Philadelphia cops beat innocent mother, police union uses her child to push dishonest propaganda

So apparently some cops decided to beat an innocent lady who just happened to wander into the protests at Philadelphia (which she was not a part of), before taking her child away, and having the African American child pose with a white police officer for the purpose of a propaganda photo, claiming the child was lost.

From this CBS article,

The nation's largest police union posted and then deleted a photo on Facebook purporting to show a Philadelphia police officer comforting a "lost" Black toddler during a night of protests over the killing of Walter Wallace Jr.. But an attorney representing the 2-year-old boy and his 28-year-old mother, Rickia Young, told CBS News on Friday that the post was "propaganda."

The National Fraternal Order of Police claimed in a post that the child was "wandering" barefoot during unrest in the city. "This child was lost during the violent riots in Philadelphia, wandering around barefoot in an area that was experiencing complete lawlessness<" the post read. "The only thing this Philadelphia police officer cared about in that moment was protecting this child. "

The union tweeted out a statement on Friday saying they took the post down after learning there were "conflicting accounts of the circumstances under which the child came to be assisted by the officer."

A video of the incident appears to show the boy and his mother being pulled from their vehicle and being separated. The clip then appears to show the woman being assaulted by officers.

Attorneys Riley H. Ross III and Thomas O. Fitzpatrick, who are representing Young in a civil case, both called out the union. Ross tweeted the photo is "a lie."

"The only thing that could make what they did out there on that night any more reprehensible than what it already was, was how they followed it up by attempting to use it as some type of propaganda and spin it in through some type of positive thing for for the police department," Fitzpatrick told CBS News.

A short clip taken from a nearby building showed officers swarming an SUV and hitting it with weapons. The video shows officers dragging the driver, who Fitzpatrick identified as Young, out of the vehicle and beating her. The boy is also seen carried out of the vehicle.

Fitzpatrick told CBS News on Friday that Young was "simply trying to make a U-turn."

"She just turned into try to get away from the protesters and the police in that area," he said. "She wasn't a part of the protest."

Young was detained and released without being charged, Fitzpatrick told CBS News. After several hours, she reunited with her son.

Both of them suffered physical injuries as a result of the incident, according to Fitzpatrick. Young is still being evaluated by doctors, but Fitzpatrick said the "emotional trauma of it all" would be "a much longer process."

Fitzpatrick said the boy suffered a "traumatic head injury" and his hearing aids were left in the SUV, which is being held by police.

Young's nephew was also in the SUV, but Fitzpatrick would not comment on his condition.

The Philadelphia Police Department said in a statement to CBS News that the incident is under investigation by the Internal Affairs Unit.

Thin blue line, huh?

Right...

Stay classy, cops.

It's shameful that this kind of thing still happens so regularly in this country.

If that’s true, F those specific police officers, who don’t represent every cop.

@cocacolaman:

Isn't representing cops kinda a significant part of what police unions do?

@wolverinebatmanftw:

True. Doesn’t stop corrupt cops from popping up every now and then.

@cocacolaman:

Ever wonder if unions are corrupt? Or at least protecting the corrupt?

@wolverinebatmanftw:

Not particularly, considering the vast majority of cops just do their job and those who get public backlash are immediately punished.

@cocacolaman: immediately punished?? Like they go to prison like they should??

Chaos Everywhere. There are Bad Cops in this World just as there are just Bad People in this World. Perhaps all this Chaos and Hate is all apart of God's Plan as bizarre as it may sound.

Police unions have a long history of defending bad cops. I've linked two articles and a video that explore this issue. I hope you'll keep an open mind.

This is a rather illuminating New Yorker article that outlines the problems that police unions cause when it comes to reform and efforts to combat misuse of power.

Here are some key facts and points from the article:

• A 2018 University of Oxford study of the hundred largest American cities found that the extent of protections in police contracts was directly and positively correlated with police violence and other abuses against citizens.
• A 2019 University of Chicago study found that extending collective-bargaining rights to Florida sheriffs’ deputies led to a forty per cent statewide increase in cases of violent misconduct—translating to nearly twelve additional such incidents annually.
• In a forthcoming study, Rob Gillezeau, a professor and researcher, concluded that, from the nineteen-fifties to the nineteen-eighties, the ability of police to collectively bargain led to a substantial rise in police killings of civilians, with a greater impact on people of colour.
• Since 2012, when Minneapolis replaced its civilian review board with an Office of Police Conduct Review, the public has filed more than twenty-six hundred misconduct complaints, yet only twelve resulted in a police officer being punished. The most severe penalty: a forty-hour suspension.

• Since the eighties, police contracts in New York and many other cities have added one protection after another that have made it harder to hold officers accountable for improper use of force or other misconduct. Such protections included keeping an officer’s disciplinary record secret, erasing an officer’s disciplinary record after a few years, or delaying any questioning of officers for twenty-four or forty-eight hours after an incident such as a police shooting. “They have these unusual protections they’ve bargained very hard for, measures that insulate them from accountability,” - William P. Jones, a history professor at the University of Minnesota and the president of the Labor and Working-Class History Association.

• In 2017, a Reuters a special report on police-union contracts in eighty-two cities found that most required departments to erase disciplinary records, in some cases after only six months. Eighteen cities expunged suspensions from an officer’s record in three years or less. Anchorage, Alaska, removed demotions, suspensions, and disciplinary transfers after twenty-four months. Reuters also found that almost half of the contracts let officers accused of wrongdoing see their entire investigative file—including witness statements, photos, and videos—before being questioned, making it easier for them to finesse their way through disciplinary interrogations.

This is another article from the New Yorker that also explores the problem, but is less focused on facts and stats, and more on the history of the problem and specific events relating to the issue of reform and police unions.

Below is a more lighthearted, comedic report that explores the impacts of improper training within the very police structures, as well as the combative efforts of unions in initiating reforms for accountability.

And FYI, I don't hate the idea of a police union. I like unions in general. I just think that in reality, these have gone way too far in their efforts to protect members.

@wolverinebatmanftw:

Police unions have a long history of defending bad cops

So your claim is this? If so, I believe the same, so we shouldn't need to continue this much farther. Though I still don't think this makes unions corrupt in general.

America

Defend cops no matter what. Smh

Lol at you all automatically scrambling to defend cops and go "mUh DoEsn'T rePrEsEnT aLl CoPs" before even acknowledging anything about the kid and the mom who had to go through this, smh.

@cocacolaman:

So you don't think an organization that protects criminals and enables misconduct is in any way corrupt?

The information I've provided here very clearly details some, IMO, very shady business.

Take for example, cop unions making sure an officer's misconduct history is not only kept hidden but also regularly erased -- if a doctors union decided that every doctor's malpractice history should be hidden and erased to protect them, would you not think this corrupt?

That's terrible.

Since "you all" refers to me, I literally said F them before I said that they don't represent all cops, so that's a straight up lie

It doesn't represent all cops, but the fact that police have a history of covering up for those among their ranks who have engaged in misconduct is a continued problem. Good cops should want to hold bad cops responsible, not cover for them. This is at the heart of divisions between police and the communities they police.

My thoughts and prayers with the family effected.

I like Billy Prempehs solutions to issues like this.

I heard that the cop had farted too close to the mother and she called him “a pile of pig sh1t”

Which is?

@wolverinebatmanftw: Have police renew their training every six or so months so there's no excuse for misconduct.

So this idea is what? That cops engage in misconduct because they forget their training?

This premise rests on the assumption that cops only ever do this sort of thing because of poor training. I don't see how increased training is going to prevent a cop from snatching a child from their mother, and using it for political propaganda. This was a calculated decision, and there have been instances wherein a cop has engaged in misconduct purely out of his own deliberate choice, rather than incompetence (like this).

Perhaps it'd be more useful to increase accountability, and reduce the level of protection that cops get (e.g. doing away with the practices of concealing and erasing a cop's misconduct history).

I feel like an increased chance of facing serious consequences will be significantly more effective in reducing misconduct.

no, it's based on ur second point, to increase police accountability based on a lack of excuses for misconduct.