Police handcuffed a suspect and detained her inside a patrol car that they left sitting on train tracks. Then the train came. I've seen thousands (yes, thousands!) of police dash and badge cam videos over the years since Cops was taken off of network TV. While I've seen plenteous incidents of terrible policing, I have NEVER seen anything as boneheaded and recklessly negligent as this. The woman survived the initial impact, but is still in very serious condition.
That requires intent, and I don't think they actually wanted this to happen. This is gross negligence to an unfathomable degree. I would agree with stiff charges being levied against the officers. Extremely stiff.
Absolutely horrific! Thank God 20-year-old Ms. Yareni Rios-Gonzalez survived. https://www.foxnews.com/us/video-shows-train-hit-colorado-officers-car-suspect-inside Sadly, I have witnessed worse mishaps/'screw ups'
I'd like to conduct a study on the standard deviation of IQ scores for municipal police officers and sheriff's deputies. Knowing the mean IQ score doesn't tell us how many police officers have a below average IQ. I also question the few studies on individual police departments that found that 12-hour shifts and only getting six hours of sleep doesn't affect job performance. Harvard's study on federal air marshals found that inadequate sleep time does affect performance. Plus, some police departments said they loved the 12-hour shifts while others hated them.
https://www.cracked.com/article_29457_some-american-police-departments-prefer-their-cops-not-to-be-too-smart.html They don't want smart cops. The "they will get bored" argument is however BS, they want people that are golden handcuffs to job (afraid of not having a job becaue unlikely to suceed elsewhere) and who will do as told and not think critically about it (wonder why)
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11255873/Nearly-50-sworn-California-police-officers-desk-duty-failed-psych-evaluations.html
We're just looking at the "worse" cases of cops doing their jobs... in all professions, there will be the good, the bad, and the ugly... I am just hoping there will be more "good" than the other two.
Especially when the "good" ones tend to get punished for "tattling" on the "bad" ones. In departments where that happens, there can unfortunately be no "good" cops.
Police culture is that of a "band of brothers" and departmental authority is strictly hierarchical. I think that's expected and even necessary given the nature of what they do, but it's also a recipe for abuse. I see many parallels with one particular high control religion I was once a part of. It can be hard to do the right thing when you have so many competing interpretations of "right" fighting for supremacy in your brain at the same time. Adherence to authority, loyalty to the in-group, duty to protect and serve the public, the distain for abuses of power, the yearn for justice, the fear of adverse consequences, and many others. Here's a video that I think illustrates the dynamic. A physically much smaller, lower ranking, officer pulls her boss away from a situation that he was unnecessarily escalating. The commanding officer grabs her by the throat, pushes her back and threatens her. You can see on the looks of all the other cop's faces that they are stunned by what they see, but aren't sure what the right thing to do is. I think it's easier to assess the situation while watching it unfold on a badge cam video posted to YouTube than while being there in the moment. The commanding officer was charged with four crimes. Among them, assault on a police officer. That one I find particularly satisfying. Thank goodness for badge cams. Police are the good guys, most of the time. They are heros a lot of the time. The badge cams prove that. The badge cams also show the times that they are not. Thank goodness for that, too.
There was a correctional officer for the State of California who faced retaliation and was bullied out of his job because he reported bad officers. Even after leaving, he was still threatened by his former colleagues. Then, there was this former officer who was fired for intervening when her colleague put someone in a chokehold. She fought for 13 years to get her pension. That colleague had a prior history of using excessive force and was eventually fired for continued misconduct. https://www.cnn.com/2021/04/14/us/buffalo-officer-reinstated-trnd/index.html
Oh yes, this video! I saw this one before, it's always the person who has the most seniority that's making the wrong calls. I mean, the cop was agitated about something already, he should have sat down and let the others handle it, but no, he had to use his authority in the worse way possible. Totally using his brawn and not his brains...
I don't mean to blame the victim, but in the video, she didn't say one word about being put into a car that was sitting on the railroad tracks. She should have been screaming at the top of her lungs, MOVE THAT CAR OFF THE RAILROAD TRACKS, so every officer around heard her! Within the law, you need to stand up for your rights against government authority, or the government will physically harm you and steal your money. I had a so-called "safety inspector" tell me that the home that I bought had a small red stain on the carpet; therefore, this home would not pass inspection, in which case it would be illegal to occupy the home. For all that inspector knew, I'm an artist, and I wanted my carpet to look that way. Please provide me proof that a red stain damages your eyes from looking at it or increases the chances of falling near that area; thus is a safety violation. I was able to get the red stain out myself, so I didn't have to push back when it came time for the re-inspection. Most of these government people just want to get through their day and aren't ready to battle it out with someone that is standing up for their rights. It's a fine line between treating these people with respect while standing up for your rights. If you don't stand up for your rights, the government will bully and steamroll you.
If I was arrested, guilty or not, I'd have a thousand things racing through my head. I don't even know if I would have realized that the car was on the tracks. In this case, if the woman being detained did what what she was suspected of doing (making threats with a firearm), she wouldn't have been in her right mind anyway. Whether that meant she was having a mental health break down, or was just really angry when she allegedly committed the crime and now anxious when being detained, she would have been in a state of clouded judgement.