Police abuse

I never tried to isolate it to a single profession.
That's how people act, like shitheads. 
When you jump to the defense of an entire profession you empower the shitheads within.  I don't do that, I recognise the widespread problem of shitheadedness and try to pressure their peers to break the thin blue line of corruption.

rgambs said:

tbergs said:

rgambs said:

Thirty Bills Unpaid said:

rgambs said:

Thirty Bills Unpaid said:

RG...

For as balanced as you are on most issues that present themselves on the MT... you are extreme here.

My father-in-law was a cop and I have several friends that are cops. They are all excellent people. Now granted, in Canada, we don't have the same issues as the US which might lead to different attitudes developing within police people; however, to so easily dismiss a profession as corrupt and morally bankrupt is highly inappropriate.

You know... the MT community is funny. For example, it moves en masse to quickly defend Islam's integrity when Islamic radicals blow people up, yet by many of the same people... police are not afforded the same level of understanding.

Listen, I know cops too.  I'm not saying they are terrible people.  I'm not saying their lives are entirely without integrity or morals. 
What I am saying is that nearly every single cop with more than a handful of years in service has witnessed abuse and done nothing about it for a host of reasons, from the perfectly understandable up to the abhorrent.
That is troubling to varying degrees, but it is just ridiculous that people want to paint this "few bad apples" portrait that conveniently takes away all pressure to maintain the strictest integrity in a profession which very much needs the strictest integrity.

I agree with you that the profession needs strict integrity.

I'll disagree with you that holding an entire profession under suspicion is prudent. I'll also disagree with you that nearly every single cop with more than a handful of years in service has witnessed abuse and done nothing about it... that's a baseless speculative argument you have thrust out there to serve your case. It's along the same lines as the '5%' speculation that you have called to question and essentially labelled baseless.

Do you feel your speculation is more legitimate than others speculation? If you don't... this is how you have come across in these last moments.

Yes, I do feel it's a more legitimate speculation, because it's obvious.  If you weren't Canadian, I'd bet the farm your father in law would admit to seeing abuse.  Every cop I've ever known had no problem admitting it.
You almost literally can't find a police department in America that hasn't splashed local headlines with a scandal, that hasn't paid money out in suits,  that hasn't had uninvestigated complaints.  It's just ridiculous to take the aggregate of information available in the media and say, "Yes, I have seen the proven results that transcend all geographic and social factors, but I'm refusing to extrapolate that data at all, I believe people are good and each of those instances is an unrelated, individual abberation."
It could be that part of the divide here is probably in that you don't see abuse of power when the recipients are bad guys, you have shown that again and again.  You don't care what cops do to scumbags, but I do.  I don't feel bad for the scumbags, but I strongly believe that police are not a punitive force.  Period.  It's not their job to hit a restrained scumbag in the head, even if he deserves it.  Period.

I am going to call bullshit on the first part of the bolded above. If you want to track back every police/sheriff's department 40 - 50 years, than this may be a little more accurate, but it's still as ridiculous as saying every company in the nation abuses power or is corrupt because they've terminated employees for policy violations or not fired/disciplined an employee for known abuse/misuse of the authority/position. Trying to isolate this problem to law enforcement is being ignorant. It's a human problem, not a profession. Humans are corrupt, human are malicious, humans are greedy and sometimes they are employed in positions that allow them to manipulate to a more public awareness.

To the second bolded part, so you're taking the mass media account of the state of law enforcement and applying it to everywhere and everyone? That is ridiculous. The police are by no means perfect, but they are less violent, corrupt and more involved in the community than they ever have been and that's because the profession is evolving as it should. Less militaristic responses to situations and people and more verbal de-escalation with less force being used.

Yes, you can probably hear a second or third hand account of a cop doing something they shouldn't have, but that one account doesn't extrapolate to an entire profession and it's workforce. That's the 5% sticking out like a sore thumb because that behavior and attitude is not being tolerated like it was even 20 years ago.

I'm​ not talking about mass media, I'm talking about aggregated media. 
The "everywhere" doesn't need extrapolated, there are no geographic exceptions to documented and verified cases of abuse.  
I wonder if you think I only mean the most egregious and noteworthy cases when I talk about abuse?  I'm not.  It doesn't make the news when black teenagers get stopped and frisked, when drugs get planted on scumbags, when assholes get their heads punched, when police use their databases to illegally obtain information on citizens.  It only makes the news when someone gets video.  Cases of police abuse are not like airplane crashes, where the news reports every single one. 
You see 5% as the total of abusers plus those who see abuse and hold the thin blue line, but you're not thinking about the fact that you only see an unknown, and surely low, % of the abuse.

*Edited to add...
I'm not talking about second and third hand accounts, most cops will freely admit their abuses!  The one who used to post here surely did.  The handful I have talked to about policing surely did!
The handful on my FB feed surely do, and the list goes on and on when you get into second hand accounts from folks I trust at their word.

Thirty Bills Unpaid said:

rgambs said:

Thirty Bills Unpaid said:

rgambs said:

Thirty Bills Unpaid said:

rgambs said:

Thirty Bills Unpaid said:

RG...

For as balanced as you are on most issues that present themselves on the MT... you are extreme here.

My father-in-law was a cop and I have several friends that are cops. They are all excellent people. Now granted, in Canada, we don't have the same issues as the US which might lead to different attitudes developing within police people; however, to so easily dismiss a profession as corrupt and morally bankrupt is highly inappropriate.

You know... the MT community is funny. For example, it moves en masse to quickly defend Islam's integrity when Islamic radicals blow people up, yet by many of the same people... police are not afforded the same level of understanding.

Listen, I know cops too.  I'm not saying they are terrible people.  I'm not saying their lives are entirely without integrity or morals. 
What I am saying is that nearly every single cop with more than a handful of years in service has witnessed abuse and done nothing about it for a host of reasons, from the perfectly understandable up to the abhorrent.
That is troubling to varying degrees, but it is just ridiculous that people want to paint this "few bad apples" portrait that conveniently takes away all pressure to maintain the strictest integrity in a profession which very much needs the strictest integrity.

I agree with you that the profession needs strict integrity.

I'll disagree with you that holding an entire profession under suspicion is prudent. I'll also disagree with you that nearly every single cop with more than a handful of years in service has witnessed abuse and done nothing about it... that's a baseless speculative argument you have thrust out there to serve your case. It's along the same lines as the '5%' speculation that you have called to question and essentially labelled baseless.

Do you feel your speculation is more legitimate than others speculation? If you don't... this is how you have come across in these last moments.

Yes, I do feel it's a more legitimate speculation, because it's obvious.  If you weren't Canadian, I'd bet the farm your father in law would admit to seeing abuse.  Every cop I've ever known had no problem admitting it.
You almost literally can't find a police department in America that hasn't splashed local headlines with a scandal, that hasn't paid money out in suits,  that hasn't had uninvestigated complaints.  It's just ridiculous to take the aggregate of information available in the media and say, "Yes, I have seen the proven results that transcend all geographic and social factors, but I'm refusing to extrapolate that data at all, I believe people are good and each of those instances is an unrelated, individual abberation."
It could be that part of the divide here is probably in that you don't see abuse of power when the recipients are bad guys, you have shown that again and again.  You don't care what cops do to scumbags, but I do.  I don't feel bad for the scumbags, but I strongly believe that police are not a punitive force.  Period.  It's not their job to hit a restrained scumbag in the head, even if he deserves it.  Period.

Wrong.

Unlike you... I have acknowledged both situations fairly in the high profile cases we have discussed: clear cut abuse cases (Rice, Thomas, etc.) and cases where force was appropriate given the situation (Brown, etc.).

Wasn't it you that suggested cops retreat into their cars and wait until that knife wielding maniac was tired or ready to give up versus take him down when he tried to attack them? You called it a tactical retreat. I mean... think of this, man. Just think of how far to the extreme you have taken your position. Your idea of good police work is for police to act as 'criminal whisperers' and have dangerous offenders taken into custody after cops have successfully convinced them of the error of their ways.

Rice and Thomas weren't scumbags, which is the only reason you relented and recognised abuse. 
You regularly express your frustration with guys like Li being treated with a restrained hand.

Now you're making stuff up.

I never 'relented'... I was outraged from the outset.

And why are you referring to Vince Li in this context? I'll say it must have taken great restraint for the police not to shoot him as he waved Tim McLean's head in the air and tried to force his way off a bus to attack others which speaks to the integrity of the police on the scene- this doesn't fit your narrative?

While I wouldn't have lost any sleep had the officers not showed exceptional professionalism in that gruesome moment... my frustration in that case is related to the fact that he's been released unconditionally into the public (with a new name as he runs from his past). He never should have left the cozy confines of a psychiatric hospital.

I don't think Li should be loose in public either.

I brought him up because his was the only name I knew from the top of my head, and though his crime was the definition of heinous, he somewhat typifies your extreme comments on criminals. 

rgambs said:

Thirty Bills Unpaid said:

rgambs said:

Thirty Bills Unpaid said:

rgambs said:

Thirty Bills Unpaid said:

rgambs said:

Thirty Bills Unpaid said:

RG...

For as balanced as you are on most issues that present themselves on the MT... you are extreme here.

My father-in-law was a cop and I have several friends that are cops. They are all excellent people. Now granted, in Canada, we don't have the same issues as the US which might lead to different attitudes developing within police people; however, to so easily dismiss a profession as corrupt and morally bankrupt is highly inappropriate.

You know... the MT community is funny. For example, it moves en masse to quickly defend Islam's integrity when Islamic radicals blow people up, yet by many of the same people... police are not afforded the same level of understanding.

Listen, I know cops too.  I'm not saying they are terrible people.  I'm not saying their lives are entirely without integrity or morals. 
What I am saying is that nearly every single cop with more than a handful of years in service has witnessed abuse and done nothing about it for a host of reasons, from the perfectly understandable up to the abhorrent.
That is troubling to varying degrees, but it is just ridiculous that people want to paint this "few bad apples" portrait that conveniently takes away all pressure to maintain the strictest integrity in a profession which very much needs the strictest integrity.

I agree with you that the profession needs strict integrity.

I'll disagree with you that holding an entire profession under suspicion is prudent. I'll also disagree with you that nearly every single cop with more than a handful of years in service has witnessed abuse and done nothing about it... that's a baseless speculative argument you have thrust out there to serve your case. It's along the same lines as the '5%' speculation that you have called to question and essentially labelled baseless.

Do you feel your speculation is more legitimate than others speculation? If you don't... this is how you have come across in these last moments.

Yes, I do feel it's a more legitimate speculation, because it's obvious.  If you weren't Canadian, I'd bet the farm your father in law would admit to seeing abuse.  Every cop I've ever known had no problem admitting it.
You almost literally can't find a police department in America that hasn't splashed local headlines with a scandal, that hasn't paid money out in suits,  that hasn't had uninvestigated complaints.  It's just ridiculous to take the aggregate of information available in the media and say, "Yes, I have seen the proven results that transcend all geographic and social factors, but I'm refusing to extrapolate that data at all, I believe people are good and each of those instances is an unrelated, individual abberation."
It could be that part of the divide here is probably in that you don't see abuse of power when the recipients are bad guys, you have shown that again and again.  You don't care what cops do to scumbags, but I do.  I don't feel bad for the scumbags, but I strongly believe that police are not a punitive force.  Period.  It's not their job to hit a restrained scumbag in the head, even if he deserves it.  Period.

Wrong.

Unlike you... I have acknowledged both situations fairly in the high profile cases we have discussed: clear cut abuse cases (Rice, Thomas, etc.) and cases where force was appropriate given the situation (Brown, etc.).

Wasn't it you that suggested cops retreat into their cars and wait until that knife wielding maniac was tired or ready to give up versus take him down when he tried to attack them? You called it a tactical retreat. I mean... think of this, man. Just think of how far to the extreme you have taken your position. Your idea of good police work is for police to act as 'criminal whisperers' and have dangerous offenders taken into custody after cops have successfully convinced them of the error of their ways.

Rice and Thomas weren't scumbags, which is the only reason you relented and recognised abuse. 
You regularly express your frustration with guys like Li being treated with a restrained hand.

Now you're making stuff up.

I never 'relented'... I was outraged from the outset.

And why are you referring to Vince Li in this context? I'll say it must have taken great restraint for the police not to shoot him as he waved Tim McLean's head in the air and tried to force his way off a bus to attack others which speaks to the integrity of the police on the scene- this doesn't fit your narrative?

While I wouldn't have lost any sleep had the officers not showed exceptional professionalism in that gruesome moment... my frustration in that case is related to the fact that he's been released unconditionally into the public (with a new name as he runs from his past). He never should have left the cozy confines of a psychiatric hospital.

I don't think Li should be loose in public either.

I brought him up because his was the only name I knew from the top of my head, and though his crime was the definition of heinous, he somewhat typifies your extreme comments on criminals. 

By extreme comments... do you mean when I defend an officer for using deadly force when a criminal resists or engages him in s fight?

When a criminal resists arrest and gets physical.., they've crossed a line into very dangerous territory. There are people here who think cops should try their best to wrestle the dangerous offender to the ground or even- laughably- let the dangerous criminal go, but I'm not one of those people.

It's outrageous to suggest cops should cease their police business when a criminal resists arrest or makes it challenging to detain them. There are many incidents where cops have not come home from work because they were too 'patient' with dangerous people.

Criminals need to behave better. Direct your ire towards the right party.

Thirty Bills Unpaid said:

rgambs said:

Thirty Bills Unpaid said:

rgambs said:

Thirty Bills Unpaid said:

rgambs said:

Thirty Bills Unpaid said:

rgambs said:

Thirty Bills Unpaid said:

RG...

For as balanced as you are on most issues that present themselves on the MT... you are extreme here.

My father-in-law was a cop and I have several friends that are cops. They are all excellent people. Now granted, in Canada, we don't have the same issues as the US which might lead to different attitudes developing within police people; however, to so easily dismiss a profession as corrupt and morally bankrupt is highly inappropriate.

You know... the MT community is funny. For example, it moves en masse to quickly defend Islam's integrity when Islamic radicals blow people up, yet by many of the same people... police are not afforded the same level of understanding.

Listen, I know cops too.  I'm not saying they are terrible people.  I'm not saying their lives are entirely without integrity or morals. 
What I am saying is that nearly every single cop with more than a handful of years in service has witnessed abuse and done nothing about it for a host of reasons, from the perfectly understandable up to the abhorrent.
That is troubling to varying degrees, but it is just ridiculous that people want to paint this "few bad apples" portrait that conveniently takes away all pressure to maintain the strictest integrity in a profession which very much needs the strictest integrity.

I agree with you that the profession needs strict integrity.

I'll disagree with you that holding an entire profession under suspicion is prudent. I'll also disagree with you that nearly every single cop with more than a handful of years in service has witnessed abuse and done nothing about it... that's a baseless speculative argument you have thrust out there to serve your case. It's along the same lines as the '5%' speculation that you have called to question and essentially labelled baseless.

Do you feel your speculation is more legitimate than others speculation? If you don't... this is how you have come across in these last moments.

Yes, I do feel it's a more legitimate speculation, because it's obvious.  If you weren't Canadian, I'd bet the farm your father in law would admit to seeing abuse.  Every cop I've ever known had no problem admitting it.
You almost literally can't find a police department in America that hasn't splashed local headlines with a scandal, that hasn't paid money out in suits,  that hasn't had uninvestigated complaints.  It's just ridiculous to take the aggregate of information available in the media and say, "Yes, I have seen the proven results that transcend all geographic and social factors, but I'm refusing to extrapolate that data at all, I believe people are good and each of those instances is an unrelated, individual abberation."
It could be that part of the divide here is probably in that you don't see abuse of power when the recipients are bad guys, you have shown that again and again.  You don't care what cops do to scumbags, but I do.  I don't feel bad for the scumbags, but I strongly believe that police are not a punitive force.  Period.  It's not their job to hit a restrained scumbag in the head, even if he deserves it.  Period.

Wrong.

Unlike you... I have acknowledged both situations fairly in the high profile cases we have discussed: clear cut abuse cases (Rice, Thomas, etc.) and cases where force was appropriate given the situation (Brown, etc.).

Wasn't it you that suggested cops retreat into their cars and wait until that knife wielding maniac was tired or ready to give up versus take him down when he tried to attack them? You called it a tactical retreat. I mean... think of this, man. Just think of how far to the extreme you have taken your position. Your idea of good police work is for police to act as 'criminal whisperers' and have dangerous offenders taken into custody after cops have successfully convinced them of the error of their ways.

Rice and Thomas weren't scumbags, which is the only reason you relented and recognised abuse. 
You regularly express your frustration with guys like Li being treated with a restrained hand.

Now you're making stuff up.

I never 'relented'... I was outraged from the outset.

And why are you referring to Vince Li in this context? I'll say it must have taken great restraint for the police not to shoot him as he waved Tim McLean's head in the air and tried to force his way off a bus to attack others which speaks to the integrity of the police on the scene- this doesn't fit your narrative?

While I wouldn't have lost any sleep had the officers not showed exceptional professionalism in that gruesome moment... my frustration in that case is related to the fact that he's been released unconditionally into the public (with a new name as he runs from his past). He never should have left the cozy confines of a psychiatric hospital.

I don't think Li should be loose in public either.

I brought him up because his was the only name I knew from the top of my head, and though his crime was the definition of heinous, he somewhat typifies your extreme comments on criminals. 

By extreme comments... do you mean when I defend an officer for using deadly force when a criminal resists or engages him in s fight?

When a criminal resists arrest and gets physical.., they've crossed a line into very dangerous territory. There are people here who think cops should try their best to wrestle the dangerous offender to the ground or even- laughably- let the dangerous criminal go, but I'm not one of those people.

It's outrageous to suggest cops should cease their police business when a criminal resists arrest or makes it challenging to detain them. There are many incidents where cops have not come home from work because they were too 'patient' with dangerous people.

Criminals need to behave better. Direct your ire towards the right party.

No, I mean the comments you've made in the death penalty thread, and everywhere else.  I'm not the only poster here that has noted that you use some extreme rhetoric on the issue.

Bentleyspop said:

Thirty Bills Unpaid said:

unsung said:

Do people generally believe that in any particular group about 10% of the people are of lesser character?

It might even be more.

Lesser character can be exemplified in many ways.

This very true
Including those of lesser character who believe themselves  to be superior to all others.

I'm curious to know what you're getting at here.

unsung said:

Thirty Bills Unpaid said:

unsung said:

Do people generally believe that in any particular group about 10% of the people are of lesser character?

It might even be more.

Lesser character can be exemplified in many ways.

I was trying to present a softer image of an a-hole.  You know, gotta be PC.

So what other profession has the potential of those 10% (or more) hurting the public in a greater way?

Politicians?  Sure.  Doctors?  Maybe.  I can't think of another.

An unfair comparison. All those jobs are different with varying degrees of risk and responsibility.

unsung said:

With great power comes great responsibility. 

Police have a higher ability to harm the public over nearly any other professtion.  Their mistakes, their actions kill.  Not many professions can be compared is right.  No other profession can be compared because no other profession kills as many people as police do. 

Or perhaps you know of one?

Yup.

Politicians (eg. President of the US).

And it's not even close.

unsung said:

Thirty Bills Unpaid said:

unsung said:

With great power comes great responsibility. 

Police have a higher ability to harm the public over nearly any other professtion.  Their mistakes, their actions kill.  Not many professions can be compared is right.  No other profession can be compared because no other profession kills as many people as police do. 

Or perhaps you know of one?

Yup.

Politicians (eg. President of the US).

And it's not even close.

Domestically?

Yes. For sure.

You count your state issued citizens (soldiers) abroad as domestic don't you? Or do they develop another label as they are displaced?