- cross-posted to:
- politics@lemmy.world
- cross-posted to:
- politics@lemmy.world
A police official in Arizona has been placed on administrative leave after showing up armed to a student-led protest and provoking an altercation that led to the arrest of a teenage girl. The officer told fellow police who arrived on the scene that he attended the students’ immigration rights protest with the intent of acting as an agent provocateur, according to a news report.
Dusten Mullen, a sergeant with the Phoenix Police Department, has been suspended with pay pending an internal review of his conduct at a protest at Hamilton High School in Chandler, Arizona, on January 30, according to Phoenix Police Chief Matthew Giordano.
“As law enforcement professionals, we are held to higher standards of conduct — both in and out of uniform,” Giordano said. “When we fall short, we must be accountable, and we will not tolerate actions which undermine the trust the community has placed in the Department.”
Fox 10 Phoenix, the outlet to first identify Mullen, reported that Mullen told Chandler Police Department officers on the scene that he was there in the hopes of getting a rise out of the kids that would then allow the local cops to cuff them.
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Cops in my town arrested parents that were handing out water to the students that walked out.
And I’m proud to be an American where at least I know I’m free…
“with pay”
And an investigation that will do nothing.
Why isnt he arrested?
If he wasnt a cop, he’d be arrested.
And in an ideal world, any crime a cop commits would be an automatic felony for betrayal of the power invested in them and of the public trust.
Sorry. The best they can do is time off with full pay.
Nah cops protect instigators all the time.
cause most the time its cops out of uniform doing the instigating.
I’d challenge the idea that he’d be arrested. White privledge isn’t what it used to be if you’re female, a queer male, or identifiably not a MAGAt, but violent, straight, CIS white men harassing anyone in the outgroups in the name of dear leader often gets “a talking to” at best. I watched our local cops stand shoulder to shoulder with and backs turned to a crowd of armed boogaloos and patched outlaw MC bikers to stare down our much smaller BLM group. When one of their white boys decided to pop a shot into the ground to cause a panic, he was given a pass because “accidental discharge, his safety was off and he was only 16”. Meanwhile the 16yo punk girl who drew a small (A) symbol on the statehouse was a terrorist.
Cops or not, they go out looking to insight this kind of interaction. They drape themselves in body cams or bait it in front of uniformed police so that they can make themselves out to be the victim. So knowing that, either don’t take the bait, or if you do, make them find out what it’s actually like to be a “victim”.
“As law enforcement professionals, we are held to higher standards of conduct — both in and out of uniform,”
Everyone laughed
The higher standard of conduct here being not OPENLY ADMITTING to being agents provocateurs when infiltrating protests to be agent provocateurs.
Which I 100% guarantee is why they are pissed off with him. Cause he undermined their efforts to falsely arrest people now, and in the future, because protestors in that area are now gonna be on much higher alert for infiltrators intent on sowing discord and undermining the cause.
Mullen, who in 2025 drew a salary of $336,518, is suspended with pay and was required to surrender his badge and gun pending the outcome of the investigation, according to a spokesperson for the department.
Fucking hell. These guys are not worth a third of that salary, even when they’re working and not just on vacation as a reward for being extra shitty.
They have to pay them enough to look down on average people.
Yeah but at least we can all sleep comfortably knowing this guy is not collecting as much OT as he regularly would while they determine he did nothing wrong.
suspended with pay
= paid trip to disneyland. They really went hard on him didnt they. Meanwhile, the teenage girl he “provacateured” was arrested because of his actions.
The state wants more like him, so they pay for it. Let it sink in. The state encourages this type of behavior.
Important to note this dude was a fucking sergeant!
He’s one of them “good apples”, he did it off the clock AND he didn’t murder or rape anybody! Not even a choke hold.
EXEMPLARY
As law enforcement professionals, we are held to higher standards of conduct
Bullshit. The officer isn’t dead.
Alex Pretti is.
The dude got a paid vacation as a reward for this stunt…
We try to hold them to higher standards of conduct, and they gripe and rage and abuse and kill us for it. They strongarm our courts and our laws making sure their murderous boys’ club isn’t interfered with.
Suspended with pay. Motherfucker got a paid vacation for this.
ACAB.
Paid vacation when his salary is well over 300k too
300k? Holy CRAP.
$340,000 and he claims to be working 80 hours every week (12 hours a day 7 day a week) yet still has time to go try and fight children on his ‘time off.’
80 hours every week
Its probably 26 hours a week paid at triple time for whatever crooked shenanigans police union BS reason. I bet this hero actually works more like 3 days a week for his 340k/year.
children
Well, they are teenagers or simply highschool students, not children - atleast not this time. Let’s focus on the situation at hand without throwing discriminatory remarks portraying infantilization.
- Edited to add clarity to the relation of the inherent discriminatory nature which this argument is addressing.
A child (pl. children) is a human being between the stages of birth and puberty,[1][2] or between the developmental period of infancy and puberty.[3] The term may also refer to an unborn human being.[4][5] In English-speaking countries, the legal definition of child generally refers to a minor, in this case as a person younger than the local age of majority (there are exceptions such as, for example, the consumption and purchase of alcoholic beverages even after said age of majority[6]), regardless of their physical, mental and sexual development as biological adults.[1][7][8]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child
In law, a minor is someone under a certain age, usually the age of majority, which demarcates an underage individual from legal adulthood. The age of majority depends upon jurisdiction and application, but it is commonly between 18 and 21.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minor_(law)
They were children. There is no need to adultify minors here.
This conclusion doesn’t follow the basic definition:
between the stages of birth and puberty
These where individuals past the pubertal age which is commonly stated as 13.
English-speaking countries, the legal definition of child generally refers to a minor,
Only necessarily this paragraph relates to the scope. But as stated, minor is the word which should technically be used.
In law, a minor is someone under a certain age, usually the age of majority, which demarcates an underage individual from legal adulthood. The age of majority depends upon jurisdiction and application, but it is commonly between 18 and 21.
Isn’t that essentially introducing straw men? The root point of this all was the word child not minor - as this is the correct term as you literally stated here.
They were children. There is no need to adultify minors here.
Your proof doesn’t necessarily state that these where children, rather that they where minors. Also that last sentence is completely out of loop, where did I state that they where adults? If you’re going to throw made up accusations then do it somewhere else.
Chill Matt Gaetz, chill
In what way does this ad hominem have any relation to the inherent ageism and defiance to the definition which I have pointed out?
You can reply to Zombie’s comment. Looking forward to your rebuttal.
SOP. If you’re at a protest and you see some guy in a <Local Sports Team> fitted cap, underarmor, and steel toed boots, you better fucking believe your event is being surveilled and infiltrated.
Don’t forget the telltale sign: an out of place expensive diving watch.
We investigated ourselves and found we did nothing wrong
That’s a union thing. Unions are a good thing, until they decide they need to protect their own over the good of the populace instead of just against capitalism.
Any union that is a involved union busting shouldn’t be a union, end police unions
Fuck the Police.
If they were held to higher standards, he’d be summarily getting life in prison or the death sentence for getting a traffic violation, much less for aggravated assault.
The Police aren’t held to higher standards, what … how can anyone even say that with a straight face?
Fuck off with that insanely obvious bullshit.
Don’t even suffer this kind of insane gaslighting bullshit for a moment.
I think maybe they meant double standards, not higher standards.
double is higher, is twice as much
That’s the ticket
They are held to higher standards, he failed to successfully incite violence. For a cop, that’s unacceptable.
Dude got a paid vacation…
The officer told fellow police who arrived on the scene that he attended the students’ immigration rights protest with the intent of acting as an agent provocateur, according to a news report.
Dusten Mullen, a sergeant with the Phoenix Police Department, has been suspended with pay pending an internal review of his conduct at a protest at Hamilton High School in Chandler, Arizona, on January 30, according to Phoenix Police Chief Matthew Giordano.
So he picked a fight with a teenage girl, she gets arrested and he gets a paid vacation?
He doesn’t get the same charges?!
This is the type of stuff a Union can get you. The Police Unions in the US are the single greatest advertising for unions and collective bargaining on the planet. Everything you can think of to complain about the double standard with police, comes back to union negotiated requirements.
The reasoning behind the whole suspension with pay stuff is essentially to not punish officers who are falsely accused while investigations are under way. Let that sink in for a minute as you think about everyone arrested for a crime and waiting months or years for trials…
Police officers are falsely accused of things all the time. There are also a ton that are correctly accused and end up receiving no punishment. The two are not mutually exclusive.
Police unions are the greatest example of not all unions being created equal.
Unions are supposed to protect workers from capitalism. But the police union has gone past that. How can we support unions in general, yet prevent them from going this route? (Asking seriously)
State employees don’t need a union.
I disagree, because the state is still operating within the bounds of capitalism. In a perfect world, state employees wouldn’t need a union. But for example, teachers are state employees. The meager protections that teachers have can largely be attributed to unions.
The bigger issue is that police largely work as state-sponsored union busters. Any job that involves union busting shouldn’t be allowed to have a union.
Buy guns
As always, ACAB.
Why does it seem that police depts seemingly hire the dumbest fucks?
Because that was always the point.
Blind loyalty to the institution and aptitude for unhinged violence are the only qualifiers.
https://ny.prelawland.com/post/719662253773832192/too-smart-for-the-job-jordan-v-the-city-of-new
Jordan had applied for a job as a police officer in the city of New London, Connecticut. However, he was denied an interview because he scored too high on a written examination.
…
The city had introduced this policy because they felt that those that scored high on this examination were more likely to leave a police officer position sooner. To reduce costs associated with job turnover, training, and hiring, the city created this upper cut-off score. Jordan had scored a 33, which meant he was overqualified for the position.[2] As a result, Jordan argued that this policy was a form of discrimination based on his intellect.
…
The court found that even though there was no strong statistical correlation between high test scores and job dissatisfaction, it was sufficient that the city believed that there was such a correlation based on the material provided by the test maker.
…
The court found that the policy had a rational basis that served the legitimate government purpose of reducing job turnover and associated hiring and training costs.
So quite literally:
Cops don’t hire smart people because they think smart people probably wouldn’t like the job.
AND
Cops are allowed to have internal policies that are found by the court to not actually be rational or backed by any actual empirical data, they simply have to claim that they thought they were rational, and this essentially makes them legally ‘rational’.
This is essentially a legal carve out for corruption and abuse of power, that is routinely exploited by police departments, to hire outside contractors and consultants to come up with dubious and nonsensical policies and training and such for them… there functionally is no mechanism for scrutinizing this, unless they’re just literally doing financial fraud or money laundering.
Like half the country still uses polygraphs, even though there is an entire body of scientific knowledge that shows them to be approximately as legitimate and effectacious as chiropracty.
See also all the spying devices and malware they use, that they certainly do not technically understand, and routinely employ and very often either don’t even bother to legally justify, and very often make dubious legal arguments as to their validity.
Cops extremely literally exist in an extremely entitled and defferential legal status than every one else, our legal system is built upon deepthroating the boot.
Because theyre built to attract bullies?
Because they do higher the dumbest fucks.
Smart people tend to realize corruption is bad.
hire
As always, ACAB.
No…
This is literally an example that some actually give a fuck:
Fox 10 Phoenix, the outlet to first identify Mullen, reported that Mullen told Chandler Police Department officers on the scene that he was there in the hopes of getting a rise out of the kids that would then allow the local cops to cuff them.
“My plan is legitimately to just let them all assault me and you guys arrest them all and I’ll keep it on film,” Mullen said, according to a police report obtained by the local TV news site. “I also have other people filming from a distance.”
The department didn’t release it, but the cop who included that in their report 100% put their career if not life on the line to put that in their report and likely was pressured not to mention any of it.
The cops didn’t release it, but that one cop putting it in a report is why it was there when journalists request the records.
It’s wild so many people don’t understand that immediately…
Like, can anyone explain how they thought this got in a police report if all cops supported this shit?
They suspended him with pay. You are wrong in your assessment. ACAB. All the time. The quote from the pd is just marketing.
Not only did they suspend him with pay, but he succeeded in doing what he set out to do, which was get a rise out of someone to give his fellow bastards an excuse to arrest them. The article states that his encounter led to an altercation resulting in a teenage girl being arrested.
How many good cops does it take to change a light bulb? 💡
spoiler
I’ll let you know when a good cop changes anything.
You’re right, a cop writing a report that includes some evidence of bad faith behaviors from other cops proves it! Remember what they say, One bad apple is bad but the rest are probably totally fine!
How do you think things would work out of good people gave up on any system and never tried to fix it from within?
Like, it seems painfully obvious…
But “give up and don’t try” rarely gets the result we want. The fastest way to fix policing is for good people to become cops.
Acting like one cop not burying evidence of blatant corruption means we should give cops a chance is hilarious.
Did you not notice how the cops didn’t follow this guy’s plan?
Like, they didn’t go along with it then document. They didn’t do it, and then still documented that’s what he was trying to…
What more did you want the responding cops to do in this scenario?
They arrested a teenager, they did follow this guy’s plan. No one, including the guy that reported it, prevented the teenager from getting arrested.
They arrested a teenager,
…
“My plan is legitimately to just let them all assault me and you guys arrest them all and I’ll keep it on film,” Mullen said, according to a police report obtained by the local TV news site. “I also have other people filming from a distance.”
Is the problem arthimitic or critical thinking?
How about not give the guy who did it a paid vacation?
Pending an investigation where another cop has already documented his behavior and zero cops took part in his plan…
Like, he should absolutely be held without bail.
But are you seriously arguing being charged with a crime should result in immediate termination?
Are you aware that if found guilty that pay is almost always recouped?
Like…
That’s how it should work.
I get being mad at cops in general, but this is legit a one in a million case where shit is happening exactly as it should. If you just want to blindless cir lejerk about how cops are pieces of shit as demographic, there’s plenty of places where the article isn’t about one single piece of shit and literally every other cop seemingly doing what they should.
Don’t just blindly rage about shit, if you do you’re fall for a charismatic twitch streamer who just wants eyeballs and views.
If you’re mad (and we should all be) at least be productive
That’s not on the cops who actually called it out though. That’s on their higher ups and the police union.
They stop being good people once they become a cop.
Doing his job reporting a crime that points at profound corruption is the bare minimum and doesn’t disprove ACAB.
If they were all bastards, why did none of them go along with the plan?
Like. 99% are bastards sure, but this is a rare case of some cops doing the right thing.
People not being able to understand that is very very concerning.
ACAB is pithy and simple. It’s the kind of messaging that appeals to base instinct. The kind of messaging the right does well and the left always laments we don’t do. Except the left is the party of thoughtful nuance and not mindless outage. That simplistic messaging doesn’t work because life isn’t simple no matter how comforting it is to imagine so.
Like, can anyone explain how they thought this got in a police report if all cops supported this shit?
Very possible that they just filed it all on reflex because nobody really thought hard about what they were putting in the record. Cops are both evil and stupid. Sometimes they just do stupid shit, thinking they’ll never get caught.
That said, maybe someone actually did the right thing here. And maybe that’s why it is a news article getting passed around the back alleys of social media, rather than a conspiracy theory whispered at DSA meet ups.
Ofc it’s not all cops, the same as not all men are rapists or paedophiles. But it’s enough cops and enough men that it is a massive issue.
Ofc it’s not all cops
What do you think “ACAB” means?
Jfc. C’mon now. Use that brain of yours.
There were no good slave catchers. There are no good cops. I understand you have faith in people, but do not apply it to an institution, an institution that exists to oppress you. Anyone who becomes a police officer, regardless of their moral intentions, serves the interests of the ruling class.
Literally the only way I can find out what you think it means, is by asking you…
It means:
All Cops Are Bastards
I just want to know what you think it means since you immediately followed that with:
Ofc it’s not all cops
Because they do. They don’t want ”smart” people because they will get “bored” with the job.
When in truth they don’t want “smart” people because they will actually do the job police are supposed to do instead of keeping minorities and poors down.
givesomefucks is a pure troll. He always takes outlandish takes on all kinds of threads and gets downvoted severely all over the site. It seems to be how he gets his rocks off. He is clearly not really here to talk about the issues themselves. If we had a cumulative downvote number on lemmy I’m sure it’d show this.
ACAB
suspended with pay
So a vacation then?
