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posted by mrpg on Wednesday October 11 2017, @06:05PM   Printer-friendly
from the took-way-too-long dept.

"A Utah police officer [Jeff Payne] who was caught on video roughly handcuffing a nurse because she refused to allow a blood draw was fired Tuesday in a case that became a flashpoint in the ongoing national conversation about police use of force."

Salt Lake City Police Chief Mike Brown made the decision after an internal investigation found evidence Detective Jeff Payne violated department policies when he arrested nurse Alex Wubbels and dragged her out of the hospital as she screamed on July 26, said Sgt. Brandon Shearer, a spokesman for the department.

Attorney Greg Skordas has said Payne served the department well for nearly three decades and questioned whether his behavior warranted termination. He couldn't immediately be reached for comment Tuesday.

Click here to read the entire story

Utah cop fired after arresting nurse who wouldn't draw blood
Some videos on youtube
Utah officer wants to apologize for nurse's controversial arrest


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  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 11 2017, @08:22PM (7 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 11 2017, @08:22PM (#580773)

    It's not that all police are bad. But the few that are, affect the safety of the rest, over the long run.

    If the "good" cops are turning a blind eye or even defending the illegal and immoral behaviour of the "bad" cops, that makes them bad too.

    I doubt there are very many good cops at all.

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  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by DannyB on Wednesday October 11 2017, @08:38PM (1 child)

    by DannyB (5839) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday October 11 2017, @08:38PM (#580785) Journal

    I doubt there are very many good cops at all.

    I would like to be generous and assume there are. But I am fully aware that you could be correct. I am usually cynical (see: posting history) but I would like to give the benefit of the doubt. But there may come a point where I would say the same as you are saying.

    --
    People today are educated enough to repeat what they are taught but not to question what they are taught.
    • (Score: 4, Informative) by mhajicek on Thursday October 12 2017, @05:06AM

      by mhajicek (51) on Thursday October 12 2017, @05:06AM (#580983)

      From those I've known, good cops don't last more than a couple years.

      --
      The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
  • (Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 12 2017, @02:11AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 12 2017, @02:11AM (#580920)

    A 44 year old movie explains how it happens:
    If you're a cop and you turn in a bad cop, subsequently, when you get in a jam and call for backup, no one comes.
    Undercover officer Frank Serpico gets shot in the face [youtube.com]
    More clips [google.com]

    ...and prosecutors won't press charges against rogue cops (because cops are the source of the cases that the DAs handle)--and even when they do prosecute a bad cop, it's half-hearted.
    ...but Reactionaries keep voting for and reelecting these sleazeballs.

    -- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]

  • (Score: 4, Interesting) by Runaway1956 on Thursday October 12 2017, @02:50AM (1 child)

    by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Thursday October 12 2017, @02:50AM (#580933) Journal

    Every working man and woman in the world is subjected to situations which they don't approve of. Sometimes, you even work for a complete freaking idiot, an incompetent boob. You know, and I know, that the working person seldom has any influence over the situation. You follow orders, do as you're told, and "don't rock the boat", or you're fired.

    I would like to think that MOST cops would turn on a fellow cop who flagrantly violates human rights, and/or commits major felonies. I can't KNOW that, but I would like to believe so. My interactions with police, over the course of many years, has convinced me that there are far to many bad cops. But, I've also met a lot of good cops. I've even met a few who have stuck their necks out to ensure that something resembling justice was dealt.

    A big part of our problem when trying to judge cops is, we don't get all the facts. The truth is kept out of sight, and we're left guessing most of the time. We're sure that a cop did something wrong - but we are never allowed to learn whether he did it out of malice, or it was a mistake, or maybe even the media got it all wrong.

    That secrecy needs to be done away with. Body cams are part of the solution to that. Every cop needs to wear one, and the cop must NOT have any control over that camera. He puts it on when he comes on duty, it records until he goes off duty. It's part of his uniform, and being out of uniform warrants a week of UNPAID suspension.

    Then, we can begin weeding out the bad cops. And, maybe, the good cops will take more pride in their jobs.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 12 2017, @05:45AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 12 2017, @05:45AM (#580995)
      That's why I say most people aren't good or bad. A minority are bad and smaller minority are good. The rest follow what's the perceived norm.

      Just because you don't do the bad stuff makes you better but doesn't make you good.

      Go look at the Stanford prison experiment, the Milgram experiment and similar. There are a bunch who are good enough to refuse to go along but how many tried to call the police to say a crime may have been committed or similar?

      Thus if you really want good stuff to happen you should try to set up systems so that such things are less likely to happen. The camera stuff you mention might help.
  • (Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Thursday October 12 2017, @04:02AM (1 child)

    by Grishnakh (2831) on Thursday October 12 2017, @04:02AM (#580969)

    I think it's department-by-department. I think there's good cops out there, but they're in departments that are relatively well-run, and everyone there is pretty good. The bad cops don't last there. Then there's departments (and there's lots of them) where there's plenty of bad cops, and plenty more cops who cover for them and are bad by extension, and most importantly, the leadership is bad because they're complicit. In those departments, the good cops don't last.

    Human organizations tend to be like this: it's not just "a few bad apples". With real apples, a few bad ones will spoil the whole bunch--that's the rest of the saying that everyone keeps omitting for some reason. It works that way with humans too: like attracts like, so shitty/corrupt leadership eventually results in shitty/corrupt underlings.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 12 2017, @05:57AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 12 2017, @05:57AM (#580998)

      I think there's good cops out there, but they're in departments that are relatively well-run, and everyone there is pretty good. The bad cops don't last there.

      Nah they're not good it's just the department system/culture makes them behave better. Scatter the same bunch into bad departments and most will behave like the bad cops. Scatter the bad cops into good departments and most will start behaving better. Doesn't work if you keep them together though because then they get to keep their team/pack culture.

      If you want to find a good cop, go look at who is arresting or stopping the bad cops. The rest are just followers.