# Controversial encounters between law-enforcement and civilians - the omnibus thread **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [October 10, 2014, 7:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/controversial-encounters-between-law-enforcement-and-civilians-the-omnibus-thread/700942 "2014-10-10T07:35:51Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2014, 4:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/controversial-encounters-between-law-enforcement-and-civilians-the-omnibus-thread/700942/21 "2014-10-10T16:15:14Z")
> [@ElvisL1ves](#): > > How is it not a violation of due process? Because civil and criminal forfeiture require a judicial decison, and administrative forfeiture can be challenged, at which point it has to stop and a judicial forfeiture proceeding begin ---
**Author:** ![mhendo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mhendo/32/3159_2.png) [@mhendo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mhendo)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2014, 4:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/controversial-encounters-between-law-enforcement-and-civilians-the-omnibus-thread/700942/22 "2014-10-10T16:16:28Z")
> [@RTFirefly](#): > > This seems like the appropriate place to link to John Oliver’s piece on [Civil Asset Forfeiture](http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2014/10/john-oliver-on-civil-forfeiture-hbo/). I watched that the other day, and it was a really nice piece, as was the Washington Post article linked by **llcoolbj77**. It’s interesting that this stuff is suddenly getting so much publicity because, as **Bone** suggests, it’s being going on for years. I know that libertarians get pretty short shrift here at the SDMB, but libertarian groups such as the Cato Institute have been complaining about the injustice of things like civil forfeiture and abuses of eminent domain for quite a long time. Back in 2010, the Institute for Justice published a report, [“Policing for Profit: The Abuse of Civil Asset Forfeiture"](http://www.ij.org/images/pdf_folder/other_pubs/assetforfeituretoemail.pdf) (pdf), which took a state-by-state look at the abuses of this process. Some states have passed their own laws against abuses of asset forfeiture, but as the report i linked above shows, many police departments get around these state laws by calling in federal agencies like the DEA or FBI, and then splitting the proceeds of asset forfeiture with them. Paul’s bill would also make this illegal. I don’t agree with Rand Paul about too many things, but this is one area where he’s actually taking the lead in Congress, and i hope he’s successful. He introduced a bill in July that would change the way that asset forfeiture works, requiring the government to actually prove it’s case before it gets to take your stuff. Also, the revenue from asset forfeiture would go into the state’s general fund, rather than directly to police departments, reducing the direct financial incentive for cops to abuse the system. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2014, 4:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/controversial-encounters-between-law-enforcement-and-civilians-the-omnibus-thread/700942/23 "2014-10-10T16:17:12Z")
> [@RTFirefly](#): > > This seems like the appropriate place to link to John Oliver’s piece on [Civil Asset Forfeiture](http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2014/10/john-oliver-on-civil-forfeiture-hbo/). Apparently the cops can take your stuff based on little more than suspicion that you’re using it for illegal purposes, and it’s the devil to get it back again - the burden’s on you to prove that your money, your house, your car, whatever weren’t being used for some criminal purpose. > > How this sort of thing isn’t an unconstitutional taking is beyond my comprehension. This nothing compared to what the IRS can do, since they aren’t even law enforcement officials. Not condoning it, but just noting that this problem is a lot larger than we probably think. ---
**Author:** ![FXMastermind](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fxmastermind/32/7289_2.png) [@FXMastermind](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FXMastermind)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2014, 4:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/controversial-encounters-between-law-enforcement-and-civilians-the-omnibus-thread/700942/24 "2014-10-10T16:21:55Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > This nothing compared to what the IRS can do, since they aren’t even law enforcement officials. Not condoning it, but just noting that this problem is a lot larger than we probably think. [http://www.unclefed.com/TxprBoR/JWWade.html](http://www.unclefed.com/TxprBoR/JWWade.html) ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2014, 4:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/controversial-encounters-between-law-enforcement-and-civilians-the-omnibus-thread/700942/25 "2014-10-10T16:29:09Z")
> [@mhendo](#): > > I know that libertarians get pretty short shrift here at the SDMB, but libertarian groups such as the Cato Institute have been complaining about the injustice of things like civil forfeiture and abuses of eminent domain for quite a long time. Following the lead of long-established **civil** libertarians such as the American Civil Liberties Union, who have been doing the scut work of documenting such injustices and bringing lawsuits about them starting over a half-century before anybody even thought of the Cato Institute. _The ACLU: Protecting your civil liberties from the government, **without** wasting time on self-aggrandizing government-bashing anti-tax “libertarian theater”, since 1920._ ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2014, 4:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/controversial-encounters-between-law-enforcement-and-civilians-the-omnibus-thread/700942/26 "2014-10-10T16:33:47Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > _The ACLU: Protecting your civil liberties from the government, **without** wasting time on self-aggrandizing government-bashing anti-tax “libertarian theater”, since 1920._ Yeah, but where is the fun in that!! 😉 ---
**Author:** ![llcoolbj77](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/eb9ed0/32.png) [@llcoolbj77](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/llcoolbj77)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2014, 4:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/controversial-encounters-between-law-enforcement-and-civilians-the-omnibus-thread/700942/27 "2014-10-10T16:44:18Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > Following the lead of long-established **civil** libertarians such as the American Civil Liberties Union, who have been doing the scut work of documenting such injustices and bringing lawsuits about them starting over a half-century before anybody even thought of the Cato Institute. > > _The ACLU: Protecting your civil liberties from the government, **without** wasting time on self-aggrandizing government-bashing anti-tax “libertarian theater”, since 1920._ One of the most interesting things about working at the NRA was watching the strange bedfellows unite, for instance, the libertarians and hard-core law enforcement types. They really rubbed poorly against each other, even in their quest for common gains. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2014, 4:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/controversial-encounters-between-law-enforcement-and-civilians-the-omnibus-thread/700942/28 "2014-10-10T16:49:54Z")
According to a study from [ProPublica](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/10/10/racial-disparity-police-killings_n_5965706.html), young black males are a whopping _21 times more likely_ to be shot dead by police than young white males. ---
**Author:** ![JesterX](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/439d5e/32.png) [@JesterX](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JesterX)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2014, 5:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/controversial-encounters-between-law-enforcement-and-civilians-the-omnibus-thread/700942/29 "2014-10-10T17:06:45Z")
While this is a police bashing thread, I want to point out credit where credit is due. The South Carolina State police released the Officer Groubert/Lavar Jones video THEMSELVES then fired and pressed charges on Groubert pretty damn quick. Which means someone in the upper brass in the SC State police saw that video and decided “we don’t want this guy on our police force”. It wasn’t knee-jerk defend their cop. This is what we WANT our police forces to do. So credit where credit is due. ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2014, 5:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/controversial-encounters-between-law-enforcement-and-civilians-the-omnibus-thread/700942/30 "2014-10-10T17:22:05Z")
Yes, absolutely. It’s unlikely he was an outlier, though. It would be even easier to give credit if there were a better screening system in place before hiring, or to remove bad cops once on the force. The Blue Line is still strong. ---
**Author:** ![Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/8edcca/32.png) [@Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hentor_the_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2014, 5:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/controversial-encounters-between-law-enforcement-and-civilians-the-omnibus-thread/700942/31 "2014-10-10T17:58:44Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > _The ACLU: Protecting your civil liberties from the government, **without** wasting time on self-aggrandizing government-bashing anti-tax “libertarian theater”, since 1920._ Well fucking said! ---
**Author:** ![mhendo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mhendo/32/3159_2.png) [@mhendo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mhendo)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2014, 6:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/controversial-encounters-between-law-enforcement-and-civilians-the-omnibus-thread/700942/32 "2014-10-10T18:04:25Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > Following the lead of long-established **civil** libertarians such as the American Civil Liberties Union, who have been doing the scut work of documenting such injustices and bringing lawsuits about them starting over a half-century before anybody even thought of the Cato Institute. Sure. I’m a huge fan of the ACLU, and they have a [section](https://www.aclu.org/criminal-law-reform/civil-asset-forfeiture) on their own website devoted to their fight against abuses of civil asset forfeiture. They’ve been heavily involved in [lawsuits](https://www.aclu.org/criminal-law-reform/morrow-v-city-tenaha-et-al) over the issue in Texas. My point, in focusing on libertarians, was that even people we disagree with might, on some issues, be people who are on the right side, and who are worth supporting. If i lived in Kentucky, there’s no way i’d vote for Rand Paul, but while he’s in the Senate i hope he manages to get his law reforming asset forfeiture passed. And the Cato Institute produces a lot of well-researched studies that provide good information even for people who don’t consider themselves libertarians. ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2014, 6:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/controversial-encounters-between-law-enforcement-and-civilians-the-omnibus-thread/700942/33 "2014-10-10T18:15:55Z")
Perhaps you should ask the mods to change the thread title to “The Plural of Anecdote **Is** Data” so we are all clear on the basis for statements like - > [@](#): > > Non-corrupt, non-racist cops are rarer than unicorns these days, it seems. Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2014, 6:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/controversial-encounters-between-law-enforcement-and-civilians-the-omnibus-thread/700942/34 "2014-10-10T18:17:38Z")
Relevant article: ["You see this? You see this?” Why videos of police misconduct are no panacea](http://www.salon.com/2014/10/10/%e2%80%9cyou_see_this_you_see_this%e2%80%9d_why_videos_of_police_misconduct_are_no_panacea/). > [@](#): > > As Regina Mahone wrote at RH Reality Check, what one sees on videos of conflict with the police is influenced by one’s existing beliefs and biases. For those who believe black bodies are often a threat and that police are generally a force for good, it may be easy to look at a video like the one of Lamard and Lateefah Joye and presume they deserve what happened to them, just as the police officer looked at cash in Joye’s pocket and presumed that a black man with a wad of bills must have been up to no good. > > The existence of these videos also shows the limits of the popular reform goal of body cameras on police officers, which has been promoted as a solution in Ferguson, Missouri and in New York City. Even with bystanders obviously filming police on cell-phone cameras, officers seem perfectly comfortable pocketing a man’s cash, punching a teenager, or putting a man in a chokehold. Video of Officer Sean Williams shooting John Crawford III in an Ohio Walmart was not enough to even get an indictment. > > Video evidence alone is not enough to make change happen. It is a start, as it brings the reality of the day-to-day impunity with which the police often act home to people who are rarely victims of such actions. But more is required of us than expressions of shock. > > Without action, the videos can too often function purely as spectacle, piquing our shock and anger and for a moment before we pass on to the next story, the next YouTube clip, return to our daily lives. For many of us, the reality shown on those video clips will never happen to ourselves or to those we love, and so it is easy to express outrage and assume that the existence of the video means justice will come. Some of us have the luxury of forgetting that black lives have been devalued in this country for centuries. ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2014, 6:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/controversial-encounters-between-law-enforcement-and-civilians-the-omnibus-thread/700942/35 "2014-10-10T18:31:01Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > Perhaps you should ask the mods to change the thread title to “The Plural of Anecdote **Is** Data” so we are all clear on the basis for statements like - > > Regards, > Shodan Actually, the plural of anecdote is data. Unrefined field data maybe, but it is data. While you are perusing the dictionary, you might also want to look up the definition of “seem” as well. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2014, 6:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/controversial-encounters-between-law-enforcement-and-civilians-the-omnibus-thread/700942/36 "2014-10-10T18:50:49Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > According to a study from [ProPublica](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/10/10/racial-disparity-police-killings_n_5965706.html), young black males are a whopping _21 times more likely_ to be shot dead by police than young white males. Any comments on this study? Is this surprising to anyone? Any problems with the data (other than that there’s not a whole lot of it)? ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2014, 6:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/controversial-encounters-between-law-enforcement-and-civilians-the-omnibus-thread/700942/37 "2014-10-10T18:54:08Z")
[The numbers aren’t quite that disparate in Boston](http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/2014/10/09/boston-police-stop-and-frisk-blacks-far-more-than-whites-says-aclu-study/aXg5rzNZWmeAxo4rkQpAuJ/story.html), but disparate they are. > [@](#): > > Between 2007 and 2010, out of approximately 200,000 encounters that did not result in an arrest, 63 percent of people stopped and frisked by the BPD were African American. Only 24 percent of the city’s population is black. > > Additionally, the study found, stop-and-frisk instances were most likely to occur in the minority-dense neighborhoods of Roxbury, Dorchester, and Mattapan. ---
**Author:** ![JesterX](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/439d5e/32.png) [@JesterX](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JesterX)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2014, 7:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/controversial-encounters-between-law-enforcement-and-civilians-the-omnibus-thread/700942/38 "2014-10-10T19:01:55Z")
Let me get some other dopers take on something I’ve noticed over the years. From watching a lot of arrest videos on YouTube and in news stories, etc. does it seem to anyone else like cops seem to ALWAYS make black people, man, woman or child, completely lie down on the ground to be taken into custody whereas with whites, it often seems ok to them to have them just get on their knees? I’m not talking EVERY time. Obviously there are cases where they make whites get on the ground too, but it seems twhenever they only allow the subject get on their knees, that subject is usually, if not always, white. Or, at least, non-black. Anyone else notice that? ---
**Author:** ![billfish678](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7bcc69/32.png) [@billfish678](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/billfish678)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2014, 7:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/controversial-encounters-between-law-enforcement-and-civilians-the-omnibus-thread/700942/39 "2014-10-10T19:05:11Z")
White people learned long ago that the occasional but distasteful proverbial dick sucking can get you out of a jam 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Fallen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e99b99/32.png) [@Fallen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fallen)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2014, 7:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/controversial-encounters-between-law-enforcement-and-civilians-the-omnibus-thread/700942/40 "2014-10-10T19:15:58Z")
I’m neutral about the single omnibus thread idea, but appreciate the discussion (but that has more to do with the functionality of the board’s setup here and being kinda unwieldy). “even if a full and fair and complete investigation in the Ferguson case were to find that the officer did not violate any police regulation and did not violate the law…” Weel (think broad Scots accent), these to things are incompatible: it cannot be a full and fair and complete investigation and find out the officer didn’t violate any departmental regulation. There’s no evidence thus far to indicate he didn’t violate the law to at best a criminally negligent degree. Of course, if the accused were not a police officer but some other party who had a right to confront kid about being in the middle of the street – or about taking X smoking materials from the convenience store and giving the intimidating stink eye and step toward the manager who tried to lock the doorknuckleheaded motherfucker that he was)(but remember that the cop evidently didn’t know about that incident as of when he told the kids to get out of the street), – the prosecutor wouldn’t spend weeks and weeks/months on a grand jury investigation and indictment. The not-ham-sandwich equivalent individual would’ve been facing charges within a matter of days. The process of indicting law enforcement for \*anything \*(and they almost invariably are declared not guilty of criminal charges, regardless of the overwhelming evidence) is a very scary thing to the institutional organisms whose sole purpose is to survive and thrive. The sad thing is that we are supposed to be grateful that any of them are EVER prosecuted … that they have something less than absolute (judicial and prosecutorial level) immunity. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/controversial-encounters-between-law-enforcement-and-civilians-the-omnibus-thread/700942.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/controversial-encounters-between-law-enforcement-and-civilians-the-omnibus-thread/700942.md?page=3)