MobBoss
Off-Topic Overlord
That at least narrows the odds from the handful against 7500 officers in uniform.
Yeah, one of my favorite parts of the barnews...the disciplinary reports.
Ferguson
- Thread starter Angst
- Start date
That at least narrows the odds from the handful against 7500 officers in uniform.
Yeah, one of my favorite parts of the barnews...the disciplinary reports.
Zkribbler
Deity
No such organization.
In my neck of the woods, they generally only go after solos and small firm lawyers for discipline - usually lack of communication with the client, failure to do the job, or mixing client funds with operating funds. Someone I went to law school with got disbarred for activity in another state. Mortgage fraud. Too bad, was probably the 2nd sharpest student in my first year section of about 80 students.
I make sure I communicate frequently (and document it), do the damned job I was hired to do, and be a Boy Scout in regards to money (until the money is official mine - at that point nefarity ensues).
The main extra thing I do to keep my self malpractice proof and discipline proof is to have the client handwrite their objectives when they sign the contract with me. Too many claim to be only interested in the principle of the thing in the beginning, but then change objectives & become more money hungry as they go. I'm fine with a change in objectives, I just want the changes in writing as we go so that it is clear when the changed objectives were communicated to me. Plus, the clients most likely to file a grievance are also the ones most likely to change objectives a lot, so having a well documented stack of changes is beneficial should the dispute-happy client decide to turn on his or her hired gun.
MobBoss
Off-Topic Overlord
I assumed he meant the California Highway Patrol.
Smart. But I do see the trend that many get sanctioned or even disbarred sometimes not for actual criminal behavior, but just for being danged lazy. I mean not filing court documents for your client and blowing deadlines is pretty hard to defend when these days you can e-file documents with the court with a touch of a button.
Laziness is a big problem - easier to cover for in a big firm than in a small or solo practice - probably the number 1 discipline issue in Texas. E-filing used to be easy, but the State of Texas made it mandatory this year and the Clerk's offices are making up silly rules as they go along, so the chance of getting a filing rejected is a lot higher. I think the state is trying to standardize things, but each county currently has different rules on whether exhibits are filed as part of the same pdf as the main document, whether they are filed a sub-documents of the main document, or whether they are filed as their own lead documents. Lord help you if you have a cover letter and need to figure out the configuration of that filing. Plus, page numbering protocols differ from place to place and these rules are not very well documented. Plus, since we can't file in person now, less courthouse interaction and fewer chances to hit on some other firm's paralegal.
James Stuart
King
Yeah, what MobBoss said. My screw-up there. I was looking at the article to make sure I had the police force correct, and still wrote the wrong thing.
Light Cleric
ElCee/LC/El Cid
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Well at least they learned something from this whole thing, right? 
Gary Childress
Student for and of life
Well at least they learned something from this whole thing, right?
Well, to be fair, what is the municipality supposed to do? They need money to repair all the damage and so it appears they are going to try to extract some of that money from those who break local laws and receive tickets as a consequence. It sounds sort of fair to me. If you don't want to be ticketed, obey the law. If you don't want to risk being shot, don't try to go after the officer's gun.
It really does sound like maybe the media and people who swarmed the community from all around the country really did just about destroy their budget and as a result their community. It still seems to me that the Michael Brown case, tragic as it was, was not worth all the fuss and fury it generated.
Meanwhile there have been legitimate incidents of police brutality and misconduct which seem to have gone unnoticed by media and protesters. I saw a case a while back of a couple officers who pulled over a teen for something, pulled him out of the car and started to smash his head against the pavement for no apparent reason. The officers WERE CHARGED with conspiracy and punished if I recall correctly. Where is the outrage over that? Instead all the outrage seems to be centered around a rather ambiguous case like that of Michael Brown.
I don't know but this whole thing sounds like a bad case of media frenzy. I realize that news sources want to make headlines and the money that comes along with it but the whole Fergusson affair seems sort of ridiculous now.
It really does sound like a lot of people jumped to a lot of unwarranted conclusions and did a lot of damage as a result. Mob mentality I guess. I still say "thank goodness" for grand juries. Without them we would have seen a lynching of what appears to have been a perfectly respectable police officer.
So I guess for the rest of eternity every crackpot on the Internet will be airing conspiracy theories of how the police deliberately set fire to a car in front of an Advanced Auto Parts in Ferguson, even though the video of the alleged event really is pretty difficult to discern. Again, jumping to unwarranted conclusions.
The last copy of Obama's Kenyan birth certificate was in that car.
Gary Childress
Student for and of life
It ties the fake moon landings to the government being behind 9/11.
hangman
almost-scientist
Well, to be fair, to the best of our knowledge there have been 1000+ police-caused homicides so far this year (source). The media picks out the more sensational ones on a regular basis, but this happens every day here and doesn't surprise anyone my age who is the least bit familiar with urban life.
MobBoss
Off-Topic Overlord
I don't think that's the 'best of our knowledge' at all. In fact, I'm not sure a wiki page is a reliable source, and even on that page itself, there are many posts commenting on how that's an unverified or hugely contested figure.
But even if you go with 1000 this year, that's still roughly 1/100th of a percent per cop in uniform. Means only 1 cop in 100 might be involved in a fatality, and of that 1000, its unknown how many of those are actually justified shootings/killings.
I think all that really shows is that we really need better systems to track such things.
hangman
almost-scientist
It's the best count we have, along with Fatal Encounters (which is incomplete but covers a longer time frame). The U.S. government does not keep track of how many people police kill, which is suspicious in itself.
That's not relevant to the point I was making. I was commenting on the reasons why these stories are coming "in quick succession."
But I'll bite and say that the count of deaths caused by police officers doesn't nearly capture the scope of police brutality, and that 1000/yr is quite a lot for a "first world" country.
MobBoss said:
That's not relevant to the point I was making. I was commenting on the reasons why these stories are coming "in quick succession."
But I'll bite and say that the count of deaths caused by police officers doesn't nearly capture the scope of police brutality, and that 1000/yr is quite a lot for a "first world" country.
A really big first world country, bear in mind. The population of the USA is about half that of the entirety of Europe. Admittedly, the US still has a problem with police violence per unit population (not sure about per unit policeman, though), but it's not so pronounced.
sophie
Break My Heart
Tarquelne
Follower of Tytalus
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Assuming the 1000 figure above is correct, and the figure on police-caused fatalities in the first article I found is correct, for every police-caused fatality in Germany there are 62.5 in the US. That is adjusted for population.
The figures are two years apart, but in 2010 Germany had more officers per person than the US did in 2012.
MobBoss
Off-Topic Overlord
Again, its not in any way accurate, best or not. And I already pointed out we need a much better tracking of these statistics.
But its not that suspicious, unless your extremely paranoid, for the simple reason most of that is at the state or local level, not federal. That being said, I think it is a stat that should be tracked just so we can get an accurate look on how much of a problem it really is.
Because in a nation as large as ours, with as many policemen in uniform, its going to happen. Just like at any given time, rain is falling somewhere in the USA, or someones being born.
I would hazard a guess that 1000 a year is rather inflated, but again, which 'first world' country is as big as ours?
I think a big part of it is media coverage. People cant really grasp real context if they are seeing it fairly regularly...they will simply think it occurs far more often that it really does.
hangman
almost-scientist
Because in a nation as large as ours, with as many policemen in uniform, its going to happen. Just like at any given time, rain is falling somewhere in the USA, or someones being born.
I would hazard a guess that 1000 a year is rather inflated, but again, which 'first world' country is as big as ours?
How so? I imagine the only thing that would inflate the statistic would be duplicate entries. Considering that it requires a report from a news agency, if anything, it's still an underestimate.
Also, it sounds like you're not taking it per capita. For comparison, Germany has about 80 million with a death toll of eight. The U.K. has about 60 million and has had a grand total of one this year (admittedly AFAIK).
Well, people are notoriously bad at comprehending absolute values anyway, which is why comparison is important. Whether it happens as much as people think it does is less important than if it happens more than it's supposed to, IMHO.
