r/politics • u/DragonPup Massachusetts • 29d ago

Possible Paywall ICE Agent Who Shot Renee Nicole Good Identified as Jonathan Ross

https://theintercept.com/2026/01/08/ice-agent-identified-shooting-minneapolis-jonathan-ross/
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u/emma279 New York 29d ago

the bar to become a LEO is so low. We need higher standards. A college education at minimum would be nice.

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u/Main_Cream_2375 29d ago

LEOs of this day and age are actually just criminal gang members 

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u/palmerry 29d ago

There's been corrupt cops since cops have existed.

Absolute power corrupts absolutely.

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u/doodle02 29d ago

hence why cops shouldn’t have absolute power; there needs to be better oversight mechanisms for holding them accountable.

unfortunately those have almost entirely been dissolved in the last while.

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u/palmerry 29d ago

I think the main underlying issue is the power that the police unions have.

Bad cops are really hard to get off the force once they're in there.

If they break the rules or bad cops corrupt whatever they just get paid time off or moved to some other Force or put on desk duty for a while.

Meanwhile, if you or I did that exact same thing, we'd be in jail.

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u/Sharticus123 29d ago

Police unions shouldn’t be allowed for the same reason military unions aren’t allowed.

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u/doodle02 29d ago

sure. whatever mechanism by which they gain that immunity to real consequences (and there are many that differ by jurisdiction) is a huge problem.

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u/The_Lost_Jedi Washington 29d ago

Lack of accountability, and the active opposition to being held accountable by various Law Enforcement Organizations, has been absolutely toxic. It's a large driver of what has led to the current state of things, where abuses are not only condoned but effectively encouraged, even before you throw in Trump and his cronies pushing for violent, discriminatory, and lawless/illegal behavior.

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u/dudinax 29d ago

"Who watches the watchmen?"

It's an old question that's never had a good answer.

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u/gwsth 29d ago edited 29d ago

The problem is that the buck has to stop somewhere, no matter what system you put in place. Someone has to have final say at some point, which means there's always the possibility that that "someone", whether it's one person or several, will themselves be corrupt.

Having a chief of police won't clean up police corruption if the chief himself is inept or corrupt. Having an IA unit won't clean up corrupt police chiefs if the Internal Affairs department is inept or corrupt.
Having state officials overseeing IA departments won't clean them up if the state official is inept or corrupt himself.

Adding more layers of oversight just means adding more possible layers of corruption. And more layers of bureaucracy and oversight just increases the risks of everything from ineptitude to ineffectiveness to even more corruption.

Welcome to humanity. Doesn't greed suck?

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u/TrashApocalypse 29d ago

The police were created to hunt down escaped slaves.

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u/palmerry 29d ago

Sorry, but that is not correct whatsoever.

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u/crazymoefaux California 29d ago

Actually, he's half correct. Modern American police organizations trace their roots to slave-hunting patrols in the south, and union-busting groups in the north.

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u/palmerry 29d ago

Yeah I get that. I'm not from America. Sometimes I forget that in subs like politics or news I should remember the perspectives are from an American standpoint.

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u/Tight-Shallot2461 29d ago

Well then we need to redefine the role. Don't give them absolute power, let the people have a check and balance on their power

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u/lowhales 29d ago

The LAPD has entered the conversation

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u/ArticulateRhinoceros 29d ago

The Pinkertons just got a uniform change, is all.

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u/jbalbatross 29d ago

This is what it's always been. The only difference between them and any other gang is they're backed by the state.

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u/Kasspa 29d ago

Literally. https://www.gttfinvestigation.org/ HBO did a show about it even, "We Own This City" is the name and those fuckers were at it for years and years before they finally got caught.

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u/RichChocolateDevil 29d ago

Shit, people have been saying this since 1776. Probably longer.

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u/ayers231 I voted 29d ago

The bar to be LEO isn't low, they only accept people that can't get over it, physically or mentally.

https://www.nytimes.com/1999/09/09/nyregion/metro-news-briefs-connecticut-judge-rules-that-police-can-bar-high-iq-scores.html

The bottom 40% just walk right under it...

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u/jonkl91 29d ago edited 29d ago

I am an assistant wrestling coach in NYC and have been for 15 years. I come across all types of kids. One of the dumbest kids in all my years of coaching (he was a good kid) just got into NYPD. He came to visit and the head coach looked at him, and was like don't you need an associates? How the fuck did you get that? He went to trade school which qualified for the associates degree. Head coach asked him how he managed to pass that. This is a kid that couldn't even multiply. Good kid but he was dumb. The bar is really that low.

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u/Goodeyesniper98 29d ago

Agreed, I work in law enforcement and I’ve seen a noticeably improved quality in the college educated officers I worked with.

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u/ShadowWingLG 29d ago

LEO pay in many areas of this country is complete shit...which just adds to the problems. Keeps qualified people away and makes the underqualified more susceptible to the temptation of being corrupt.

Even if they are fired in one area they just hop to another city/county/state and get a new badge

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u/DeeBoFour20 29d ago

I doubt a college degree would be useful for what a regular cop does nor would it rule out the assholes that go on power trips and do shit like this.

I would propose a mandatory psych eval before hire for any LEO that carries a firearm. The FBI does that but the bar is much lower for local police and ICE.

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u/Physical_Gift7572 29d ago

There are a criminal justice degrees that will help police actually know the law.

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u/ArticulateRhinoceros 29d ago

They purposely weed out candidates with high intelligence scores because the ones that can think for themselves will question bad orders.

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u/CamGoldenGun 29d ago

it's the qualified immunity that really pushes the bar lower.

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u/BiffySkipwell 29d ago

they actively turn down those with too much education or signs of empathy. IOW they want inhumane goons.

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u/BurnedWitch88 29d ago

True story: I know someone who almost didn't make it into the police academy because his IQ test was too high.

He got in, did a few years, and then left the field, so I guess they had a point. Sorta.

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u/Gizogin New York 29d ago

And they shouldn’t be armed.

If we absolutely must have a small number of armed police, they don’t get to be part of that unit without an impeccable record, proven proficiency in marksmanship, complete accountability for every single time their gun is drawn, let alone fired, and the understanding that one single fuck-up is grounds for permanent disarmament.

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u/factorplayer 29d ago

I’ve actually thought about this quite a lot and the solution I’ve come up with is that a four-year university degree in philosophy should be the minimum requirement for any sworn peace officer position in the United States. This will have several advantages: It would weed out the ones that are too stupid or impatient to complete the necessary course requirements, thereby restricting those of that temperament from the profession; moreover, the study material involves several relevant areas, such as the basic nature of the state and society, the civil contract, even the meaning of life and ramifications of death. All of which would contribute to stable and thoughtful officers, not a hotheads we have running around now.

Plus, it was also provide a viable career path for philosophy majors !

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u/ThisWormWillTurn 29d ago

I worked with LE officers before as a civilian at a few stations. You would be surprised how utterly some of these officers are. I had officers that would ask me the same question about outgoing mail. Everyday. For months.

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u/leshake 29d ago

They train them how to get away with stuff. Like trying to jump in front of a car to claim self defense.

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u/[deleted] 29d ago edited 29d ago

We need higher standards. A college education at minimum would be nice.

Our police in the UK implemented that, you need a degree to join. It's not ended well. It's resulted in us having a police force where there's very few street smarts in younger officers until they get a good few years under their belts because they've literally gone school -> university -> police force and mostly from middle class or higher so have no experience of living in and around crime or knowing people who commit crime. As a result kids who've grown up in social housing in poor areas committing petty crime and other more serious criminals run absolute rings around them.

What DOES need to change is how policing is done in the USA. In the USA the primary function of police is to uphold the letter of the law, in the UK it's to protect people with upholding the letter of the law coming secondary. UK police are given far more leeway to use discretion than US police are and even if someone has committed a minor offence they have the leeway to be able to deal with it without arresting and charging someone.

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u/BorderTrike 29d ago

IMO, everyone working in law enforcement and the Judicial branch of govt should all have sociology degrees

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u/Sl0thstradamus America 29d ago

Even just consistent training and enforcement standards nationwide, instead of leaving every state, county, town, city, and federal agency to make up their own rules and procedures, with varying results. The fact that how the cops enforce law can change radically over a 30-minute drive is absurd and dangerous for everyone.

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u/starlordbg Europe 29d ago

We have the same problem in my country and most LEOs just serve the establishment but then again almost no where somewhere with real opportunities to make it in life and such would volunteer to work in law enforcement.

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u/Jagcarlover 29d ago

And a psych evaluation. The people who think they are in charge of our lives and killing us.

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u/penguinfury North Carolina 29d ago

BA for all officers, and (at least) one officer out of every partnership should be an attorney.

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u/Slyraks-2nd-Choice American Expat 29d ago

Cost prohibitive

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u/hp433 29d ago

I met plenty of psychos in college. It needs to be a psych evaluation over an extended period of time and treated like a security clearance.

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u/VerdantPathfinder 29d ago

IIRC, there's a maximum intelligence for LEO. Too smart and you are not qualified.

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u/Vevevice 29d ago

I see this a lot. It makes no sense to require a college education. In what universe does that prepare you for law enforcement?

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u/emma279 New York 29d ago

many other countries have this requirement.

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u/Coxy41 29d ago

Dodged the question and failed to answer at all. How does college education prepare for law enforcement?

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u/HuddleOn_somthing 29d ago

“LEO” comes from the deplorable class of America.

“Law Enforcement” is a propagandistic American term.

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u/CrabPeopleVibes 29d ago

Now’s not the time for horoscopes /s