Driver accused of DUI tracks missing laptop to Illinois State trooper's house

Why wouldn’t this logic apply to all unions? Teachers unions often fight to prevent measurement of their effectiveness for example. It’s just as bad because we don’t have choice. You’re stuck with one police force and one set of teachers with no competition and no accountability.

Back in 2019 the police in Fresno stole a bunch of rare coins during a search of a house where the warrant did not cover anything like said coins, valued at $125,000, by reporting that they seized $50,000 when they actually took twice that much in cash and the coins. The 9th Circuit ended up deciding that while it was obviously morally wrong, qualified immunity applied because there's clearly established case law that stealing property that was specifically targeted for a search does violate the Constitution, because there's no analogous case regarding property stolen by police that the police did not know was there and are not covered by the warrant, there's no clearly established violation of the 4th Amendment even though it is literally an unlawful seizure of property. Supreme Court denied cert, allowing the decision to stand. I wish I was joking.

https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/ca9/17...

It's an AND. The union is why administrations can't get rid of the problem employees.

In Seattle, the police are "quiet quitting" (traffic ticketing is down 8x over ~10 years ago) and literally committing fraud and getting away with it (an officer on his second time falsely applying over 24 hours of work in a day, just had to return the pay for that week. There's STILL not computerized time tracking...)

Unions strike primarily for collective bargaining purposes.

They use the bargaining to set contract terms that restrict how people can be fired.

A union member who gets in trouble can leverage union resources and representation to protect themselves.

One of my family members did a term as a union rep. He was getting really frustrated with some of the little claims that union members wanted to use the union to protect themselves from, but it was part of the job. Fortunately for him there wasn’t a serious incident like this to deal with during his term.

No, but they go on strike when negotiating their collective contracts, and put terms in the contract that govern how failures like this are investigated and punished.

Police Unions engaged in collective action beyond striking to support other police who shoved a senior citizen to the ground and gave him brain damage, so stealing is nothing.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buffalo_police_shoving_inciden...

That's a funny thing because, as with all absolutes, it's trivially easy to prove it wrong. All you need is _one_ cop to not be a bastard to prove it wrong.

I've known several non-bastard cops.

Colorado has no qualified immunity for cops. Are they short of cops?

That's already true of you and I (assuming you are not a policeperson).

Kind of like how an unjustified DUI arrest can mess up your life?

That's a false dichotomy. Those aren't the only two options.

>took an act of congress to get released.

I guess?

I mean you go ahead and call that a release.

If it brings you comfort.

The US government is just corrupt from tip to tail. Why everyone continuously acts surprised about these things is genuinely a mystery?

Their actual material conduct was coordinating with other dirty cops which is how their phone got seized and entered into evidence.

Are you saying people need to put up with racist POS cops?

Sounds like you hang out in racist, sexist, antisemitic dank memes groupchats yourself, and don't think there's anything wrong with that.

Just like "Stand Your Ground" and "Castle Doctrine", people learned a new legal buzzword and think it applies to every story in the news.

And really it's just a few.

But it’s not one bad apple. It’s one cop who stole someone’s laptop while arresting them and entire system that looked the other way and let the theft go unpunished.

My grandpa retired as an IL police officer in his 50s and lived for 30+ more years making 6 figures from his pension and getting 3% or 5% (I forgot) adjustments every year. He probably had the most chill retirement of anybody I've ever known (outside of getting cancer twice). He was making six figures a year living on a lake near Dixon, you do not need six figures in Dixon lol

No it isn't. Schools are, and by a long way. People are confused by this because most municipalities have multiple taxing bodies; schools and municipalities work from different budgets, and the police are the largest line item in a budget that basically captures only police, fire, and public works.

and pensions...

> but it comes with significant risks

But fewer risks than people make it out to be. When people publish the lists of riskiest occupations based on health data, on the job injury data, etc police officers generally wind up around #20 +/-. Meanwhile there are occupations that are much lower paid ahead of them.

> It pays quite well, but it comes with significant risks.

Per this 2020 article, police offer is at #22 for fatal injury rate in the US:

* https://www.ishn.com/articles/112748-top-25-most-dangerous-j...

What are the risks? Even among public employees I'd imagine firefighters are in dangerous situations more often. The data doesn't show that policing is an especially high-risk profession. EDIT: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48095469

The irony is that the municipalities that pay the most are typically the lowest risk. The most dangerous thing they will do is pull someone over on the side of the highway. Sure, not exactly safe, but also not exactly gunning it out with the bad guys.

Pizza delivery drivers face about twice as much risk of on the job injuries via violence when compared to cops. Also twice as much risk of fatal injuries. This mythos the US has with cops does not match reality.

Two things can be true: - police should enforce the law to reduce or address crime or infractions - police should have a standard of enforcement that corresponds with the way the court system should operate, which is that the state carries the burden of proving the crime

The right to demand a blood test or other mechanism of having the state own the burden of proof might be inconvenient but it's integral to a fairly operating system, just like the right to demand a lawyer or representation.

The police aren't stopping the crime, therefore the police need to be reformed.

And note that “involving” is very much not the same thing as “caused by”. Yes, “caused by” will be a big chunk of it, but there's a reason the latter term is not used.

What other countries do? A chemical test on the field and a more accurate one when they get to the police station.

> inhibit the police's ability to arrest drunk drivers

They have breathalyzers and blood tests. Field sobriety tests are not there to help police arrest drunk drivers, they're there to help police arrest whomever they want to.

> I wish we would focus on the actual crimes the police are there to stop as much as we do the police reform.

The U.S. is one of the most punishment-happy countries in the world. Nearly every politician vows to be "tough on crime". This is an incredible thing to say given the past 50 years of policing and justice in the U.S. Won't somebody please think of the children!?

> I am neither left nor right

The "center" is constantly moving and has been, on average, shifting far to the right over the last 20 years. Anyone who claims to be a centrist is therefore either changing their politics with the wind, or was far right all along.

"People are clearly not going to stop drinking and driving" is such a strange statement to make in defense of DUI stops. Doesn't that imply that DUI stops don't help matters?

At any rate, the solution is to fire all of the corrupt cops and strictly enforce ethical and legal rules. Everything considered to be evidence needs to have an actual scientific basis for it. No more arresting people for being drunk because an officer with three months of training is considered to be an expert judge in impairment. Officers caught lying about the basis for an arrest should be imprisoned. Enforce the law, but do it in both directions.

I don’t think this it’s worth being reported for asking for a source on this kind of claim. I would argue of a middle ground though. I think field tests origins came from a good intent of trying to distinguish intoxicated drivers but has morphed over the years and used to give reason to search your belongings. I think the original post is wrong, the intent is not to arrest people but they are commonly used as a means to get cause to search your vehicle.

And I don’t have a source, so it’s anecdotal but one of those things where you read enough of these cases and even see how cops are trained that the intent for most stops unrelated to genuine traffic violations is to get cause to search the vehicle.

I think back to some of those corridors within the United States where law enforcement abuse cash forfeiture laws to take peoples money.

Their obvious ineffectiveness for the stated purpose, combined with the effectiveness for the unstated, hidden purpose.

A field sobriety test is distinct from a chemical analysis (breathalyzer or otherwise).

In California, you are required to submit to chemical testing (breath, urine, or blood — I don’t recall the rules for which applies in which situations). However, you are not required to otherwise talk to or perform the absurd procedure of the field sobriety test (“you have the right to remain silent”).

I was under the mistaken impression you could refuse and then would get a blood test, seems that was wrong/out-dated (also wrong!). The backup test at the station is also usually a breath test apparently. And it seems we have field sobriety tests but it looks like they're for drug-driving.

For example, https://www.gov.uk/stopped-by-police-while-driving-your-righ....

I took OpenAI's references as correct without checking legislation as I'm on my phone.

It's also an offense in most (all?) of the US. Even then, if someone is pulled over for DUI, at that point the officers are just collecting evidence. If someone has had anything to drink, it's in their best interest to say they want a lawyer and refuse all tests. Then there will be less evidence to argue against in court.

I rather use a lawyer for legal advice than YouTube. There is a lot of sovereign citizen "you don't need a license to drive" "legal advice" on YouTube too.

The portable one is used as an indicator.

A positive result will get you arrested and taken to the station, where they have the (non-portable) court admissible calibrated kit.

Why would a certified calibrated breathalizer test be inadmissible in court? How is it any different from catching speeders with a laser gun, or doing a DNA test?

And if giving every cop a calibrated breathalizer is too expensive: give them a reasonably-accurate one for in the field, then take everyone who fails it to the station for a retest on an expensive calibrated one.

This is changing. Most states have “permanent” properly calibrated breathalyzer at every dui checkpoint now. And in an increasing number of regular vehicles

I did. Where in the article does it answer my question?

ICE itself as a federal agency has sovereign immunity but the individuals who make up ICE only have qualified immunity for constitutional rights violations. However they do have sovereign immunity for general torts (or more technically for general torts the USG is substituted as the defendant and the USG has sovereign immunity.

It’s just a sloppy article.

The concept is right but sovereign immunity is about states and between states.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sovereign_immunity_in_the_Unit...

Huh, interesting. I am very dubious of that quote. IANAL, but I'm pretty sure if they actually filed that in court they would be laughed out of the room. My guess is either the reporters got it wrong or its some AI hallucination. Unfortunately they don't source this claim.

If there's no way to charge the public for policing besides corruption, that's not a police force, it's a gang.

I was billed about $1000 when US police took me to ER in cuffs and claimed (made up) I was secretly smuggling drugs up my ass.

------- re: below (throttled) ----------

They got a warrant afterwards which they somehow applied retroactively. I found out police had systematically been doing this to people and in fact already sued for this. The hospital had also already been put on notice after ACLU sued in a different state.

I contacted several lawyers and the ACLU (since they already had posted notice for this same thing). ACLU was radio silence for the entire couple years of the statue of limitations, so no help there. The best shot I had was contacting a couple lawyers who specifically sued against the same people who had done it before. They lost the last time due to the courts considering the hospital as effectively deputized as federal officers while it happened. The courts/state got around the lawsuit by claiming it is medical care whenever the warrant issue come up, then claim it is a LEO search whenever the medical aspects of the search were challenged, creating a catch 22.

All lawyers involved told me they'd given up such cases (impossible to win). The prior, almost identical but even worse case (woman finger-raped by doctors without a warrant) was lost due to the catch-22 of it being a "search" whenever the medical aspects were challenged and being "medical care" whenever the search aspects were challenged. This meant it was effectively impossible to challenge it from any available angle.

As for the bill, I never paid it. Still chased by debt collectors for it though.

Basically if federal officers involved you are fucked. Lon Horiuchi straight up sniped an innocent woman holding a baby in her arms, over a husband's failure to appear in court, and even he couldn't be held accountable.