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Let's talk shitty policing!
The story starts back in August, when police (specifically, Adams County Sherriff's Department of Ohio) raided the home of Joseph "Afroman" Foreman on a warrant for narcotics and kidnapping. Perhaps they thought that the author of "Because I got high" would be a slam dunk, but they walked out with a couple roaches and a few grand in cash.
https://www.wcpo.com/news/local-news/adams-county/rapper-afromans-ohio-home-raided-by-adams-county-sheriffs-office
When they discovered a grand total of jack and shit, they were forced to return most of the money, except the stuff they stole.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/crime/adams-county-sheriff-comes-up-400-short-returning-cash-to-afroman-after-home-raid/ar-AA14IJPa
Reason covered the case here:
https://reason.com/2022/12/05/cops-return-cash-seized-from-afroman-in-bogus-drug-raid-with-400-missing/
And the man himself has weighed in with a music video that is all security footage of the raid titled "Will you help me repair my door?"
https://youtube.com/watch?v=oponIfu5L3Y
Down with qualified immunity, the legalized piracy known as civil asset forfeiture, and the self-funding militarized security state.
I despair for the cause of police reform. There was a window where it might have been possible, but anywhere past the 2000s I just don't see it happening.
Put frankly, nobody really cares about this man. Nobody really cares about the median CAF victims: poor people, strippers, general lower-class coded individuals. Nobody really cares about people jailed on bogus charges, put through the justice wringer for ill-conceived reason, or shot to death by trigger-happy psychopaths. It's the just world fallacy in full effect: they probably had it coming anyway.
The median voter has never in his life gotten in trouble with the police. You'd need a hundred Uvaldes to meaningfully dent this - the sorts of tragedy I wouldn't wish on any nation. The median voter is a middle-aged comfortable person with a steady job and living who thinks everything in society basically works as it should. Oh, sure, some politicians are greedy, the kids these days are bad, but the police? Protect and serve. They keep us safe and things steady and that's all we want. If they beat up or imprison or kill someone, well, I guess that's just what their job is.
I don't know what any one nation can hope to do about this, for as long as the median age in wealthy countries keeps rising. The people who vote don't care, the people who get elected have no reason to care, and the police have made more than clear they have negative interest in policing their own.
What's a downtrodden person to do? What is anyone to do? For as long as the median voter really loves the police, I don't know that I see a way out.
I don't. It just got conflated with anti-white racism for a few decades, but if we can ever end that shit, I think police reform is a real possibility.
Do you have specific policy reforms in mind? I think there is certainly room to drop the hammer on major rights violations like the case you mentioned, but I find a lot of cases people complain about seem like the products of expecting perfection from a numerous, moderately-paying and unpredictable job: sometimes people mess up, and not all unfortunate results are the result of malice (although that should be rooted out).
I've wondered if policing needs neutral after-action review of bad outcomes without inherently assigning blame with the aim of improving training and public awareness. Similar models have improved aircraft and industrial safety over the last few decades.
Eliminating or greatly reducing qualified immunity (for prosecutors more than cops, actually) is a big plank.
Independent investigative bodies to handle police misconduct rather than subsections of existing police forces.
Civil Asset Forfeiture has to go, and so does the excessive militarization (though my definition and most people's definition might differ here). The two impact each other, because CAF funds a lot of military gear.
I'm actually of teh opinion that use-of-force is one of the least pressing issues for American policing. There's certainly bad behavior, and even pockets of systemic problems, but nothing like there is with the casual civil rights violations, the scummy plea dealing, the near-constant lying on warrant applications etc. Some of this, the reform needs to be in the direction of allowing police more, rather than less autonomy. I am also of the view that we need vastly more police, rather than fewer, and a narrowing of the criminal scope (i.e. ending the drug war, streamlining and rationalizing the criminal statutes etc.).
I want more police focusing on fewer crimes with more training and more oversight. I want every unsolved murder to have a mini task force. I want better witness protections.
I know that there is a virtuous spiral to be joined here. We've seen that we can massively decrease the most serious crime rates in a decade or two, and are now in the process of trying to reverse. We can stop anytime, but it's going to take decades to get back on the path.
Won't that just mean every cop getting constantly sued by everyone they ever put in jail?
Getting jailed tends to mean going to trial anyway. That's kind've the point. I'd be disappointed if the majority of people in jail didn't see a courtroom to get their dose of justice, be it in their favor or not.
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