• ansiz@lemmy.world
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    8 hours ago

    They have a sheriff’s office I bet, they are bad enough. I love in a small town and the cops are the worst. They don’t do anything helpful, they swagger around dressed like they are in a war zone, and local businesses feel pressured to give them free stuff all the time. Free meals, drinks, let them cut in line, so annoying.

  • ctkatz@lemmy.ml
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    17 hours ago

    if I remember my geography correctly cullman county is north of jefferson county (birmingham) on I 65. I’ve got family from birmingham, so to me it’s simply amazing that a rural white county decided to indict their white police force and recommend to completely disband it because of the corruption.

    if a bunch of white people can do that with no black people involved in any way on either side, that police force must have been doing some seriously heinous shit.

      • Snowclone@lemmy.world
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        1 day ago

        This is a thing that happens. The police department in my small town was disbanded in the 00s I think, only CHP would do anything in town and they weren’t worried about anything, there were few problems. We have them back now, but they are on the ballot to be disbanded or defunded or something quite often. I for one don’t think we need people waiting at stop signs to rob exclusively poor people for the lowest of priorities.

      • Nougat@fedia.io
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        1 day ago

        That’s traditionally been referred to as USSS.

        But seeing as how traditions are now out the fucking window, SS will suffice.

  • Nougat@fedia.io
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    1 day ago

    It would be a good idea to have charging and/or sentencing enhancements for people whose actions “abuse the public trust.”

    • Thrashy@lemmy.world
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      23 hours ago

      Personally, I’d like to suspend the 8th Amendment for law enforcement and senior executive branch personnel. Fuckers need to feel the Sword of Damocles actively tickling their scalp at all times.

  • kreskin@lemmy.world
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    1 day ago

    I’m surprised anything was done about this. Rampantly corrupt police departments are the norm, judging by the videos made of people trying to file a complaint againt a policeman at mutiple departments, among other things. Cops have had no oversight or accountability for a long time.

    • gAlienLifeform@lemmy.world
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      24 hours ago

      the videos made of people trying to file a complaint againt a policeman at mutiple departments

      One of the most famous examples of that was done by an investigative journalist in Florida, which lead to their state’s police union putting out a BOLO (be on the lookout) announcement for him (which are usually only used for wanted criminals), where they “accidentally” leaked his personal information

      https://web.archive.org/web/20060408064603/http://cbs4.com/local/local_story_086232143.html

      (I would link to the original, but it seems like every single news story about this got scrubbed from CBS’s website at some point, I was only able to find this page through a dead link on a blog page I was able to find an archived version of)

      • Maggoty@lemmy.world
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        20 hours ago

        Yup this is the problem with digital news. It isn’t naturally archivable. You can’t go to a library and check old issues of stuff that was removed from digital storage.

    • corsicanguppy@lemmy.ca
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      1 day ago

      the norm, judging by the videos made of people trying to file a complaint againt a policeman at mutiple departments

      This is what we call selection bias, I think. Cunningham, check that, if you could?

      It’s fun to see how the media we surround ourselves with can then be leveraged to make a really bad conclusion.

      • ripcord@lemmy.world
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        23 hours ago

        It’s weird, when I read this comment, it just sounds like static. Doesn’t happen with any other comment in the thread. Wonder what it says.

  • inb4_FoundTheVegan@lemmy.world
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    1 day ago

    the investigation encompassed the department’s evidence room and the death of a Hanceville dispatcher, 49-year-old Christopher Michael Willingham, who was found dead from a toxic drug combination at work, officials said.

    Crocker said that Willingham was given access, “like a lot of other people,” to the evidence room, including on his last day at work. The dispatcher died on Aug. 23, 2024, with the cause of death determined to be the “combined toxic effects of fentanyl, gabapentin, diazepam, amphetamine, carisoprodol and methocarbamol,” and the manner of death an accident, according to the state medical examiner’s autopsy report.

    Eric Michael Kelso, who was a reserve officer, and his wife, Donna Reid Kelso, were charged with unlawful distribution of a controlled substance and conspiracy to unlawfully distribute a controlled substance, Crocker said. The distribution charges are not based on the distribution of anything within the evidence room, and they are “accused of distributing certain drugs to other individuals, including some of these other defendants,” he said.

    Cops stealing drugs until one OD’d on the job while other officers were selling drugs to each other. It’s not the most comprehensive reason to abolish the department, we all know there is systemic problems with the entire institution. But if a pig self harm is what gets the job done, I’ll take it.

    • officermike@lemmy.world
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      1 day ago

      Eric Michael Kelso

      His parents really named him after That 70s Show?

      Donna Reid Kelso

      And then he went out of his way to find a girl named Donna to fulfill his nominative determinism‽

      Edit: The man is 44! Unless there was a legal name change at some point, his name predates the show. Wild.

      • NielsBohron@lemmy.world
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        1 day ago

        Are we not gonna talk about Kelso’s mug shot? The man’s eyes are so close together that he’s singlehandedly the best evidence I’ve ever seen that humans are descended from cyclopes

      • Mic_Check_One_Two@reddthat.com
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        22 hours ago

        Honestly, my initial guess was that the department used a fake name to refer to the officer. Because it’s giving big “the hardest part of making a new character is thinking of a name” vibes.

      • Empricorn@feddit.nl
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        23 hours ago

        Unless there was a legal name change at some point, his name predates the show.

        They had to have changed their names. 5 names for 2 people all just happen to be associated with the show?

  • Biskii@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    1 day ago

    Willingham was given access, “like a lot of other people,” to the evidence room, including on his last day at work. The dispatcher died on Aug. 23, 2024, with the cause of death determined to be the “combined toxic effects of fentanyl, gabapentin, diazepam, amphetamine, carisoprodol and methocarbamol”

    Jesus Fucking Christ. How in the fuck could anybody think that would be a good time?

    • dependencyinjection@discuss.tchncs.de
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      1 day ago

      Being in a bad place.

      I was bad for Benzos, Codeine, and Gabapentin not too long ago.

      Worst experience of my life was coming off Xanax cold turkey cause I didn’t know you could die from that.

      Fell in a canal one day and decided to just get rid of my supply, then came the worst two weeks ever.

      The sick thing is I yearn for benzos quite a lot and it’s only due to me not knowing the current darkweb markets to buy it from that stops me. Not the fact they could be laced with fentanyl. 😔

      • Biskii@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        20 hours ago

        I get it. I’m an addict at heart, but down to only THC and nicotine. Even at my worst I don’t think I would consider even half of that at the same time

        That’s amazing you were able to get off it. I know it had to be an absolute nightmare going cold turkey. Stay strong, if you can quit, you can stay done with it

      • Serinus@lemmy.world
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        21 hours ago

        He probably didn’t know. Fentanyl gets mixed into a lot of things because it’s cheap and it works. And it’s really easy to overdose on fentanyl, especially if you think it’s something else.

  • frezik@midwest.social
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    1 day ago

    It’s a town of around 3000 people. They may have nearly abolished it just by arresting those five guys.

      • PumaStoleMyBluff@lemmy.world
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        23 hours ago

        I’m curious how that funding worked. Even with $1,000,000 in traffic revenue, to pay 50 officers from tax revenue of 250 people, surely there was some kind of state or federal funding fraud.

        • Buelldozer@lemmy.today
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          22 hours ago

          I’m curious how that funding worked.

          In Texas in order to work government event security and do fill-in work you need to be a sworn Peace Officer in the state but in order to be a sworn officer you need to be employed by a recognized Law Enforcement Agency in the State.

          So most of those Officers were only minimally present on the Duty Roster, primarily only working when another agency put out a call for Officers.

          That much I know from researching it back when it was a current event. I suspect that this was primarily funded by the Officers involved paying into the scheme as they got work. As an example Officer Humpty would work an event in Dallas and the Coffee City P.D. would get paid $3,000 (pick a number) for borrowing that Officer. Coffee City would then pay Officer Humpty $2,000 (pick a number) for his work.

          You could easily keep 200+ Officers busy doing events and fill-in work in Texas.

          You should also know that the Coffee City, P.D. was a refuge for troubled Peace Officers, a sort of “Last Chance University” for Texas Cops. They’d get in trouble somewhere else then go to Coffee City and work there to prove that they were fine and then transfer back to a regular Police Department somewhere else.

          They’d put up with the bullshit so that they could hold onto their career in Law Enforcement.

  • Stalinwolf@lemmy.ca
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    21 hours ago

    Why are they all so square? Is this a side effect of putting loads inside of your family members?