Controlling the police?

[nancylebov]

dr_zfq asked recently, "*Is* there any way to force the department to fire those individuals? Is there any way at all to force the necessary punishments to happen?"

That's a good question, which means I have no idea of the answer-- it's the sort of detail I'm not apt to accumulate. One would think there'd be laws with punishments nicely attached against imprisoning someone in conditions which probably violate the Geneva Conventions in order to extort false accusations from them, but you never know.

Nor do I know what procedures would be needed to bring criminal charges against police for something criminal that's vaguely police-procedure-shaped that they've done on the job.

Comments

[twistedchick]

You might consider browsing New York State Criminal Law, Findlaw's resources for the New York code, or the searchable Consolidated Laws of New York.

[bemused-leftist.livejournal.com]

Firing the individuals would be more effective, imo. Gets them off the force, and discourages others from doing the same things.

The further up the ladder the firings go, the better. But still better to target the individual supervisors, imo.

[bradhicks.livejournal.com]

Realistically speaking, it can't be done. There is no formal procedure for it. The only formal way to do it is to vote out whoever is in charge of the person who is in charge of hiring and firing at the police department, and vote in someone who's running on a platform of getting rid of officers like that, and what are the odds of that?

What historically sort-of works is either or both of the following two things: 1) injured parties sue the city repeatedly until the city can't afford to keep the officer(s), and/or 2) reporters find the officer(s) fascinating enough that they keep reporting on their misdeeds, in greater and greater detail, until whoever is in charge of hiring/firing police is embarrassed into firing them.

Neither of these things work if the person in charge of hiring and firing police is so in favor of what the officer is doing that they think it's worth it, if no matter what the newspapers say they're proud of the offending officer(s), and if no matter how much it costs the city, it's not like it's them paying it or like it's coming out of their department's budget.

[nancylebov.livejournal.com]

Thanks. That's the impression I've gotten from the light to non-existent punishments I've seen mentioned at The Agitator. I'm hoping that it will register with mainstream Americans that we have a police problem from a combination of the problem getting worse and the social media.