Ex-Atlanta cop gets 5 years for beating Walmart customer over "stolen" tomato - Sensationalist Headlines

https://www.ajc.com/news/crime--law/atlanta-cop-gets-years-for-beating-walmart-customer-over-stolen-tomato/jSnD2Crf5H94c9WjeU5p9I/ Trevor King, 49, of Stockbridge, was convicted in December on federal charges of unreasonable force and falsifying a police report. According to prosecutors, King was in uniform and working off-duty at the Walmart on Martin Luther King Jr. Drive when he saw Tyrone Carnegay weigh a tomato and walk toward the store’s exit. King stopped the victim near the door and hit the victim with his baton seven times, breaking two bones in the victim’s right leg. As Carnegay lay on the floor bleeding from his injuries, prosecutors said King searched him and found a receipt for the tomato in Carnegay’s bag. The receipt showed he paid for the tomato only minutes before King’s attack. Enjoy the prison you piece of shit.

Imagine being a cop and thinking that a baton to the fucking leg is just force for shoplifting.

Well at least he actually got a punishment and not time off without pay.

Im actually really impressed, cops are usually above the law

I'd hazard a guess he didn't get away with it because he was off duty.

Reminds me of this, where a cop pulled a gun on a guy he thought was stealing mentos. https://youtu.be/W316slPMVQE

This serves as a daily reminder than human beings are grossly fallible creatures, regardless of their status, position, or intelligence. He filed a false police report stating the man assaulted him and obstructed a shoplifting investigation, when in fact the man was a paying customer and a victim of assault at the hands of a single police officer. Doesn't really matter if he was on or off duty, he assaulted a man with his baton instead of talking to them over potential shoplifting. That's why the guy is wearing an orange jumpsuit and not a blue uniform anymore. It doesn't take a GED to understand this, it's really simple.

Why do cops have this fucking Judge Dredd attitude towards everything, it's disgusting. I wish they'd look at their jobs like normal people instead of getting so emotionally invested in it. The "thin blue line" shit they preach isn't helping either.

Yeah you simpletons, when cops commit crimes they get punished by the justice system - duh.

Hey, if he'd had some diet coke too, he may have been able to make an IED!

Cop does something bad and gets away with it: everyone slanders cops. Cop does something bad and is punished for it: everyone slanders cops.

Cause cops suck lol

Well, I'm happy to live in a relatively peaceful society where I don't have to worry about bandit attacks or rely on local militias with no oversight.

There is some serious need for reform within police training, too many officers make too many shitty decisions.

wait why didn't the cashier just say "yes he did pay for it"

Maybe that's because the cop did something bad in both situations?????

I won't argue that some reforms are necessary, I think investigations of police should be handled by a federal agency like the FBI. But it's silly to hate all law enforcement because of it. Yeah that's a good reason to hate organized law enforcement.

Maybe they should stop being so consistently racist and awful then? Maybe then I'd trust them once they stop shooting unarmed people and murdering the suicidal.

When I worked in retail we were taught recovery statements: If you suspect someone of stealing, be nice and give a few semi loaded statements like "Can I hold that at the front for you?" "Would you like me to get a buggy for you to hold your stuff?" etc. Be persistent, but not overbearing. If they do run out with stuff, NEVER CONFRONT! If they get violent, call 911. It costs you, the store, the company, the police more if you provoke them or try to stop them.

Yeah, because they all do that.

Cops are not a race, cops are not a sexuality, cops are not an ideology. Cops are a group of armed individuals with power over the ordinary citizen. "Not all cops!" is redundant. We KNOW not all cops are like that. But: all cops are armed. All cops are seen as authority figures. If some cops are racist, if some cops abuse their authority, if some cops are far too eager to pull their weapon, if some cops kill people for little to no reason, and every cop is armed, then it makes total fucking sense for the ordinary citizen to be wary of cops in general. To think otherwise is stupid.

Correction: US cops suck. Canada, the EU, and the like don't have the serious problems with police brutality that the USA does. The US is uniquely shit regarding this issue, as we are in almost every other standard of "first world" living.

The Keystone Kops have been around since the 1910's The Policemen's Little Run (1907)

Maybe the psychology and culture of police departments encourages this kind of jackassery and people are disgruntled by the fact the police departments as a whole are never held responsible for their toxic culture that leads to bullshit 'hard man' incidents like this?

That logic makes no sense at all unless you're saying that them being armed authority figures is what causes them to be racist/abuse authority/etc.

You kinda have to have authority or be perceived to have authority in order to abuse it my dude. That's how it works. Try again. As a side point, the group of people we're currently talking about are the ones who are supposed to enforce the law. "Cops have guns but so do some other people!" isn't the issue here. Next

The logic of "Some people in X group do bad act Y, therefore it's reasonable for me to be war of all members of group X" is the same whether you apply it to racial groups or to cops. Whether "act Y" is being a criminal, abusing authority, being racist, or whatever other act. The only time that type of logic makes sense is if a larger percentage of the group does the act or if being part of the group causes them to do the act.

"Cops are the same as racial groups" is the worst take I've seen on here in a loooong time lmao just stop dude

Nah I think that's pretty bullshit for a few reasons. For one, cops choose to be cops. You can't make the analogy between racial groups and the police, because being part of a racial group is completely involuntary and has nothing to do with your decisions or your life, whereas being a cop is entirely a choice. Cops are also always in a position of power, "racial groups" aren't. With that power comes responsibility, so yes "a few bad apples" is an enormous deal when EVERY apple regardless of how responsible they may be with it, has an immense amount of power in their hands over other citizens. It makes complete sense to be wary of these power figures known to abuse their position (however frequently or infrequently) when they are also rarely held accountable for their actions. "Some people in X group do bad act Y" is a whole different ballgame when every person in X group has power over you, and little to no accountability for their actions, whatever they may be.

Do you know how logic works? The argument I gave, and the one you are using, allies equally to both groups.