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Community => Society and History => Topic started by: Askold on January 31, 2013, 10:10:43 am

Title: Finnish police and courts, WTH?!
Post by: Askold on January 31, 2013, 10:10:43 am
Finnish supreme court has come to conclusion over a case of a police officer who raped a 16 year old girl.

He lured her in by presenting his badge and using his authority as a police officer, then got her drunk raped her (twice) and posted pictures about the incident.

The court declared him guilty of the rape and gave him a sentence of two years and three months.

Seems a bit small for a rape but I guess they are going soft on him because he is a cop after all. Which seems to be why they also declared him innocent of misusing his position and authority as a police officer. The lower courts had felt that using your badge to trick someone and then raping her is a misuse of his authority but the supreme court disagreed.

Apparently the fact that he wasn't on duty at the time was what made them change their mind. I mean since he wasn't on duty when he lured her into his home "It cannot be concidered that he had been acting as a officer." AND the supreme court also felt that he had not in fact "broken his oath" since the crime didn't happen when he was working.

I suppose you could say that they have some logic in this, except that they have previously declared that off duty officers still have the authority of an police officer! Even an off duty cop can arrest people and resisting them is "resisting an police officer." If you are in a fight with a cop you will be charged with assaulting an officer on duty even if he is not on duty.

WHAT THE HELL?!

Links (in finnish only, for some reason I can't seem to find english articles about this)

http://yle.fi/uutiset/korkein_oikeus_teinityton_raiskannut_poliisi_ei_tehnyt_virkarikosta/6474450?origin=rss
http://www.savonsanomat.fi/uutiset/kotimaa/raiskannut-poliisi-ei-tehnyt-virkarikosta/1293448
Title: Re: Finnish police and courts, WTH?!
Post by: Canadian Mojo on January 31, 2013, 10:52:50 am
I don't suppose that they are correct in their ruling and that there is another law on the books (something along the lines of fraudulent misrepresentation) that he should have been charged with? I'd really like to think that this is case rather than you have idiots in positions of power too.

On another note, the whole assaulting an officer charge applying even while off duty is there to protect officers from reprisals by people who would just wait until the cop is off duty to take a swing so they could face a lessor charge. The authority to actually function as an officer while off duty is another matter completely and does seem to be quite inconsistent with this ruling.
Title: Re: Finnish police and courts, WTH?!
Post by: Dakota Bob on January 31, 2013, 04:24:45 pm
Yeah, we get plenty of stupid here too. I would consider the fact that he was not on-duty irrelevant to the fact he used his police badge to enter her home, not everybody is going to question a cop whether they are on duty or not when they show their badges, the first instinct is to be cooperative so as to not face reprisals.
Title: Re: Finnish police and courts, WTH?!
Post by: chitoryu12 on February 01, 2013, 12:05:14 am
If this happened in the United States, everyone would take it as irrefutable evidence of the depravity of American culture and/or the reason why police officers are 100% scumbags.
Title: Re: Finnish police and courts, WTH?!
Post by: Auggziliary on February 01, 2013, 07:53:56 am
If this happened in the United States, everyone would take it as irrefutable evidence of the depravity of American culture and/or the reason why police officers are 100% scumbags.

I'm not sure what your point is.
Title: Re: Finnish police and courts, WTH?!
Post by: chitoryu12 on February 01, 2013, 09:27:45 am
If this happened in the United States, everyone would take it as irrefutable evidence of the depravity of American culture and/or the reason why police officers are 100% scumbags.

I'm not sure what your point is.

Just a point about the massive difference in response depending on the country. Americans seem to be under a hideously large amount of scrutiny, where the slightest foul-up or a single bad egg is taken as irrefutable evidence that our nation is a horrible bunch of evil, redneck bullies. You don't see people trying to condemn the entirety of Finland or its police force because of this.
Title: Re: Finnish police and courts, WTH?!
Post by: mellenORL on February 01, 2013, 09:55:24 am
At best, this seems like a case where the judges got all nerded-out on the criminal code technicalities of the case, and got blinded to the real issue - can't see forest for the trees. It happens everywhere, and suspiciously seems to happen most often in cases where an accused is some form of governmental authority - or has great wealth. Hope this case gets all blown up in the Finnish media, because it's gonna take some public outrage before these fuckwits change their position.
Title: Re: Finnish police and courts, WTH?!
Post by: Auggziliary on February 01, 2013, 10:12:10 am
If this happened in the United States, everyone would take it as irrefutable evidence of the depravity of American culture and/or the reason why police officers are 100% scumbags.

I'm not sure what your point is.

Just a point about the massive difference in response depending on the country. Americans seem to be under a hideously large amount of scrutiny, where the slightest foul-up or a single bad egg is taken as irrefutable evidence that our nation is a horrible bunch of evil, redneck bullies. You don't see people trying to condemn the entirety of Finland or its police force because of this.

True, but America does have a problem with rape culture and police abusing their power... Like when a story runs about a gay person getting killed by a homophobic gang, we would say it's evidence of homophobia in US culture. But if a story ran about a straight person getting killed by a few gays, we wouldn't say the US is heterophobic(excluding fundies).
This is something that I'd expect from a country like the US, not Finland, just like how if you heard a story about someone being killed for their sexuality, you're going to think "Oh great, another homophobe kills some gay kid".
Title: Re: Finnish police and courts, WTH?!
Post by: The Illusive Man on February 03, 2013, 02:40:21 pm
Links (in finnish only, for some reason I can't seem to find english articles about this)
http://yle.fi/uutiset/korkein_oikeus_teinityton_raiskannut_poliisi_ei_tehnyt_virkarikosta/6474450?origin=rss
http://www.savonsanomat.fi/uutiset/kotimaa/raiskannut-poliisi-ei-tehnyt-virkarikosta/1293448

When in doubt use translate.google.com (http://translate.google.com/).

Hopefully they will amend what ever seriously fucking stupid law/rule/ect that reduced his sentence.
Title: Re: Finnish police and courts, WTH?!
Post by: Lt. Fred on February 04, 2013, 07:01:24 am
Wait a minute: I was under the impression that police are, theoretically, always 'on duty'.
Title: Re: Finnish police and courts, WTH?!
Post by: R. U. Sirius on February 04, 2013, 08:50:40 am
The difference is largely semantic.

Police are empowered to deal with whatever trouble they come across in their capacity as officers, no matter when.

"On duty" pretty much just means that those are the times they have specifically set aside for such things, as opposed to the movie classic of robbing a bank that happens to contain an off-duty cop.