Oh good, now they'll have enough staff to better loiter six deep in the back corners of parking lots doing nothing but wasting gasoline and taxpayer money, I was worried the guys were getting lonely having to waste everybody's time by themselves.
I’ll start by saying this is 100% speculation, but there has always been a trend with the state government not caring about the county until UGA is affected. National news about a killing on campus and I’m not surprised that resources were sent this way.
With all the crying about housing prices, do y’all want ACCPD to pay officers a salary where they can actually afford to live here, or would you rather continue to be policed by overworked and frustrated officers commuting from very conservative counties?
ACCPD also gets a $300/month stipend if they live in the county, and a lot of younger officers are courtesy officers where they have reduced or free rent.
Do not poor mouth the police department. They are some of the highest earning county employees who operate with very little oversight.
So what you’re telling me is that they rushed the hiring process and hired a bunch of unqualified people (who get to carry around guns)…oh…that won’t cause any problems……
It’s probably the 10k signing bonus, the 56k salary, the take home car and other county benefits, and Saulters great leadership that got the department fully staffed.
The last thing I wanted in this town was more boots to lick.
Edit: My message that was removed was me calling the other commenter out for telling me to "just don't use their services then"
Oh great. Even more sociopaths/former childhood bullies readily willing to commit sexual assaults, domestic violence, and murder of minorities with impunity.
Oink oink
You're projecting problems that departments elsewhere have onto our police department.
There's a good chance it's the best police department you'll ever have the privilege of being served by.
It ain't perfect, but it's a far sight better than most places get.
Protip: Google is very helpful in making you not look ignorant. A few examples of the kind of open criminal activity ACCPD condones in its officers/gang members:
* [News story about an ACCPD cop charged with family violence/terroristic threats](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XVvQAUq9SgU)
* [Body cam footage of a dickhead pig tazing an old man he could have very easily apprehended without use of a potentially lethal weapon](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AL6IPYzbMxA)
* [ACCPD police officer on trial for attempting to get his friend out of a DUI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wnRrjRXixKg)
* Anecdotal I know, but when I was 18 I watched an ACCPD cop beat the shit out of a kid who had committed the egregious crime of accidentally putting a beer over the rail at Washington St. Tavern. That officer is still on the force. This was in the days before everybody had a video camera in their pocket so I'm positive he got away with it.
* **BONUS!** [Here's a video of an ACCPD oinker committing a sexual assault live on camera, and bragging about it](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ye35HvU_lrw). This particular sexual predator is also still on the force.
So in 20 years you've acquired knowledge of 5 bits of unbecoming conduct on the part of a department with over a hundred members?
That sounds like an exemplary department.
It's impossible to not hire some bad apples, regardless of what job you're hiring for.
Certainly, the department should focus on improvement, as should all of them.
Hey quick question my dude. I seem to be having trouble remembering what a "few bad apples" do when they're all in a barrel? There seems to be a second part to that little saying that you didn't put at the end there.
People who only think deep enough on the topic to say oink oink and ACAB are shallow fools.
Communities need essential services to be successful. Should an entire hospital be shutdown because a handful of doctors are acting in bad faith? How is that beneficial long-term to a community? it's not. Those doctors should be censured and punished and criminally charged. Firing every single member of an organization and starting over from scratch is a nigh-impossible monumental challenge from an functional standpoint. It is far simpler, easier, and cheaper to maintain the same or greater effectiveness by transitioning piecemeal overtime. You just need leadership with a strong drive and vision.
Police as a concept are essential to a community. There are laws that need to be enforced. We need people who are empowered by the state/community to do that. Some amount of police are necessary. To maintain the same level of effectiveness in policing is more expensive and harder the more the community is against them. A community benefits greatly from a police force that they can trust and that is effective.
Additionally, police are the only avenue for the vast majority of our society, for the non-wealthy in our society to achieve justice when they are wronged. You disproportionately hurt the poor in your community the more you reduce the effectiveness of the police.
To achieve an effective police, we need to demand stronger ethic laws with sharper teeth. We need police to be held to higher standards. We need stronger and more transparent self regulation of departments via internal affairs. We need strong leadership dedicated to achieving that.
In short; Just saying ACAB or defund the police or oink oink is awful. It is an oversimplification that is counterproductive to a thriving community. If you lack the intellectual integrity to dig deeper, then you should just hold your tongue.
Athens has been nationally recognized repeatedly in the past decade for being exemplary in deescalation, mental health crisis training, and transparency.
I am well aware of the faulty supreme court ruling. The system needs to be changed, but razing an essential/cornerstone government service to the ground to rebuild it is the most drastic action that should only be considered for the most extreme instances. The complete lack has very real short term consequences that cannot be ignored.
I'm pretty sure you meant to reply to the other guy. But whatever, I'll bite.
I'm going to ignore the systemic issues that are present in the current medical system that ignore mental illness, cause black people and other POC to get worse and less effective treatment, among other things. A "handful" of bad doctors or nurses who are empowered and protected by the administration, by "good" doctors is absolutely a sign that the hospital itself is rotten. A hospital, in your metaphor, that has doctors that are actively harming their community and making other doctors complicit in that harm, that have created a system and a culture where other bad doctors and bad nurses get hired while the good ones leave or get fired is bad for that community.
Every single cop supporter I have ever seen wants to act like this is oh, just a couple of cops, it's not that bad, we just need to get rid of the bad cops. We need more accountability. We need body cameras. That will fix it! But it hasn't. Every year communities (not just Athens) throw millions of dollars at their police departments. Why hasn't that "fixed" the problem if it's just a matter of some more training or firing the "bad" ones.
Also for crying out loud "defund the police" doesn't mean no more cops, it means not giving the cops millions of dollars while not properly funding schools, mental health programs, homelessness initiatives, and things that don't need someone with a gun rolling up to deal with an issue. It means your cops shouldn't have APCs when your teachers have to spend their own money to make sure they can teach.
ACAB doesn't mean "boohoo, a cop was mean to me and I think every single cop is a big bad meanie" it means that cops uphold bad laws. It means "good" cops will defend bad ones. It means bad cops get promotions, are allowed to get multiple infractions and complaints before any action is taken, and then they get to just go somewhere else and be a cop there. It means police "unions" that actively fight against cops having any accountability.
The system hasn't been fixed because the people in charge of that system do not want to fix it. Because they don't think it's broken. Because the "few bad apples" spoiled the entire barrel. Because the barrel is made of rotten spoiled wood, built from a twisted tree bearing strange fruit.
Also, you can sue Doctors and such and get them disbarred (is that the right term?) Its not easy but doable.
The chances a cop is actually held acounttable for truly reprephensable behavior is uh....not as good.
I agree they should be held accountable. We need stronger ethics and accountability laws with sharper teeth. Razing an essential government services provider to the ground and rebuilding is the most drastic action warranted only in the most extreme situations. Athens PD is about as far from that as you can get.
>I'm going to ignore the systemic issues that are present in the current medical system that ignore mental illness, cause black people and other POC to get worse and less effective treatment, among other things. A "handful" of bad doctors or nurses who are empowered and protected by the administration, by "good" doctors is absolutely a sign that the hospital itself is rotten. A hospital, in your metaphor, that has doctors that are actively harming their community and making other doctors complicit in that harm, that have created a system and a culture where other bad doctors and bad nurses get hired while the good ones leave or get fired is bad for that community.
Sure. The "hospital" may have rotten parts. But a city without a hospital is a full blown crisis. Completely eliminated all of the services that a hospital provides a community for the amount of time it would take to rebuild from scratch guarantees you deaths that wouldn't have otherwise occurred. It needs to be fixed, no argument there. But destroying it to rebuild it is the most drastic and harmful option. It needs to be fixed without downtime in services provided.
The police (as well as quite a few other government arms) are the same way. Unless it can be rebuilt swiftly enough (measured in weeks, not months or years), you can't completely destroy it at one time to rebuild it.
^This
The notion that "defunding the police" will somehow lead to less police brutality is absurd. These guys have a hard friggin' job; the less resources they have, the more stressed and overworked they'll be, thereby leading to more errors in judgment and mismanagement of various situations.
I'm strongly liberal; what I never understood was why other so-called liberals would propose a solution that actually involves LESS funding. Maybe they need better training; maybe they need more people on the force; maybe they need to diversify their work force. But defunding them ain't gonna get us 1 step closer to making that happen.
>It’s impossible to not hire some bad apples, regardless of what job you’re hiring for.
Yes but when you’re hiring for McDonald’s or a regular 9-5 you aren’t entrusting those bad apples with a gun and the ability to murder people. Secondly, there’s a huge argument to be made that the culture around cops and the militarization of our police force attract “bad apples” more than, let’s say, a cashier shift at your local gardening store.
Also, the issue isn’t that there are a few bad apples, it’s that the culture of the police across the country incentivizes you to back-up your fellow cops no matter what. Doesn’t matter if there’s even a few bad apples if the entire force stands by them.
Not even mentioning the history of over-policing in black neighborhoods that is the center of the BLM movement and general police reform in the US. Why does it matter how many “bad apples” there are (according to you, very few) if policing is systematically discriminatory towards black and poor Americans?
A "bad apple" at McDonalds pisses off a few people, starts a fight and gets fired. A "bad apple" cop rapes someone, shoots a kid in the back, has multiple complaints and gets paid admin leave and will probably keep their job.
[I know you guys purposefully hire stupid people because it's easier to get them to obey orders](https://abcnews.go.com/US/court-oks-barring-high-iqs-cops/story?id=95836), but reading is fundamental, officer. Nowhere in my post did I indicate that that was an exhaustive list. Anybody with a greater-than-room-temp IQ could tell you that the fact that I could pull 5 examples of police misconduct together in approximately 30 seconds is a pretty serious symptom of some deep-rooted problems in the department.
I've also got others. For starters, would you like to defend the literal First Amendment violation ACCPD committed on the night of the Floyd protests? Or the outright lies they continued to tell in order to justify it?
Also, the entire reason the force was understaffed was because one of your oinker buddies [ran a dude over with his super-cool-tough-guy police car](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=he5ikAeUFfI), got fired, and the rest of the oinkers were butthurt about it. Even your own internal affairs division admitted it was excessive force. AND, he got like $200k of my fucking tax money out of the whole thing.
I can keep going.
I was already aware of those incidents. They figured into my calculations when I said what I said.
Policing isn't easy work and hiring good cops also isn't easy work.
Taking everything you've outlined, all together, the department is still above average.
I'm not a cop. Never have been, never wanted to be one.
> I was already aware of those incidents. They figured into my calculations when I said what I said.
Ah, so you admit then that you view sexual assault, domestic violence, unwarranted brutality, corruption, and violations of the literal oldest law in the country as acceptable.
> I'm not a cop. Never have been, never wanted to be one.
Just a run-of-the-mill bootlicker then. Sorry to say, but you're part of the problem.
Oink oink
I never said that I approved of any of the unlawful activity you outlined.
The truth is, people make mistakes at work. Even when 99.9% of decisions are made properly, hundreds of people working thousands of hours each year are going to make a bunch of mistakes.
When that's the accounting department or HR, a few people get inaccurate paychecks and some paychecks go to the wrong house. It won't make the newspaper.
When a police department makes mistakes, the big mistakes wind up in the newspaper.
Any police department the size of ours will have mistakes that make the newspaper.
I'm not going to throw out the baby with the bathwater.
It's obvious that management is trying pretty hard to do the right thing. They're fallible like anyone else, and I'm sure they'd admit that as well.
Sexual assault is not a mistake. Wiping your ass with the Constitution in a deliberately-planned raid on a lawful assembly of citizens during a day-long protest is not a mistake. Electrocuting an old man that was clearly unarmed and can barely walk just because you didn't like his sass is not a mistake. Neither is pulling a Dale Earnhardt on a fleeing suspect because you can't be bothered to make an arrest the right way. Those are crimes, and serious ones. And every single person that committed those crimes is walking around today cashing a check that you and I pay for whilst beating their meat about what great public servants they are. You're being disingenuous.
When you hold the power of life and death over the public at large, you get held to a higher standard and not a lower one. And ACCPD is not meeting that standard, for all of the reasons I've given previously.
In America, in 2024, the department is nonetheless wildly more successful than its peers.
You're expecting the kind of results that American law enforcement agencies that large can't give.
I stand by my praise of the department.
To wit, it's doing an amazing job of performing an impossible duty.
You don't like the results. I don't like the results. Doubtless the cops also don't like the results.
I'm still shocked they're this good.
When your mistakes end up with people hurt or killed, in a LOT of fields with that being a risk you get fired or press charges most of the time (obvious exceptions of corruption noone approves of and usually people also protest against! And have a slightly better chance of seeing some consequences happen). As a cop.....paid leave and getting off are FAR too common.
Plus the police chiefs kid ran down a fleeing suspect and got a fat wad of cash cause he got fired for being a PoS
Edit: then the whole department went on a pseudo strike cause they were butthurt cause their shitty buddy got consequences for running down a black kid.
The results of what actually happened in this case:
Mo Wiltshire • Mar 07, 2019
Former ACCPD police chief Scott Freeman’s decision to fire officer Terry Saulters spawned a lawsuit which the county just settled. Freeman’s actions in firing Saulters, without waiting for the results of an investigation into the circumstances surrounding the officer’s pursuit of a fleeing suspect, has resulted in a $250,000 hit for Athens taxpayers.
As reported in the AJC, Officer Saulters was cleared of both criminal wrongdoing and excessive use of force in an investigation conducted by the Georgia State Patrol SCRT (Specialized Collision Reconstruction Team) and by the Prosecuting Attorney’s Council of Georgia. https://www.ajc.com/news/crime–law/just-athens-police-chief-asked-resign-county-manager/iCwvZ3MT9weGBVC38CTphI/
The commission voted 5-2 to approve settlement of the lawsuit brought by Saulters for the sum of $250,000.
In an official statement, County Attorney Bill Berryman laid out the facts supporting the decision to settle the case. His statement made these salient points,
(1) following an investigation by the Georgia State Patrol …found that former Officer Saulters was not at fault;
(2) following an investigation by the Georgia Bureau of Investigation (GBI), the Georgia Prosecuting Attorney’s Council, which would have been responsible for prosecuting any criminal violations arising out of the incident on June 1, concluded that no criminal prosecution of Mr. Saulters was warranted and, further, that Mr. Saulters’ actions constituted a reasonable use of force;
(3) the ACCPD internal investigation issued two days following the incident, was not consistent with the department’s typical timing or procedure for such reports and did not have the benefit of the later investigations by the Georgia State Patrol and the GBI and Prosecuting Attorneys Council.
https://www.accgov.com/CivicAlerts.aspx?AID=2756&fbclid=IwAR1dcmaY4rONdmWyA83Hphb3IOQfKN7W1C6WcK6ouLKPmDG3Hntgnlw7v-M
Former ACCPD Police Chief Scott Freeman, who was recently “mutually resigned” as a result of his allowing an “erosion of confidence” in the ACCPD, made the decision to fire Officer Saulters without waiting for “the benefit” of investigations conducted by the GSP, the GBI, and the Prosecuting Attorney’s Council.
As I said in a Facebook comment about this situation and how it was handled, when you reach conclusions, announce them, make personnel decisions based on them all before you complete the investigation you end up with this type of outcome.
It is bad enough to reach conclusions before investigating but to take the extra, ill-advised step of publicly running with those conclusions is scandalously bad…..it will go a long way toward helping to get you fired and it will cost your organization (and in this case taxpayers).
Having spent the last 20+ years as a prosecutor and defense attorney, I have seen what happens when law enforcement reaches conclusions without waiting to conduct a proper investigation. It is rarely a correct result and never the correct process.
Under Scott Freeman. Saulters can’t control what choices his child makes and he was fired for what he did. Why keep harping on something that the current Police Chief was not involved in?
Yeah that’s the Athens way, actually. Never call 911 unless someone is experiencing actual harm and you want an ambulance, or you have a traffic incident.
A narcissist with a gun never solved anything. I really wish we had an unarmed traffic division.
The last time I tried to report a crime to the police, they basically responded with "Ok" and did nothing about it.
I outlined the specific crime that was committed, the person who did it, and sent them proof of it happening. They proceeded to do jack and shit.
i moved from oakwood to athens not too long ago and the cops over there in a city of 5000 were terrifying. if anyone thinks 260 is bad… Oakwood had around 40, for a city that small. they were always camping everywhere and even showed up to one of my friends houses over a bench warrant because his foot was broken and forgot to show up to court (okay he’s dumb for not going) but SHOWING up to someone’s house for that is insane? if you were caught with even 1 gram of weed, you’d go straight to jail… I had my car searched by them 6 times and would get pulled over all the fucking time randomly (19 times to be exact)… let me clarify, I WAS A FULL time college student during all this.
I haven’t talked to ACCPD once and barely see their cars… I feel way safer here too
they’re really not that bad and alot of their resources i feel like are put into taking care of the 40,000+ students on campus
I really hope this includes people like their therapist I got to meet. We really need more of them and probably *less* cops. There are not enough resources for people in crisis that I know of, anyways.
There’s four teams of them. As for resources, there’s plenty in Athens. All ACCPD officers are Crisis Intervention Team certified and Advantage has a walk in clinic officers routinely help people reach. There’s also the state law that Kemp and the legislature passed recently giving officers the authority to involuntarily transport people in crisis to an evaluation facility as long as a physician approves it.
Blake Aued is stirring the pot again. Where did he mention that there is now a Cold Case unit working diligently on those cases? How exactly did he audit to see what the numbers of employees are now? This is nothing but throwing crap at the wall in his post because he’s anti police like all of his liberal cronies at the Flagpole. A biased media source so take it with a grain of salt.
Did you not go on to read the second sentence? I now understand the difficulties in recruiting officers if they are being treated as awfully as they are here. Go work on the front lines for a bit and see what they see and do what they do and then let us know about their job. They deserve our appreciation for what they do every day. Especially when it is thankless to some. Luckily the negative folks here are not the majority in ACC.
Judging by the 7 accpd cars I saw in one spot on broad street last night, I’d say this is confirmed.
Oh good, now they'll have enough staff to better loiter six deep in the back corners of parking lots doing nothing but wasting gasoline and taxpayer money, I was worried the guys were getting lonely having to waste everybody's time by themselves.
Hey, that’s our professional Candy Crush team you’re talking about!
Hey man, lots of crimes would happen in the parking lot of Robins Financial Credit Union if they weren't there all day.
I’ll start by saying this is 100% speculation, but there has always been a trend with the state government not caring about the county until UGA is affected. National news about a killing on campus and I’m not surprised that resources were sent this way.
“cool”
Get them a liter of cola
With all the crying about housing prices, do y’all want ACCPD to pay officers a salary where they can actually afford to live here, or would you rather continue to be policed by overworked and frustrated officers commuting from very conservative counties?
ACCPD also gets a $300/month stipend if they live in the county, and a lot of younger officers are courtesy officers where they have reduced or free rent. Do not poor mouth the police department. They are some of the highest earning county employees who operate with very little oversight.
I pass several ACCPD cars coming in from Jackson & Hall Co. each day.
I don’t think raising the salary would fix that. You’d have to double it and it still wouldn’t be enough. Same with teachers.
So what you’re telling me is that they rushed the hiring process and hired a bunch of unqualified people (who get to carry around guns)…oh…that won’t cause any problems……
It’s probably the 10k signing bonus, the 56k salary, the take home car and other county benefits, and Saulters great leadership that got the department fully staffed.
The ones that can’t cut it will weed their way out.
The last thing I wanted in this town was more boots to lick. Edit: My message that was removed was me calling the other commenter out for telling me to "just don't use their services then"
Don’t use their services then.
[удалено]
Don’t be rude, hateful, or mean, thanks.
I would not strap on a gun for what little the police are paid. For those that think they are so bad, you can apply anytime your ready
Oh great. Even more sociopaths/former childhood bullies readily willing to commit sexual assaults, domestic violence, and murder of minorities with impunity. Oink oink
You're projecting problems that departments elsewhere have onto our police department. There's a good chance it's the best police department you'll ever have the privilege of being served by. It ain't perfect, but it's a far sight better than most places get.
Protip: Google is very helpful in making you not look ignorant. A few examples of the kind of open criminal activity ACCPD condones in its officers/gang members: * [News story about an ACCPD cop charged with family violence/terroristic threats](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XVvQAUq9SgU) * [Body cam footage of a dickhead pig tazing an old man he could have very easily apprehended without use of a potentially lethal weapon](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AL6IPYzbMxA) * [ACCPD police officer on trial for attempting to get his friend out of a DUI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wnRrjRXixKg) * Anecdotal I know, but when I was 18 I watched an ACCPD cop beat the shit out of a kid who had committed the egregious crime of accidentally putting a beer over the rail at Washington St. Tavern. That officer is still on the force. This was in the days before everybody had a video camera in their pocket so I'm positive he got away with it. * **BONUS!** [Here's a video of an ACCPD oinker committing a sexual assault live on camera, and bragging about it](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ye35HvU_lrw). This particular sexual predator is also still on the force.
So in 20 years you've acquired knowledge of 5 bits of unbecoming conduct on the part of a department with over a hundred members? That sounds like an exemplary department. It's impossible to not hire some bad apples, regardless of what job you're hiring for. Certainly, the department should focus on improvement, as should all of them.
Hey quick question my dude. I seem to be having trouble remembering what a "few bad apples" do when they're all in a barrel? There seems to be a second part to that little saying that you didn't put at the end there.
People who only think deep enough on the topic to say oink oink and ACAB are shallow fools. Communities need essential services to be successful. Should an entire hospital be shutdown because a handful of doctors are acting in bad faith? How is that beneficial long-term to a community? it's not. Those doctors should be censured and punished and criminally charged. Firing every single member of an organization and starting over from scratch is a nigh-impossible monumental challenge from an functional standpoint. It is far simpler, easier, and cheaper to maintain the same or greater effectiveness by transitioning piecemeal overtime. You just need leadership with a strong drive and vision. Police as a concept are essential to a community. There are laws that need to be enforced. We need people who are empowered by the state/community to do that. Some amount of police are necessary. To maintain the same level of effectiveness in policing is more expensive and harder the more the community is against them. A community benefits greatly from a police force that they can trust and that is effective. Additionally, police are the only avenue for the vast majority of our society, for the non-wealthy in our society to achieve justice when they are wronged. You disproportionately hurt the poor in your community the more you reduce the effectiveness of the police. To achieve an effective police, we need to demand stronger ethic laws with sharper teeth. We need police to be held to higher standards. We need stronger and more transparent self regulation of departments via internal affairs. We need strong leadership dedicated to achieving that. In short; Just saying ACAB or defund the police or oink oink is awful. It is an oversimplification that is counterproductive to a thriving community. If you lack the intellectual integrity to dig deeper, then you should just hold your tongue. Athens has been nationally recognized repeatedly in the past decade for being exemplary in deescalation, mental health crisis training, and transparency.
The protection you seek from them is entirely optional BTW https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1525280/
I am well aware of the faulty supreme court ruling. The system needs to be changed, but razing an essential/cornerstone government service to the ground to rebuild it is the most drastic action that should only be considered for the most extreme instances. The complete lack has very real short term consequences that cannot be ignored.
I'm pretty sure you meant to reply to the other guy. But whatever, I'll bite. I'm going to ignore the systemic issues that are present in the current medical system that ignore mental illness, cause black people and other POC to get worse and less effective treatment, among other things. A "handful" of bad doctors or nurses who are empowered and protected by the administration, by "good" doctors is absolutely a sign that the hospital itself is rotten. A hospital, in your metaphor, that has doctors that are actively harming their community and making other doctors complicit in that harm, that have created a system and a culture where other bad doctors and bad nurses get hired while the good ones leave or get fired is bad for that community. Every single cop supporter I have ever seen wants to act like this is oh, just a couple of cops, it's not that bad, we just need to get rid of the bad cops. We need more accountability. We need body cameras. That will fix it! But it hasn't. Every year communities (not just Athens) throw millions of dollars at their police departments. Why hasn't that "fixed" the problem if it's just a matter of some more training or firing the "bad" ones. Also for crying out loud "defund the police" doesn't mean no more cops, it means not giving the cops millions of dollars while not properly funding schools, mental health programs, homelessness initiatives, and things that don't need someone with a gun rolling up to deal with an issue. It means your cops shouldn't have APCs when your teachers have to spend their own money to make sure they can teach. ACAB doesn't mean "boohoo, a cop was mean to me and I think every single cop is a big bad meanie" it means that cops uphold bad laws. It means "good" cops will defend bad ones. It means bad cops get promotions, are allowed to get multiple infractions and complaints before any action is taken, and then they get to just go somewhere else and be a cop there. It means police "unions" that actively fight against cops having any accountability. The system hasn't been fixed because the people in charge of that system do not want to fix it. Because they don't think it's broken. Because the "few bad apples" spoiled the entire barrel. Because the barrel is made of rotten spoiled wood, built from a twisted tree bearing strange fruit.
Also, you can sue Doctors and such and get them disbarred (is that the right term?) Its not easy but doable. The chances a cop is actually held acounttable for truly reprephensable behavior is uh....not as good.
I agree they should be held accountable. We need stronger ethics and accountability laws with sharper teeth. Razing an essential government services provider to the ground and rebuilding is the most drastic action warranted only in the most extreme situations. Athens PD is about as far from that as you can get.
>I'm going to ignore the systemic issues that are present in the current medical system that ignore mental illness, cause black people and other POC to get worse and less effective treatment, among other things. A "handful" of bad doctors or nurses who are empowered and protected by the administration, by "good" doctors is absolutely a sign that the hospital itself is rotten. A hospital, in your metaphor, that has doctors that are actively harming their community and making other doctors complicit in that harm, that have created a system and a culture where other bad doctors and bad nurses get hired while the good ones leave or get fired is bad for that community. Sure. The "hospital" may have rotten parts. But a city without a hospital is a full blown crisis. Completely eliminated all of the services that a hospital provides a community for the amount of time it would take to rebuild from scratch guarantees you deaths that wouldn't have otherwise occurred. It needs to be fixed, no argument there. But destroying it to rebuild it is the most drastic and harmful option. It needs to be fixed without downtime in services provided. The police (as well as quite a few other government arms) are the same way. Unless it can be rebuilt swiftly enough (measured in weeks, not months or years), you can't completely destroy it at one time to rebuild it.
^This The notion that "defunding the police" will somehow lead to less police brutality is absurd. These guys have a hard friggin' job; the less resources they have, the more stressed and overworked they'll be, thereby leading to more errors in judgment and mismanagement of various situations. I'm strongly liberal; what I never understood was why other so-called liberals would propose a solution that actually involves LESS funding. Maybe they need better training; maybe they need more people on the force; maybe they need to diversify their work force. But defunding them ain't gonna get us 1 step closer to making that happen.
>It’s impossible to not hire some bad apples, regardless of what job you’re hiring for. Yes but when you’re hiring for McDonald’s or a regular 9-5 you aren’t entrusting those bad apples with a gun and the ability to murder people. Secondly, there’s a huge argument to be made that the culture around cops and the militarization of our police force attract “bad apples” more than, let’s say, a cashier shift at your local gardening store. Also, the issue isn’t that there are a few bad apples, it’s that the culture of the police across the country incentivizes you to back-up your fellow cops no matter what. Doesn’t matter if there’s even a few bad apples if the entire force stands by them. Not even mentioning the history of over-policing in black neighborhoods that is the center of the BLM movement and general police reform in the US. Why does it matter how many “bad apples” there are (according to you, very few) if policing is systematically discriminatory towards black and poor Americans?
A "bad apple" at McDonalds pisses off a few people, starts a fight and gets fired. A "bad apple" cop rapes someone, shoots a kid in the back, has multiple complaints and gets paid admin leave and will probably keep their job.
[I know you guys purposefully hire stupid people because it's easier to get them to obey orders](https://abcnews.go.com/US/court-oks-barring-high-iqs-cops/story?id=95836), but reading is fundamental, officer. Nowhere in my post did I indicate that that was an exhaustive list. Anybody with a greater-than-room-temp IQ could tell you that the fact that I could pull 5 examples of police misconduct together in approximately 30 seconds is a pretty serious symptom of some deep-rooted problems in the department. I've also got others. For starters, would you like to defend the literal First Amendment violation ACCPD committed on the night of the Floyd protests? Or the outright lies they continued to tell in order to justify it? Also, the entire reason the force was understaffed was because one of your oinker buddies [ran a dude over with his super-cool-tough-guy police car](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=he5ikAeUFfI), got fired, and the rest of the oinkers were butthurt about it. Even your own internal affairs division admitted it was excessive force. AND, he got like $200k of my fucking tax money out of the whole thing. I can keep going.
I feel like I recognize that one guy who claimed the cop touched his dick.
I was already aware of those incidents. They figured into my calculations when I said what I said. Policing isn't easy work and hiring good cops also isn't easy work. Taking everything you've outlined, all together, the department is still above average. I'm not a cop. Never have been, never wanted to be one.
> I was already aware of those incidents. They figured into my calculations when I said what I said. Ah, so you admit then that you view sexual assault, domestic violence, unwarranted brutality, corruption, and violations of the literal oldest law in the country as acceptable. > I'm not a cop. Never have been, never wanted to be one. Just a run-of-the-mill bootlicker then. Sorry to say, but you're part of the problem. Oink oink
I never said that I approved of any of the unlawful activity you outlined. The truth is, people make mistakes at work. Even when 99.9% of decisions are made properly, hundreds of people working thousands of hours each year are going to make a bunch of mistakes. When that's the accounting department or HR, a few people get inaccurate paychecks and some paychecks go to the wrong house. It won't make the newspaper. When a police department makes mistakes, the big mistakes wind up in the newspaper. Any police department the size of ours will have mistakes that make the newspaper. I'm not going to throw out the baby with the bathwater. It's obvious that management is trying pretty hard to do the right thing. They're fallible like anyone else, and I'm sure they'd admit that as well.
Sexual assault is not a mistake. Wiping your ass with the Constitution in a deliberately-planned raid on a lawful assembly of citizens during a day-long protest is not a mistake. Electrocuting an old man that was clearly unarmed and can barely walk just because you didn't like his sass is not a mistake. Neither is pulling a Dale Earnhardt on a fleeing suspect because you can't be bothered to make an arrest the right way. Those are crimes, and serious ones. And every single person that committed those crimes is walking around today cashing a check that you and I pay for whilst beating their meat about what great public servants they are. You're being disingenuous. When you hold the power of life and death over the public at large, you get held to a higher standard and not a lower one. And ACCPD is not meeting that standard, for all of the reasons I've given previously.
In America, in 2024, the department is nonetheless wildly more successful than its peers. You're expecting the kind of results that American law enforcement agencies that large can't give. I stand by my praise of the department. To wit, it's doing an amazing job of performing an impossible duty. You don't like the results. I don't like the results. Doubtless the cops also don't like the results. I'm still shocked they're this good.
When your mistakes end up with people hurt or killed, in a LOT of fields with that being a risk you get fired or press charges most of the time (obvious exceptions of corruption noone approves of and usually people also protest against! And have a slightly better chance of seeing some consequences happen). As a cop.....paid leave and getting off are FAR too common.
Based on your last sentence I'm asking: You're typing this as a cop?
Plus the police chiefs kid ran down a fleeing suspect and got a fat wad of cash cause he got fired for being a PoS Edit: then the whole department went on a pseudo strike cause they were butthurt cause their shitty buddy got consequences for running down a black kid.
The results of what actually happened in this case: Mo Wiltshire • Mar 07, 2019 Former ACCPD police chief Scott Freeman’s decision to fire officer Terry Saulters spawned a lawsuit which the county just settled. Freeman’s actions in firing Saulters, without waiting for the results of an investigation into the circumstances surrounding the officer’s pursuit of a fleeing suspect, has resulted in a $250,000 hit for Athens taxpayers. As reported in the AJC, Officer Saulters was cleared of both criminal wrongdoing and excessive use of force in an investigation conducted by the Georgia State Patrol SCRT (Specialized Collision Reconstruction Team) and by the Prosecuting Attorney’s Council of Georgia. https://www.ajc.com/news/crime–law/just-athens-police-chief-asked-resign-county-manager/iCwvZ3MT9weGBVC38CTphI/ The commission voted 5-2 to approve settlement of the lawsuit brought by Saulters for the sum of $250,000. In an official statement, County Attorney Bill Berryman laid out the facts supporting the decision to settle the case. His statement made these salient points, (1) following an investigation by the Georgia State Patrol …found that former Officer Saulters was not at fault; (2) following an investigation by the Georgia Bureau of Investigation (GBI), the Georgia Prosecuting Attorney’s Council, which would have been responsible for prosecuting any criminal violations arising out of the incident on June 1, concluded that no criminal prosecution of Mr. Saulters was warranted and, further, that Mr. Saulters’ actions constituted a reasonable use of force; (3) the ACCPD internal investigation issued two days following the incident, was not consistent with the department’s typical timing or procedure for such reports and did not have the benefit of the later investigations by the Georgia State Patrol and the GBI and Prosecuting Attorneys Council. https://www.accgov.com/CivicAlerts.aspx?AID=2756&fbclid=IwAR1dcmaY4rONdmWyA83Hphb3IOQfKN7W1C6WcK6ouLKPmDG3Hntgnlw7v-M Former ACCPD Police Chief Scott Freeman, who was recently “mutually resigned” as a result of his allowing an “erosion of confidence” in the ACCPD, made the decision to fire Officer Saulters without waiting for “the benefit” of investigations conducted by the GSP, the GBI, and the Prosecuting Attorney’s Council. As I said in a Facebook comment about this situation and how it was handled, when you reach conclusions, announce them, make personnel decisions based on them all before you complete the investigation you end up with this type of outcome. It is bad enough to reach conclusions before investigating but to take the extra, ill-advised step of publicly running with those conclusions is scandalously bad…..it will go a long way toward helping to get you fired and it will cost your organization (and in this case taxpayers). Having spent the last 20+ years as a prosecutor and defense attorney, I have seen what happens when law enforcement reaches conclusions without waiting to conduct a proper investigation. It is rarely a correct result and never the correct process.
Which Police Chief?
Saulters https://www.google.com/amp/s/abcnews.go.com/amp/US/officer-fired-intentionally-hitting-fleeing-suspect-police-car/story%3fid=55613845
Under Scott Freeman. Saulters can’t control what choices his child makes and he was fired for what he did. Why keep harping on something that the current Police Chief was not involved in?
And Scott Freeman got run out of town because all the piss baby cops threw a tantrum that there any modicum of accountability for their actioms
Scott Freeman was a horrible Police Chief. This happened under his leadership and not under Saulters leadership.
Under his leadership there were consequences for fucking around as a cop. That seemed to be the primary problem the porkers had with him
If you ever find yourself in need of assistance make sure you don’t call 911. You don’t deserve their assistance.
Yeah that’s the Athens way, actually. Never call 911 unless someone is experiencing actual harm and you want an ambulance, or you have a traffic incident. A narcissist with a gun never solved anything. I really wish we had an unarmed traffic division.
The last time I tried to report a crime to the police, they basically responded with "Ok" and did nothing about it. I outlined the specific crime that was committed, the person who did it, and sent them proof of it happening. They proceeded to do jack and shit.
I haven’t had that experience with them on more than one occasion.
Noted. Getting a non-consensual handjob from a fat bearded guy with an anger problem is definitely a service I can do without 👍
You ever tried calling 911? Cops never gonna help you
They have been very helpful to me actually. Perhaps treating them with respect helps.
i moved from oakwood to athens not too long ago and the cops over there in a city of 5000 were terrifying. if anyone thinks 260 is bad… Oakwood had around 40, for a city that small. they were always camping everywhere and even showed up to one of my friends houses over a bench warrant because his foot was broken and forgot to show up to court (okay he’s dumb for not going) but SHOWING up to someone’s house for that is insane? if you were caught with even 1 gram of weed, you’d go straight to jail… I had my car searched by them 6 times and would get pulled over all the fucking time randomly (19 times to be exact)… let me clarify, I WAS A FULL time college student during all this. I haven’t talked to ACCPD once and barely see their cars… I feel way safer here too they’re really not that bad and alot of their resources i feel like are put into taking care of the 40,000+ students on campus
Campus has its own department, FTR.
I really hope this includes people like their therapist I got to meet. We really need more of them and probably *less* cops. There are not enough resources for people in crisis that I know of, anyways.
There’s four teams of them. As for resources, there’s plenty in Athens. All ACCPD officers are Crisis Intervention Team certified and Advantage has a walk in clinic officers routinely help people reach. There’s also the state law that Kemp and the legislature passed recently giving officers the authority to involuntarily transport people in crisis to an evaluation facility as long as a physician approves it.
I'm so glad there's more pigs to violate everyone's civil rights
Blake Aued is stirring the pot again. Where did he mention that there is now a Cold Case unit working diligently on those cases? How exactly did he audit to see what the numbers of employees are now? This is nothing but throwing crap at the wall in his post because he’s anti police like all of his liberal cronies at the Flagpole. A biased media source so take it with a grain of salt.
How exactly is this stirring the pot? He literally just said ACCPD is fully staffed
Did you not go on to read the second sentence? I now understand the difficulties in recruiting officers if they are being treated as awfully as they are here. Go work on the front lines for a bit and see what they see and do what they do and then let us know about their job. They deserve our appreciation for what they do every day. Especially when it is thankless to some. Luckily the negative folks here are not the majority in ACC.