Cops lying in police reports

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YourMomThinksImFunny on April 24th, 2021 at 12:55 UTC »

We are at a point in our country where I believe it is necessary and possible to force every police and sheriff in the nation to wear body cams at all times. They should have 0 control of when these cams turn on or off, turned on when leaving the precinct, turned off when handing in gear at end of day.

It may be expensive at first, but think of all the money tax payers will save on court trials. How many DA's will take bullshit cases in front of a jury when the jury can watch the cops brutalize someone for no reason?

accountforBSpurposes on April 24th, 2021 at 14:06 UTC »

I work in news. This actually is a problem in journalism and the murder of George Floyd has brought it to light in a very public way. The first "official" report from Minneapolis Police stated that George Floyd was suffering "medical distress."

Yeah, medical distress brought about by a fucking knee on his neck.

Thank goodness that girl recorded what happened or else Chauvin likey would have walked away a free man.

Police have been unreliable for years, but we always treat them as the official source because it's easier, and it also protects us from lawsuits. Because if we report something that turns out not to be true, we can simply say that we were only citing information we got from police.

I read an article recently that described how news outlets need to learn to move forward without the "official" reports of police. I tried to find it again but I couldn't unfortunately. But the fact of the matter is police cannot be trusted and more journalists need to recognize that.

EDIT: A couple of people have responded (but the comments are showing up due to it being a country club thread) but they raise some good points that I want to address.

Someone mentioned how going off of unofficial facts can come back to bite reporters in the ass. That is absolutely true. It's impossible to report something with only half the facts, and verifying isn't always a quick and easy process. Requesting arrest reports, body camera footage, surveillance video sometimes takes a while and some times those files won't be received for weeks or months after the fact. But reporters and news still have to tell the story, so you are left in an awkward position.

I'm not saying to ignore police reports entirely. However, they should be viewed at with the same critical eye as we do bystander and witness accounts. Police are not infallible, and they lie a lot more often then we would like to believe. Two officers in South Florida just got arrested for issuing fake tickets. An officer in Virgina was arrested after he planted evidence and now as many as 400 cases may be overturned (unlikely to happen, but still).

Police should no longer be used as the official narrative, but simply one account of what may have happened.

u/andrewegan1986 helped me track down the article here

RandGee on April 24th, 2021 at 14:40 UTC »

When I was in 6th grade my best friend and I were nearly abducted off of the street by someone random. It was a crazy event, we lived in a small town and called the police right away. The police reported in the local paper that a man stopped to yell at me and my friend because we were throwing snowballs at his car. I was mocked and ridiculed at school endlessly along with the trauma of almost being kidnapped. It made me hate my small town police department with an absolute seething rage. Over 20 years later I still get angry at the injustice of it all and worry that some other child may have been abducted due to the police department being unwilling to tell people the truth.