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[Bauglir]

You're lucky Vector's not around anymore.

No he's not. He's going to have to make do with the rest of us trying to explain. Besides which we probably shouldn't be relying on the memory of a recently en-sabbatical'd poster to make our points. >___>

Anyway, the short version of is that it isn't actually all that implausible. I could easily see oxycodone (that was a drug they found in her system right?) being used for a date rape, for instance; it's a CNS depressant, and as I can tell you from being on it after a surgery, you lose a lot of drive and tend to be pretty accepting about stuff you don't much like. Maybe that's just my response to it, but it's not exactly implausible that somebody could try to use it as a sedative or something. It's also not exactly rare on the street as far as controlled substances go, and I could further see an unscrupulous dealer (passing over how redundant that sounds) passing it off as some other drug if it could fetch a better price in a given sale.

At any rate, being a suspect excuses nothing the police do, because anybody can be a suspect at any time. Being a suspect is as easy as making somebody suspicious, by definition. And that isn't hard to do! Besides that, what we do or do not know in hindsight is irrelevant because you can't use that information for determining how to treat somebody in the first place.

[SalmonGod]

You're lucky Vector's not around anymore.

No he's not. He's going to have to make do with the rest of us trying to explain. Besides which we probably shouldn't be relying on the memory of a recently en-sabbatical'd poster to make our points. >___>

You're right.  Excuse my laziness.  Getting ready for work at the moment.

I'll just add this, lemon10.  If you want to pull some statistic out of your ass as a proxy for "really really small chance", let's go ahead and see how your idea of statistically unlikely would actually pan out.

157,000,000 women in the U.S. * .0001 = 1,570 victims according to your numbers.  Of course, though I don't have the time to look them up now, I believe the actual numbers on drug-assisted date rape are much higher... hell, I'm pretty sure the numbers on human trafficking of kidnapped sex slaves are much higher, even in the U.S.

[Bauglir]

Oh, man, if he's disputing the plausibility of drug-assisted date rape as a thing that's an even more absurd claim. And it's just one of many possible scenarios for how she could've gotten into the situation without choosing to.

[SalmonGod]

it is an officer's job to put their own safety on the line to protect innocents

To nitpick here, the courts have upheld more than once that the role of the police is to protect society as a whole, not individuals. Likewise, they are allowed to arrest (with a warrant, if required) under probable cause and allowed to stop people under reasonable suspicion. Innocent until proven guilty matters more when it reaches the courts.

Also, I've been thinking about this, and it really makes no sense to me.  How can someone protect society without protecting individual members of society, when society is just a collection of its individual members.  How can someone be presumed innocent until proven guilty by law, if those most directly responsible for putting the law into action are not required to behave as such?  What you are basically claiming is that the entire institution is nothing but a shallow facade of civility (which I actually wouldn't disagree with when stated that way).

[alway]

She wasn't a innocent though, she was a suspect, which is different, and trying to say they are the same thing is just flat wrong.

By that same abortion of reasoning, the officer in the UK who was told to follow a suspicious looking individual, which turned out to be himself, wasn't innocent of wrongdoing. Because magic guilty pixie dust I guess? I dunno.

[kaijyuu]

Excuse me if this has been posted before, but it seems relevant and ya'll have been talking about this one incident for like two weeks.

[Truean]

She wasn't a innocent though, she was a suspect, which is different, and trying to say they are the same thing is just flat wrong.

....
....
....
.... Everyone wonders why I make it a point to say "innocent until proven guilty," and read the statutory definition of "beyond a reasonable doubt" in my court statements....

[SalmonGod]

Excuse me if this has been posted before, but it seems relevant and ya'll have been talking about this one incident for like two weeks.

So that's that.  Any shred of doubt that our struggles against corruption in America would have to turn bloody just vanished.

They're placing the noose around our necks while there's a good-looking PR genius in the white house to do it.  I fully expect the role of the next guy to be tightening it.

[Zangi]

Excuse me if this has been posted before, but it seems relevant and ya'll have been talking about this one incident for like two weeks.

So that's that.  Any shred of doubt that our struggles against corruption in America would have to turn bloody just vanished.

They're placing the noose around our necks while there's a good-looking PR genius in the white house to do it.  I fully expect the role of the next guy to be tightening it.

Aspiring to be Democratically Elected Despotism type of government, where dissent and protest of the gov't is illegal and everything is all right.  ...  We are going to be great friends with China!

[darkflagrance]

Excuse me if this has been posted before, but it seems relevant and ya'll have been talking about this one incident for like two weeks.

So that's that.  Any shred of doubt that our struggles against corruption in America would have to turn bloody just vanished.

They're placing the noose around our necks while there's a good-looking PR genius in the white house to do it.  I fully expect the role of the next guy to be tightening it.

Aspiring to be Democratically Elected Despotism type of government, where dissent and protest of the gov't is illegal and everything is all right.  ...  We are going to be great friends with China!

Our corporations are already trying hard to be friends with them, and those are the only people who really matter to anyone in power anyway.

[Lagslayer]

Excuse me if this has been posted before, but it seems relevant and ya'll have been talking about this one incident for like two weeks.

The article has a supposed link to the actual bill, but it's broken. Here's a working link, if you care to read it for yourself.

[SalmonGod]

The G8 summit has been relocated from Chicago to Camp David.

So protest will not only be illegal.  It'll be basically impossible, at least within any proximity of the event being protested.

I feel like I can't justify raising my kids here anymore.  To put off fleeing the country much longer isn't fair to them.

[MadocComadrin]

it is an officer's job to put their own safety on the line to protect innocents

To nitpick here, the courts have upheld more than once that the role of the police is to protect society as a whole, not individuals. Likewise, they are allowed to arrest (with a warrant, if required) under probable cause and allowed to stop people under reasonable suspicion. Innocent until proven guilty matters more when it reaches the courts.

Also, I've been thinking about this, and it really makes no sense to me.  How can someone protect society without protecting individual members of society, when society is just a collection of its individual members.  How can someone be presumed innocent until proven guilty by law, if those most directly responsible for putting the law into action are not required to behave as such?  What you are basically claiming is that the entire institution is nothing but a shallow facade of civility (which I actually wouldn't disagree with when stated that way).

I think I wasn't specific enough. The police need to protect society as a whole: that does include protecting individuals. It does not mean they must protect every individual with equal or any effort. Answering the second part, as well as the person who said pretty much anyone can be a suspect: a suspect (at least one they're bringing in) is a person who has probably cause established against them. While people can become suspects more easily than they can be convicted in court, the purpose of being a suspect isn't to convict them at arrest: it's to stop potential threats to society.

This is where protecting society as a whole comes in: the best way to do this is to remove suspects from society. Habeas corpus, due process, and right to a speedy trial prevent this from being abused. Note that these are individual rights granted by a "higher government power" to balance out the role of the police, not something the police themselves give. Once a person is out of the hands of police and into the courts, this is where probably cause becomes lacking and we move to guilt beyond a shadow of a doubt.

About the summit moving to Camp David: Camp David has always been used for various things regarding diplomacy. I was in DC during one of the summits (I think it might have been a G20 summit) and it was pretty much a disaster trying to get around in the city. Sometimes more progress can be made when you don't have a city full of people yelling at you.

This also doesn't mean that you can't protest (specific points I hope! Protesting the whole summit would be silly). The world has become a lot smaller in the past 20-30 years. It might be easier and more effective to organize various protests in many major cities than one protests at the site of the event.

[Osmosis Jones]

I feel like I can't justify raising my kids here anymore.  To put off fleeing the country much longer isn't fair to them.

Come to Australia. We have hot weather, cold beer, and our cops don't usually tase fleeing girls. Also our government is too lame-duck to be overly corrupt. We're like, mildly corrupt at best.

[Criptfeind]

Ah hah hah... Is that even a good idea? Until the rest of the world tells the US to fuck off they are just going to follow along like good little subject nations or something and become just as shit filled.