Poll: Californians want policing reforms
By Conor Friedersdorf, Atlantic
On Wednesday, the ACLU of Southern California released the results of a statewide survey that it commissioned to gauge the attitudes of likely voters toward policing reforms.
The results were overwhelming:
- 84 percent favor requiring police officers to wear body cameras.
- 74 percent of survey respondents believe the public should have access to footage from those body cameras any time that a police officer stands accused of misconduct. A narrow majority believes that the public should have access to allfootage.
As for investigations into misconduct by police officers, 79 percent believe the public should have access to the findings if there has been wrongdoing, and 64 percent believe the public should have that same access anytime a cop is even accused.
Placer County deputies invaded my Squaw Valley home with military assault weapons and red dotted me and my family. All for the crime of passing a law they didn’t like or accept. Then they stole everything of value, including all of my office equipment, computers, the money out of my wallet and they even stole my kids’ Christmas gifts, Worst of all, these deputies lied in court, to the point where the jury stopped believing them and I was acquitted of all marijuana charges. Although Sheriff Bonner later apologized to me and his Task Force dismantled, none of these deputies were ever punished for the horrible way they treated me and my family. My complaints were all filed and investigated, but it was cops investigating cops and nothing ever happened. Thank goodness I now live in the City of South Lake Tahoe where the police are friendly, professional and treat their fellow citizens with respect.
Steve-
I don’t know if body cams would have helped you.
I can’t recall if I ever know when the incident you describe happened, but it seems like you have lived in South Shore for a long time.
Are you saying that you personally were persecuted—” All for the crime of passing a law they didn’t like or accept”?
You personally did not/could not pass any laws and your statement begs more than a few questions or explanation.
The memory of Terry Trupp and others of his ilk in the basin is still front and center in many peoples minds, as it should be.
Like it or not, you are perceived by many in the area as a slithery, living on the edge of the law, wealthy suspected dope dealer who just hasn’t been nailed yet.
Your constant promotion of marijuana clearly contributes to that, and only someone with their head in the sand would not have seen it coming.
As we all know there are severe differences between various State’s regulations and the Federal governments views and laws on use and legalization of marijuana. As I understand it, at just about any moment the Feds could crack down if they want to.
Legalized pot is clearly in a state of flux, and anyone playing in the marijuana game needs to realize that the jury is still out on the issue. Large taxation of the pot industry with resultant revenue for various governments is probably the swing issue.
As the Chairman of a publicly traded company, with former Governor Gary Johnson as my CEO and US Senator Mike Gravel on my Board, my success is a matter of public record and cannot be smeared so easily.
Also, as the former campaign manager and author of Prop. 215, California’s historic medical marijuana law, several of the leaders were targeted by law enforcement to discredit medical marijuana by getting felony convictions agains us. They failed. We won!
Maybe all citizens should wear body cams along with the cops and have posted cameras everywhere. then everyone would have to be accountable for their actions. Maybe once a month everyone watches their own footage and just spanks themselves!!!! Hanna
In at least 50% of the dozens court cases I have been present at, the defendants discovery motion for the “dash cam” recordings have been met with responses by the state that the footage is not available because the cameras were “not operational” or other “technical difficulties.” To expect more from body cams is optimistic.
As long as we have militarized police forces, who view segments of the population as “the enemy” whether because of drug problems, race, nationality or class, we will continue to have these problems. We need drastic retraining and we need to change the policing culture from “arrest and convict” back to “protect and serve”
Maybe all known dopers who are involved in not paying their taxes from a lot of cannabis sales should be audited yearly and subject to routine search and seizure because of it. Dopers are dopers, usually never paying taxes regardless if they lie about it. This cannabis stuff needs to be regulated and taxed out of neighborhoods and into very restricted areas.