The house of a friend of mine was raided years ago. The local newspaper's headline read: "Hard hit to the narco in our city" and the article indicated that 20kg of marijuana had been seized. We were flabbergasted. I mean, we knew he smoked regularly but 20kg (44 lbs) is a huge amount even for the most enthusiastic pothead. Turns out the police had weighted the marijuana while still on the plant... flowerpot and soil included.

There was an amber alert for a girl named Savannah Graziano that went out in my area of Los Angeles not too long ago; I remember being shocked and horrified about how close she would have been when she was kidnapped, so I tried to follow the story to see if she was safe. Not even 24 hours later it came out that not only did the police shoot and kill the young girl when she was attempting to escape her kidnapper, they then proceeded to claim she was shooting at them and so they shot her multiple times in “self defense” (unsurprisingly, she didn’t have a weapon at all). They are so corrupt that they are actively trying to blame the child they were supposed to save for her own murder. And when you search for news stories about the incident, almost all of them describe the false report the police put out. It’s fucking disgusting.

That lady arguing in real time on air to push back the police story is a hero. That's so nerve-wracking to go off script on air like that. She knew it was more important than the teleprompter.

I paid a ticket once, and the department didn’t log that I paid it correctly, so they issued a warrant, arrested me, and booked me, only to release me nearly 3 hours later. Even though you could see online that my “charges were entered in error”, my picture was still in the JailBirds paper. 🙃 I will pay my tickets online in the future. I wish there was some recourse for this and the public embarrassment it caused me.

I'm very disappointed that the amount of free drugs I've been given in my life is far less than what I've been promised on the news.

I'm a retired attorney. When I first started 30 years ago I did criminal cases to gain trial experience. One of the cases I got was of an Asian man arrested for drunk driving. The cop testified that he pulled over the defendant because he had swerved over the yellow line several times. When stopped, the defendant smelled alcohol on the defendant's breath so he gave him a field sobriety test. He also testified that defendant had stopped his car under a street light and that visibility was very good. He did a field sobriety test which defendant failed. Defendant had refused the breathalyzer test at the station. These things were all in his report, except for driving over the yellow line repeatedly (the reported stated only once). The cop went on to testify which wasn't in his report that defendant had slurred speech and fell down during the encounter. (Sounds pretty convincing.) My turn. I introduce defendant's medical records that he was in a car accident the previous week and had a broken foot. He was physically unable to do the "walk a line" test, but cop never saw a cast on his foot. The police report said the car was brown, in reality it was green. Defendant's wife worked at the police department and he claimed he argued with the cop about going to the station because he knew that once taken there, even if he passed the breathalyzer, the police will not take you back to your car and he didn't want to be stranded miles away from home. He also believed he had passed the test, touching his nose, counting backwards, and thought he would be released so he refused the breathalyzer. He argued with the cop about this for several minutes he said and gave the reason of not being driven back to his car which he knew because his wife worked there. About details not in the report, I asked the cop what he did the day before / after arresting defendant. He couldn't remember if he even had worked. Asked how many people he had arrested since arresting my client, he said hundreds. Asked if defendant told him that his wife worked at the station doing prisoner intake, said he didn't know her. When she got up to testify she waved to the cop and called him by name, to which he responded back calling her name. I thought I had provided enough evidence to show there was doubt about my client's guilt. It took the jury only 20 minutes to convict him. So remember this, once you are arrested you basically already guilty. No jury in the US will not believe a cop regardless of the evidence otherwise.

My mother-in-law brought up drugs being in our kid's candy the other day, and both my husband and I were like, "drugs are too expensive to be giving them out to kids"

"your kids' halloween candy is fentanol" is the new "your kids' halloween candy is full of razor blades". The more things change, the more they stay the same

For fucks sake, how many decades have people been trying to scare parents into thinking evil people are putting shit in kids Halloween candy? When I was a kid they told us to check all of our candy for needles and razor blades... Drugs in candy is even dumber for all the reasons stated in the video.

I was struck from jury duty a few months ago because I was the only one in the room who said I was skeptical of police and that they don't always tell the truth. I didn't really want to be selected but it seems pretty ridiculous and blatantly biased that someone not blindly believing police is an automatic disqualifier for jurors.

I used to work in a coffee shop, and a cop used to ask one of the female baristas to write things like "sensitive bitch" on his cup. It was a really awkward and creepy situation. Eventually, she started hiding in the back whenever he came in. Thankfully, he stopped coming, but he held such power over her by virtue of being a policeman. She was afraid if she told him no, he could make her life absolutely miserable.

I was assaulted by a stranger outside of my building (New Orleans is just circling the drain.) A surveillance video from almost 200 yards away, and with a privacy fence in between, evidently didn’t match my story. “ I wasn’t running like I was almost raped.” Actually, they ran my name, saw my record ( just drug charges); all of a sudden I was trash. They kept me there for 14 hrs, lied to my mother and said I had left, and I was not given a drop of water or crumb to eat. Nothing like being attacked and then being cuffed. I do not trust cops. Any of them, anywhere.

I saw a headline on these rainbow pills. My son is 9 and I showed him and told him, just so he knows, never eat weird candy laying around etc. He responded "I'm pretty sure no kid over 5 is going to pick up anything off the nasty ground and just eat it bc its pretty." Touchè son 😆

My brother was arrested for pocession of a "quantity of marijuana" there was a broken bowl and some microscopic green material that might of been grass or weed at a friend's house when the cops illegally raided it without a search warrant. The charges were dismissed after the cop admitted on stand he lied. The lying, the illegal raid, the 10% bond I paid for him and never got back and the fact that they arrested him at work 6 months after the illegal raid, never made the news but his arrest did.

Respect 🙏 for that fantastic woman journalist who actually reported the truth of the horrific incident and schooled that that child "journalist "

Absolutely vital issue. My parents watch daily news and I am constantly telling them to stop. They're terrified of me getting hit by crime in my perfectly safe apartment community.

Unfortunately a lot of this starts at journalism classes in college. I just graduated last year and I'm working as a journalist and I and other young journalists are so upset by the courses we had with exercises like "Take this police report and rewrite it into a news story, you have 5 minutes."

I have lived in the Washington DC area for many years, and have had the pleasure of watching Pat Collins' unique style of reporting. He also handles reporting of more serious crimes, always with a touch of humanity. Thank you for introducing him to a national audience.

After graduating from college with a Mass Communications degree I was excited to get a job as a photographer at news station. After I had done the job for about 6 months I found myself in the newsroom one day waiting for an assignment and the News Director couldn't come up with any place to send me. He and the anchor were bemoaning a "slow news day" and the anchor said to, pretty much the whole newsroom: "What I wouldn't give for double homicide right now". After that I started to notice more comments like this and that ultimately led to me getting the hell out of there.

Pat Collins has been an absolute national treasure for The DMV. He pulls no punches and tells everything like it is!

In my country, those accused of or arrested for a craime cannot be shown or named in media - UNTIL they are convicted. It always baffles me how in the US, you can. It seems so common sense to not destroy any innocent lives!

I use to work for a small town newspaper when one of our reporter's started doing a investigative story on the police department covering up a drunk driving accident involving a police officer. The police retaliated by making it as difficult as possible for the news paper to get the police blotter for that day. The reporter also was being followed by cops just to harass him

This is so eye opening to me cuz in journalism school you really are taught to find crime stories through police press releases. I myself am complete distrustful of police but for some reason, never thought to question their press releases when quoting them for a story

Another way to convince them is to tell them this "This time it was someone else, what if the next time it's YOU who's falsely accused of a crime?"

There are many and good reasons most countries in Europe do not allow the names, race, ethnicity and photos of suspects to be published before their trial. During the pre-trial proceedings, confidentiality is the prevailing principle. It ensures a fair trial, prevents the development of stereotypes and protects the reputation of those found innocent.

Favourite "cop faking fast food hate crime" was the guy who's starbucks drink label said "PIG" and everyone quickly pointed out that the part of the label was specifically for the name you give yourself for an online order lmao

Also this is not perfect but in my country if someone is charged but hasn't been sentenced their name and face is censored. Sometimes it leads to funny situations like "Patric S. who is accused of killing his father Michael Smith has been arrested", but most of the time you won't guess the identity of the arrestee if you don't know them personally. Also quite unlikely that it will come up when your name is googled by a prospective employer. It genuinely baffles me when I read news stories with not only the face, name, but sometimes even street address of a suspect in UK media

John Oliver is great. I appreciate how after all the doom and gloom, he always gives ways to change things. Keep up the good work, Last Week Tonight! ❤

The mugshot issue is a big one, people charged with crimes are not yet convicted, and splashing their faces all over the internet for eternity by third party websites, and being paid to take down only to have them appear on a sister site is disgusting. Local crime reports are the same

As a fresh producer at a very local station, seeing these criticism on news makes me double check my work and sources and double back on criminal stories for updates

I would love to see a companion series that just focused on the after effects of LWT’s stories. This show is making serious impacts.

Thank you John Oliver for continuing to be a voice (a very acerbic and funny one at that) for critical thinking, something that is becoming increasingly rare in our society.

I bust a gut laughing at the El Cheapo bust. These are kids who grew up playing cops and robbers and have waited their whole life to take a pic like that. Cop cosplayers. 🤣

I cannot believe these halloween drug scares are still going. They should be required to hold a flashlight under their chin and use a spooky voice whenever they report that stuff.

John Oliver is the only UKposts content that I don't watch at a higher speed. It's not just his rate of delivery... it's the paragon of brilliant, tightly written, expertly delivered, smartly edited content with great graphics work to boot.

Thank you so much for covering this very important issue. You're all doing a great job, LWT-Team. Would you please consider bringing back the official subtitles? It's a great help for people with hearing impairments and foreign speakers. My country doesn't have HBO, so I rely on UKposts. But we do have a lot of similar problems and I'm so happy to be able to watch these segments. A lot of them are internationally relevant anyways.

As a starting reference, whenever the police start talking I automatically assume they're lying to cover their asses.

Pat Collins is an absolute legend in the DMV, he was so out of pocket that they make his segments longer on purpose. He also did a little of everything. From covering politics, to doing some weather, to sports, crime, and even doing reports on local schools and their events. Go look up some of his segments, the guy is hilarious.

I've grown up in the DC area and Pat Collins is literally a treasure. He's so nice in person (I ran into him and fanboy'd multiple times in the Gaithersburg Costco) and such a great interviewer. Thank you for representing him!!

Thank you last week tonight team for showing that Subway in Layton UT - I lived about 3 minutes away from it when that story happened. They tried to charge a teenager who was saving up money for his LDS mission with drugging the officers and the teen worker settled with the city for thousands. The business owners tried to sue but failed because they lost a ton of business and other subways in the area had employees making comments about their location.

The amount of stuff my mother heard was "definitely happening" in our town compared to how little actually happened is staggering, but entirely due to this kind of journalism

The public defender in the last clip is Olayemi Olurin! She wrote an article titled "Law & Order Taught Americans to Root for the Police" for Teen Vogue which really sounds like something John Oliver has said.

Shot 60 times for a traffic infraction????? You don't even need to shoot a zombie 60 times to stop it!!!!!!

That gal from Rising was an absolute QUEEN! We need more people in the news like her.

As always a big round of applause for John Oliver‘s research department

I'm a journalism major. The sad thing is, we're taught that the police is considered a solid source. Something that, as long as you quantify that it is the police's words and not your own, it's "protected" - you can't be sued for libel. The same is true for reporting on court room cases. Reporting crime straight from the police keeps you safe from lawsuits, sad as it is.

Working in journalism, this video is SO important. There's something wrong with how we report news in the digital era. I highly advise all my friends to always check stories from outlets with different political affiliations and to read journals. Journals are the only way of reading high quality and verified information today.

With markets tumbling, inflation soaring, the Fed imposing large interest-rate hike, while treasury yields are rising rapidly which means more red ink for portfolios this quarter. How can I profit from the current volatile market, I'm still at a crossroads deciding if to liquidate my $125k bond/stock portfolio

Last year around Halloween in Washington, the news channels were making a big deal out of pot edibles, and how people were giving them to innocent trick or treaters, and All I could think was, "Do you people know how Expensive weed gummies are?!?"

Just so y’all know Pat Collins is a legend in the DC area every news story he does no matter how serious is hilarious

Taking the police at their word after they are directly involved in the situation is a massive conflict of interest.

I had a criminal charge thrown out of court against me because the cops broke into my mom's home. Their reasoning was that there was a medical emergency. There wasn't. They tried to get my brother and I for not opening the door for them.

Here in Germany, news outlets regularly remind us that police press releases are to be taken with a grain of salt.

This literally just happened to me, I watched a story about an officer shooting a kid that supposedly tried to run over the cop and hit his leg, then I watch the bodycam video and it's just the cop attempting to murder a kid eating a cheeseburger. Edit: The teen who was shot is named Erik Cantu, as of right now he's fighting for his life on life support. The shooting occurred in San Antonio, the officer involved has been fired and the DA says the internal investigation as to whether to charge the officer might take up to a year. The officer believed Cantu was driving a stolen car that had fled from him the previous night. All of the information I've seen indicates the car was Cantu's, the suspicion was wrong and the officer's attack was completely unwarranted. Edit: the officer has been charged with 2 counts of aggravated assault, if Cantu dies from his injuries it's very likely the officer will be charged with homicide.

Love to see Pat Collins! He's a legend in DC and Maryland news. He was man about town and always cheeky in his stories and reporting about often overlooked injustices. Always looked at the human element to every situation.

When I was on drugs it was 100$ a day minimum, I am just trying to imagine a kid trying to figure that hussle out in-between first grade.

Pat Collins is a local legend. He can make the most mundane story look like the most devastating news ever.

Massively important story. I also like that John and his team offer possible solutions at the end of every story. They really do deserve the accolades they get.

The news has literally turned into a 24 hour police report channel.

Can you please do a story on what is currently happening in Iran? I love your show and I know my community would be super appreciative if we got some support and representation!

It was disturbing hearing the police press release of the George Floyd case. To have a murder boiled down to something that sounds like a mild inconvenience makes you wonder how many similar cases have been swept under the rug.

I think "hate crime against police" is the funniest joke i have ever heard

🔥🔥🔥This segment should be taught in broadcast journalism courses

What’s messed up is I’ve made this point many many years ago and no one believed me. And I knew Jon Oliver would eventually make an episode about it. And when I saw news reporting I knew this is what it would be about

I'm so glad to see John and the team tackle this incredibly important topic which is a national crisis and travesty by journalists.

"El Cheapo" got me laughing way too hard.

Thank you for giving me additional material to show when I'm educating people in my community on truth vs myth of fentanyl!

Astoundingly well done! You are the voice of the society we wish we had, as opposed to the one we deserve. May God bless you and yours.

That Miss Piggy joke crossed the line in the best way possible.

Seeing that reporter shut down her ignorant cohost with stone cold logic was absolutely beautiful to see. What an absolute tool that guy was.

John Oliver has always given great insight into so many issues. The fact that he does this, even to this date is highly commendable. I shall always watch these videos!!

Watching episodes of LWT for a couple of hours will probably cover 3 or 4 school years as well as a year worth of going to a comedy club daily plus I'll never thank John Oliver enough for not having ads

Letting cops write their own press is like letting lobbyists write their own laws. No need to replace "police say" with "police claim." Save time by assuming they're making shit up from the gitgo.

I'M DYING WITH THE FIRST GUY 🤣

This episode needs to be spread - it's very important!

This Vehicle Vandal reporter looks a lot like the reporter that wore the grape suit to defend the kid who dressed up as grapes and got suspended. Edit: IT IS! Pat Collins. Real recognize real.

It’s this critical eye on local news reporting that makes me glad that Last Week Tonight exists! Bravo John and your incredible team!

This is something I've been thinking, news keep reporting about investigations, but rarely follow up to indictment or even trial results unless it's for a big name. And even then, it's all investigation, which makes people think "GUILTY!" before any accusation is ever really made. Also gives the perception of slowness, when all investigation always took months if not years to develop, then even more time to process up the trial after formal indictment are done.

If the story is important enough to be on the news, the police shouldn't want to tell you about it. If they're throwing that information at you, it is incomplete at best.

Thank you for validating me when I first heard that story on rainbow fentanyl, I was like why would dealers be trying to hook kids? There's no financial sense in that. That stuff is expensive and the kids have no means to pay for it.

As someone who lives in the D.C. area and has seen Pat Collins on my tv since I was a kid, I'm glad y'all get to see how much of a treasure he is

Thank you for spending the time to research/create and share this content/awareness 🙏🏾R.L.💯💯💯💯💯

6:00 oof that Monday Night Football joke just got more real after Hamlin 😳

24:00 has the best co-anchor clapback I have seen in trusting their source over basic human decency. "Baby Ryan Seacrest getting his ass absolutely handed to him," was priceless. 💯😃

That woman whose laughing so loud has me cracking up, laughter truly is contagious 😂

Can we talk about how it also looks like literally the shittest candy ever? Like every kid knows that shit tastes like chalk and you avoid it like the plague

An obvious way to remedy this situation is to remove the profit motive. Years ago the news was not considered a profit center and it was far more honest and informative. The only question is how to remove the profit motive and yet still have news. One way may be to prohibit ads during news programs while allowing tax write-offs for having news programs.

The Internet Historian did a couple of videos on the AMAZING story behind balloon boy. Basically, due to the police falsely accusing the father, he had to plead guilty, because they were threatening to deport his wife and losing his kids. At any rate, seek out those videos he did. He even interviewed the dad. It's a really sad story and makes you pissed at the police department in that town.

That's horrifying the way that the George Floyd murder was initially reported. Bless the heart of that 17-year-old young woman who recorded the police conducting their murderous assault on Floyd. She should get a medal!

"Testi-lying?" We already have a word for that. It's called "perjury."

Watching this as a brazilian person it's absolutely hilarious (in a very tragic way) how many blights in our society are imported straight from the US.

I like how she emphasizes "two POUNDS" of marijuana like it's a staggeringly high amount

I was born and raised in Northern Va where Pat Collins is a national treasure. It made my insomniac heart happy to see him on Last Week Tonight

Love how the car horn during that local reporter's piece made it sound like he said "You may want to start fucking changing your ways".

El cheapo had me crackin up

My week just isn’t the same without it beginning with John telling me about some existential problem while simultaneously making me laugh.

The world needs more people like that public defendant. What a queen.

Great episode, watched this one many times, pure gold! ❤

This is heaven sent! This is what I have been calling for, it's what we need as a society.

can we just say thanks to the team for putting this on youtube. I just lost HBO, and im so glad he posts it.