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mostlysignssomeportents · 4 months

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How the NYPD defeated bodycams

Anything that can't go on forever will eventually stop. When American patience for racial profiling in traffic stops reached a breaking point, cops rolled out dashcams. Dashcam footage went AWOL, or just recorded lots of racist, pretextual stops. Racial profiling continued.

Tasers and pepper spray were supposed to curb the undue use of force by giving cops an alternative to shooting dangerous-seeming people. Instead, we got cops who tasered and sprayed unarmed people and then shot them to pieces.

Next came bodycams: by indelibly recording cops' interactions with the public, body-worn cameras were pitched as a way to bring accountability to American law-enforcement. Finally, police leadership would be able to sort officers' claims from eyewitness accounts and figure out who was lying. Bad cops could be disciplined. Repeat offenders could be fired.

Police boosters insist that police violence and corruption are the result of "a few bad apples." As the saying goes, "a few bad apples spoil the bushel." If you think there are just a few bad cops on the force, then you should want to get rid of them before they wreck the whole institution. Bodycams could empirically identify the bad apples, right?

Well, hypothetically. But what if police leadership don't want to get rid of the bad apples? What if the reason that dashcams, tasers, and pepper spray failed is that police leadership are fine with them? If that were the case, then bodycams would turn into just another expensive prop for an off-Broadway accountability theater.

What if?

In "How Police Have Undermined the Promise of Body Cameras," Propublica's Eric Umansky and Umar Farooq deliver a characteristically thorough, deep, and fascinating account of the failure of NYPD bodycams to create the accountability that New York's political and police leadership promised:

https://www.propublica.org/article/how-police-undermined-promise-body-cameras

Topline: NYPD's bodycam rollout was sabotaged by police leadership and top NYC politicians. Rather than turning over bodycam footage to oversight boards following violent incidents, the NYPD suppresses it. When overseers are allowed to see the footage, they get fragmentary access. When those fragments reveal misconduct, they are forbidden to speak of it. When the revealed misconduct is separate from the main incident, it can't be used to discipline officers. When footage is made available to the public, it is selectively edited to omit evidence of misconduct.

NYPD policy contains loopholes that allow them to withhold footage. Where those loopholes don't apply, the NYPD routinely suppresses footage anyway, violating its own policies. When the NYPD violates its policies, it faces no consequences. When overseers complain, they are fired.

Bodycams could be a source of accountability for cops, but for that to be true, control over bodycams would have to vest with institutions that want to improve policing. If control over bodycams is given to institutions that want to shield cops from accountability, that's exactly what will happen. There is nothing about bodycams that makes them more resistant to capture than dashcams, tasers or pepper spray.

This is a problem across multiple police departments. Minneapolis, for example, has policies from before and after the George Floyd uprisings that require bodycam disclosure, and those policies are routinely flouted. Derek Chauvin, George Floyd's murderer, was a repeat offender and had been caught on bodycam kneeling on other Black peoples' necks. Chauvin once clubbed a 14 year old child into unconsciousness and then knelt on his neck for 15 minutes as his mother begged for her child's life. Chauvin faced no discipline for this and the footage was suppressed.

In Montgomery, Alabama, it took five years of hard wrangling to get access to bodycam footage after an officer sicced his attack dog on an unarmed Black man without warning. The dog severed the man's femoral artery and he died. Montgomery PD suppressed the footage, citing the risk of officers facing "embarrassment."

In Memphis, the notoriously racist police department was able to suppress bodycam disclosures until the murder of Tyre Nichols. The behavior of the officers who beat Nichols to death are a testament to their belief in their own impunity. Some officers illegally switched off their cameras; others participated in the beating in full view of the cameras, fearing no consequences.

In South Carolina, the police murder of Walter Scott was captured on a bystander's phone camera. That footage made it clear that Scott's uniformed killers lied, prompting then-governor Nikki Haley to sign a law giving the public access to bodycam footage. But the law contained a glaring loophole: it made bodycam footage "not a public record subject to disclosure." Nothing changed.

Bodycam footage does often reveal that killer cops lie about their actions. When a Cincinnati cop killed a Black man during a 2015 traffic-stop, his bodycam footage revealed that the officer lied about his victim "lunging at him" before he shot. Last summer, a Philadelphia cop was caught lying about the circumstances that led to him murdering a member of the public. Again, the officer claimed the man had "lunged at him." The cop's camera showed the man sitting peacefully in his own car.

Police departments across the country struggle with violent, lying officers, but few can rival the NYPD for corruption, violence, scale and impunity. The NYPD has its own "goon squad," the Strategic Response Group, whose leaked manual reveals how the secret unit spends about $100m/year training and deploying ultraviolent, illegal tactics:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/04/07/cruelty-by-design/#blam-blam-blam

The NYPD's disciplinary records – published despite a panicked scramble to suppress them – reveal the NYPD's infestation with criminal cops who repeatedly break the law in meting out violence against the public:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/07/27/ip/#nypd-who

These cops are the proverbial bad apples, and they do indeed spoil the barrel. A 2019 empirical analysis of police disciplinary records show that corruption is contagious: when crooked cops are paired with partners who have clean disciplinary records, those partners become crooked, too, and the effect lasts even after the partnership ends:

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/2378023119879798

Despite the risk of harboring criminals in police ranks, the NYPD goes to extreme lengths to keep its worst officers on the street. New York City's police "union"'s deal with the city requires NYC to divert millions to a (once) secret slushfund used to pay high-priced lawyers to defend cops whose conduct is so egregious that the city's own attorneys refuse to defend them:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/03/26/overfitness-factor/#heads-you-lose-tails-they-win

This is a good place for your periodic reminder that police unions are not unions:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/07/28/afterland/#selective-solidarity

Indeed, despite rhetoric to the contrary, policing is a relatively safe occupation, with death rates well below the risks to roofers, loggers, or pizza delivery drivers:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/01/27/extraordinary-popular-delusions/#onshore-havana-syndrome

The biggest risk to police officers – the single factor that significantly increased death rates among cops – is police unions themselves. Police unions successfully pressured cities across American to reject covid risk mitigation, from masking to vaccinations, leading to a wave of police deaths. "Suicide by cop" is very rare, but US officers committed "mass suicide by cop union":

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/12/us/police-covid-vaccines.html

But the story that policing is much more dangerous than it really is a useful one. It has a business-model. Military contractors who turn local Barney Fifes into Judge Dredd cosplayers with assault rifles, tanks and other "excess" military gear make billions from the tale:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/07/10/flintstone-delano-roosevelt/#1033-1022

It's not just beltway bandits who love this story. For cops to be shielded from consequences for murdering the public, they need to tell themselves and the rest of us that they are a "thin blue line," and not mere armed bureaucrats. The myth that cops are in constant danger from the public justifies hair-trigger killings.

Consider the use of "civilian" to describe the public. Police are civilians. The only kind of police officer who isn't a civilian is a military policeman. Places where "civilians" interact with non-civilian law enforcement are, by definition, under military occupation. Calling the public "civilians" is a cheap rhetorical trick that converts a police officer to a patrolling soldier in hostile territory. Calling us "civilians" justifies killing us, because if we're civilians, then they are soldiers and we are at war.

The NYPD clearly conceives of itself as an occupying force and considers its "civilian" oversight to be the enemy. When New York's Civilian Complaint Review Board gained independence in 1993, thousands of off-duty cops joined Rudy Giuliani in a mass protest at City Hall and an occupation of the Brooklyn Bridge. This mass freakout is a measure of police intolerance for oversight – after all, the CCRB isn't even allowed to discipline officers, only make (routinely ignored) recommendations.

Kerry Sweet was the NYPD lawyer who oversaw the department's bodycam rollout. He once joked that the NYPD missed a chance to "bomb the room" where the NYPD's CCRB was meeting (when Propublica asked him to confirm this, he said he couldn't remember those remarks, but "on reflection, it should have been an airstrike").

Obvious defects in the NYPD's bodycam policy go beyond the ability to suppress disclosure of the footage. The department has no official tracking system for its bodycam files. They aren't geotagged, only marked by officer badge-number and name. So if a member of the public comes forward to complain that an unknown officer committed a crime at a specific place and time, there's no way to retrieve that footage. Even where footage can be found, the NYPD often hides the ball: in 20% of cases where the Department told the CCRB footage didn't exist, they were lying.

Figuring out how to make bodycam footage work better is complex, but there are some obvious first steps. Other cities have no problem geotagging their footage. In Chicago, the CCRB can directly access the servers where bodycam footage is stored (when the NYPD CCRB members proposed this, they were fired).

Meanwhile, the NYPD keeps protecting its killers. The Propublica story opens with the police killing of Miguel Richards. Richards' parents hadn't heard from him in a while, so they asked his Bronx landlord to check on him (the Richards live in Jamaica). The landlord called the cops. The cops killed Richards.

The cops claimed he had a gun and they were acting in self-defense. They released a highly edited reel of bodycam footage to support that claim. When the full video was eventually extracted, it revealed that Richards had a tiny plastic toy guy and a small folding knife. The officers involved believed he was suffering an acute mental health incident and stated that policy demanded that they close his bedroom door and wait for specialists. Instead, they barked orders at him and then fired 16 rounds at him. Seven hit him. One ruptured his aorta. As he lay dying on his bedroom floor, one officer roughly tossed him around and cuffed him. He died.

New York's Police Benevolent Association – the largest police "union" in NYC – awarded the officers involved its "Finest of the Finest" prize for their conduct in the killing.

This isn't an isolated incident. A month after the NYPD decided not to punish the cops who killed Richards, NYPD officers murdered Kawaski Trawick in his Bronx apartment:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/12/04/kawaski-trawick/#Kawaski-Trawick

The officers lied about it, suppressed release of the bodycam footage that would reveal their lies, and then escaped any justice when the footage and the lies were revealed.

None of this means that bodycams are useless. It just means that bodycams will only help bring accountability to police forces when they are directed by parties who have the will and power to make the police accountable.

When police leaders and city governments support police corruption, adding bodycams won't change that fact.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/12/13/i-want-a-roof-over-my-head/#and-bread-on-the-table

Image: Cryteria (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:HAL9000.svg

CC BY 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en

Tony Webster, modified https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Minneapolis_Police_Officer_Body_Camera_%2848968390892%29.jpg

CC BY-SA 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/deed.en

#pluralistic #impunity #ccrb #nypd #abolish the police #acab #police #corruption #bodycams #body-worn cameras #propublica

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vague-humanoid · 4 months

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Verizon handed Poppy’s personal data, including the address on file and phone logs, to a stalker who later directly threatened her and drove to an address armed with a knife. Police then arrested the suspect, Robert Michael Glauner, who is charged with fraud and stalking offenses, but not before he harassed Poppy, her family, friends, workplace, and daughter’s therapist, Poppy added. 404 Media has changed Poppy’s name to protect her identity.

Glauner’s alleged scheme was not sophisticated in the slightest: he used a ProtonMail account, not a government email, to make the request, and used the name of a police officer that didn’t actually work for the police department he impersonated, according to court records. Despite those red flags, Verizon still provided the sensitive data to Glauner.

Remarkably, in a text message to Poppy sent during the fallout of the data transfer, a Verizon representative told Poppy that the corporation was a victim too. “Whoever this is also victimized us,” the Verizon representative wrote, according to a copy of the message Poppy shared with 404 Media. “We are taking every step possible to work with the police so they can identify them.”

In the interview with 404 Media, Poppy pointed out that Verizon is a multi-billion dollar company and yet still made this mistake. “They need to get their shit together,” she said.

Poppy’s story highlights the very real human cost of a massive failure on Verizon’s part. More broadly, it highlights the increasing problem of criminals filing fraudulent emergency data requests (EDRs) with tech companies and telecoms as a way to trick them into handing over their targets’ data. Other criminals who discuss the practice are often part of wider criminal groups that rob, shoot, and attack one another and outside victims, according to Telegram messages reviewed by 404 Media. Senators have written to tech companies for information on the problem of fake EDRs, and one company has emerged which attempts to mitigate the problem by vetting requests from police departments. And yet, the issue remains.

“This has completely changed my life, for the rest of my life,” Poppy said, adding that the incident has amplified her PTSD and anxiety from previous trauma.

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afeelgoodblog · 5 months

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Best News of Last Week - December 11

1. Biden administration to forgive $4.8 billion in student loan debt for 80,300 borrowers

The Biden administration announced on Wednesday that it would forgive an additional $4.8 billion in student loan debt, for 80,300 borrowers.

The relief is a result of the U.S. Department of Education’s fixes to its income-driven repayment plans and Public Service Loan Forgiveness program.

2. Detroit on pace to have lowest homicide rate in 60 years this year

A partnership to reduce Detroit crime is being praised with the City on pace for the fewest homicides in 60 years.

"This is the day we’ve been waiting for, for a long time," said Mayor Mike Duggan. The coalition which includes city and county leaders that Detroit Police Chief James White formed in late 2021 to return the criminal justice system in Detroit and Wayne County to pre-Covid operations.

3. Dog that killed 8 coyotes to protect sheep running for Farm Dog of the Year

Over a year ago, Casper was stacked up against a pack of 11 coyotes, and he overcame them all to protect the livestock at his Decatur home. Now he needs your help.

Casper, the Great Pyrenees livestock guardian dog, needs the public to vote for him to become the American Farm Bureau's "Farm Dog of the Year: People's Choice Pup" contest.

4. Shimmering golden mole thought extinct photographed and filmed over 80 years after last sighting

De Winton's golden mole, last sighted in 1937, has been found alive swimming through sand dunes in South Africa after an extensive search for the elusive species.

5. About 40% of the world's power generation is now renewable

The International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) and World Meteorological Organization (WMO) have released their first joint report to strengthen understanding of renewable energy resources and their intricate relationship with climate variability and change.

In 2022 alone, 83% of new capacity was renewable, with solar and wind accounting for most additions. Today, some 40% of power generation globally is renewable, due to rapid deployment in the past decade, according to the report.

6. Jonathan the Tortoise: World’s oldest living land animal celebrates 191st birthday

The world’s oldest living land animal - a Seychelles giant tortoise named Jonathan - has just celebrated his 191st birthday. Jonathan’s estimated 1832 birth year predates the invention of the postal stamp, the telephone, and the photograph.

The iconic creature lived through the US civil war, most of the reign of Queen Victoria, the rise and fall of the Soviet Union, and two world wars.

7. New enzyme allows CRISPR technologies to accurately target almost all human genes

A team of engineers at Duke University have developed a method to broaden the reach of CRISPR technologies. While the original CRISPR system could only target 12.5% of the human genome, the new method expands access to nearly every gene to potentially target and treat a broader range of diseases through genome engineering.

---

That's it for this week :)

This newsletter will always be free. If you liked this post you can support me with a small kofi donation here:

Buy me a coffee ❤️

Also don’t forget to reblog this post with your friends.

#best news of last week

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tlou-reid · 3 months

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Finishing Gifts ❤︎ Aaron Hotchner

from the river to the sea, palestine will be free 🇵🇸 READ: this account stands with palestine, and so— i require everyone who interacts to educate themselves, and support/donate. READ THESE; 1 and 2, HELP HERE, BOYCOTT. silence is complicity, do not scroll past this.

♡ SUMMARY: after a few days of ignoring him, Aaron makes an effort to get your behavior to return to normal

♡ WARNINGS: 18+ MDNI, smut, female and male masturbation, phone sex, mentions of watching porn, sex toys, drinking, small mentions of criminal minds-esque themes and violence, pretty much porn with very little plot, this is not edited like at all

♡ NOTE: something about writing aaron masturbating makes me go brrrrrr

˚₊‧꒰ა ☆ ໒꒱ ‧₊˚

You had thought you were keeping your cool. Honestly, truly, you had thought no one would notice the small changes in your behavior. You had tried to be subtle in dodging Hotch, doing it slowly and over time. It had started with piggybacking Spencer’s theories in the field, which led to pushing to go look at a crime scene rather than to the police department with Hotch. Then evolved into getting deep into conversation with JJ as you approached the jet, using it as an excuse to claim a seat next to her rather than your normal position between Hotch and the window.

These acts had gone unnoticed, or, at least, you’d thought. In your determination to avoid them, you hadn’t noticed the strange looks Derek and Morgan had thrown each other, and then Aaron, as you relaxed next to JJ. You missed Garcia questioning what had been up with you as you extended your time making coffee before a briefing, just so you didn’t have to walk behind Hotch into the room.

But, your latest change to avoid your unit chief definitely didn’t fly under the radar. This one was loud and clear, and absolutely threw off the entire BAU.

You’d just completed, by all possible metrics, a very successful case. It was a rare one, looking at terrorism in the DC area. A group of people who were planting explosives around the city, in unsuspecting areas. Instead of targeting political buildings or memorials, they focused on smaller-scale destruction. The team had been able to put the perpetrators away with no more casualties than those that were gone before the team landed. All in all, it was incredibly stressful, but a win for the team.

So, after Emily’s suggestion and Derek’s reminder that it was an extended weekend due to a government holiday, the team was getting ready to head to the bar. You had begged to go home to shower, promising you’d take an Uber (so you could, in Penelope’s words, “get fucked up with the girls”) and meet them at the bar in about an hour.

You put on your best outfit, showing an appropriate amount of cleavage, and did your makeup to the best of your abilities. After you’d cleaned up, you went to open your Uber app, excited to have a night to relax.

However, you were cut off when a phone call overtook your screen. “Aaron” the contact name read, indicating it was your unit chief, and that he was calling from his personal cellphone. You let ring a few times before picking up, not wanting to seem too eager to talk to your boss.

“Hellooo,” you practically sung into the phone, too excited to be worried about embarrassing yourself in front of him. He simply replied with a formal “hello,” followed by your name. “Please don’t tell me you’re ruining my longggg weekend,” You said to him, and he swore he could hear some of jewelry shaking. You couldn’t keep your excitement in, shaking your wrists, which made your bracelets make noise.

He chuckled a bit at your reaction to him calling, “No, no. I was just calling to see if you had left yet.” You smiled against the phone, knowing where this conversation was going. “Nope! I was actually ordering my Uber when you called,” you informed him. “So, you haven’t ordered it?” He questioned again, to which you replied with a “uh-uh”.

You couldn’t tell but your excitement about going out with your friends was essentially oozing through the phone, causing Aaron to maintain a bright smile on his face. You weren’t aware of how your vibe, your energy, was able to lift a weight off of Aaron’s shoulders that had been there for as long as he could remember.

“I also had to run home before meeting the team. If you’d like, I can pick you up.” Your smile, somehow, grew even bigger. Any excuse to see Aaron was a good one, you’d thought.

However, your face quickly fell when you reminded yourself that you were supposed to be avoiding him. You felt a pang in your heart as you said, “Thanks, but I have a few things to finish up here! I appreciate the offer, Hotch.”

With a quick, formal goodbye, the called ended. Aaron tried to ignore the fact that you lied to him as he drove the rest of the way. You had said you were about to call your Uber, and he heard your jewelry, meaning you were putting the finishing touches on your outfit. So why wouldn’t you accept his ride?

He tried to ignore the blow to his chest when you called him Hotch. Something about the use of his last name made him feel as if he’d done something wrong. Not that it was unusual for you, or anyone really, to call him that. It was the emphasis you’d put on it. As if you were trying to make it known he was Hotch and not Aaron.

Aaron tried to turn off his profiling ability, but it was proving to be had as all of his thoughts were currently encompassed by you.

The night, and the whole weekend if you were being honest, went by in a blur. You could tell Aaron had noticed the change in your behavior. You were standoffish at the bar, pretty much avoiding any conversation with him. You just hoped by the end of the long weekend it would be forgotten, and you’d be able to continue work as normal.

This dream was quickly demolished as Aaron was summoning you into his office before you had the chance to even put your bag down and unpack your files.

The sound of calling your last name both frightened and intrigued you. You couldn’t help but be attracted to the authority in his voice, even if it could mean you were going to be in trouble.

As you stepped into the voice, Aaron didn’t even look up. He mumbled a “shut the door, please,” as he finished recording some notes on an opened file in front of him. You stood awkwardly by the door, waiting for some kind instruction or reasoning from him.

“Please,” he gestured to the seats in front of his desk. You nodded, clumsily making your way to them. “I didn’t mean to scare you or make you uncomfortable by calling you in here,” he began.

You weren’t sure if you were more scared by being called into his office, to have a conversation that required you to both sit down and shut the door, or the intense eye contact he was maintaining as he introduced whatever discussion you two were about to have.

“I just couldn’t help but notice,” he paused for a second, trying to find the right words to say, “a recent change in your behavior.” You hoped he didn’t notice the way your eyes went wide, knowing you’d been caught. You didn’t have to ask what he was talking about to know you’d been caught, but you did anyway, “What do you mean?” You thought you were playing your part well, furrowing your eyebrows to truly emphasis your fake confusion.

“It feels as though you’ve been avoiding me.” Aaron says. His tone isn’t angry or even authoritative, but rather, disappointed. There’s a slight huff in the way he spoke. He didn’t give you a chance to defend yourself before he continued, “Which is fine if you so choose to do so. I would just like to know if it was because of something I did and if I could fix it. I want the team to function as well as it can, and I feel as though it would not if there was conflict between you and I.”

Aaron had to find a professional spin to throw his statement, knowing the professionalism of this situation was debatable at best. “Oh, sir,” you blushed, not really knowing what to say, “I don’t believe there is any conflict between us.” Your voice was formal, too formal. It was obvious you were under pressure. “So, what is it then?” He questioned.

You could feel yourself growing small under his intense stare. You could also feel the wet patch growing between your legs, making you slightly uncomfortable.

“You, uh, you kind of make nervous.” With your quiet voice and stutter, and the way your thighs squeezed together, it was easy for Aaron to pick up on the reason he made you nervous. His cheeks turned a pretty shade of pink instantaneously. “Oh,” his voice trailed off, followed by your quiet, “yeah.”

There was a few beats of silence before he cleared his throat. “Well, I’m glad to hear there’s no issues between us.” You nodded with his words, growing even more nervous. Your mouth was moving before your brain could catch up, “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to, it’s just been a minute since I’ve, ya know, and I know you’re boss but I will be completely professional and this will not effect my work in or out of the field.”

While you mean to be assuring your boss that your attraction to him was no detriment to your work, you just admitted that it’s been a minute since you’ve had an orgasm. You needed to end this conversation quickly.

“If that’s all,” You said as you stood, “I have a few more reports to finish.” Aaron simply nodded, dismissing you back into the bullpen. You made a break for the bathroom, hoping to have a few minutes to collect yourself before facing the race of the team. You felt exposed, knowing you were entering a room of profilers after since a painful experience. You needed some time alone.

After a mini-breakdown, and cleaning up your messed up mascara, you made your way to your desk. Calm and collected. That’s all you had to be. Calm and collected.

Serial killers and other criminals had quieted down for the week, in an unlikely turn of events. You’d only had to travel for one day, quickly solving a kidnapping case and the finding the perpetrator. The week flew by swimmingly. Nothing odd had happened.

Until you opened your door Saturday morning.

You hadn’t ordered anything, that much you were sure of. Even if you did, you tended to shop at places with bright packaging that made you feel like you were opening a gift when it was delivered. This unsuspecting, plain box was not here on your accord, yet it had your name and address on it.

The FBI agent side of you flipped into protection mode, racing to grab your phone and dial up the one person you knew that could tell you what to do if there happened to be a bomb inside of the box. Derek Morgan. “Pretty girl, why are you facetiming me at 8:27am on a Saturday?” He teased with a smile on his face. No matter what time it was, Derek was ready to listen.

“I got this box and I don’t know what it is. I just want someone to be around when I open it.” You informed him, sitting down next to the box. You should probably be standing, just in case you had to make a run for it but you were too worried about getting it open to think that far ahead.

“Alright,” He said, urging you to open it. You nodded to him, setting up the phone so he could you see and the box in the frame. You carefully tore off the tape, and let out a sigh of relief when nothing happened when it moved. You lifted the flaps slowly, taking a loud gasp when you saw it was. You hoped Derek didn’t see, and moved quickly to pick up your phone to hang up before he could.

“It’s not a bomb! I’m good, thanks Derek!” You rushed, hanging up before he could say anything. Your eyes didn’t leave the box as you let your arms fall to your sides. Sitting inside of it was a small, pink rose toy. A vibrator. That you definitely didn’t order.

You grabbed the box, hoping none of your neighbors saw it. It’s not that masturbation was wrong or immoral or that you didn’t partake, it was just weird if the people around you were aware of your toys.

So, you made sure your door was tightly closed before putting the box on the table and digging through it. There was all the normal things, the vibrator itself, large bubble wrap, and a paper receipt with the name of the product: Intimately GG Rose Suction Simulator from Pink Cherry.

However, there was another piece of paper at the bottom of the box. It was a typed note that read, “I hope this helps us go back to normal. A.H”. You knew exactly one person with the initials A.H. so it wasn’t rocket science to figure out who had ordered you this sex toy.

You weren’t sure if you were more turned on or embarrassed.

Aaron was your boss. Your kind, protective, strong, hot, sexy, boss. But still your boss. You wondered if this is something he would’ve done for someone like Emily or Penelope if they’d been in your predicament. It clicked quickly that it definitely wasn’t, and that made you special in Aaron Hotchner’s eyes.

So, you made a mental note to give him a call, after you tried out your toy. Luckily, you had your cleaning solution and an old bottle of lube from your past encounters. You made quick work of getting the toy clean and finding a video to help you get yourself off.

Of course, the man in the video was a white man who was bit older, with broad shoulders and black hair. No coincidence there.

You started with your boobs, taking time to massage each one before pulling on and pinching them to get yourself warmed up. Between the sounds coming from the video and the excitement of finally having time to yourself, your hands didn’t take long to move downwards, tracing along the length of your body. One hand continued caressing your side as the other made its way to your core.

The thought of Aaron going out of his way to help you get off and the visual of a man who looked similar to him getting his dick sucked had you borderline dripping on your bedsheets as you used your hand to start toying with your clit. You started with small circles, matching the speed of the girl sucking Aaron’s lookalike’s dick.

You stayed like this for a while, allowing yourself to go slow, really take your time pleasuring yourself. The guy in the video had already finished on the girl’s tits by the time you reached for your rose toy. You didn’t need the visual anymore, perfectly crafting dirty scenarios of your unit chief in your head.

You started on low. There was gentle sucking on your clit as you imagined the way Aaron would kiss. He’s experienced, you know that for sure. You could imagine the way he’d start gentle, maybe even cupping your face as he pulled you close. He’d let you feel like you were in charge, before his tongue made its way inside your mouth. His dominant side would take over, using his body to press you against whatever surface you were sat on.

As you fantasized about his dominant side, you cranked up the toy to the next level. You let out a loud moan at the new feeling. Your free hand moved back to your breast, squeezing, while you did your best to imagine Aaron’s large hands doing it instead.

You could feel the coil in your tummy getting tighter and tighter as you imagined Aaron slowly stripping your body, dragging his hand along each and every curve. With a sharp pinch to your nipple and a cry of Aaron’s name, you came undone all over your rose toy.

You could feel your slick dripping down your hand as you worked yourself through your orgasm, making sure to enjoy it for as long as you could. You wished you could savor this feeling. It was the strongest, best orgasm you’d ever had. Nothing could compare to the euphoria you felt right now.

You flicked the toy off and sat it to the side once the feeling became too much. You couldn’t bring yourself to move from your position. “Fuck,” you breathed out, trying to relax the hard rise and fall of your chest.

Once you were able to relax, you made your way to the shower. You knew you had to call Aaron, but you needed to be much more relaxed than you were right now to have that conversation. The sting from the hot water helped ground you, allowing you to clear your mind. After you cleaned yourself, you cleaned the toy and put everything in your nightstand drawer for future use.

Then, you reached for your cellphone. You quickly found Aaron’s personal number and hit the call button before you could overthink what you were doing. He picked up on the second ring. “Hotchner,” he said, probably out of habit. “Hello, Aaron,” you smiled. This is the conversation you’d had with him in a while that didn’t make you feel nervous. “Hello,” he echoed with your name. You didn’t know, but he was smirking on the other side of the phone. He’d been waiting for this call.

“You sent me a gift?” You asked. “I did. Have you received it?” He wasn’t sure what grew more, his smirk or his cock. “I have. I’ve opened it and took it for a test run as well.” The way you two were beating around the bush was a turn on, but the way he sounded so self-assured, as if he knew what you were going to say, had you clenching your thighs together.

“How did it perform?” Aaron questioned, leaning forward to rest his elbows on the table in front of him. This tightened the dress pants he was wearing against his hardened cock. “Very well,” You smiled. “I’m happy to hear that. I hope this is the end of all of your weird behavior.” Aaron chuckles. Just the sound of his laugh has you reaching your hand to squeeze the fat of your thighs.

“What weird behavior, Aaron?” You questioned, teasingly. This conversation is very different than any you’d had before, and it was turning you. You didn’t think it was possible with the strong orgasm you’d maybe an hour ago. But, Aaron was a special individual. He had that effect on you.

“You were avoiding me,” He scoffed. “I don’t know if I was. I think it was self-control,” You smiled, knowing you were baiting him. Without missing a beat, he took the bait, “And why did you need to practice self-control?”

Aaron leaned back in his chair, opting to press his hand against his cock instead of using the soft fabric to provide some kind of friction. He needed more, that much he knew.

“Because I was trying not to jump your bones, Aaron.” You breathed out. Your words had him squeezing his bulge, feeling like he could bust just from knowing you were attracted to him. “Fuck,” Aaron groaned into the phone. You giggled at his reaction, moving to press your hand against your core, again.

“Tell me about your toy,” He demanded, finally using the authoritarian tone that helped you get into this situation in the first time. “So you can touch yourself while I do?” You questioned, assuming he was in the same position as you. “Is that okay?” He questioned. “Of course it is, Aaron.” You promised, and used your permission as an excuse to unbutton his pants, and shove his hand under the waistband of his boxers.

As you started talking, he spread the precum, that’s been oozing from his pretty pink tip since he saw your contact name, along the length of his dick. “It was so good, Aaron. That was the best orgasm I’ve ever had.”

“Yeah?” Aaron encouraged you to keep going as he started stroking his cock. “Yeah,” You whined out, “I wish you could’ve seen me. My legs were shaking and I was leaking so much.” You smirked as you heard him groan in to the phone. His strokes had quickened in length. All he could picture was you spread out on his bed, cumming around his cock.

“What did you think about while you came?” You were surprised he was able to get the question out, especially because he only stuttered once. You wished you could see the way he squeezed his eyes together as he tugged on his cock. “You, obviously. I was thinking about your lips and your hands. I finished before I could get to the good part. I wanted to picture you fucking me from behind, pressing my face into the mattress.”

You were going to continue describing your fantasy to him, but he cut you off with a “Fuck!” as he came down his hands.

The line was silent for a few minutes before you spoke, “Hey, Aaron?” He hummed out a “yeah?”, before you asked, “Do you want to come over?”

“Give me ten minutes,” He promised, “and have the toy out.”

Well, you couldn’t refuse that.

#aaron hotch fanfiction #aaron hotchner x you #aaron hotch smut #aaron hotch imagine #aaron hotchner smut #aaron hotchner imagine #aaron hotchner fic #aaron hotch x reader #aaron hotchner x reader #aaron hotchner #criminal minds blurb #criminal minds x y/n #criminal minds x you #criminal minds x reader #criminal minds fluff #criminal minds drabble #criminal minds smut #criminal minds imagine #criminal minds

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bookshelfdreams · 9 months

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before I go to bed, here is what we know about the lion loose in Brandenburg rn (a summary for those who don't speak german)

There's a lion loose in the state of Brandenburg, Germany, near Berlin. Possibly. Probably.

I say "probably" - she was spotted for the first time last night around midnight by two men. They saw an animal hunting another animal - the animal being hunted was a wild boar. And the one doing the hunting looked to them like a big cat.

They also took a video but sadly it's short and poor quality; but it does show a pretty big animal that seems to me (not a zoologist) to look an awful lot like a big cat. It has since been spotted by police and firefighters as well, but definite proof has not yet been discovered.

The police, fire department, volunteer firefighters, gamekeepers, other hunters, and several veterinarians spent all day looking, several hundred people in total.

They also used helicopters and drones.

No success so far.

The plan seems to be to capture the lion alive if it is at all possible.

Search will pause over night, but police will still patrol the affected area. Tomorrow they want to resume and use specially trained dogs, too.

There's apparently 23 officially registered lions living in Brandenburg. All of them are accounted for, and no owner has come forward and reported a missing animal yet. It's legal to privately keep lions in Brandenburg, as long as the owner registers them; whether someone does that is another question. Cubs can be bought semi-legal on the internet and nobody is going around checking people's houses for big cats. It's very possible that this animal escaped from someone's backyard.

Speaking of which, there was a similar case in Saxony, I believe, a few years back, when two juvenile lions escaped from a normal apartment where they had been kept. So. Not unheard of.

more on this as it develops

#german stuff #löwin

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anarchywoofwoof · 4 months

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do u have posts where you talk abt prison abolition and alternatives to police? that'd be nice

so i've actually tried to approach abolition before multiple times and quite frankly, there are so many incredibly valuable insights provided by POC (People Of Color) and lifelong abolitionists that exist on the internet, it would be a tremendous disservice for my pasty white ass to sit here and try and educate anyone on this topic alone.

the last time i had this ask come up (you can find that post here), i deferred to FD Signifier for my thoughts on police abolition. i will do so again here for maximum visibility because he deserves it far more than i do. it is close to 2 hours long, but easily the best explanation or breakdown you'll find in such a relatively short time frame.

youtube

i'll expand on this by offering some of the more popular works that i'm aware of and a few works that i've read regarding abolition.

"invisible no more" by andrea j. ritchie provides an examination of how Black women, indigenous women, and women of color experience racial profiling, police brutality, and immigration enforcement. it aims to contextualize individual stories within the broader system of police violence and mass incarceration, calling for a radical shift in the way that we look at public safety.

"policing the planet" edited by jordan t. camp and christina heatherton combines firsthand accounts from activists with research from scholars and artistic reflections. it aims to trace back the global spread of the broken-windows policing strategy and its wide-ranging effects.

"our enemies in blue: police and power in america" by kristian williams addresses the history of policing in the united states, arguing that police brutality is intrinsic to law enforcement. it explores the relationship you've probably heard before between police and power from the era of slave patrols to modern times.

"the new jim crow" by michelle alexander extremely influential, you've probably heard of this one. it goes over how the u.s. criminal justice system functions as a system of racial control, particularly through the failed war on drugs, disproportionately targeting Black men and devastating communities of color (obligatory fuck nixon and reagan)

"violence work: state power and the limits of police" by micol siegel offers a new perspective on the police as the embodiment of state power, interconnected with the state and global capital. this one gives a unique examination of the u.s. state department's office of public safety and its influence on international police training.

"chokehold: policing Black men" by paul butler, who is a former federal prosecutor, examines the laws and practices that systematically target Black men, perpetuating institutional violence and societal fear.

"no more police: a case for abolition" by mariame kaba and andrea ritchie presents a comprehensive and practical plan for police abolition. it addresses current concerns while envisioning a future of reduced violence and enhanced justice. this is a cornerstone work and it's been lauded in many circles as being a definitive text on police abolition.

#borking back #police abolition #criminal justice #prison abolition

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iww-gnv · 2 months

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Via the IWW Freelance Journalists Union:

Since April 2023, Ben Camacho has been entangled in a legal battle over the release of photographs of officers with the Los Angeles Police Department. The photographs were obtained through a Public Records Request, after Camacho filed a lawsuit and a court settlement ordered the photos be handed over. Following the release of the photos by Stop LAPD Spying Coalition, the City of Los Angeles filed suit against Camacho and SLSC, alleging that the public release of the personnel photos could compromise “sensitive” operations. The ongoing attempt to claw back these now public records is being made in violation of the defendants’ First Amendment rights. Now, another lawsuit has been filed, apparently to shift blame in the case. The Industrial Workers of the World Freelance Journalists Union stands in solidarity with Camacho, whose commitment to transparency in policing and government represents the core ethics of journalism: to inform the people and hold power to account. We call on Mayor Bass, City Attorney Soto and the City of Los Angeles to abide by the First Amendment by dropping these lawsuits immediately. Until then, we stand by the motto of the IWW: An injury to one is an injury to all!

#iww #industrial workers of the world #freelance journalists union #iww fju #los angeles #california #los angeles news #california news

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greater-than-the-sword · 2 months

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Folks, if the phrase "A.I. Policing" does not strike fear into your heart, there is something very wrong. And yet, AI Policing is already here. We just didn't know about it.

James O'Keefe's newest video catches an IRS employee on tape admitting that the Department of Justice has been using AI to scan Americans' bank accounts.

We cannot let AI policing be a thing.

#robophobia #ai

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decolonize-the-left · 1 year

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I was wondering how accurate this was so I did some fun googling and yall.

So starting with the fact that police in the USA were formed when Dems had Congress and Senate and the same was true when the first organized police department was founded (in Boston, btw)....

1963. Dems had Senate and Congress.

While this allowed for huge strides in civil rights police brutality still continued to be largely unaddressed.

1966. Dems had Senate and Congress.

To point out further racial oppression James Meredith starts a 270 mile walk from Memphis, TN to Jackson, MI. He's shot by a sniper the second day which causes an influx in support from allies & prominent civil rights members (such as MLK) who fly out and walk in his stead.

Governor Johnson (d) of Mississippi, who ran on a segregationist platform but changed platforms when he saw that Black people were gaining more supporters, promises to protect marchers as they pass through his state. Police then tear gas them as they were setting up tents for the night in Canton, MI (pictured). 15k show up to Jackson. It's the biggest march in MI history and more successful than Meredith had planned.

No bills were introduced that year.

1956-1979 Dems had senate & Congress.

In 1961-69 they even had a governmental trifecta with Congress, Senate, and the presidency and again in 1977-79. The director of the FBI at the time was Republican J. Edgar Hoover. Head of Intelligence was Democrat William Sullivan. Attorney General & democrat Robert F. Kennedy authorized several programs for them such as wire-tapping MLK.

1968. Dems had Senate, Congress, and presidency.

President Lyndon Johnson (Democrat president while Dems had Congress & Senate) signs the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968, birthing the Law Enforcement Assistance Administration & granting federal funds to local governments in order to obtain military resources to quell potential riots. A direct response to the protests and riots throughout the 50's & 60's. Protecting police from protesters.

Democrats do this instead of protecting the public from police and their prejudice.

1992. Dems have both Senate and Congress.

After the verdict of the 4 police who beat Rodney King on camera is announced & they are Not indicted the public starts rioting. The national guard, fire department, and several police departments are called in by then democratic mayor Tom Brady. After the riots a separate federal trial is held and finds 2 of the 4 officers guilty. All were fired from LAPD.

The Police Brutality Accountability Act of 1991 is introduced. Only introduced.

1994. House & Senate under dem control.

They pass the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act instead. It's drafted by democrat Joe Biden and sponsored by Texas Rep Brooks (D). It's an infamously harmful bill that results in the prejudiced mass incarceration of minorities, especially Black people. This bill funded police departments instead of holding them accountable aiding their further militarization as well.

2020. Dems have both Congress & Senate.

Which brings us to recent times. Where Democrats have again pretended to support and listen to the public demands to decrease/eliminate police brutality only to turn around and insist protests are the reason they keep funding the police instead of giving us rights.

"See? You're too dangerous to Not have a militarized police force."

As if we aren't protesting because the police are already too dangerous. Like that's not what started all this.

At this point a pattern like this can only be seen as intentional. A planned out excuse for funding police again and again and again instead of Stopping police brutality. Instead of enforcing or creating ACTUAL effective reform or regulations. They just keep throwing money at police departments and saying "hey here are billions of dollars that we want you to use to be less violent racists. It's also to help you be more safe when facing the people who are protesting your racist violence. Also we aren't gonna make sure you actually become less violent or less racist but we definitely hope you don't use this all this money to get worse."

Which has backfired across decades at this point. They keep doing investigations and making committees and for what?

We've done that. We know police are racist. We know they're violent. We know they're only spending enough to say they provide 6 months (if that) of sensitivity training and spending the bulk of that money on militarization gear. So what. We know that.

Now what.

What, after 100+ years could their excuse possibly be for STILL doing the same thing. For STILL not addressing it. For STILL not passing reform despite the MANY opportunities they've had? What could police departments Possibly be doing for them?? What excuse could be good enough?

I'm glad you asked.

There isn't one. There are answers of course. Greed, power, privilege, etc. The list goes on.

But are they good enough for you? They're not for me.

I have to beg on Tumblr just for my rent to get paid or for my kid to have dinner sometimes. The success of Democrats or my "country" doesn't mean shit to me, it does nothing for me. It only does things to me. Success enables police, it increases funding, it makes them More afraid of having their ideas of success taken from them, makes them more protective of their status quo. Their success hurts me. Fuck their success.

What matters is that time and time again Democrats have insisted they'd be there for minorities and then empowered the people oppressing, killing, and suppressing us and our rights.

What matters is that time and time again they've said they're powerless and their supporters insist they just don't have a majority to do anything with or that republicans keep blocking them or-

But passing bills to harm us? That's easy. And they don't Have to keep doing that. They just keep saying they do... To protect police. And they only keep "needing" more protection for police because they refuse to give us any. We continue to express our right to protest and they continue to try intimidating us out of it.

All the rights we have? They didn't give to us. Look at those posts. We fought for them while Democrats were in charge. They didn't give us those, they didn't stand with us. They still don't. They stand with the police as they always have.

August 2022.

For hundreds of years we've dealt with this. How much longer is it gonna be. How many more generations are going to have to put up with this government trying to insist that mediocrity is the best they can do indefinitely?

And if you still refuse to hold Democrats responsible, if you still find yourself compulsively trying to point out all the ways that Republicans are worse please know this: I know.

I know you're going to say "well Democrats are our best shot"

And to that I say if this is our best fucking shot....and they're *gestures vaguely at the post* like that.... Can we agree that it points to a much wider issue. If Democrats are our best shot and they're Only this effective and they're only making the most Minimal effort possible year after year. If we Know that their hands are tied by Republicans at best and at worst theyre fascists benefitting from the exploitation of BIPOC and other marginalized communities....

Can we admit that our systems are broken. That it goes further than Republicans or Democrats being bad. That it's Everything? That even if Democrats were actually perfect that everything would still be wrong and fucked up because the system itself holds them from making any effectual change?

That the checks and balances that the founding fathers put in place to make sure that our politicians are fair and just and give a shit about the people they serve aren't working.

Because if they were why would it take HUNDREDS of years for a community to get one thing. Just stop police brutality. That's all we asked. That's it. Stop hurting everyone who isn't a white cis man. Stop killing us in broad daylight for demanding you give us rights and respect the ones we Already have.

So why are we still starting 2023 with brutality making headlines?

If a government is effective and cares and listens and it's representives Truly represent it's constituents and fight for them and it's not just about profit or greed or winning elections or keeping minorities in line then why are we still here?

Why are we still asking for the same rights as our great-great-great-great grandparents?

If that progress? Is that success?

What the fuck are we doing. Like actually. How do we throw a wrench in this system. What will it take for Democrats and liberals and You to realize that all we are doing is driving the future into the hands of fascism.

What do we do? When do we finally do something?

°•°•°•°•°•°•°

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#idk what i thought i was gonna find but it wasn't a pattern of behavior stretching all the way back to the founding of police in the USA #democrats #liberals #progressives #protests #human rights #yeah this is about police brutality but also ableism and classism and poverty and everything else

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mostlysignssomeportents · 2 years

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Google falsely told the police that a father was a molesting his son

[Correction: An earlier draft of this story misstated a technical detail; Mark didn’t email his photo to his doctor; rather, he took the photo with his phone and the image was automatically synched to his Google Photos account, triggering a scan]

Mark’s toddler had a painful, swollen penis. His wife contacted their doctor, whose nurse asked Mark to send him a picture of the toddler’s penis, because the pandemic was raging and the doctor wasn’t seeing patients in person. Mark’s phone synched the photo to his Google Photos account, and Google’s scanning tools automatically detected the picture of a child’s penis and turned Mark into the SFPD, accusing him of molesting his son.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/21/technology/google-surveillance-toddler-photo.html

Mark and his wife took several pictures of their son’s penis, including one that contained Mark’s hand. The child had a bacterial infection, which was quickly alleviated with antibiotics that the doctor prescribed via telemedicine.

Google refused to listen to Mark’s explanation. Instead, they terminated his account, seizing more than a decade’s worth of personal and business email, cloud files, and calendar entries. He lost all the family photos he’d synched with Google Photos (including all the photos of his toddler from birth, on). He even lost his mobile plan, because he’s a Google Fi user. He lost access to Google Authenticator and couldn’t sign into any of his other online accounts to tell them that he had a new, non-Gmail email address.

Mark received an envelope from the SFPD telling him that Google had contacted the police department, accusing him of producing child sexual abuse material (CSAM), and that the company had secretly given the police full access to all of his files and data, including his location and search history, as well as all his photos and videos.

The reason the police had to mail him all this stuff? Google had shut down his phone number and so they couldn’t reach him.

To SFPD’s credit, they’d figured out what was going on and decided Mark wasn’t a child molester. To Google’s shame, they continue to hold all his data hostage — including his address book with the contact info for everyone he is personally or professionally connected to, denying him access to it.

Google says they won’t give Mark his account back because they found another “problematic” image in his files: “a young child lying in bed with an unclothed woman.” Mark doesn’t know which picture they mean (he no longer has access to any of his photos), but he thinks it was probably an intimate photo he captured of his son and wife together in bed one morning (“If only we slept with pajamas on, this all could have been avoided.”).

Writing for the New York Times, Kashimir Hill discusses another, similar case, involving a Houston dad called Cassio, whose doctor asked him to send in photos of his child’s genitals for diagnostic purposes. Like Mark, Cassio was cleared by police, and, like Mark, Cassio is locked out of his Gmail account, along with all the services associated with it.

Hill spoke with my EFF colleague Jon Callas, who criticized Google, saying that private family photos should be a “private sphere” and not subject to routine scanning by algorithms or review by moderators. Google claims that they only scan your photos when you take an “affirmative action” related to them, but this includes automatically uploading your photos to Google Photos, which is the default behavior on Android devices.

Also cited in the article is Kate Klonick, a cyberlaw prof and expert on content moderation. Klonick pointed out that this was “doubly dangerous in that it also results in someone being reported to law enforcement,” suggesting that this could have resulted in a loss of custody if the police had been a little less measured.

Klonick criticized Google for the lack of a “robust process” for handling this kind of automated filter error. Hill describes the “AI” tools Google uses to automatically flag potential CSAM. As is so often the case with automated filtering tools, the flagging takes place in a nanosecond, while the process for questioning its judgment takes months or years, or forever.

Last summer, I called Google and its Big Tech competitors “utilities governed like empires.” The companies deliberately pursued a strategy of becoming indispensable to us, declaring mission statements like “organize all the world’s information” and backing them up with vertical stacks of products designed to capture your whole digital life.

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2021/08/utilities-governed-empires

That is, the tech giants set out to become utilities, as important to your life as your electricity and water — and they succeeded. However, they continue to behave as though they are simply another business, whose commercial imperatives — including the arbitrary cancellation of your services without appeal — are private matters.

Some people say this means we should just turn these companies into actual utilities, but I think that’s the wrong impulse. The problem with (say) Facebook, isn’t merely that Zuck is monumentally unqualified to be the unaccountable self-appointed dictator of three billion peoples’ digital lives. The problem is that no one should have that job. We should abolish that job.

Which is why I’m so interested in interoperability — including a mix of state-imposed interop obligations and protecting interoperators’ self-help measures like reverse-engineering, scraping and bots.

https://www.eff.org/wp/interoperability-and-privacy

That is a path to pluralizing power over the necessities of our lives — use the power of the state to set limits on the conduct of online platforms (say, by passing strong privacy laws with a private right of action), which makes sure that no matter which choice a user makes, they won’t be exploited by online companies. Then use the power of the state to safeguard interoperability, so that users who don’t like the way an online host uses its discretion can easily leave, without surrendering their data or their social connections:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2021/08/facebooks-secret-war-switching-costs

Rather than entrusting the US government — including its policing and espionage arms — to run our digital lives, and the digital lives of non-Americans around the world whom the US government explicitly disclaims any duty to, we can ask the government to do a much narrower job. We can ask them to prevent companies from harming us, and we can ask them to force companies not to take our data and social connections hostage. That way, we don’t have to ask the government — which might be run by e.g. Ron Desantis in a couple years — to decide which conversations are lawful to have:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2021/07/right-or-left-you-should-be-worried-about-big-tech-censorship

Instead, we can create our own, community run and community managed online spaces and services.

Image: Cryteria (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:HAL9000.svg

CC BY 3.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en

[Image ID: A desk with an open laptop on it. On the laptop's screen is a doctor's torso and folded arms. In the top right corner is a CCTV camera labelled with the Gmail logo. The camera's lens has been replaced with the staring red eye of HAL9000 from 2001: A Space Odyssey.]

#pluralistic

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probablyasocialecologist · 10 months

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When New York’s officers engaged in an announced slowdown in policing in late 2014 and early 2015, civilian complaints of major crime in the city dropped. And despite significant staffing shortages at law enforcement agencies around the country, if trends continue, 2023 will have the largest percentage drop in homicides in U.S. history. It’s true that such a drop would come after a two-year surge, but the fact that it would also occur after a significant reduction in law enforcement personnel suggests the surge may have been due more to the pandemic and its effects than depolicing. At the very least, the steady stream of Justice Department reports depicting rampant police abuse ought to temper the claim that policing shortages are fueling crime. It’s no coincidence that the cities we most associate with violence also have long and documented histories of police abuse. When people don’t trust law enforcement, they stop cooperating and resolve disputes in other ways. Instead of fighting to retain police officers who feel threatened by accountability and perpetuate that distrust, cities might consider just letting them leave.

#police #USA #crime

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bnyrbt · 2 months

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The leader of the Choctaw Nation is joining an outpouring of support for the family of a 16-year-old student whose death is being investigated in Oklahoma.

Nex Benedict passed away on February 8, following a physical altercation at a high school the day prior. Chief Gary Batton confirmed that the young student’s mother is enrolled with the Choctaw Nation.

“The loss of a child is always difficult for a community and a family to accept,” Batton said in a statement on Wednesday.

“Although Nex does not appear to be affiliated with our tribe, their mother, Sue Benedict, is a registered member,” Batton continued. “Nex’s death weighs heavily on the hearts of the Choctaw people. We pray Nex’s family and their loved ones will find comfort,” Batton concluded.

Nex’s death has directed widespread attention to Oklahoma, where Republican officials have increasingly adopted policies hindering the rights and freedoms of Two Spirit and LGBTQ+ people. Sue Benedict has embraced her child’s gender identity and has vowed to donate funds to other youth experiencing some of the same struggles.

Two Spirit and LGBTQ+ advocates incorrectly identified Nex as being a citizen of the Cherokee Nation, whose reservation borders that of the Choctaw Nation. Cherokee Chief Hoskin Jr. expressed support for the Benedict family on Tuesday.

“As Chief, the health and welfare of all children within the Cherokee Nation Reservation is of concern,” Hoskin said in a statement.

Nex attended Owasso High School in Owasso, located on the Cherokee Reservation. Local authorities are investigating the death and have said they will forward the results of the investigation to prosecutors in Tulsa County for potential action.

Hoskin has offered the support of the Cherokee Nation Marshal Service as the investigation continues. The Owasso Police Department indicated in a statement on Tuesday that interviews would be taking place “over the course of the next two weeks.”

Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt (R), a Republican who happens to be a citizen of the Cherokee Nation, has not spoken publicly about the death. He has repeatedly derided efforts to address diversity, equity and inclusion as discriminatory.

But a senior official with President Joe Biden, a Democrat, has weighed in. White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre offered a message of support from the administration in a post on social media.

“Every young person deserves to feel safe and supported at school,” Jean-Pierre wrote on her official government account. “Our hearts are with Nex Benedict’s family, their friends, and their entire school community in the wake of this horrific tragedy.”

“For many LGBTQI+ students across the country, this may feel personal and deeply painful,” Jean-Pierre continued. “There is always someone you can talk to if you’re going through a hard time. Dial 988 and press 3 to reach a counselor dedicated to serving LGBTQI+ young people.

According to the 2023 LGBTQ+ Youth Report, a project of Human Rights Campaign and the University of Connecticut, more than half of transgender and gender-expansive youth feel unsafe at school. In particular, nearly a third said they feel unsafe in school restrooms.

“All students, including trans and gender-expansive students like Nex, have the right to feel safe and protected while attending school,” Tori Cooper, the campaign director of Community Engagement for the Transgender Justice Initiative at the Human Rights Campaign, said in a statement on Wednesday. “That Nex was only 16 years old compounds this tragic injustice and they should have lived to see a fulfilling and authentic life.”

The 2023 study was based on a survey of nearly 3,000 LGBTQ+ youth ages 13-18 nationwide, according to the organization. Some 0.6 percent of respondents identified themselves as American Indian or Alaska Native.

According to Owasso Public Schools, a “physical altercation” took place in a bathroom at the high school on February 7. The Owasso police responded to a local hospital on the same day of the incident.

Police then said they were informed that a “juvenile” was taken back to a hospital on February 8, the same day as Nex’s passing.

#op #links #trans #non-binary #choctaw #nex benedict #oklahoma #transphobia #hate crime #murder #child death #transphobic violence #uspol #news #bad news

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seaslugfanclub · 4 months

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Yayyyy, asks are open! So anyways, I remember in the favorite villain request that Jafar mentioned about helping Reader with unsavory guests, can we get a scenario of Reader dealing with those kinds of guests? You can use any villains you’d like lol

Losers, Creeps, and Weirdos

TW: Creepy park guest being gross!

It was a good day. Pleasant temperatures, manageable crowds, and full staff. (Y/N) thought that it’d be one of those rare occasions where they’d be able to go home early.

Of course, the universe has a cruel sense of humor.

It was halfway through (Y/N)’s shift, and they’d been scheduled to walk around Magic Kingdom, helping guests with directions and keeping a general eye on things. And from afar everything seemed normal, a couple Disney characters walking around and interacting with guests, but (Y/N) noticed after a while that a lone male park guest was constantly trailing behind Princess Aurora.

(Y/N) tried to brush it off at first, thinking that the guy was a little socially inept, just wanting an autograph. But the way the man was just… looking at the increasingly uncomfortable princess made (Y/N) feel nauseated. It was when the man got Aurora near a park bench somewhat out of sight that (Y/N) began to speed walk towards the two. (Y/N) got there right when the man began to reach his hand out towards the girl, Aurora looking near to tears.

(Y/N) immediately got between the two, making sure Princess Aurora was out of sight behind them as the man looked shocked. And that was the moment the scene began.

“I’m telling you now, man. If you don’t back off right now I’m going to call park security. I swear to god I’ll do it.”

“Are you serious right now!? It’s just a park attraction, your acting like it’s a real person!”

The man was incessant, unable to just walk away. His face was red and (Y/N) was slowly reaching towards their walkie talkie, ready to call security.

“I’m not going to stay here and teach you the basics of human decency, she is a 16 year old girl. Either you leave yourself or by force.” (Y/N) remained stone-faced, arms still protecting Aurora behind them, who was now clinging to their tennis shirt.

“Wha- do you know how expensive it is to get into here!? JUST LET ME-“ He started to move towards (Y/N), about to grab them when a slender hand stopped him.

“-excuse yourself from the premises and never return.. Yes, I do believe that’s the best course of action.”

(Y/N) and Aurora turned towards Jafar, who had his scepter raised and the man’s hand in a vice like grip. The cobra scepter gleamed red as the man’s face went slack, eyes becoming a cloudy red.

“yeah… i should… i should leave…” the man slurred, Jafar letting go of the unnamed guests hand as he began to walk away, his movement’s unnaturally stiff, only for Jafar to grasp the man’s shoulders again, his face twisted in disgust.

“Oh, and while you’re at it, why don’t you take a quick dip in the lake? I’m sure Medusas crocodiles would… appreciate the company.” He crooned as he lightly shoved the man away, for good this time.

The group watched as the man lumbered off, disappearing into the crowd. After a beat of silence Jafar turned around to the shocked (Y/N) and Princess Aurora.

“And I think that we should report this to management, don’t you think (Y/N)?”

(Y/N) straightened out a bit, nodding in agreement, “Yeah… let’s go”

————————————————————————

Upper management was naturally disturbed at the days events, taking aside everyone to get their own accounts of the story. After a report was filed, and both park security and police set off to find the man, the group was dismissed.

Princess Aurora was taken off the schedule for the next few days, and a one of (Y/N)’s colleagues was called to chaperone the princess back to where all the “Good Guys” resided. But not before giving a tearful ‘thank you’ and a quick peck on (Y/N)’s cheek as gratitude. Princess Aurora, bless her heart, even gave Jafar a timid yet heartfelt thanks, before departing with the park attendant. (Y/N) and Jafar now alone in the empty workroom.

….

“I can’t believe it…What you did today was..nice.” (Y/N) looked up at Jafar in awe, a crooked smile stretching across their face.

Jafar shuddered, waving his hand in dismissal, “Oh please, you know better. I was simply going about by business when I saw that… altercation. I couldn’t have such troglodyte ruin a peaceful day for me. You know as well as I do that the only ones that can bother you are us.”

“I know, but you could’ve found another park staff to help, instead you went out of your way to help us. Thank you.” (Y/N) chuckled, laughing even more at Jafar’s disgusted expression.

“Yes, yes, I’m amazing. Just don’t go blabbering about this to the others, Allah knows what’s going to happen to my reputation when that princess inevitably tells her little friends about today’s events. Ugh- I’m never going to live down..” He muttered under his breath, rubbing the space between his eyes.

(Y/N) hummed, dusting themselves off as they began to leave,

“Don’t worry, I won’t tell a soul. I owe you one, Jafar— oh!”

Before Jafar could react, (Y/N) spun around- reached up and kissed the ex-viziers cheek,

“-As an extension of my gratitude. See ya!” They whispered, before quickly pulling back and rushing out of the room, leaving the flustered sorcerer behind, gently touching his cheek.

“Hmm… mabye it wouldn’t hurt to help them more often…”

————————————————————————

Hope you enjoyed! I hope I wrote Jafar not too OOC 😅 It’s a shame that a lot of people forget that virtually all the Disney Princesses are children, the amount of mature content I’ve seen of them is super uncomfortable.

Oh, and the other Villians totally caught wind of what Jafar did, now they’re all ragging on him.

#disney villains #disney imagine #disney x reader #self insert #disney jafar #jafar #princess aurora #aladdin

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