Fuck the officers Union. They're cooperative lies rarely tell the whole story.

Double-Promoting this video and sending it back into the queue for one more try; last queued Tuesday, June 1st, 2010 2:06pm PDT - doublepromote requested by kronosposeidon.

YAY! Unions! They protect the little guy!

Unions make sure every worker gets due process, sort of like his day in court. Is that a bad thing? I mean even the guiltiest motherfucker in the U.S. is still entitled to his day in court, right? Or should we dispense with the pesky courts? >> ^blankfist:

YAY! Unions! They protect the little guy!

@kronosposeidon. Unions protect their workers. I'd ask why civil servants need a union to protect them against the people they serve?

And how often have you heard "The police department has launched an investigation to see if Officer _______ broke any rules." And then a couple days later, "The police department found Officer ________ acted well within his authority."

I guess I need a Union to get Due Process. I guess I really didn't need that 14th ammendment anyway.

This isn't an argument about the misuse of government property this is an argument of abuse of power, granted to him via the people. It's an argument of unlawful activity, crime. The whole idea that police actually police themselves is suspect, given that they are the police. I sometimes question the whole idea of Internal Affairs given that they are police themselves; hardly independent how can they be trusted to do what is Just? This is most often called Conflict of Interests.

Fuck the officers Union. They're cooperative lies rarely tell the whole story.



When I wrote the statement above I meant that a police union is hardly an unbiased organization from which uncorrupted truth can be found. It's a cop-out to accept either perspectives in this video as truth. More often then not the truth is much more complicated. I was never decrying the use of a Union to protect the working officer's wages or hours; things as such. But they cannot, and should not protect them from the law.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conflict_of_interest
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internal_affairs_%28law_enforcement%29

@blankfist: First of all, unions for civil servants need to protect their employees from bad management. You can't fire a civil servant, but their bosses can, as long as they've shown they have a good reason for terminating the employee (when they have a union).

Secondly, I'm not defending this cop's actions. But before he is terminated and possibly brought up on assault charges, he is still entitled to fair representation. It's what this country's legal system is founded upon, n'est-ce pas? So why can't workers be entitled to it in the work place?

Now I believe that law enforcement internal investigations should be open to the public, which unfortunately they are not in most jurisdictions (maybe all of them, for all I know). Just like our courts, they need to be open, especially when it comes to law enforcement issues. So basically I'm saying the system needs to be overhauled. That doesn't mean that unions need to be cut out of the process. True, they advocate for the worker, even when they do wrong. But just like the courts, as long as the truth is presented then hopefully justice will prevail, even if that involves terminating the employee.

I'm a union member, and I used to be VP of my local for a while. I remember when I went to our national convention back in 2002 I attended a seminar headed by the national VP in which he discussed grievance procedures for employee terminations and our success rates. Our union is usually pretty damn successful when it comes to grieving terminations, he said, but we can't win them all. He then went on to say that most of the cases we lose are just as well, because the vast majority of those are justifiable, and we don't want shitbirds in the ranks making all of us look bad. So we're not unreasonable.

@kronosposeidon. This isn't about fair representation. Who's stopping this officer from receiving representation any less fair than what you and me get? I'm sure there's a public defender that will be assigned to him.

If you were caught on video kicking over a kid on a bike while on the clock and representing your company, you think your employer wouldn't have a right to fire you on the spot before they launched some halfwitted investigation? Why is it public servants get special protections? And they're allowed to investigate themselves which is the biggest sham.

This isn't about fair representation. No, it's about unfair privileges.

^If I kick over a kid on a bike, you better believe he had it coming. And they always do. I do it at least 3 times a week.

I guess we're not going to see eye to eye on this, so don't go away mad. Besides, is this REALLY all about knowing that you have no shot at Tipper Gore now that she's on the market? Hey, don't feel bad. @rottenseed beat me out too.

The union makes a very good point that home video rarely tell the whole story. The police officer was in the wrong, but acting with understandable and excusable anger because he was provoked by the cyclist. What you all didn't see was 100 feet up, the cyclist clearly provoked the officer in typical protester, commie ways - he had the officer's wife bend over a parked cop car while yelling various insults about the officer's manhood. The officer maintained his post despite this obvious provocation, but unfortunately was unable to restrain himself as the cyclist rode closer to taunt the officer further. If the cyclist hadn't provoked and continue to provoke in order to get a response, this incident wouldn't have occurred.

>> ^curiousity:

The union makes a very good point that home video rarely tell the whole story. The police officer was in the wrong, but acting with understandable and excusable anger because he was provoked by the cyclist. What you all didn't see was 100 feet up, the cyclist clearly provoked the officer in typical protester, commie ways - he had the officer's wife bend over a parked cop car while yelling various insults about the officer's manhood. The officer maintained his post despite this obvious provocation, but unfortunately was unable to restrain himself as the cyclist rode closer to taunt the officer further. If the cyclist hadn't provoked and continue to provoke in order to get a response, this incident wouldn't have occurred.


They see me trollin...

@blankfist, @NordlichReiter, the union is putting out public statements asking the public not to make a rush to judgment about the police officer.

It's not about due process under the law, it's about the court of public opinion and its general disregard for due process or the presumption of innocence.

It's also exactly the kind of thing a union is supposed to do -- be an advocate for the worker, and try to make sure he gets the same review process as someone who didn't get a video of them uploaded to YouTube.

*politics

Adding video to channels (Politics) - requested by NetRunner.

Fuck cops.

@NetRunner, I've noticed a trend on cop videos where you always take up for them. This time around I'm just going to assume you're pulling for unions instead of cops who behave badly.

>> ^blankfist:

@NetRunner, I've noticed a trend on cop videos where you always take up for them. This time around I'm just going to assume you're pulling for unions instead of cops who behave badly.


I've noticed a trend on cop videos that you generally act as if they're all scum, and treat every cherry-picked cellphone video posted on YouTube as incontrovertible proof of that.

Then you trot out your same old trope about how you think the police are literally accountable to no one, because nobody remembers a cop being fired over one of these things (though that's because they often don't care enough to remember it and follow up on it in a few months).

You know the last video of a cop pushing a protester off his bike that made the rounds a while back?

Guess what? That cop got fired.

I knew I should've kept googling, not only fired, but charged with assault and falsifying reports. For whatever reason, the jury found him not guilty on assault, but guilty of falsifying reports, which can lead to up to 4 years in prison.

Another article I saw said the NYPD had given the kid knocked off the bike a settlement of $65,000.

@NetRunner. I suppose if you can't make reliably accurate critiques of people, then making a good narrative works just as well.

You heard it folks. Home video rarely tells the whole story. The cop was merely defending himself. The bicyclist clearly was trying to run him over. And even if he wasn't, it's entirely possible the bicyclist had attacked the cop just mere seconds before he peddled into view of the camera.

>> ^blankfist:

I suppose if you can't make reliably accurate critiques of people, then making a good narrative works just as well.


Well at least one of you can make a good narrative.*

*just kidding

>> ^NetRunner:

I knew I should've kept googling, not only fired, but charged with assault and falsifying reports. For whatever reason, the jury found him not guilty on assault, but guilty of falsifying reports, which can lead to up to 4 years in prison.
Another article I saw said the NYPD had given the kid knocked off the bike a settlement of $65,000.


Sounds like a pretty good incentive for these cops and their superiors not to let stuff like this happen. I'm glad that this was taken care of in this fashion.

Cops are people... some good, some bad. Why the hate on cops in general?

Due process isn't a bad thing either, even when the person seems obviously innocent/guilty from the outset. That's why we go through the process... we want to confirm whether the immediate observation was the correct one.

Though I know some will disagree with me on this point, I'll be glad when uncentralized surveillance is more ubiquitous. Perhaps cops will hesitate to abuse their power when they have to assume it will be recorded by someone with an internet connection.

BF is just using this video to attack unions in general, duh. It's his shtick, and he shtickin' to it.

>> ^blankfist:

@NetRunner. I suppose if you can't make reliably accurate critiques of people, then making a good narrative works just as well.


At least you're being honest about what you were doing now.

>> ^NetRunner:

I knew I should've kept googling, not only fired, but charged with assault and falsifying reports. For whatever reason, the jury found him not guilty on assault, but guilty of falsifying reports, which can lead to up to 4 years in prison.
Another article I saw said the NYPD had given the kid knocked off the bike a settlement of $65,000.


That's the best news I've heard all week. I hope that fucking cunt goes to prison and gets what's coming to him. And that the fucking cunt in this video will join him before too long.

Fixed that for you.
>> ^kronosposeidon:
Hey, don't feel bad. @rottenseed beat me off too.

1) The officer is completely unprofessional. It doesn't matter how much of an ass the bike guy was, a police officer needs the ability to keep his cool. He should be punished in some fashion for his behavior.

2) It is the job of the union to help its members get a fair shake, whether they are victims of labor abuse or they have done something wrong on the job. The balance of power is already heavily weighted towards employers. The union is there to give the little guy a fighting chance against authority.

>> ^Psychologic:

Cops are people... some good, some bad. Why the hate on cops in general?

Cause cops have immense power. When one behaves badly they are protected by that power. You can't fight back or talk back. If there is no video evidence the courts often (not always) favour police. They often (not always) don't even face criminal charges. The good cops often (and again not always) band together and support the bad cop.


Also, if someone has as much authority over you as a cop and you don't know if they are going to be a good or bad one, it's easy to find reason to distrust them all. Especially when you see examples of them behaving badly on the internet

Ugh.... so tired of looking at police brutality videos getting upvoted all the time. Seriously, police are human beings just like the rest of us. That means just like the rest of us, there's going to be some douches out there. This is not new or interesting.