Cops Are The Worst

[verb_to_trust]

It seems like every week I read something about a police officer doing something completely insane, irresponsible or abusive. How do we all feel about our local law enforcement? Is it a case of a couple of bad apples ruining the whole bunch or is there really something wrong with these people?

Here's a video a friend messaged me this week that can start us off:



I can't even imagine how much stuff like this happens daily...

[simple schoolboy]

It might be unfair to say that cops are categorically the worst, but it is pretty safe to say that work rules and related laws give them the greatest freedom to be dicks and get away with it.

Someone on this forum mocked me for being obsessed with cop shootings of dogs, but what few statistics exist support my contention that they have wide reign to execute pets on sight and only slightly more restrictive rules on killing people, but the latter requires paperwork and depositions. Presumably it's only a small minority doing this, but agents of the state get quite a lot of lattitude considering the powers we grant them.

My Uncle is a Silicon Valley VC, and moderately conservative and even he has come to view cops as unprofesstional and out of control. Unfortunately it requires personal experience for most people to come to this view. The moral of the story is: they are not your friend, have no statutory obligation to protect you, and should be avoided at all costs unless it's a matter of life or death. You might luck out and get a decent one, but that chance is probably not worth your dignity.

[BurtReynolds]

Brother-in-law is a state trooper. horrible human being.

[simple schoolboy]

Police officers have a higher rate of domestic abuse than the general public. If your job consisted of going around all day answerable to no one but yourself, why wouldn't you bring that attitude home?

In SF, a few cops recently were under investigation. At least one of them had already been fired for abusing overtime regulations for claiming OT on court dates that he was already scheduled to work his normal shift. His defense was that this was normal practice.

The cops were under investigation for stealing, largely from the poorest and most vulnerable of society, but the only thing that can get them fired in a timely manner is some time sheet shenanigans.

I doubt that this aspect is widespread as the poor and dispondent are unlikely to have more than a musical instrument on them, but still: we will always be asking ourselves who watches the watchmen. A follow up question would be, what can we do to censure the bad actors when they have qualified immunity and their brothers in blue back them up.

[McParadigm]

I don't even want to go over the stories I have about cops, because the people in question are one of my closest childhood friends and my wife's nephew, and I feel a weird obligation not to air their dirty laundry, but they alternately ruin my faith in humanity and scare the living shit out of me.

Also, I have cousin in Texas whose current lifestyle is partially funded by the beating he recieved while in custody for a murder someone else later confessed to. That happened in another town. That he was accused of on the grounds that he knew the victim, listened to heavy music, and took antidepressants.

And then there's the things I heard from Latino immigrant families at the middle school...

Shit, you line all that stuff up together and I guess I pretty much just hate cops.

[Strat]

I hate cops. You have to have a serious fucking God complex to get into Law Enforcement. Cops are not your friends. Ever. Small town cops are the absolute worst and have absolutely nothing better to do than find a reason to get money out of you. Too many stories.

From work to the grocery store I drive about 5 miles along 1 road. On any given day, I see at least 3-5 cop cars along the drive. I live in a small resort town. Completely unnecessary.

[@SkitchP]

[Harry Lime]

I've been surrounded by cops & U.S. Marshals my whole life. A couple I know have some issues, but most of them are good-natured people. I think y'all are in danger of generalizing a little too much.

And of course all you read are the stories that sully a cops integrity, but never the ones where they help countless lives. But that's the power of news media and their eye catching headlines surrounding controversies.

My brother is a marshal. One of the other marshals he works with in PHoenix recently shot & killed a guy that was going for his gun. At the scene there were hecklers in the background yelling obscenities, "Fuck the PO-lice. Fucking shooting people again."

[Alex]

I've been surrounded by cops & U.S. Marshals my whole life. A couple I know have some issues, but most of them are good-natured people. I think y'all are in danger of generalizing a little too much.

And of course all you read are the stories that sully a cops integrity, but never the ones where they help countless lives. But that's the power of news media and their eye catching headlines surrounding controversies.

My brother is a marshal. One of the other marshals he works with in PHoenix recently shot & killed a guy that was going for his gun. At the scene there were hecklers in the background yelling obscenities, "Fuck the PO-lice. Fucking shooting people again."

no country for extolled men

[warehouse]

dont cops have to pass some kinda personality test to become a cop?

[surfndestroy]

I've been surrounded by cops & U.S. Marshals my whole life. A couple I know have some issues, but most of them are good-natured people. I think y'all are in danger of generalizing a little too much.

And of course all you read are the stories that sully a cops integrity, but never the ones where they help countless lives. But that's the power of news media and their eye catching headlines surrounding controversies.

My brother is a marshal. One of the other marshals he works with in PHoenix recently shot & killed a guy that was going for his gun. At the scene there were hecklers in the background yelling obscenities, "Fuck the PO-lice. Fucking shooting people again."

Near every cop I know is a decent person as an individual. But in a group, they just bring out the worst in each other.

On the job, the two greatest faults they have are an inability to listen and an understanding that not only can they be wrong but that they quite often are wrong. That inability to even conceive they are wrong leads them to occassionally do horrible things and then lie about it. Then their fellow officer, who can't conceive a cop ever being wrong supports the lie.

Policing is a noble profession, generally done by the wrong people.

[Man in Black]

Unfortunately, most of the interaction I've had with police officers has not been positive. The passive-aggressive schtick on display in that video is almost universal, it seems.

The main problem, I feel, is that the line between "generating local revenue" and "enforcing the law" has been hopelessly blurred. It's kind of the third rail of corruption in this country.

[Harry Lime]

Kind of a double-edged sword. They can be assholes, but they need to incorporate that attitude if they're going to deal with some of the people they have to deal with on a daily basis.

[McParadigm]

Well, fuck it.

I'm really torn between the desire to converse and the feeling that I'd be "talking shit" about people who have been, at various points, close to and kind to me. I sent this to schoolboy, as part of a private dialog stemming from this thread:

Part of why I didn't want to tell the stories regarding my friend and nephew is that I believe they are regionally influenced, and hopefully not comparable to other places. That is to say, I live in the American Plains, and it's generally a great brutal nightmare of oversight-free human cruelty. So I can talk about watching cops buy illegal unregistered firearms, discuss favorite techniques for causelessly intimidating "fucking Rezzies and Africans" for sport, or shaving vast quantities of product off reported figures in drug busts (usually targeted because the person is known to have "good shit") so they can divvy up the rest...but nobody's really watching them out here. At least the cops who beat my cousin ended up at a loss, because Texas has populace and government oversight enough that it's harder to hide that shit.

[@SkitchP]

No one loved my clip!

[Norah]

No one loved watched my clip!

[@SkitchP]

No one loved watched my clip!

CHUD, why do you enjoy hurting me?

[BurtReynolds]

I'll take Generally forgotten TV Shows for $800, Alex.

[Norah]

No one loved watched my clip!

CHUD, why do you enjoy hurting me?

Because I know you can take it.

[verb_to_trust]