Why do we have pictures of a cop when there are so many of plain clothed, mask wearing, and unidentifiable ICE guys?
this post was submitted on 20 May 2025
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THE POLICE PROBLEM
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The police problem is that police are policed by the police. Cops are accountable only to other cops, which is no accountability at all.
99.9999% of police brutality, corruption, and misconduct is never investigated, never punished, never makes the news, so it's not on this page.
When cops are caught breaking the law, they're investigated by other cops. Details are kept quiet, the officers' names are withheld from public knowledge, and what info is eventually released is only what police choose to release — often nothing at all.
When police are fired — which is all too rare — they leave with 'law enforcement experience' and can easily find work in another police department nearby. It's called "Wandering Cops."
When police testify under oath, they lie so frequently that cops themselves have a joking term for it: "testilying." Yet it's almost unheard of for police to be punished or prosecuted for perjury.
Cops can and do get away with lawlessness, because cops protect other cops. If they don't, they aren't cops for long.
The legal doctrine of "qualified immunity" renders police officers invulnerable to lawsuits for almost anything they do. In practice, getting past 'qualified immunity' is so unlikely, it makes headlines when it happens.
All this is a path to a police state.
In a free society, police must always be under serious and skeptical public oversight, with non-cops and non-cronies in charge, issuing genuine punishment when warranted.
Police who break the law must be prosecuted like anyone else, promptly fired if guilty, and barred from ever working in law-enforcement again.
That's the solution.
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Our definition of ‘cops’ is broad, and includes prison guards, probation officers, shitty DAs and judges, etc — anyone who has the authority to fuck over people’s lives, with minimal or no oversight.
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INFO
• A demonstrator's guide to understanding riot munitions
• Cops aren't supposed to be smart
• Killings by law enforcement in Canada
• Killings by law enforcement in the United Kingdom
• Killings by law enforcement in the United States
• Know your rights: Filming the police
• Three words. 70 cases. The tragic history of 'I can’t breathe' (as of 2020)
• Police aren't primarily about helping you or solving crimes.
• Police lie under oath, a lot
• Police spin: An object lesson in Copspeak
• Police unions and arbitrators keep abusive cops on the street
• Shielded from Justice: Police Brutality and Accountability in the United States
• When the police knock on your door
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For something like traffic enforcement it makes sense to hide
Let's be honest, police trying to catch speeding cars or compulsive phone users with unmarked or hidden cruisers is not the reason why people don't trust the US police.
I can only speak for myself, but I absolutely add any form of hidden speed traps to the list. Cops know they can perform "traffic calming" by parking a marked cruiser in an easily seen location, be it on a highway or a city street. People see the car and slow down. This works anywhere it's clear they can join traffic and pull you over. The officer effortlessly achieves a local bump in traffic safety just by sitting there, and cops don't need to do risky traffic stops unless someone is really not paying attention. So that's gotta be the preferred method, right?
Meanwhile, hidden traps and unmarked cars have only one purpose: generate ticket revenue. The only mass "calming" that happens is kinda/sorta in the area where a cop has someone pulled over - and that's after the car is clearly visible.
Edit: We can also solve speeding and reckless behavior by engineering calming measures into the road itself. The freaking DOT wrote a manual for it. IMO, it's hard to view speed traps as anything more than a band-aid fix with this in mind.
Eh, if enforcement was actually consistent then traffic behavior would still change over time, even with unmarked cars. I don't really have sympathy for drivers who disregard traffic safety rules and I'm not interested in giving folks a fair shake at evading enforcement. Driving is a privilege and speeding imposes risks to society at large.
Frankly, I'd be fine if we forced cops to fund themselves through ticket revenue, up until traffic safety stats improved.
Are the speed/ red light cameras hidden where you are.
Our red light cameras are usually at intersections and people tend to know about them because they are always trying to vandalise them.
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Meanwhile, hidden traps and unmarked cars have only one purpose: generate ticket revenue.
That's not true - knowing that there could be a speed trap hidden anywhere makes drivers more likely to actually follow the law. Hidden traps are only an issue for people who believe that breaking the speed limit should be the norm.
I dont believe this is true in practice as much as you might like it to be, and I'd love to see any actual data you might have to support your assertion
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Toronto police tried to pull this crap with the cars. They got so much heat they had to cancel and repaint the cars back. Rightfully the argument is that police are supposed to be highly visible. If someone needs help, how is camouflaging the response vehicle productive?
Trick question, they're not actually there to help
They're not there to help us.
We can frustrate them by making them pretend they are at the very least.
If someone broke your arm, the police will show up, and they might break your arm in the process of, whatever it is you call their job... terrorism?
Visibility is like their biggest deterrent lol
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me just assuming every V8 Charger less than five years old, white, red or black and clean is a cop by default
This is part of why they run undercover cars. Now you think every black charger could be a cop and thus you try to drive following the rules nearby those models, even when it isn't a cop.
Same for black, white or red Ford Exploders.
This is why I believe people who buy white Ford Explorers are likely dicks. Don't act like you don't know.
They also have shit taste in cars. They don't call them Exploders for nothing.
In Canada police vehicles are visible as all hell. A blind person can know there is a police car there.
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Every time I see police markings on American cars, they look to me like the cops are trying to be cool and hip with their sick fonts. But to me it just screams unprofessional.
Can confirm. I moved from the US to Canada nearly ten years ago, and it's been approximately that long since I found a cop's presence intimidating. I don't ever feel like the RCs are out to get me.
They didn't used to look like this. The shift happened sometime in the late '90s - early aughts. The fonts and designs until then were gradually modernized but it was similar to corporate letterhead. They also shifted from baby blue shirts to all black around the same time.
The image went from stressful/powerful bureaucrat in a funny uniform to GI Joe action figure.
GI Joe action figure.
I don't think that's a coincidence. Consider when Jeeps started showing up with all the off-road accessory options. I've seen some that were just short a Cobra/Joe logo on the side. Gen-X is has been in the management and disposable-capital age bracket for a while now, making all the decisions that drive these aesthetics, and we were all raised on that stuff.
The shift happened in direct response to the ruling of Harlow V Fitzgerald in 1982. That case fucked up a lot of things, because SCOTUS was, unknown to them, handed an illegally amended version of the law in question that was relevant to the case. The law is § 1983 of the federal code. When an unnamed secretary was tasked with copying the Congressional Record of 1871 into the Federal Register in 1874, said unnamed secretary illegally removed a 16 word clause that completely reversed the intent of the law.
I mean, I guess you can make the case that it was that one particular thing.
This is a major cultural shift away from peace officer to Judge Dredd. It's more than just the one, admittedly terrible, court ruling. You can just as easily make the argument that right wing talk radio of the time was the major driver of the change.
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