Cops: he was quiet, kept to himself, no one would’ve suspected him
16 year old girl who lived 4 doors down the road: he was creepy as shit, my dog hated him, my little brother cried when he walked past the house and when I was 14 he sniffed me as I walked past him, we all knew he was a freak but we had no set proof so the cops didn’t do shit
Yo, can we acknowledge that that last reblog is…. crazy??? like we see how that’s crazy, right? “We had no set proof so the cops didn’t do shit” is a GOOD thing. We want that to happen. That is the system working the way it is supposed to. Cops doing shit without proof is part of the whole problem.
Someone “being creepy” is not a reason to suspect them of a crime or demand that the cops “do something” about them. Please consider how easily “Creepy = Suspicious, Probable Criminal” could be weaponized against marginalized people of all stripes, from POC to the elderly to the disabled to the neurodivergent. Imagine a Karen calling the cops on her queer neighbors because they’re “creepy”, or on her autistic neighbor because they’re “creepy”, or on her Muslim neighbors because they’re “creepy”. Are we seeing the problem here????
ACAB, guys. Given the choice between two extremes, I would much have incompetent cops who don’t do shit rather than incompetent cops who throw their weight around overenthusiastically and do too much shit for no reason and without proof or probable cause.
Suddenly remembering when all the true crime people on tiktok made it their mission to ruin the life of this cross dresser who liked to dance for tiktok shorts on breaks while fixing up the fixer house they bought as a dream home for their family.
People decided the setting, and the power tools juxtaposed to the dancing and lingerie… Was creepy. Tracked down this person’s IRL identity, place of employment, the place where their children went to school. With no evidence but self obsessed gut feeling, made hundreds of complaints to police, CPS, their employer, the school district.
I don’t know how it all ended, but last I saw a window of self expression had become a waking nightmare for them and their family.
We already see this in action.
Look at how many white women call the cops on Black men, including their own neighbors, for “making them nervous.” I actually read about one, the gentleman was a fucking PASTOR and the cops arrested him because they asked for ID and he was like “….I’m mowing MY LAWN, I don’t have my ID.”
Like. Setting aside the racial component here for just a second because I want to put this in the context of “calling the cops on someone who gives you the ick.”
He was arrested 1) in front of his own home 2) doing a noisy, diametric-opposite-of-what-any-ill-actor-would-do chore 3) because he assumed he didn’t need his ID in his own yard. Because he “made someone nervous.”
Is that REALLY the criteria you want to give the cops authority to legally punish?
This. Look I love Procedural cop tv shows because it gives a fantasy that (and there are) more fundamentally Good Cops that do things for Moral Right Reasons to Protect people because we live in their HEADS.
But I know every time they get frustrated with a suspect in the shows due to Legal Reasons, I am NOT frustrated with them because it illustrates to me that their system is actually Working.
-and people tend to ignore when those cops and those witnesses are WRONG. Like Dead Ass Wrong-
there’s a real actually incident of ‘Being Fucking Wrong’ ep in either Forensic Files or Cold Case or New Detectives where this dude was accused of a crime he did NOT commit and it was down to DNA saying he did.
Except: He was Never There.
And: It turned out he was Actually NEVER THERE because the crazy thing that happened was the Victim and this guy BOTH had been in the SAME Paramedic Truck!
They didn’t clean out the monitor that they put on your finger. So that’s how HIS (the guy that didn’t fucking DO IT) DNA turned up under the Victim’s fingernails.
Other factors?
He was homeless (the guy accused)
He was black
He was a drunk. (So he couldn’t even REMEMBER that day correctly and had started questioning if he even DID IT.)
And again, if people paid fucking Attention To The Actual content instead of the Salacious bits-
They’d know that even in the Shows and even in the Actual Documentaries of True- Crime:
Witnesses Are Wrong LOT of The Time. (Memory and feelings are not a Truth Test. They’re just signals that *might* be right but they are not actually *right*. As noted: People do not have a perfect memory and in fact get it wrong ALL the time! )
This is WHY we need PROOF.
Most of all that (the True Crime stuff (I was already watching it way before the surge in popularity) the cop shows) Are A: Scripted and B: A good chunk of the time, we’re getting POST action interviews.
Nothing in any of it is candid except court room stuff that is always being recorded anyway.
Everything else? Not so much.
So yes, they NEED PROOF.
We Require and should require PROOF or they put people away for decades on Bullshit
Which Has HAPPENED MORE than you like to think.
All because “Well I guess they fit, and they’re weird, we got barely anything but we gotta tie this up neatly”
and that’s how Innocence Project exists.
so yeah no
They need a shit ton of proof and I’m glad they’re required and have to have proof because lemme say- you’re closer to being in jail than you think over one misstep and it doesn’t even have to be you that fucks up.
amhrancas 