Police killed an innocent bystander at the G20 protests. They tried to cover it up but were forced to do a 2nd post-mortem after the phone video footage was released (which police pressured The Guardian not to publish). The police originally claimed that protesters were throwing bricks whilst the guy was having a heart attack (turned out not be true and the first post-mortem a cover up).

They are also claiming that there was no surveillance in the area which is bull**** (there are cameras everywhere in London).

He didn't do anything to instigate the violence!

The reason things like this happen is because the 99.999% of the time the man gets up and sustains no long term injuries, the officer responsible faces no consequences.

Agree. Obviously he should still face prosecution, but discipline within the police should be enforced by his superior officers, not by the trial of the guy that gets unlucky and has someone die on him. I really hope that the officer's superiors are also held accountable for this.

What did the superiors do? Did they tell this guy to attack someone who wasn't doing anything? Guy is a bully drunk on his own power and needs to be made an example of imo.

What's the problem here? The cop is liable to the victim's family, so no big deal, right?

No, but officers are responsible for their men. I'm not sure what would happen in the police (I don't think it is any different though), but in the army if something like that happened, I'm pretty sure the guys officers would held responsible to some degree. Possibly not by the law, but within the hierarchy, direct superiors are responsible to some degree for their subordinates actions in situations like this.

It most definitely involves the guys superiors when he goes and assaults people. Either through poor training, lack of direct control or failing to instill a sense of "don't assault people unprovoked" in the guy, his superiors are responsible for his actions.

Ok, I'll agree that the officers are "responsible" in a non-legal way.

superiors are not responsible for attempting to cover it up?

Of course if that was proven, but that wasn't what we were discussing.

Copwatching taken to a whole other level:
Kop busters with Barry Cooper

This is a great idea. I hope it catches on.

It will be made illegal.

this is awesome. I just bought a digital vid camera so I can be a kopbuster too!

Agree with 1st bolded, case in point + the Ryan Moats incident...

2nd bolded, really? Most? I'm not gonna act like I know you better than you, but are you sure this isn't selective memory?

Obviously anecdotal and based upon a small sample size, but in my experience, I'd agree with his assertion.

I worked for a security department that had very frequent interactions with a number of local police departments and while most of the cops we dealt with were fairly cool with us, they were quite enamored with - and willing to use - the powers delegated them. It was interesting knowing a lot of them on a social level and then watching them perform in their official capacity.

It also appeared that far too many people whose actions actually justified police force/interdiction were treated much too leniently. Meanwhile, most who were treated with perhaps excessive force (not necessarily physical) were not as deserving, IMO, and more often than not were guilty of little more than verbal abuse and/or defiant actions.

It's a shame, really, because a number of the guys in said experiences are actually pretty decent guys when not acting in their official capacity. (Except one dude whom I went to high school with, who is known as the biggest dick of a police officer in the county. It's not surprising to me that he was one of the biggest losers in HS with his only friend being his twin brother.)