587

Disgraced Massachusetts cop Matthew Farwell, 38, strangled Sandra Birchmore, 23, in 2021 after she revealed she was pregnant with his child, prosecutors alleged Wednesday.

Farwell is accused of having a years-long sexual relationship with Birchmore, beginning when she was 15 and he was 27, the US Attorney’s Office said.

top 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[-] ByteOnBikes@slrpnk.net 131 points 3 months ago
[-] arin@lemmy.world 99 points 3 months ago

It's always inappropriate relationship when facist adults in.positions of power are raping children.

[-] occhionaut@lemmy.world 31 points 3 months ago

so fucking infuriating

[-] CarbonatedPastaSauce@lemmy.world 57 points 3 months ago

It's not an "inappropriate relationship", they raped her.

[-] ChicoSuave@lemmy.world 35 points 3 months ago

He's the oldest 35 years old I've ever seen

[-] Damage@feddit.it 19 points 3 months ago

when she was 15 and he was 27

In the picture she's 13, so he must be 25?

[-] HonoraryMancunian@lemmy.world 13 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

That's another person. 2 cops were involved

Edit: oh apparently 3. Great

[-] Kalysta@lemm.ee 11 points 3 months ago

Yeah 3. His twin brother was also raping the girl

[-] Linkerbaan@lemmy.world 15 points 3 months ago

This photo makes it so much worse

[-] bigFab@lemmy.world 9 points 3 months ago

Can't be too harsh on cops. We don't want them against the government...

[-] octopus_ink@lemmy.ml 108 points 3 months ago

It gets worse.

On April 1, 2022, Farwell resigned from the force after he had been on paid administrative leave for weeks, the Boston Globe reported.

Days later, his twin brother William Farwell, who also met Birchmore through the program, and another police officer Robert Devine, who was an instructor when Birchmore was enrolled, were both put on administrative leave.

In September 2022, the chief of the Stoughton Police Department revealed all three of the officers had been fired for having “inappropriate” relationships with Birchmore.

[-] rottingleaf@lemmy.world 8 points 3 months ago
[-] Yawweee877h444@lemmy.world 76 points 3 months ago

There needs to be waaaaaaay stricter and harsher punishments for crooked cops.

[-] APassenger@lemmy.world 34 points 3 months ago

At a minimum they should be held to the ones we already have. That would be a start.

[-] rottingleaf@lemmy.world 4 points 3 months ago

Yep, like a couple of life sentences by these alone. Should frankly be enough.

[-] Thcdenton@lemmy.world 29 points 3 months ago
[-] Fedizen@lemmy.world 18 points 3 months ago

Fun Fact: Iron maidens were invented in the 19th century.

[-] rottingleaf@lemmy.world 6 points 3 months ago

Also the whole aesthetic of the romantic medieval (think Central European propaganda posters in the first half of the XX century, or Dumas' interpretation of Robin Hood) and of the gothic (as in dark fantasy stylistic, that one especially popular in the 90s, black metal, TES: Daggerfall, and so on) medieval.

[-] pyre@lemmy.world 57 points 3 months ago

guys I'm starting to think that cops may not be the best people

[-] chemicalprophet@lemm.ee 6 points 3 months ago

I noticed long ago they are starkly lacking in qualities I require to label something ‘a person’.

[-] Odd_so_Star_so_Odd@lemmy.world 2 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

They're only as good as their training, which is laughable if you look it up, while the profession do tend to attract these types...

[-] A_Random_Idiot@lemmy.world 5 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

Remember, police have advocated and fought for the right to hire not the qualified, educated applicants.

cause qualified and educated means they are more threat to the police and the institutional corruption within, than some high school bully type who would gladly partake.

[-] BetaBlake@lemmy.world 54 points 3 months ago

It's always the ones you most suspect

[-] BonesOfTheMoon@lemmy.world 47 points 3 months ago

The moral of the story is, don't let your children anywhere near cops. Holy fuck.

[-] rottingleaf@lemmy.world 13 points 3 months ago

Where I live everybody knows this. Admittedly it's Russia, but from your news I'm starting to think that maybe ours are not that much worse than yours.

[-] Facebones@reddthat.com 7 points 3 months ago

One of our two parties pretty much openly idolizes Putin, so dont worry We're catching up.

[-] rottingleaf@lemmy.world 5 points 3 months ago

Before 2016 I frankly suspected the other one of that, but yes.

Funny, I remember in year 2012 as a teenager thinking that the West is so fscking impenetrable to directed political corruption from ex-USSR with the accompanying views on morality, then started realizing it just took ~20 years to take visible effect.

[-] explodicle@sh.itjust.works 5 points 3 months ago

I'm finding this to be very tricky in practice. Cops are everywhere, copaganda is everywhere, and kids have trouble understanding situations in which everyone else is crazy and stupid.

I've been telling them to avoid the police, that police are liars and not their friends. But also, don't get into fights with your friends at school whose dads might be bastards. And if it ever gets to school administration, the school admins will look for every excuse to take my kids away, because I must be a criminal.

They're already exposed by not pledging allegiance to the flag, too.

And this is in a very liberal part of the country. If you guys know somewhere - anywhere - where people are sane, please let me know.

[-] lordkuri@lemmy.world 37 points 3 months ago
load more comments (6 replies)
[-] thisbenzingring 31 points 3 months ago

She is a girl anyone in America could know. She looks like my niece. This makes me so angry.

[-] ben_dover@lemmy.ml 27 points 3 months ago

American cops are really the lowest from of life

[-] chemicalprophet@lemm.ee 2 points 3 months ago
[-] Angry_Autist@lemmy.world 19 points 3 months ago

If anyone other than a pig or a politician had done this, it would be all over every news source.

And I bet he got less consequences than some DUI violators.

[-] Wispy2891@lemmy.world 19 points 3 months ago

I'm conflicted if it's better to read this with the giant ad collapsed, but that would show another video ad that covers the text, or let the giant ad take 70% of the screen

giant ad collapsed

giant ad as default

[-] RunawayFixer@lemmy.world 14 points 3 months ago

After hiding behind an adblocker for years, it's easy to forget what a hellscape a lot of the internet is. Thanks for the reminder.

For surfing and opening links, I use Firefox + ublock origin + noscript on my pc & android devices. I still use chrome for logging into services because more and more sites depend on popups and scripts for no good reason. It works pretty well most of the time.

[-] Wogi@lemmy.world 9 points 3 months ago

Ad agencies: why do you hate us we provide a valuable and necessary service and fund all of your favorite free things!

The ads: Po[GIANT FUCKING AD]lic[UNSTOPPABLE VIDEO AD]e det[FUCK YOU HERE'S AN AD FOR TINY COCK PILLS]ecti[YOU WANNA SEE BOOBIES AT WORK HERE'S AN AD]ve found[DON'T FORGET ABOUT THE VIDEO IT SCROLLS WITH YOU MOTHERFUCKER]

[-] MonkderVierte@lemmy.ml 9 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

Mull with uBlock Origin and third-party frames+scripts blocked.

[-] MonkderVierte@lemmy.ml 2 points 3 months ago

Edit: my bad, that was with my normalize userstyle. Original looks like this:

[-] Coach@lemmy.world 6 points 3 months ago

My brother in Christ, use AdGuard or something. That screenshot hurts my soul.

[-] dch82@lemmy.zip 5 points 3 months ago

What the actual hell!? The internet looks like this these days!?

(I use an adblocker so I don't see this crap)

[-] Cornflake_Dog@lemmy.wtf 5 points 3 months ago

If you disable javascript, you'll have no problems. The ads won't have any scripts to load from and you'll easily be able to read all the text.

[-] VeganCheesecake@lemmy.blahaj.zone 5 points 3 months ago

A screenshot of the article linked in the post, with no ads being shown around it

With no ads, the site doesn't look too bad, to be honest.

[-] raptore39@lemm.ee 3 points 3 months ago

I use an ad blocking DNS (nextdns.io)

[-] ivanafterall@lemmy.world 10 points 3 months ago
this post was submitted on 31 Aug 2024
587 points (98.5% liked)

THE POLICE PROBLEM

2552 readers
31 users here now

    The police problem is that police are policed by the police. Cops are accountable only to other cops, which is no accountability at all.

    99.9999% of police brutality, corruption, and misconduct is never investigated, never punished, never makes the news, so it's not on this page.

    When cops are caught breaking the law, they're investigated by other cops. Details are kept quiet, the officers' names are withheld from public knowledge, and what info is eventually released is only what police choose to release — often nothing at all.

    When police are fired — which is all too rare — they leave with 'law enforcement experience' and can easily find work in another police department nearby. It's called "Wandering Cops."

    When police testify under oath, they lie so frequently that cops themselves have a joking term for it: "testilying." Yet it's almost unheard of for police to be punished or prosecuted for perjury.

    Cops can and do get away with lawlessness, because cops protect other cops. If they don't, they aren't cops for long.

    The legal doctrine of "qualified immunity" renders police officers invulnerable to lawsuits for almost anything they do. In practice, getting past 'qualified immunity' is so unlikely, it makes headlines when it happens.

    All this is a path to a police state.

    In a free society, police must always be under serious and skeptical public oversight, with non-cops and non-cronies in charge, issuing genuine punishment when warranted.

    Police who break the law must be prosecuted like anyone else, promptly fired if guilty, and barred from ever working in law-enforcement again.

    That's the solution.

♦ ♦ ♦

Our definition of ‘cops’ is broad, and includes prison guards, probation officers, shitty DAs and judges, etc — anyone who has the authority to fuck over people’s lives, with minimal or no oversight.

♦ ♦ ♦

RULES

Real-life decorum is expected. Please don't say things only a child or a jackass would say in person.

If you're here to support the police, you're trolling. Please exercise your right to remain silent.

Saying ~~cops~~ ANYONE should be killed lowers the IQ in any conversation. They're about killing people; we're not.

Please don't dox or post calls for harassment, vigilantism, tar & feather attacks, etc.

Please also abide by the instance rules.

It you've been banned but don't know why, check the moderator's log. If you feel you didn't deserve it, hey, I'm new at this and maybe you're right. Send a cordial PM, for a second chance.

♦ ♦ ♦

ALLIES

!abolition@slrpnk.net

!acab@lemmygrad.ml

r/ACAB

r/BadCopNoDonut/

Randy Balko

The Civil Rights Lawyer

The Honest Courtesan

Identity Project

MirandaWarning.org

♦ ♦ ♦

INFO

A demonstrator's guide to understanding riot munitions

Adultification

Cops aren't supposed to be smart

Don't talk to the police.

Killings by law enforcement in Canada

Killings by law enforcement in the United Kingdom

Killings by law enforcement in the United States

Know your rights: Filming the police

Three words. 70 cases. The tragic history of 'I can’t breathe' (as of 2020)

Police aren't primarily about helping you or solving crimes.

Police lie under oath, a lot

Police spin: An object lesson in Copspeak

Police unions and arbitrators keep abusive cops on the street

Shielded from Justice: Police Brutality and Accountability in the United States

So you wanna be a cop?

When the police knock on your door

♦ ♦ ♦

ORGANIZATIONS

Black Lives Matter

Campaign Zero

Innocence Project

The Marshall Project

Movement Law Lab

NAACP

National Police Accountability Project

Say Their Names

Vera: Ending Mass Incarceration

 

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS