unheard of for police to be punished or prosecuted for perjury.
Cops can and do get away with lawlessness, because cops protect other cops. If they don't, they aren't cops for long.
The legal doctrine of "qualified immunity" renders police officers invulnerable to lawsuits for almost anything they do. In practice, getting past 'qualified immunity' is so unlikely, it makes headlines when it happens.
All this is a path to a police state.
In a free society, police must always be under serious and skeptical public oversight, with non-cops and non-cronies in charge, issuing genuine punishment when warranted.
Police who break the law must be prosecuted like anyone else, promptly fired if guilty, and barred from ever working in law-enforcement again.
That's the solution.
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Our definition of ‘cops’ is broad, and includes prison guards, probation officers, shitty DAs and judges, etc — anyone who has the authority to fuck over people’s lives, with minimal or no oversight.
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RULES
① Real-life decorum is expected. Please don't say things only a child or a jackass would say in person.
② If you're here to support the police, you're trolling. Please exercise your right to remain silent.
③ Saying ~~cops~~ ANYONE should be killed lowers the IQ in any conversation. They're about killing people; we're not.
④ Please don't dox or post calls for harassment, vigilantism, tar & feather attacks, etc.
Please also abide by the instance rules.
It you've been banned but don't know why, check the moderator's log. If you feel you didn't deserve it, hey, I'm new at this and maybe you're right. Send a cordial PM, for a second chance.
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ALLIES
• r/ACAB
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INFO
• A demonstrator's guide to understanding riot munitions
• Cops aren't supposed to be smart
• Killings by law enforcement in Canada
• Killings by law enforcement in the United Kingdom
• Killings by law enforcement in the United States
• Know your rights: Filming the police
• Three words. 70 cases. The tragic history of 'I can’t breathe' (as of 2020)
• Police aren't primarily about helping you or solving crimes.
• Police lie under oath, a lot
• Police spin: An object lesson in Copspeak
• Police unions and arbitrators keep abusive cops on the street
• Shielded from Justice: Police Brutality and Accountability in the United States
• When the police knock on your door
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ORGANIZATIONS
• NAACP
• National Police Accountability Project
• Vera: Ending Mass Incarceration
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Small-town police sued for planting drugs on drivers in north Alabama
Sarah Whites-Koditschek | [email protected]
Michael Kilgore
Michael Kilgore
After a small-town police officer was indicted this year in a scheme to frame drivers for drug possession in north Alabama, one driver is suing for wrongful arrest, arguing that former Centre officer Michael Kilgore planted drugs in his car and used a police dog from another department to find the contraband.
“After (Officer) Kilgore’s scheme was exposed, the charges against Plaintiff and numerous other victims of the scheme were dropped. Accordingly, plaintiff brings this action for wrongful arrest and malicious prosecution,” said a complaint in the lawsuit filed in federal court last month.
William Sidney Blevins and his girlfriend Amanda Woods were driving from Leesburg to Centre, north of Gadsden, to meet with a friend on the night of January 25, at about 11 p.m. when an officer pulled them over, according to the complaint. Officer Michael Andrew Kilgore, 39, told Blevins he pulled him over because his tag light was out and asked to search the car. According to the complaint, Blevins said no to the search and the officer told them both to step out of the car and he put them in handcuffs.
A K-9 officer, Shane Butler, then arrived at the arrest scene with his dog and talked to Kilgore, according to the complaint. Butler walked around the car and ducked down by the open passenger door, out of sight of Blevins, according to the suit. Butler then stood up and went to get his K-9. Once at the car, the dog jumped in the passenger side.
“Kilgore came over and reached inside, then showed plaintiff a bag of what plaintiff assumed was illegal drugs. Kilgore claimed to have found the bag inside the vehicle,” the lawsuit said.
Blevins had never seen bag before, according to the suit. Officers arrested him for possessing methamphetamine and took him to Cherokee County Jail where he stayed until the next afternoon, according to the lawsuit. His lawsuit claims he was forced to sleep on the concrete jail floor which caused a shoulder injury. His name, mugshot and charges were published in the local paper.
On May 3, Kilgore was arrested for a criminal conspiracy to commit a controlled substance crime-distribution. The suit says the charges against Blevins and several others were dropped after Kilgore’s arrest.
Kilgore is no longer employed by Centre police. Multiple efforts to reach Kilgore for comment were unsuccessful. His attorney in the case is not listed yet.
“I am afraid this case is just scratching the surface of the damage Officer Kilgore has done to the innocent people he arrested for possessing or distributing drugs, drugs that he planted on them so he could get another drug bust to his credit,” said Jon Goldfarb, Blevins’ attorney.
Butler is also named in the lawsuit. He is an officer at the Cedar Bluff Police Department. Neither Butler nor the Cedar Bluff Police Department returned multiple calls for comment for this article.
According to the complaint, a confidential informant had reported that Kilgore was planting evidence a few days after Blevins’ arrest and there was an investigation underway into Kilgore at the time Blevins visited the chief.
In total, Kilgore worked at the department for less than a year, according to the department’s Facebook page. After the first two months of his employment, the Centre Police Department announced online a significant number of arrests, many of them drug related. Of 138 new cases at the department between June and August of 2022, there were 70 arrests, including 49 charges from drug/narcotic violations and 26 from drug equipment violations, according to the department. Five charges were for possession of illegal prescription drugs. The department said it had removed 1.47 pounds of methamphetamine, a gram of heroin and 4.66 pounds of marijuana.
“We are very disappointed in Kilgore’s conduct,” said Centre Police Chief Kirk Blankenship in a public statement in May. “There is no excuse for any officer violating the law like this.”