this post was submitted on 17 Sep 2024
463 points (99.2% liked)

News

23296 readers
3925 users here now

Welcome to the News community!

Rules:

1. Be civil


Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban. Do not respond to rule-breaking content; report it and move on.


2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.


Obvious right or left wing sources will be removed at the mods discretion. We have an actively updated blocklist, which you can see here: https://lemmy.world/post/2246130 if you feel like any website is missing, contact the mods. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted seperately but not to the post body.


3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.


Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.


4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source.


Posts which titles don’t match the source won’t be removed, but the autoMod will notify you, and if your title misrepresents the original article, the post will be deleted. If the site changed their headline, the bot might still contact you, just ignore it, we won’t delete your post.


5. Only recent news is allowed.


Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.


6. All posts must be news articles.


No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials or celebrity gossip is allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis.


7. No duplicate posts.


If a source you used was already posted by someone else, the autoMod will leave a message. Please remove your post if the autoMod is correct. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.


8. Misinformation is prohibited.


Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.


9. No link shorteners.


The auto mod will contact you if a link shortener is detected, please delete your post if they are right.


10. Don't copy entire article in your post body


For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 

New York City on Tuesday reached a $175,000 settlement with a Staten Island police officer who said he had been a victim of retaliation for giving traffic tickets to people with connections to the upper echelons of the Police Department.

The officer, Mathew Bianchi, filed a lawsuit against the city last May. The suit said that he had been transferred out of his precinct’s traffic unit after Jeffrey Maddrey, then the chief of patrol and now the department’s highest-ranking uniformed officer, asked that he be punished. Officer Bianchi had issued a ticket to a woman with whom Chief Maddrey was said to be friends, according to the suit.

“This settlement is a vindication for our client, allowing him to close this chapter and continue his service with the N.Y.P.D.,” John Scola, Officer Bianchi’s lawyer, said on Tuesday. “We hope that Officer Bianchi’s courage and this decisive outcome will inspire other officers to come forward as whistle-blowers.”

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] anon6789@lemmy.world 18 points 2 months ago (2 children)

I've got a healthy skepticism of authority as much as the next Lemming, which is why I went and saw what info was out there about this. It was easy to find, and it seems to show this guy was retaliated against for doing what was morally right, there doesn't seem to be much denying that. Are we here to role play as wanting social justice, or are we here to support the people doing it? This guy did the literal thing all the top posts here every day say needs to be done: he used his power for good to hold accountable those who were not.

While he may not be Serpico, he's someone we should all be commending in this particular case. We have facts that on multiple occasions he did good for the city at risk to his personal life and career. If someone wants to lump him in with the ones that are corrupt and murderous or look the other way at things like this, they're the asshole. If we don't support this guy, why would we execpt anyone else to follow his lead?

[–] CileTheSane@lemmy.ca 8 points 2 months ago (1 children)

And he's no longer a cop precisely because he was trying to do the morally right thing, that's why ACAB. Anyone not a bastard gets punished for it until they aren't a cop anymore.

[–] anon6789@lemmy.world 7 points 2 months ago (2 children)

Bianchi said he plans to stay at the NYPD for the foreseeable future, although he plans to use his upcoming windfall to reduce his reliance on the paycheck he gets from the city. He said he hopes that his lawsuit — and his payout — encourage other would-be whistleblowers to speak up about corruption, even if there is a cost.

No, he is still a cop and wants to use the money to keep doing what he's been doing and trying to encourage others.

[–] prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone 8 points 2 months ago

We'll see how long this lasts when they start harassing his family.

[–] CileTheSane@lemmy.ca 5 points 2 months ago

Good for him, I hope he posts on social media every day that he is not suicidal and keeps clear of "friendly fire".

[–] kent_eh@lemmy.ca 4 points 2 months ago (1 children)

We have facts that on multiple occasions he did good for the city at risk to his personal life and career. If someone wants to lump him in with the ones that are corrupt and murderous or look the other way at things like this, they're the asshole. If we don't support this guy, why would we execpt anyone else to follow his lead?

Thank you.

I'm glad to see that there are still people who can think beyond a absolutes and binary situations.

[–] anon6789@lemmy.world 3 points 2 months ago

I've had many interactions of all types with police, some good, some bad, and some really bad.

The ones that dealt with my gf's mental health emergency could have really nailed her on a ton of charges, but they seemed to understand better than the rest of us at first that this was mental and not criminal. I don't even know if she got any fines. They worked with the judge after seeing she got professional help and she got her record sealed and now she is doing amazingly well, and though very dramatic, it was probably the best thing that ever happened to her in the long run because she got help.

I do still feel bad for the one civilian she attacked in addition to the cops, because he was absolutely not happy she was essentially set free. It's not something he deserved to have gone through, and I don't expect him to feel better because a stranger was dealing with an untreated disorder. But now she is helping people in a medical job instead of being unable to get any job from having a violent assault record.

A friend's brother was a cop and killed someone who absolutely should not have been shot. The person shot was also going through some mental health thing, so that is really scary that it could have happened to my girlfriend. No charges were brought against him, and he's still with the same department over a decade later. I don't think he's a bad person. I do think he should have faced punishment, and he panicked under pressure and killed someone, so I definitely don't feel he should be a cop.

The only cop that was ever purposefully mean to me ended up getting hit by a drunk driver and hospitalized, and then they caught him with...illegal porn...and I was not unhappy either day those events occurred. I hope he got everything coming to him.

I briefly had another job that had me in regular contact with about a dozen or so police, and while they all seemed nice enough, the ones with personal vehicles with punisher skulls and all that didn't thrill me.

I guess I think there are a lot of systemic problems with American policing, much like this article addresses, on up to police being able to investigate their own crimes, and I think that attracts a disproportionate number of people that will take advantage of that.

But I wouldn't blindly hate anyone for being a cop any more than I'd think every priest, scoutmaster, or whatever was a bad person just because of their job. But if you're in a position of power, and you violate that, I think punishment should be harder and swifter than if it were your standard person. There is just such an increased ability to perpetrate crimes and cover them up, that we need to take away those incentives, not double down on them.