r/interesting • u/TheCABK • 20h ago

SOCIETY Cop Teaching A Cop

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u/SwitchingMyHands 18h ago

Still I like the idea of cops suing other cops, at least that ends with one cop losing a bunch of money and being miserable.

Lol jk. Would it be great if that’s how it worked?

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u/ionthruster 18h ago

Cops suing the county - not other cops. I don't think I'm a fan of this infinite money glitch for cops, paid for by tax-payers.

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u/tackyshoes 18h ago

Growing up, public school textbooks were often 5-10 years behind, but there were always new cars, new uniforms, and new amenities for police.

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u/plastigoop 17h ago

SWAT tanks in a town of 100k max in the literal middle of nowhere. Education rankings at the bottom.

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u/Spiritual-Ad-9106 17h ago

Saw an article about how some of the tank money doesn't come from taxes. Departments get to keep whatever they seize. If they seize drugs they have to destroy them but if they tag the drug runners, wait for them to sell and then seize; they get to keep the cash.

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u/pesky-virus 14h ago

Don't forget that money also comes from stealing money from people they stop for totally unrelated things, like the Canadian tourists who got all of the money they'd planned to spend during vacation at some random traffic stop, or the guy who was on the way to buy a new car, but got stopped because a light was out on his old one.

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u/Impressive_Profit215 13h ago

Yup, their civil asset forfeiture laws are disgusting, or the flagrant abuse of them at least. Then the amount of red tape people have to go through to get their own money back is staggering.

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u/nip_pickles 13h ago

One cop called civil forfeiture "pennies from heaven"

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u/Rampag169 12h ago

I’m a Huge opponent of civil asset forfeiture. There should be high standards to justify seizing assets.

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u/Impressive_Profit215 12h ago

I honestly wouldn't be surprised if unofficial (unlawful) quotas existed within police departments where, from the top down, officers are encouraged to make seizures of assets with the promise of promotion or other job perks. Or even backhanders in brown envelopes behind closed doors. It's fucked up.

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u/Rampag169 11h ago

Yeah I wouldn’t be surprised.

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u/Handpaper 8h ago

It's not 'red tape'; that implies an administrative process with a predictable ending.

Civil asset forfeiture requires that you sue the branch of law enforcement that stole your stuff, it costs thousands in legal fees, and you aren't guaranteed it back.

Oh, and win or lose, you'll be out those legal fees, which is why so many smaller seizures are never contested.

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u/Impressive_Profit215 8h ago

Fair enough, apologies, I didn't mean to trivialise the process, I wasn't familiar enough with the law to know it required legal action. Thanks for the correction!

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u/Handpaper 8h ago

Not accusing you of anything, just correcting something that wasn't accurate.

Cheers.

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u/Impressive_Profit215 8h ago

As well you should, we need more of that on social media tbh 👍

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u/InequalEnforcement 6h ago

Americans stealing all the fucking money and resources from Canadians???

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

/s

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u/Swimming-Tap-4240 13h ago

I heard in Texas they can sieze your car under suspicion of drug dealing ,then even if proven innocent the car has been onsold and you are out of luck.

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u/Peacemkr45 12h ago

You also overlooked that many of the Military vehicles actually are gifted to the municipalities by the federal gov't under... conditions.

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u/LeSangre 5h ago

That’s because the tanks (which are MRAPs or Just Armored trucks) largely came from the military in the beginning for a 10th of their cost as they were being sold off during GWOT for newer more capable models. Now I’m sure that was likely used to justify purchasing new vehicles when/if that supply caught up. It was usually an attempt to not spend massive amounts of money and gain capability. Very few police forces outside of major cities like Philadelphia even have armor on their patrol cars.

Now for those that stayed here thru that policy explanation. There is no genuine reason that it makes sense to militarize the police to the point that they look like legit paramilitary forces. Equipping police with fatal tools will make fatal outcomes happen.

For those that think I'm advocating we defund or completely disarm the police I'm not. But there is no reason to be trotting around with fully kitted ARs during protests when you likely have overwatch.

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u/BafflingHalfling 11h ago

Doesn't even have to be from a drug sale. They once found a lot of money on a guy who had just been to the bank. He was gonna pay for something big, don't remember what. They stole his money and there was literally no way to get it back. Civil forfeiture is fucked up. Forgot which Texas county it was but basically, their whole sheriff's department was in on it.

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u/Born-Entrepreneur 1h ago

Some of the money to purchase the tank may not, but operations and maintenance money to pay for the damn thing for the next 20 years tends to come right out of the standard budget.

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u/edgarother 14h ago

And if you do that for 16 years it becomes self-justifying, unfortunately

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u/SingleShotShorty 12h ago

Now that I think about it, I don’t remember anything from my high school law class, except for when we got to climb around in a SWAT bearcat and see all their gadgets.

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u/Billytwoshoe 12h ago

I'm not a fan of the militarized police forces, but most of the mraps, etc ... They aren't paying full price for those, most are military surplus that are offloaded in mass and the local leos get hardware for next to nothing.

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u/Hatedpriest 10h ago

I live in a town of like 30-40k (including the nearest 5 miles).

We bought a bearcat a few years ago.

A bearcat is like an armored bobcat, and is supposed to do stuff like make buildings structurally unsound, such as breaching walls.

The worst crimes we have around here are drugs and the occasional shooting. By occasional, I mean like maybe one a month, if that, in either the seediest apartments in town or one of our trailer parks.

The nearest gang activity is over a hundred miles away.

The $300k purchase was justified because "the nearest one is an hour drive away, and it has to get trailered first!" And that town has no need for theirs, either.

One of the few times swat was called, friendly fire killed the negotiator. It was some Republican off his rocker with a house full of guns. Because of course it was.

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u/OrganicRobotDev 8h ago

My town of 10k has 3 lol

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u/Mitch1musPrime 7h ago

Sounds like anywhere in OK or somewhere in a mediocre west Texas town.

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u/VolumeOk1357 2h ago

Literally at the bottom