Questions: How do we define a good cop vs a bad one? Is it based on whether they're doing their jobs (upholding the law, enforcing it, leading by example)....or by individual 'good' actions? Because if you want to measure how 'good' a cop is by their own actions....and you say that 'x'% of cops are actually 'good' because they are not corrupt and do not use excessive violence against the public etc....then what happens to those percentages or to that opinion when you factor in SILENCE and inaction when witnessing said corruption and violence among their peers? I guar-an-fucking-tee you that the percentage of cops that turn a blind eye to their colleague's indiscretions would approach 100%.
This is the kind of thing that pisses me off about police....yes, they take orders and enforce the law before them. But how often does the system encourage them to only enforce these laws against the powerless? How often do we see politicians go down for petty crimes, let alone serious ones? How often do we hear of cops arresting another cop for excessive force? Or for handing someone a criminal record for selling drugs while pocketing half the proceeds (and drugs) at the scene? We see police violently removing people for a sit-in protest, yet they allow people to camp out outside fucking Best Buy for a week for a new phone?
It's all f'd up. I read the other day that you require more hours of training to be a hairstylist in California, than you do to become a cop. Or the NY court of appeals ruling that an police recruit was not discriminated against when he was told he was too smart to be a cop.
If you follow pages like Cop Block (and the many local versions), and Filming Cops, or visit sites like Freethoughtproject, you are bombarded with never-ending stories of police corruption and brutality. The majority of this shit never makes national news, at least not in any significant way. I don't follow these personally, but have a friend who shares two or three stories from these pages a day, and it is eye opening to say the least.
There is a lot of police corruption out there, absolutely for sure, Drowned Out.
Drawing from my own experience, there are undoubtedly as many reasons to criticize police behavior than to praise it. I've been handcuffed to the point of having my hands go numb for the crime of being a passenger in a car driven by someone who was over the legal limit for alcohol, detained in the back seat of a squad car for a half an hour for the crime of sitting in my car on twin peaks in S.F. with a male friend at night taking in the view (cops probably thought we were gay but even if we had been, so what?) , detained for twenty minutes for the crime of having long hair and drinking a soda pop while driving ( claimed it was beer- yeah, right, A&W rootBEER), and was pulled over for the crime of driving an out-of-state van in Washington. If we want cops to stop this kind of (and far worse) behavior, we need to get these things out in the open and call these people on their shit.
However, that said, I've also had really, really good experiences with cops and have known a few who are really fine people. The reason I think we need to talk about these "good cops" (or at least the times they do good things) as well, is to show that this is the kind of people and the kind of actions we want to see in our police officers. We pay their salary so we should tell them what we expect from their work and then when they do their job well, we should tell them so and share those stories.
“The fear of death follows from the fear of life. A man [or woman] who lives fully is prepared to die at any time.”
Respect the badge He earned it with his blood Fear the gun Your sentence may be death because I AM THE LAW And you won't fuck around no more I AM THE LAW I judge the rich, I judge the poor I AM THE LAW Commit a crime, I'll lock the door I AM THE LAW Because in Mega-City I AM THE LAW And you won't fuck around no more I AM THE LAW I judge the rich, I judge the poor I AM THE LAW Commit a crime I'll lock the door I AM THE LAW Because in Mega-City I AM THE LAW
"You can tell the greatness of a man by what makes him angry." - Lincoln
Questions: How do we define a good cop vs a bad one? Is it based on whether they're doing their jobs (upholding the law, enforcing it, leading by example)....or by individual 'good' actions? Because if you want to measure how 'good' a cop is by their own actions....and you say that 'x'% of cops are actually 'good' because they are not corrupt and do not use excessive violence against the public etc....then what happens to those percentages or to that opinion when you factor in SILENCE and inaction when witnessing said corruption and violence among their peers? I guar-an-fucking-tee you that the percentage of cops that turn a blind eye to their colleague's indiscretions would approach 100%.
This is the kind of thing that pisses me off about police....yes, they take orders and enforce the law before them. But how often does the system encourage them to only enforce these laws against the powerless? How often do we see politicians go down for petty crimes, let alone serious ones? How often do we hear of cops arresting another cop for excessive force? Or for handing someone a criminal record for selling drugs while pocketing half the proceeds (and drugs) at the scene? We see police violently removing people for a sit-in protest, yet they allow people to camp out outside fucking Best Buy for a week for a new phone?
It's all f'd up. I read the other day that you require more hours of training to be a hairstylist in California, than you do to become a cop. Or the NY court of appeals ruling that an police recruit was not discriminated against when he was told he was too smart to be a cop.
If you follow pages like Cop Block (and the many local versions), and Filming Cops, or visit sites like Freethoughtproject, you are bombarded with never-ending stories of police corruption and brutality. The majority of this shit never makes national news, at least not in any significant way. I don't follow these personally, but have a friend who shares two or three stories from these pages a day, and it is eye opening to say the least.
You know there's some truth to what you said there. I can recall some years ago when played traveling A ball fast/slow pitch softball we had several DC police officers on our team. One of them I knew before he became an officer just after he got out the marines. He helped me through a difficult time leading up to getting married.
After games we would go to restaurants for a drink and food. Well these officers could really drink not my close friend but the more veteran officers. I often wondered is someone coming to drive these guy home, many being motorcycle officers I thought would know better but that was NEVER the case. I made sure to keep to my two beer limit and mind you they watched me closely but never themselves it seemed. I gather they never had to worry about being stopped or if they were they were never concerned about. They appeared to look out for each whether on duty or off but look the other way if one had way too much to drink.
Many times I wondered how the hell they made it home after drinking so much. Should I have said something or done something? However these were cops my team mates and should know better, I never did anything but it certainly messed with mind though.
Peace
*We CAN bomb the World to pieces, but we CAN'T bomb it into PEACE*...Michael Franti
*MUSIC IS the expression of EMOTION.....and that POLITICS IS merely the DECOY of PERCEPTION*
.....song_Music & Politics....Michael Franti
*The scientists of today think deeply instead of clearly. One must be sane to think clearly, but one can think deeply and be quite INSANE*....Nikola Tesla(a man who shaped our world of electricity with his futuristic inventions)
I have more negative stories than I do positive but here's one sort of. Driving home from work from DC to MD I came to a 3 way stop. I stopped but not one that I held for more than 3 seconds. I got pulled or a short time later. It was one police officer who asked for identification etc, he checked central and it came back by registration/ tags was suspended. I said for what reason officer(the whole incident I addressed him as officer) he said no insurance. I said officer I have proof I paid my insurance but its in my glove compartment. I asked can I get it he said go ahead in the mean time I could see him step back and upholster his weapon.
I got out my paperwork, he checked it out and came back saying it wasn't clear if what I apparently paid is in the system. I was puzzled and pissed for being stopped in the first place but never showed him any sign of this. Well he gave me a $80 ticket for failure to coming to a complete stop. Then said I could also give a ticket for no insurance($245) have my truck towed and the confiscate my tags. He said he wasn't going give me those.....why......because I was one of the most polite stops he ever had well, (he's lucky I didn't do my mothers approach after being stopped she addressed a DC officer as...."your honor")
By now two more cars pulled up, I wasn't worried though but I almost lost it when he said he could've taken my personalized tags.....STYHUMN
Peace
Post edited by g under p on
*We CAN bomb the World to pieces, but we CAN'T bomb it into PEACE*...Michael Franti
*MUSIC IS the expression of EMOTION.....and that POLITICS IS merely the DECOY of PERCEPTION*
.....song_Music & Politics....Michael Franti
*The scientists of today think deeply instead of clearly. One must be sane to think clearly, but one can think deeply and be quite INSANE*....Nikola Tesla(a man who shaped our world of electricity with his futuristic inventions)
Questions: How do we define a good cop vs a bad one? Is it based on whether they're doing their jobs (upholding the law, enforcing it, leading by example)....or by individual 'good' actions? Because if you want to measure how 'good' a cop is by their own actions....and you say that 'x'% of cops are actually 'good' because they are not corrupt and do not use excessive violence against the public etc....then what happens to those percentages or to that opinion when you factor in SILENCE and inaction when witnessing said corruption and violence among their peers? I guar-an-fucking-tee you that the percentage of cops that turn a blind eye to their colleague's indiscretions would approach 100%.
This is the kind of thing that pisses me off about police....yes, they take orders and enforce the law before them. But how often does the system encourage them to only enforce these laws against the powerless? How often do we see politicians go down for petty crimes, let alone serious ones? How often do we hear of cops arresting another cop for excessive force? Or for handing someone a criminal record for selling drugs while pocketing half the proceeds (and drugs) at the scene? We see police violently removing people for a sit-in protest, yet they allow people to camp out outside fucking Best Buy for a week for a new phone?
It's all f'd up. I read the other day that you require more hours of training to be a hairstylist in California, than you do to become a cop. Or the NY court of appeals ruling that an police recruit was not discriminated against when he was told he was too smart to be a cop.
If you follow pages like Cop Block (and the many local versions), and Filming Cops, or visit sites like Freethoughtproject, you are bombarded with never-ending stories of police corruption and brutality. The majority of this shit never makes national news, at least not in any significant way. I don't follow these personally, but have a friend who shares two or three stories from these pages a day, and it is eye opening to say the least.
There is a lot of police corruption out there, absolutely for sure, Drowned Out.
Drawing from my own experience, there are undoubtedly as many reasons to criticize police behavior than to praise it. I've been handcuffed to the point of having my hands go numb for the crime of being a passenger in a car driven by someone who was over the legal limit for alcohol, detained in the back seat of a squad car for a half an hour for the crime of sitting in my car on twin peaks in S.F. with a male friend at night taking in the view (cops probably thought we were gay but even if we had been, so what?) , detained for twenty minutes for the crime of having long hair and drinking a soda pop while driving ( claimed it was beer- yeah, right, A&W rootBEER), and was pulled over for the crime of driving an out-of-state van in Washington. If we want cops to stop this kind of (and far worse) behavior, we need to get these things out in the open and call these people on their shit.
However, that said, I've also had really, really good experiences with cops and have known a few who are really fine people. The reason I think we need to talk about these "good cops" (or at least the times they do good things) as well, is to show that this is the kind of people and the kind of actions we want to see in our police officers. We pay their salary so we should tell them what we expect from their work and then when they do their job well, we should tell them so and share those stories.
Would you say your experiences are typical in the US, Brian? What do others think? I have to say, I haven't experienced anything like this in my more than 30 years of driving, and I wonder whether this is due to some differences between Canadian and American procedures or whether there are other factors. I've been stopped at CounterAttack roadside stops (where the police check everyone for drinking and driving), and I was stopped once when I inadvertently ran a red light (due to sleep deprivation - new baby in the house!) and the officers have been professional every time. I can't think of a single case in which I was stopped, or any car I was a passenger in was stopped, for reasons like what you describe.
I'm not trying to argue there isn't police corruption in Canada, because the evidence suggests there is, but it may not be as visible day to day.
my small self... like a book amongst the many on a shelf
Questions: How do we define a good cop vs a bad one? Is it based on whether they're doing their jobs (upholding the law, enforcing it, leading by example)....or by individual 'good' actions? Because if you want to measure how 'good' a cop is by their own actions....and you say that 'x'% of cops are actually 'good' because they are not corrupt and do not use excessive violence against the public etc....then what happens to those percentages or to that opinion when you factor in SILENCE and inaction when witnessing said corruption and violence among their peers? I guar-an-fucking-tee you that the percentage of cops that turn a blind eye to their colleague's indiscretions would approach 100%.
This is the kind of thing that pisses me off about police....yes, they take orders and enforce the law before them. But how often does the system encourage them to only enforce these laws against the powerless? How often do we see politicians go down for petty crimes, let alone serious ones? How often do we hear of cops arresting another cop for excessive force? Or for handing someone a criminal record for selling drugs while pocketing half the proceeds (and drugs) at the scene? We see police violently removing people for a sit-in protest, yet they allow people to camp out outside fucking Best Buy for a week for a new phone?
It's all f'd up. I read the other day that you require more hours of training to be a hairstylist in California, than you do to become a cop. Or the NY court of appeals ruling that an police recruit was not discriminated against when he was told he was too smart to be a cop.
If you follow pages like Cop Block (and the many local versions), and Filming Cops, or visit sites like Freethoughtproject, you are bombarded with never-ending stories of police corruption and brutality. The majority of this shit never makes national news, at least not in any significant way. I don't follow these personally, but have a friend who shares two or three stories from these pages a day, and it is eye opening to say the least.
There is a lot of police corruption out there, absolutely for sure, Drowned Out.
Drawing from my own experience, there are undoubtedly as many reasons to criticize police behavior than to praise it. I've been handcuffed to the point of having my hands go numb for the crime of being a passenger in a car driven by someone who was over the legal limit for alcohol, detained in the back seat of a squad car for a half an hour for the crime of sitting in my car on twin peaks in S.F. with a male friend at night taking in the view (cops probably thought we were gay but even if we had been, so what?) , detained for twenty minutes for the crime of having long hair and drinking a soda pop while driving ( claimed it was beer- yeah, right, A&W rootBEER), and was pulled over for the crime of driving an out-of-state van in Washington. If we want cops to stop this kind of (and far worse) behavior, we need to get these things out in the open and call these people on their shit.
However, that said, I've also had really, really good experiences with cops and have known a few who are really fine people. The reason I think we need to talk about these "good cops" (or at least the times they do good things) as well, is to show that this is the kind of people and the kind of actions we want to see in our police officers. We pay their salary so we should tell them what we expect from their work and then when they do their job well, we should tell them so and share those stories.
Would you say your experiences are typical in the US, Brian? What do others think? I have to say, I haven't experienced anything like this in my more than 30 years of driving, and I wonder whether this is due to some differences between Canadian and American procedures or whether there are other factors. I've been stopped at CounterAttack roadside stops (where the police check everyone for drinking and driving), and I was stopped once when I inadvertently ran a red light (due to sleep deprivation - new baby in the house!) and the officers have been professional every time. I can't think of a single case in which I was stopped, or any car I was a passenger in was stopped, for reasons like what you describe.
I'm not trying to argue there isn't police corruption in Canada, because the evidence suggests there is, but it may not be as visible day to day.
In think people are better in general in Canada lol so the cops are drawn from a better pool!
Comments
Drawing from my own experience, there are undoubtedly as many reasons to criticize police behavior than to praise it. I've been handcuffed to the point of having my hands go numb for the crime of being a passenger in a car driven by someone who was over the legal limit for alcohol, detained in the back seat of a squad car for a half an hour for the crime of sitting in my car on twin peaks in S.F. with a male friend at night taking in the view (cops probably thought we were gay but even if we had been, so what?) , detained for twenty minutes for the crime of having long hair and drinking a soda pop while driving ( claimed it was beer- yeah, right, A&W rootBEER), and was pulled over for the crime of driving an out-of-state van in Washington. If we want cops to stop this kind of (and far worse) behavior, we need to get these things out in the open and call these people on their shit.
However, that said, I've also had really, really good experiences with cops and have known a few who are really fine people. The reason I think we need to talk about these "good cops" (or at least the times they do good things) as well, is to show that this is the kind of people and the kind of actions we want to see in our police officers. We pay their salary so we should tell them what we expect from their work and then when they do their job well, we should tell them so and share those stories.
Respect the badge
He earned it with his blood
Fear the gun
Your sentence may be death because
I AM THE LAW
And you won't fuck around no more
I AM THE LAW
I judge the rich, I judge the poor
I AM THE LAW
Commit a crime, I'll lock the door
I AM THE LAW
Because in Mega-City
I AM THE LAW
And you won't fuck around no more
I AM THE LAW
I judge the rich, I judge the poor
I AM THE LAW
Commit a crime I'll lock the door
I AM THE LAW
Because in Mega-City
I AM THE LAW
"Well, you tell him that I don't talk to suckas."
After games we would go to restaurants for a drink and food. Well these officers could really drink not my close friend but the more veteran officers. I often wondered is someone coming to drive these guy home, many being motorcycle officers I thought would know better but that was NEVER the case. I made sure to keep to my two beer limit and mind you they watched me closely but never themselves it seemed. I gather they never had to worry about being stopped or if they were they were never concerned about. They appeared to look out for each whether on duty or off but look the other way if one had way too much to drink.
Many times I wondered how the hell they made it home after drinking so much. Should I have said something or done something? However these were cops my team mates and should know better, I never did anything but it certainly messed with mind though.
Peace
*MUSIC IS the expression of EMOTION.....and that POLITICS IS merely the DECOY of PERCEPTION*
.....song_Music & Politics....Michael Franti
*The scientists of today think deeply instead of clearly. One must be sane to think clearly, but one can think deeply and be quite INSANE*....Nikola Tesla(a man who shaped our world of electricity with his futuristic inventions)
I got out my paperwork, he checked it out and came back saying it wasn't clear if what I apparently paid is in the system. I was puzzled and pissed for being stopped in the first place but never showed him any sign of this. Well he gave me a $80 ticket for failure to coming to a complete stop. Then said I could also give a ticket for no insurance($245) have my truck towed and the confiscate my tags. He said he wasn't going give me those.....why......because I was one of the most polite stops he ever had well, (he's lucky I didn't do my mothers approach after being stopped she addressed a DC officer as...."your honor")
By now two more cars pulled up, I wasn't worried though but I almost lost it when he said he could've taken my personalized tags.....STYHUMN
Peace
*MUSIC IS the expression of EMOTION.....and that POLITICS IS merely the DECOY of PERCEPTION*
.....song_Music & Politics....Michael Franti
*The scientists of today think deeply instead of clearly. One must be sane to think clearly, but one can think deeply and be quite INSANE*....Nikola Tesla(a man who shaped our world of electricity with his futuristic inventions)
I'm not trying to argue there isn't police corruption in Canada, because the evidence suggests there is, but it may not be as visible day to day.
Nicely done officer.