Steelmann, we give police a lot of authority over us and quite a few protections for discretionary actions. If society is going to give you a gun and trust you to use it only when needed, then your workplace behavior cannot be the same as most other professions. It just can't. You need to be held to a much higher standard. I think we agree on that, or at least most of us do.
However, numerous points bear discussion. First, contrary to what a lot of people think, cops are not that well-paid. Second, police officers get involved with physical scuffles all the time. At least once every two months for cops in urban areas, sometimes more, and at least 1-2x foot chases per month as well. Third, those altercations can end an officer's career and in fact in my line of work, I have personally met at least 50 police officers seriously injured by something other than a shooting. A lot of these guys were too injured to go back to policing.
Knee injuries, back injuries, rotator cuff, broken wrist, broken fingers, fractured eye socket, broken nose, skull fracture, bruised kidney, broken ankle, broken foot, badly twisted ankle, damaged spleen, and on and on. If police pulled their weapons every time a serious threat of physical harm arose due to an altercation, there would be a ****-ton more shootings than actually happen, and I'm talking about a factor of ten or twenty. It is an absolute fact that the police will not pull a gun until it is time to use it, since once you have the weapon out, then you cannot get into a physical altercation any more, since you have both hands on the weapon and if you let the bad guy get close, guess what happens 99 times out of 100? Yep, bad guy tries to grab the gun.
Fourth, police officers are called every name in the book, lied to, cussed at, threatened, etc. on a regular basis. They are treated as an occupying force in minority neighborhoods. Most departments try to change that view with public meetings, hiring minority officers, training and policies to encourage non-confrontational interaction with civilians. But the simple fact is that if you work a job where you are lied to, threatened, cussed out, and feel like you are surrounded by a hostile force, you will be defensive. Cops are people, not robots.
Fifth, I personally detest the phone camera generation. Hate it. Despise it. All these nimrod ******** with their phones - never, ever, ever do any of those worthless ***** do anything to help improve the world. How many of these ***** spend an afternoon with other phone camera devotees and pick up trash around their neighborhoods? Or work in a homeless shelter, coach youth sports? Almost never because they are a group of stupid, narcissistic, self-centered ******** too lazy to do anything to make the world a better place - apart from pointing their phones at something or somebody. "Oooooh, look at me, I'm so special, I'm taking a video of something I could have helped prevent or minimize three weeks ago but didn't!!"
You say in part, "Any officer going through the academy would realize this. Is all this police brutality,covering up, lying for each other and so on part of their job too? And no,I don’t paint all of the police with a broad brush. It’s just staggering how many break the laws, that their job is to enforce." My response is that police officers have more opportunity to harm citizens, hurt people, commit robbery or extortion, than almost any other segment of society. On a daily basis a cop has a chance to say, "I'm going to let you walk but need some incentive here." Let the wrongdoer make an offer. $100? $200? If the wrongdoer is a judge or lawyer or other admired member of society and accuses the cop of extortion, the cop can say, "Hey, hey - I was just looking for some evidence you were going to improve your behavior here. If you think otherwise, **** off. Here's the citation."
But they don't. Millions of interactions per year, tens of millions over the decades, literally hundreds of millions of chances to line their pockets or force themselves on others, and that almost never happens. The instance of it occurring are so miniscule that they make the headlines.
If we entrusted these tasks to the average member of the general public, I guaran-damn-tee you, the incidences of extortion, sexual favors, etc. would be increased beyond what you can imagine. So yes, we continue to hold cops to a very high standard. That should not change.
How about we start holding the rest of America to a higher standard as well?
However, numerous points bear discussion. First, contrary to what a lot of people think, cops are not that well-paid. Second, police officers get involved with physical scuffles all the time. At least once every two months for cops in urban areas, sometimes more, and at least 1-2x foot chases per month as well. Third, those altercations can end an officer's career and in fact in my line of work, I have personally met at least 50 police officers seriously injured by something other than a shooting. A lot of these guys were too injured to go back to policing.
Knee injuries, back injuries, rotator cuff, broken wrist, broken fingers, fractured eye socket, broken nose, skull fracture, bruised kidney, broken ankle, broken foot, badly twisted ankle, damaged spleen, and on and on. If police pulled their weapons every time a serious threat of physical harm arose due to an altercation, there would be a ****-ton more shootings than actually happen, and I'm talking about a factor of ten or twenty. It is an absolute fact that the police will not pull a gun until it is time to use it, since once you have the weapon out, then you cannot get into a physical altercation any more, since you have both hands on the weapon and if you let the bad guy get close, guess what happens 99 times out of 100? Yep, bad guy tries to grab the gun.
Fourth, police officers are called every name in the book, lied to, cussed at, threatened, etc. on a regular basis. They are treated as an occupying force in minority neighborhoods. Most departments try to change that view with public meetings, hiring minority officers, training and policies to encourage non-confrontational interaction with civilians. But the simple fact is that if you work a job where you are lied to, threatened, cussed out, and feel like you are surrounded by a hostile force, you will be defensive. Cops are people, not robots.
Fifth, I personally detest the phone camera generation. Hate it. Despise it. All these nimrod ******** with their phones - never, ever, ever do any of those worthless ***** do anything to help improve the world. How many of these ***** spend an afternoon with other phone camera devotees and pick up trash around their neighborhoods? Or work in a homeless shelter, coach youth sports? Almost never because they are a group of stupid, narcissistic, self-centered ******** too lazy to do anything to make the world a better place - apart from pointing their phones at something or somebody. "Oooooh, look at me, I'm so special, I'm taking a video of something I could have helped prevent or minimize three weeks ago but didn't!!"
You say in part, "Any officer going through the academy would realize this. Is all this police brutality,covering up, lying for each other and so on part of their job too? And no,I don’t paint all of the police with a broad brush. It’s just staggering how many break the laws, that their job is to enforce." My response is that police officers have more opportunity to harm citizens, hurt people, commit robbery or extortion, than almost any other segment of society. On a daily basis a cop has a chance to say, "I'm going to let you walk but need some incentive here." Let the wrongdoer make an offer. $100? $200? If the wrongdoer is a judge or lawyer or other admired member of society and accuses the cop of extortion, the cop can say, "Hey, hey - I was just looking for some evidence you were going to improve your behavior here. If you think otherwise, **** off. Here's the citation."
But they don't. Millions of interactions per year, tens of millions over the decades, literally hundreds of millions of chances to line their pockets or force themselves on others, and that almost never happens. The instance of it occurring are so miniscule that they make the headlines.
If we entrusted these tasks to the average member of the general public, I guaran-damn-tee you, the incidences of extortion, sexual favors, etc. would be increased beyond what you can imagine. So yes, we continue to hold cops to a very high standard. That should not change.
How about we start holding the rest of America to a higher standard as well?
