this post was submitted on 24 Dec 2023

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THE POLICE PROBLEM

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The police problem is that police are policed by the police. Cops are accountable only to other cops, which is no accountability at all.

99.9999% of police brutality, corruption, and misconduct is never investigated, never punished, never makes the news, so it's not on this page.

When cops are caught breaking the law, they're investigated by other cops. Details are kept quiet, the officers' names are withheld from public knowledge, and what info is eventually released is only what police choose to release — often nothing at all.

When police are fired — which is all too rare — they leave with 'law enforcement experience' and can easily find work in another police department nearby. It's called "Wandering Cops."

When police testify under oath, they lie so frequently that cops themselves have a joking term for it: "testilying." Yet it's almost unheard of for police to be punished or prosecuted for perjury.

Cops can and do get away with lawlessness, because cops protect other cops. If they don't, they aren't cops for long.

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All this is a path to a police state.

In a free society, police must always be under serious and skeptical public oversight, with non-cops and non-cronies in charge, issuing genuine punishment when warranted.

Police who break the law must be prosecuted like anyone else, promptly fired if guilty, and barred from ever working in law-enforcement again.

That's the solution.

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171

Elijah McClain death: Paramedics who injected Colorado Black man with ketamine found guilty (www.cbsnews.com)

submitted 8 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

10 comments fedilink hide all child comments

For those wondering about the cop angle, the cops ordered it.

""The firefighters/paramedics could have made a difference for Elijah to still be here and alive, but they chose wrong instead of right. If they had done the right things instead of following killer cop orders, then the killer cops would have been the only ones on trial, and I am sure they would have faced all of the blame alone with no one to cover up their crimes. Ketamine causes amnesia, so if Elijah had survived, he wouldn't have remembered what happened to him," she said, in part."

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[–] [email protected] 31 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Colorado Attorney General Weiser's decision to criminalize split-second medical decisions sets a dangerous, chilling precedent for pre-hospital care in our country. There are far-reaching consequences we will address at a more appropriate time. But when politics drive prosecution – forcing firefighters and paramedics to second-guess decisions – public safety is compromised.

They didn't have to make that "split-second" decision though did they?

From the video it's obvious by the time that they inject the Ketamine that the Elijah is no longer moving, so there was clearly no justification to administer the Ketamine..

And even if there had been, it's never good practice to go for a maximum dose when you don't know the patient's parameters. You should start conservatively and go upwards like a proper medical professional, rather than just ball-parking it and killing them.

Additionally, they make excuses that they didn't know Elijah's airway was restricted or what their pulse was - to which I say why didn't they do those basic medical checks before deciding to stick a needle into him? That's criminal neglect, plain and simple.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (2 children)

Ok, it’s in their protocol to give ketamine for excited delirium… which is a sketchy diagnosis made by cops (a whole other can of worms).

5ml per kilogram is the protocol. The paramedic says he gave 500 ml in the article, a dose for a 220 lb person. Admittedly I only see the picture posted in the article, but I think Elijah wasn’t quite that big.

There’s a lot of weirdness going on here and Aurora is probably safer with these two medical providers out of the picture.

Edit: mg, not ml.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 8 months ago

Good ol excited delirium. Legally tasers have never killed anyone in the United States. If you get tazed to death you didn't die from being razed, you die fro excited delirium.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Half a litre of liquid ketamine? That sounds a little off.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Yea, that’s not right. I meant mg, not ml. My brain did me a dumb. Thanks for pointing that out.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Now half a gram, that's a hefty dose.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago (1 children)

the ketamine protocol

Triple check my work, now I feel like I’m taking crazy pills!

[–] [email protected] 3 points 8 months ago

No, you're right - it's just a high dose.

[–] ZombiFrancis 9 points 8 months ago

The cops were acquitted, but these two are being named and shamed?

Sounds like the prescriptive result for a black man dying in a police interaction.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

This has some personal relevance to me as the first time I heard of police injecting people with ketamine, I was wtf, that sounds awful, seriously? I got into a conversation on a local subspez and 2-3 people who claimed to be EMTs responded and said NO, it is GREAT, of course we inject people with ketamine. Knowing the pharmacology of ketamine I pointed out that is really disturbing, like, not only is it physically dangerous but nobody wants to do drugs with cops. Ketamine is PCP Lite. They told me no, no, I was super-wrong. I can only hope if those people were real EMTs (it was on /r/Denver) they have figured out it is a bad idea. But as recently as last month someone on the same sub (yes, I still talk on reddit sorry) told me NO, "I am an EMT" and giving ketamine to people subdued by police is fantastic.