Falcons: Warrick Dunn stopped by police because he fit the profile of a criminal

[pauliwood]

(06-09-2011 11:57 AM)phocis850 Wrote:  No way did he goto jail for 5 years because of failing to meet quotas. Guy clearly got caught doing something illegal. Not trying to bash on him or you, but that probably wasn't a management issue.

agreed! You don't go to jail for 5 years for not putting enough people in jail, that's just absurd.

[Beef]

(06-09-2011 11:57 AM)phocis850 Wrote:  No way did he goto jail for 5 years because of failing to meet quotas. Guy clearly got caught doing something illegal. Not trying to bash on him or you, but that probably wasn't a management issue.

You completely misinterpreted the context of what I said.

The narcotics units in APD have drug bust quotas. They're not written anywhere, but they absolutely 1000% DO exist. When you're sitting in meetings with your captain telling you that you need X amount of busts to reach your performance goals to simply keep your job, then you have a quota system. And the Chief of police is the one barking at the Captain and the Mayor is the one barking at the Chief because busts = funding. So there's constant massive pressure put down on these guys to hit these numbers.

Now the problem is, "the numbers" are absolutely unrealistic and 100% impossible to attain. These guys are constantly fighting to keep their jobs, prevent demotion, prevent reprimands, and pay decreases. Screw getting pay increases, that shit almost never happens.

So, the ONLY way to come close to reaching these quotas is to cut corners and skate around red-tape. Now understand this, EVERYONE, and I mean EVERY SINGLE POLICE DEPARTMENT IN THE COUNTRY cuts corners because they're facing this exact same issue with unwritten "quotas".

An example of cutting corners is the difference between serving knock-warrants vs. no-knock-warrants (you knock on the door to announce yourself or you do not knock and are given authority to bash in the door). And in narcotics enforcement, knock-warrants are a sure way of either A) drug dealers having time to flush drugs down the toilet, or B) your raid unit getting shot/killed because the last thing you want to do is announce yourself to a bunch of drug dealers packing automatic weapons on the other side of a door.

To get a no-knock-warrant, a narcotics officer has to use a CI (confidential informant), log money given to the CI to buy drugs, then they have to visibly see the CI actually buy the drugs from a dealer, then they have to log in the drugs bought, file paperwork on the money used, take it all to a judge and swear under oath that they saw it happen and submit an application for a no-knock-warrant to raid the location of the buy. Meanwhile the location has the stay under fulltime survailance, which can take upwards of 24-36 hours sometimes.

Now as you have probably already guessed where the cutting corners comes in, it happens when officers bust some crackhead selling dope on a street corner, they ask the crackhead where he got his dope, he takes them to a house and says "right there", and the officers go get a no-knock-warrant to raid the house even though they didn't follow the pain in the ass time-consuming steps for it to be a proper warrant.

In my friend's case, this is what happened. Except during a particular raid on a house, there ended up being a gun-battle and several people got shot (including my friend, 3x) and residence of the house died. However my friend was not the officer that secured the improper warrant, he was on a team of 5 guys and one of the others got the warrant. Well after a bunch of buraucratic bullshit and people villifying these guys and upper management of the police force throwing them under the bus, they all got prosecuted and ended up serving time. My buddy got 5 years, several of the others who were more involved got more.

Now also understand this, that example is done every day all over this country. My buddy said they had cut corners on warrants like that hundreds of times. And it was the Captain and Chief who TOLD THEM TO DO IT so they could make more busts faster and hit those numbers. Then just when something bad happens, the officers get thrown to the wolves and the guys at the top are fat and happy with nothing to worry about.

Believe me, this story is even more fucked up than you can imagine. This is the short version of it. But several police officers got screwed. My friend is a good person. He wouldn't hurt a fly and he isn't a corrupt law breaker. He was a guy doing his job and doing the things he was instructed to do and had to do to keep his job. The people who run APD can suck a dick in my book. Bunch of cowards.

[illmusic]

Applaud this man

[phocis850]

Beef, I believe your story, but those cops were not following procedure and putting the law in their own hands by going above it. Without consent they basically broke into the house illegally and put themselves and others in danger. I'm sure the force got sued out the ass because of this and now some drug thumper is buying drugs with government money because of it.

[Beef]

(06-09-2011 09:36 PM)phocis850 Wrote:  Beef, I believe your story, but those cops were not following procedure and putting the law in their own hands by going above it. Without consent they basically broke into the house illegally and put themselves and others in danger. I'm sure the force got sued out the ass because of this and now some drug thumper is buying drugs with government money because of it.

They were not putting the law in their own hands. Have you ever driven 75 mph in a 65 because every other car around you is doing it and doing it every day?

That's what being a police officer is like. It's the everyday culture to do the expedite no-knock-warrants. Even the judges who sign off on them know they're not all done by the book for the sake of accumulating busts as fast as possible. The entire country law enforcement works like this. Only when politics gets involved does the finger pointing start. And the ones who get fucked are at the bottom.

You're judging the wrong people.