• sanpedropeddler@sh.itjust.works
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    21 days ago

    I don’t want to be the guy defending cops, but there is usually more than one officer in a squad car. There is no rule against a passenger being distracted.

    • Postmortal_Pop@lemmy.world
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      21 days ago

      Where I live it’s strictly one cop per car unless they’re training. That’s why they pull people over in packs.

      • ture@lemmy.ml
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        21 days ago

        That’s something I never got about cops in the US. Everywhere in Europe, there are always two cops per car, at least in the places I have been.

        • ouRKaoS@lemmy.today
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          21 days ago

          It’s to create the illusion that there’s more cops than there really are. Same reason behind take home cars.

          My city of about 300k people has about 30 cops patrolling at any given time.

          • brbposting@sh.itjust.works
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            21 days ago

            San Jose, California has some wild numbers perhaps like that.

            Would you take more if you could? Assuming no reform, just more of the same.

            • ouRKaoS@lemmy.today
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              21 days ago

              I think higher numbers would lead to reform on its own. When you’re scraping by at the bare minimum, a lot of stuff gets overlooked just to maintain numbers.

              More cops would make it a lot easier to have better standards, and raise the average competency level.

          • ℍ𝕂-𝟞𝟝@sopuli.xyz
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            20 days ago

            In Europe, it’s exactly because they want witnesses, cops’ words don’t carry more weight than yours by default, so if they ticket you, they want at least two testimonies on their side.

            • queermunist she/her@lemmy.ml
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              20 days ago

              Okay, but in the US they don’t want to risk two cops messing up their witness testimony. Better to just have one, because a cop’s word is law anyway.

              • ture@lemmy.ml
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                20 days ago

                That sounds like even their leaders assume they’re horribly stupid…

        • variants@possumpat.io
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          21 days ago

          Or they sit at green lights because they are too into their laptop to notice the light change

    • criitz@reddthat.com
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      21 days ago

      In my area it’s always one cop, and they are driving and using their laptop that sits on the passenger side

    • Viking_Hippie@lemmy.world
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      21 days ago

      I don’t want to be the guy defending cops, but

      Has never been the start of a good and relevant point.

      • sanpedropeddler@sh.itjust.works
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        21 days ago

        No, I am thinking of what I have seen in real life. In my area there is almost always 2 cops per vehicle. I was unaware this was not standard.

          • sanpedropeddler@sh.itjust.works
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            20 days ago

            I did more research and I found out it actually isn’t standard where I live now, I am misremembering probably because I haven’t had many interactions with police here. This is a somewhat standard practice in major cities though which would explain why I was familiar with it. I will admit copaganda probably reinforced that though, most media I’ve seen does depict 2 officers. But whatever, I’m always happy to learn a new reason to hate cops.