The Day Ferguson Cops Were Caught in a Bloody Lie

Miami Cop Pulled 5-Year-Old’s Ear and Marched Him to Squad Car in Handcuffs After School Fight Over Toy

What a disaster.
By David Ferguson / Raw Story
September 21, 2015


A Miami police officer was suspended from duty after he reportedly yanked a 5-year-old boy’s ear and handcuffed him at school.

According to Miami’s Local10.com, parent Hector Feliciano said that Officer Paul Gourrier of the Miami Police Department seized his son by the ear and then handcuffed his hands behind his back after the boy bit another child in a dispute over a toy.
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The incident took place on Feb. 9 and was the latest in a series of clashes between the two boys. Teacher Michelle Svayg took the child to guidance counselor Margarita Fernandez’ office for a meeting with the counselor Officer Gourrier.

Fernandez told police that the boy continued to misbehave in her office, treating the disciplinary meeting “as if everything was a joke.”

The counselor claims that she did not see the officer pull the boy’s ear, but that Gourrier asked the boy if he knew what would happen to him if he continued to attack other students.

When the child replied that he did not, Gourrier reportedly said, “Let me show you. I’m going to show you what happens so that you can understand.”

The officer put the boy in handcuffs and walked him out of the office, Fernandez said. When they returned in about two minutes, she said, the boy was no longer handcuffed.

A school security guard said that the officer marched the 5-year-old to the school’s main entrance and pointed to his police cruiser, explaining that if the child got into trouble for bothering other students again, he would go to jail.

Gourrier admits to handcuffing the child and “tugging” his ear to get his attention.

Hector Feliciano maintains that the school had no right to treat his son like an adult criminal. He told Channel 10 that if the school had informed him of the discipline issues, he would have handled them at home.

An internal investigation regarding Gourrier’s conduct followed and he has was suspended from duties without pay for 20 hours in June.

Cop Carelessly Runs Over “Role Model” Teen, Dept then Attacks the Dead Teen’s Character

Shortly after the accident, police stated that Anthony had been jaywalking and that alcohol may have been a factor.
By Johnny Liberty / The Free Thought Project
September 21, 2015

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Rialto, CA – A family is in mourning and a community grieving after losing a beloved young man. This recent high school graduate and former football player tragically lost his life at the hands of a negligent police officer.

On Sunday, September 13th, 19-year-old Anthony Camacho was crossing the street at the intersection of Rosewood Street and Cactus Avenue shortly before 9 pm when he was fatally struck by the vehicle of an inattentive police officer. The officer was reportedly responding to an unrelated call of a suspicious person at an apartment complex when he came barreling through the neighborhood, without lights or sirens on.
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Without warning, the unidentified officer turned to look at another pedestrian crossing the street at the same time as Camacho and didn’t have time to stop before hitting and killing him, Rialto police Capt. Randy De Anda said.

According to Anthony’s brother-in-law, Michael Gonzalez who was walking with him at the time of the incident,

“Looked both ways and didn’t see nothing. So we proceeded to walk. The cop car just wham, swipes him out.”

Another witness, who asked not to be identified, stated that when Anthony was hit, he flew approximately 12 feet into the air and “did about three somersaults” before landing on the back of the cop car. This caused him to suffer a broken neck and severe body trauma. Video taken at the scene also shows the roof of the police cruiser with a very large dent.

Anthony was transported to Arrowhead Regional Medical Center in Colton with no brain activity and was pronounced dead at 5:30 pm Tuesday.

“I’m blown away,” Anthony’s former football coach Jason McMains said. “Camacho was a role model who never missed practice and took younger players under his wing”

Camacho, who graduated from Rubidoux High School in June, had enlisted in the Army and was set to report to basic training.

“He was actually about to go to the military. He came over just to spend the last weekend with us before he left,” his sister Kathy Cardenas said

However, this teenager’s upstanding character didn’t stop police officials from going on the attack in defense of their fellow officer. Shortly after the accident, police stated that Anthony had been jaywalking and that alcohol may have been a factor.

This disgusting act of “victim shaming” is an obvious attempt to cover up for the overt negligence of another officer and is a brazen example of the “thin blue line” in action. Police also claim that their preliminary investigation showed that the officer was traveling within the designated speed limit.

Anthony’s brother-in-law witnessed the horrifying incident and has disputed this claim, stating that the officer was going much faster than the 45 mph speed limit. Michael’s account was corroborated by another witness who claimed that the officer appeared to be going at least 60 mph.

Anthony’s mother Denise McGowen also blames the officer.

“How can you sit there and watch all these tubes in your own kid because of somebody’s ignorance and for it to be a cop,” she said.

His sister Kathy echoed this sentiment stating simply “This shouldn’t have happened.”

While the investigation into this horrific accident is still underway, one can only wonder if this officer’s position will affect the decision as to whether charges are filed or not. That this question could even be proposed truly speaks to the double standard that exists between agents of the state and ordinary citizens.

On average, one person every day is killed during a high-speed chase.

To put this into perspective, that’s larger than the number of people killed by floods, tornadoes, lightning and hurricanes — combined.

Innocent bystanders are all too often the victims of reckless police driving.

According to the report, more than 5,000 bystanders and passengers have been killed in police pursuits. Tens of thousands more were injured as officers repeatedly pursued drivers at high speeds and in hazardous conditions.
Johnny Liberty is a researcher and investigative journalist. You can follow him on twitter @LibertyUnltd

VIDEO: Man Harrassed by Police for
Eating Hamburger in His Car
Police officer harrasses Luis Sadly despite not appearing to be doing anything illegal.
By Matt Agorist / The Free Thought Project
September 19, 2015



Luis Sadly was doing nothing wrong, had committed no crime, and was only trying to enjoy a hamburger while he waited for his friend. However, his innocence was no protection against having his rights violated by the Austin police.

As Sadly minds his own business, he is approached by an Austin Police officer who tells him that he is being detained.
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“Why am I being detained?” asks Sadly as he was clearly doing nothing illegal.

“Let’s see, it’s 2 o’clock in the morning. You’re parked here by yourself in a high crime, high drug area,” replies the officer.

Apparently sitting in your car by yourself is now reasonable articulable suspicion for a police officer to detain you.

Sadly was only waiting for a friend to come out of their apartment and all of the sudden is now subject to a police detainment, interrogation, and assault.

Knowing he has done nothing wrong, Sadly objects to the officer’s “investigation,” and that is when things get ugly.

As Sadly refuses to be subject to police harassment, the officer begins to escalate the situation. He then forces Sadly out of the car, places him in handcuffs, and removes and turns off his phone.

According to Sadly, the officer then searched him and his vehicle, both of which he conducted without consent.

The requirement for Sadly to get out of his vehicle when the officer demanded is a grey area in regards to the law. In 1977, SCOTUS held, in Pennsylvania v. Mimms, that police can order people out of their vehicle during a traffic stop, conduct a pat down, and this did not violate their Fourth Amendment right.

However, this was not a traffic stop. Sadly was in a parking lot of an apartment complex waiting for his friend and eating a hamburger.

Regardless of the officer demanding Sadly to exit the vehicle, he still searched him without consent, and this is still considered illegal.

Was Sadly hurting someone? Was there a victim involved? Was someone’s property or well-being endangered by his choice to eat a hamburger in his car and wait for a friend?

The answer to all those questions is, no. Therefore, the entire stop, from beginning to end, was an unjustifiable deprivation of rights carried out in the name of the state’s immoral war on drugs.

Not only was Sadly’s life placed in danger by this interaction, but the officer’s life was as well. Had this officer decided to harass another, less cordial person in a search for “illegal substances” he could have very well been hurt or killed — for what?

The video below illustrates what “protecting and serving” has become as the war on drugs wages on.

‘I Feel Traumatized’: California Teen Speaks Out After Cops Violently Arrest Him For Jaywalking

Jaywalking is normally handled as a citation.

By Bethania Palma Markus / Raw Story
September 18, 2015



Emilio Mayfield, 16, the Stockton teen caught on video being roughed up by nine police officers, says he was “traumatized” by the experience.

The high school student said he was on his way to school when an officer stopped him for jaywalking. The encounter escalated until as more officers piled on top of him. Video of the incident has gone viral.
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“I feel traumatized. I was beaten and slammed on the floor,” he told CBS Sacramento.

According to witnesses, an officer told Mayfield to sit down, but he kept walking toward the bus to school instead.

Bystander Edgar Avendaño recorded the video and said the officer grabbed the teen’s arm in attempt to stop him, and pulled out his baton when the teen took his hand off his arm. Avendaño’s video shows the officer leaning into the teen as he screams. Bystanders are noticeably upset, with one woman shouting, “That’s a kid! Get off of him!”

Other officers then arrive and roughly throw Mayfield to the ground, piling on top of him as he is arrested. Mayfield can be seen sobbing as the officers lead him away handcuffed.

Under California law, jaywalking is an infraction normally handled as a citation only, and some are questioning the use of force by the Stockton police officers.

“The behavior of the officer was totally out of line. There’s no reason for him to attack this young man as he did,” Stockton NAACP president Bobby Bivens told CBS Sacramento.

Watch his comments, via CBS News, here:

Mississippi Cops: We Totally Arrested That Black Doctor For Being Uppity, Ayup!



by Evan Hurst
Sep 17 10:30 am 2015

image:
Dr. Marcia Bowden and her husband, Ira Marche. (pic via The New Tri-State Defender)

Dr. Marcia Bowden and her husband, Ira Marche. (pic via The New Tri-State Defender)

In case you played hooky from Wonkette on Monday, we had the very weird story of a prominent black doctor from Memphis, Dr. Marcia Bowden, who was arrested along with her husband during a routine traffic stop in Southaven, Mississippi. Her husband, Ira Marche, admitted he was speeding — to rush his wife to a patient emergency at her clinic. At the time, we only had Bowden’s account, but now the paper Bowden sent her account to has the arrest reports, and surprise, it sounds like it went down just about the way she said it did. Huh!

image: http://resources.contextly.com/thumbnails/wonkette/4533921/70x70.jpg

Black Doctor Jailed Because Her Husband Said A Swear

There’s a minor detail here and there that she left out or said a bit differently from the way the cops, Sgt. Brett Logazino and Officer Jeremy Delaney, reported it. Like for instance, she says her husband told her, “Honey, be quiet, these people are redneck, they will hurt you.” WHEREAS, Logazino’s account claims Marche said, “Just calm down, this is a bunch of **** from some redneck Mississippi cops.” Uppity cusses! Of course, we already knew from the original story that Marche had cussed once or twice during the altercation.

While Marche was looking for his driver’s license in the glovebox, Bowden said the cops told her to stay in the car, at which point she explained that she was not getting out, just sticking her legs out so her husband had room to rifle around. However, she failed to report that she was SASSY. As per Officer Delaney’s report:

“I stood back and behind to observe what was inside the glove box for officer safety,” Delaney reported. “Ms. Bowden became angry and attempted to get out of the vehicle as well. I ordered Ms. Bowden to remain inside the vehicle.”

And then, due to all the obvious black people anger happening, Delaney did what he had to do:

“I sensed that the verbal altercation was escalating so I took Mr. Marche into custody,” Delaney reported. Logazino’s account reflected the arrest: “Delaney then moved Ira to the passenger side rear of the vehicle and placed him in handcuffs.”
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Cusses and general uppityness, and who do these people think they are anyway? It’s not like she was a doctor rushing to a patient, oh wait, she WAS a doctor rushing to a patient.

Read the whole report if you want to, please, be our guest. Because from what we can tell, these good old boys didn’t even feel the need to make up a bullshit story about how they were completely justified, and definitely did NOT arrest these people for Existing While Black. Hell, when that white guy heading home after a Widespread Panic concert was arrested and died in custody of the Southaven Police Department — the very same police department — at least the cops tried to make bullshit excuses about an “LSD overdose.”



When you’re black, it’s different. Remember the pool party incident in McKinney, Texas? That cop vaguely tried to pretend he was terrified of being charged by a 15-year-old girl in a bikini, though few were convinced. And remember the time those black kids were arrested for waiting for the bus? They were pretty scary too, you betcha. And the time Florida cops arrested that guy 62 TIMES for air-quotes “trespassing” at the place where he works, due to how he was black? He was probably up to no good.

And now we have Dr. Marcia Bowden and Ira Marche arrested because black people are scary when they say cusses, we guess. Good police work, dudes!

Read more at http://wonkette.com/594004/mississippi-cops-we-totally-arrested-that-black-doctor-for-being-uppity-ayup#Z4WGCqr4ZsIHBJrI.99

Nice White Dad Mysteriously Dies In Police Custody, We Can Talk Police Brutality Now?

by Evan Hurst
Jul 22 9:19 am 2015


A man beloved by many, but most of all by his family.



Saturday evening, Troy and Kelli Goode of Memphis headed off to a Widespread Panic concert in nearby Southaven, Mississippi. What should have been a nice night off for two young parents ended with Troy, a 30-year-old chemical engineer, loving husband and devoted daddy of a 15-month-old, being hogtied by the Southaven police, and soon after dying in their custody. One of the family’s attorneys, Tim Edwards, explained the timeline of events to the Huffington Post:

The couple was driving away from the concert venue when Goode exited the vehicle near a local shopping center.

“He was intoxicated and his wife was driving,” Edwards said. “He was acting erratically and got out of the car for reasons unknown.”

Goode’s behavior prompted someone to call the Southaven Police Department. When officers arrived on the scene, Goode allegedly resisted arrest.[…]

Goode — who, according to Edwards, had asthma and carried an inhaler — was arrested for disorderly conduct. For reasons not yet clear, Goode was hogtied by officers and placed facedown on a stretcher belonging to a responding ambulance, the lawyer said.
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Two hours later, the family was notified that Goode had died. And how? Well, Southaven Police Chief Tom Long first suggested that Goode was “acting erratically from an alleged LSD overdose,” which is interesting, because people really don’t die from LSD overdoses, even if, as has been reported in some outlets, dude did some acid that night. Kevin McCormack, another of the family’s attorneys, told Wonkette that it’s “extremely premature of the Southaven Police Department to say it was an LSD overdose,” considering how long it takes for full autopsy and toxicology reports to come back. But maybe these Mississippi officers are so experienced with the well-known American epidemic of acid-related cop deaths that they can just tell!

Desoto County D.A. John Champion claimed in a news conference to have seen a “preliminary report” on the autopsy, sans lab results, from which he drew the conclusion that “Goode’s death was possibly related to heart or lung related issues.” In another report on the same presser, Champion was quoted more specifically, saying, “Basically, (it was) a form of a heart attack. His heart was racing so heavy.” Champion also said he believes that his preliminary interpretation of the lab result-free autopsy report exonerates the arresting officers from charges of police misconduct, but then again, he also says the cops merely restrained Goode with leg irons, when EVERY WITNESS says they hogtied him.

Regardless of the exact cause of death, McCormack told Wonkette, “Everyone realizes that the real story here is how Troy was treated by the police. We have video of how he was treated. Everyone can see that they hogtied him. They strapped his head down while he was hogtied. It’s a shame that the Southaven Police Department isn’t focusing on their officers’ use of force.”

Here’s that video, taken by the son of local attorney David McLaughlin. In it, you can see that the police have hogtied Goode, even though Mississippi officials are apparently allergic to the word “hogtie.” Maybe they prefer to think of it as “that thing we like to do with our rope.” Note that at the 50-second mark, we can see Goode struggling, and witnesses say they can hear him screaming, “I can’t breathe!” A few seconds later, a witness notes how deadly white Goode looks, right before the officers on the scene get pissed off about how they’re being recorded:
And remember how Goode had asthma? A close friend of the family with detailed knowledge of the incident reports that Kelli Goode tried in vain to tell the officers that her husband had asthma and needed his inhaler, at which point they allegedly threatened to arrest her. This source’s account also describes Goode screaming, “I can’t breathe!”



A letter sent to Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood, provided to Wonkette by the Goode family’s attorneys, states that Kelli Goode was told again that she would be arrested, if she followed her husband to the hospital, and that Troy Goode’s mother was similarly threatened when she contacted the hospital and was told her son was in “stable condition”:

And then shortly after, the family learned that Troy Goode was dead. Golly gee, wonder if somebody was trying to cover somebody’s ass, the way the family was kept from the hospital and threatened with arrest? JUST ASKING QUESTIONS.
The same letter, seeking a full investigation from the state into all aspects of the case, sheds more light on what the officers allegedly did at the scene, and would you be surprised to hear tasers may have been involved? Only if you’re an idiot!


Fun fact about hogtying: It’s considered to be an EXTREMELY dangerous practice, one which has been banned by more than a few large police departments. Because why?

In 1992, Dr. Donald Reay, the chief medical examiner of King County and Seattle, Wash., published a study on hog-tying and “positional asphyxia.” That’s the medical term for suffocation that occurs when a restrained subject is made to lie face down, resting mainly on his chest and abdomen.

Now that study was about how hogtying increases the chance of positional asphyxia in overweight people, but you know who ELSE might have trouble breathing in restraints like that? People who are in the middle of asthma attacks, because by definition, those people are having trouble breathing. Would you be surprised to learn that hogtying is widely used throughout Mississippi? No you wouldn’t, because you are NOT an idiot.

So did Goode die at the hospital from a heart attack caused by an “LSD overdose?” Was hogtying a person who may have been suffering an asthma attack at the time POSSIBLY involved? Was Goode actually still alive when he reached Baptist Memorial Hospital? We are just asking questions, and we’re going to go out on a limb and say the results from the full autopsy and toxicology reports should be fascinating. We might have known more, but police allegedly interfered with witnesses’ attempts to record the incident:


And look, yr Wonkette is not a cop-hater. Events around the country the past few years have encouraged people to go to one extreme or another — from “**** Tha Police” to “the police can do no wrong, and if person A hadn’t been doing X, the cops wouldn’t have had to kill him!” But there do seem to be some problems out there, with the way SOME of those wearing badges, and SOME terrible, horrible, fucked up, very bad police departments out there handle the citizens they’re supposed to be Serving and Protecting. (It’s right in their goddamned motto!) And it’s especially concerning when people mysteriously die while in the custody of of police, though the official narrative tends to be that the person in custody must have done it to him or herself. Strange how that keeps happening, especially to people of color.

A YouCaring page has been set up to help Kelli Goode and her son going forward.

So … can we talk about police brutality and stuff now? Or is it Too Soon again? We never can figure out how the timing works on this subject.

[Huffington Post / The Commercial Appeal / Press release from Ballin, Ballin and Fishman, attorneys at law]

Read more at http://wonkette.com/591729/nice-white-dad-mysteriously-dies-in-police-custody-we-can-talk-police-brutality-now#P9uj8Aez6p8v3ecg.99

My god you are going for the record for cut and paste postings?????

Eight and counting.

But my record pales next to yours, TonyRM, 12,000 straight posts about nothing and at a steady whine. Congrats, you set the bar low.

Getting sick of that. You are using bill to put words in my mouth, and somehow thinking that means you don't need to try to come up with intelligent responses anymore. I know that's the best you got, because Bill does to Blacks what you do to cops, but me and Bill don't even have the same argument here. Bill says black people should look at black people before worrying about cops. I am telling you there is a bigger picture that you are not seeing. My argument has nothing to do with race.

Try an intelligent answer, TonyRM.

You still don't think there's any problem with police violence,

Of course there is a problem with police violence that however is nothing at all compared to young black men violence toward other young black men.

I find it amazing that BLM care only about the minor problem and nothing about the problem that is piling up mountains of dead black bodies in most of the inner cities of this nation.

What in the hell does this have to do with police violence that seems to be protected by the officials who are supposed to be protecting us rather than assinateing us.

No, I think there is a problem with VIOLENCE. Putting the word police on it just points at the a small fraction of the problem and not even the right direction. I am seeing a tornado, you see the dog in the tornado.

Cannnot give a straight answer can you, TonyRM?

This thread is about cop violence and doesn't have anything at all to about anything else. You still cannot admit: cop violence is a problem and is out of hand.

Unless you claim cops shoot innocent unarmed civilians because they are soooooooooo distraught over "violence" they can't help themselves.

Tue Sep 22, 2015 at 09:13 AM PDT
NYPD officer claims he 'blacked out' when he walked up to innocent man and shot him six times

by
Shaun King




Officer Brendan Cronin

Brendan Cronin, an officer for the New York Police Department, is claiming that he was in an alcohol-induced blackout when he walked up to a car in Pelham, New York and fired 13 shots into it. He hit Joe Felice, an innocent stranger, six times. This was in April of 2014. Seventeen months later, Officer Cronin remains on paid leave. Paid!

The victim and his family are now worried that the officer, who is expected to plead guilty on September 22, will somehow find a way to get off without any jail time—as NYPD officers normally do when they kill folk in New York.

There was anger among the victims that the plea took so long.

“I feel like we have to fight the system every step of the way to get justice that should be so obvious and so forthcoming,” said Felice’s wife, Patricia Scalfani.

The victims never saw Officer Cronin at the scene in Pelham, but surveillance video reportedly shows the officer getting out of his parked car with the victims stopped at the light. Cronin allegedly has his service weapon in his hand in the video, and he allegedly walks up, turns, and empties it into their vehicle.

Keep reading below for the sick explanation given by the officer.

He claims that after a long day of mandatory gun training, his superiors and partners all went and got drunk together. Let's not even bother unpacking the seven layers of wrong in that defense, but it's a mess.

Only in America could an officer walk up to car, unload his weapon, walk away, have the whole thing on film, and receive a paid 17-month vacation.

Hear more from the victim below.

Actually it was originally about Ferguson, but progressed into police brutality and minority injustice at the hands of the justice system.

Obama made a should be obvious statement about respect for the police and keeping them safe is not exclusive of police brutality issues. If we could all keep that in mind, of which I am sure didn't originate with him, perhaps these issues could actually be addressed and fixed.

Tue Sep 22, 2015 at 10:54 AM PDT
Police brutality is getting worse and shows no signs of slowing down

by
Shaun King

Police brutality in America is getting worse—not better.

That's not pessimism. These are the facts.

As of today—September 22—at least 865 Americans have been killed by police so far in 2015.

As of the same date in 2014, the number of people killed by police was 804.

At this pace, 2015 is likely to be the deadliest year ever measured at the hands of American police.

In 2014, 1,106 people were killed by American police. We are currently on pace to break 1,200 for this year.

The problem is complicated, nationwide, nuanced, and deeply entrenched in the new American way of policing. No single policy will curb this trend and it is very possible these numbers may get worse for many years to come without drastic changes, including real consequences for police misconduct.

So, here we are. It's a mess. It's on our watch and we have to do something about it.

Below are the three biggest policy shifts are that could actually freeze or reduce this growing problem.

1. Body cameras nationwide, with universal policies on their usage

The overwhelming majority of people (like 95 percent or more) who are killed by police are killed without it being filmed in any way.

Very specific rules and guidelines on their use, storage, access, etc., must be applied nationwide for it to really work, but if all police in America wore body cameras and they could not turn them on or off, never had access to the footage, and were stored by a secure third party and made available to the public at the same time as police, it could change things.

Ultimately, the following two policies would be needed in concert with an effective body camera policy. What we do know is this: In the few cases where we have officers who've been indicted for murder over the past year, like in the shooting deaths of Walter Scott and Sam Dubose, the only reason those officers were indicted is because they were filmed.

2. A complete overhaul on how law enforcement handles mentally ill men, women, and children

Some studies suggest that up to 50 percent of people who are killed by police were struggling with mental illness, and are often completely incapable of interacting with them in the ways officers too often demand they do. Everything about how 911 calls are reported, questions are asked, calls are routed, and law enforcement is dispatched to emergency scenes has to be scrapped and rebuilt to consider the mentally ill. Mental health professionals and ambulances need to be sent to many scenes where officers instead show up with body armor and loaded guns.

If we sincerely addressed this issue, we could see a drastic decline in police murders.

3. Truly independent, powerful review boards for all police misconduct

Police are using lethal force in record numbers for one primary reason: They can. Local prosecutors are the biggest fans of police in all of government. They are partners with one another inside of the same system. To expect local prosecutors to fairly adjudicate cases of police misconduct will never work. Ever.

It's only when truly independent review boards that actually have power to make binding decisions are put in place that we will see officers who deserve to be aggressively prosecuted handled as such. Until then, district attorneys are consistently dismissive of some of the most egregious police misconduct ever seen. As long as police know the current system protects even their worst behaviors, little change will happen.