Former California police officer Jim Young explains it here. You’ll appreciate his tips.
This “officer” sounds like a cunt. Is this supposed to be impressive? And what’s the debate?
Good.
And this is exactly why I said, and continue to say, ‘meh’, when after 9/11 the nation popped a huge collective boner over firemen and policemen. Most cops are not as bad as the jerk described in the OP, but OTOH, the friendliest attitude I’ve ever seen a cop display was patronizing condescension. Thanks for choosing to earn your salary, pension, and benefits by working in the public service realm, but don’t take that as license to abuse your power and generally act like dickheads.
Oh noes! You have to write a report! The horror!
Like I would say to anyone else in any other job about this kind of complaint; Shut the Fuck up and do your job. Don’t like it, GO HOME.
Can you tell me how to get to the freeway from here? Can you tell me where the nearest public restroom is? Can you tell me what to do about my neighbor kicking my dog?
Again. You could be doing a lot worse than answering basic questions. If this annoys you, you’re in the wrong line of business.
Don’t do the crime if you can’t do the time applies to you too, “officer”.
This guy has no business being in Law Enforcement.
There’s a fundamental disconnect that many people get when they become familiar with their job: they don’t realize that people who don’t do the job aren’t familiar with it.
So it seems completely obvious to me that you ought to be making sure your kid reads every night, but I have to remember that to non-teachers, this may not be obvious. The cop thinks it’s completely obvious that you lock the doors of your car and keep nothing valuable in it, but to someone who’s gone their whole lives without having a theft from a car, it’s not obvious. The doctor thinks you’re an idiot for not getting a flu shot, but to people who don’t see cases of the flu every day, it’s not obvious. The computer tech can’t believe people would go online without updated software, but to people who haven’t yet experienced a virus attack, it’s not obvious.
Yes, when you’re immersed in a field, what to do seems like basic common sense. But not everyone is immersed in the field. Showing contempt to them is itself contemptible.
Hmm, I saw both of these films in theaters during their first runs, and while I’m sure their popularity had something to do with the vicarious thrill of seeing vigilante justice meted out, I don’t recall the audiences cheering or ‘screaming with joy’ during the depicted events. Actually, one thing I remember is both films being heavily criticized for the way they stacked the deck to favor extralegal violence.
Also one of mankind’s most discredited concepts, I would have thought.
Sounds about right.
Rants go in The BBQ Pit.
If you want a debate, next time propose a thesis to defend.
Off you go.
Man, just imagine, if the victims weren’t so irresponsible we wouldn’t need cops!
Fucking civilians. Which any given officer would be if nobody needed cops.
-Joe
You will refrain from describing anyone as a “cunt” on this board.
[ /Modding ]
Imagine that you’ve been assigned to teach your favorite topic, nineteenth century Russian literature, only to show up in the classroom to find that you’ve been assigned a class of hyperactive eight-year-olds. Now imagine that about two thirds of the class are bullies who mostly pick on each other, but also occasionally gang up on a non-aggressive student, who instead of doing any reasonable thing to defend or evacuate himself, just stands in the middle of the room and wails incessantly. Now imagine that you have to write out a report on every complaint, incident, intervention, or loud noise, and have them all complete before you can go home. Now consider that nearly every time you send some bully to the principal’s office for major punishment, he is sent back because there is no room in detention. This will give you some vague idea of what it is like to be a peace officer, except that the bullies are possibly armed, often intoxicated, and often dangerous.
It is certainly true that most police have an inculcated ‘Us vs. Them’ mentality, and as a civilian, you are automatically classified as one of Them by default. When you call up crying because your insecure back window was jigged and your box full of costume jewelry was stolen, it means some detective has to come out and file a report on a case that will in all likelihood never be closed, which you frustrated and him look bad on his performance. When a patrolman pulls you over for rolling through a stop sign, it means you get angry for a nitpicking offense, and it means he has to spend a day sitting around in court. Et cetera, ad nauseam. Sure, he’s getting paid, but he’d rather be solving actual crimes. It doesn’t help that most law enforcement-based (i.e. reactive to crimes) rather than problem-oriented (focused on prevention and removal of criminal elements), and so the job becomes repetitive and uninteresting.
It is true that this is all a part of the job, and there are no bones about it in training. The contempt for ‘customers’ is hardly limited to the occupation of law enforcement, though. Talk to any bartender and they’ll complain about the drunks; a retail clerk will be dismissive toward ‘stupid’ customers; et cetera. It is also the case that the majority of people police come into contact with are unremitting shitbags; hence, their distorted view of humanity as being mostly idiotic scum. It is also true that there are some police who shouldn’t be cops; they don’t have the patience or judgment to deal with emotionally charged situations with sufficient detachment. But the fact remains that even when a police does his job right, he’s often criticized, censured, and sued, because some civilian who is utterly ignorant of use of force policies and forensic ballistics of firearms doesn’t understand why he didn’t “shoot to wound” an armed suspect or restrain a hopped-up crankhead in a delicate armlock instead of using his Taser.
The last statement quoted by the o.p., though, is on point: civilians are stupid. They’re not just ignorant of statute and legal interpretation; that is just to be expected. No, they’re just dumb. They open up their mouths and say the most provocative, rude things just to provoke needless drama. They leave valuables lying around unlocked, cars with keys in the ignition, children running around unsupervised in potentially dangerous areas, and fail to obtain basic training in handling potentially hazardous devices like automobiles and firearms. The worst is how hurt and angry they are when the officer tells them the simple truth that it is unlikely that stolen property will be recovered or that criminals will be caught. Law enforcement has to bear the brunt of this anger even though they didn’t cause it and see how it could have been prevented with a modicum of thought.
Stranger
And what better way to educate those 8 year olds than by spanking them with a [del]ruler[/del] night stick? 
Former. Uh huh. Attitude. Uh huh. WHy exactly, should I give a fuck what Young says again?
Boo hoo. The police are supposed to investigate crimes and file reports and catch bad guys. If they don’t want to, they can fucking quit. Believe me, there are people who would gladly take the matter into their own hands, and go after the thief themselves, but these same cops who cry about this bullshit, would lock them up if they did.
If he were a rare exception in the police biz, I would shrug it off. But he is not. I have been friends with lots of cops in the past and that attitude is not unusual at all. They get an us against them thing going . Administering street justice is also common. They think, incorrectly, that people they arrest will get coddled by the system. It is their job to see justice is done.
Cops have told me their jobs are complicated because they have to be cop, judge and jury at the time. They get angry because all the people they encounter are bad people. They don’t deal with innocents, so you have to understand why they slowly learn to dislike people.
Offer and enter into evidence Exhibit #1, why police officers often view the public they’re sworn to protect in contempt; because the same public holds officers in contempt for being less capable than the public themselves at investigating and solving crimes, an opinion entirely based upon watching reruns of Quincy M.D. and The Rockford Files.
Stranger
So they take it upon themselves to decide all people are scum. Got it. If it’s such a hardship in them, here’s a solution.
Do away with the law and disband all law enforcement. Let us take the law into our own hands, and “deal with” the bad guys ourselves. That way they (police) won’t have to deal with all that unpleasantness. We’ll be sparing them the hardship of having to deal with all us “civilian scum”. /sarcasm
I imagine the job has got to take a psychological toll on on police officers. I suspect that when the majority of us has to deal with a police officer we’re not having the best day. Maybe we’ve been pulled over for speeding or someone broke into our house and he’s there to take our report. I’ve been fortunate in that every police officer I’ve dealt with has treated me with with a professionally courteous manner when I’ve been pulled over. When the police officers have shown up at my house because of a 911 call they’ve always been friendly once they have assessed the situation. I recognize that my experience isn’t universal and I certainly don’t think every police officer is a saint.
I do wonder if there have been any studies on the psychological makeup of police officers and whether or not it changes over the years.
I don’t feel like starting a thread in ATMB, but I’m curious about this. Could someone link me to a relevant thread or give me a one sentence explanation what this is about?
Well, if you must.
I suppose the implied thesis of the OP, for the sake of opening debate, was meant to be “the following is a reasonable way for police to think about society.” If there’s a GD rule or convention against presenting someone else’s words, which one does not agree with, as a rhetorical opener, I apologize.
I considered the Pit. I had one or two things I could have said about Jim Young, based on other parts of his site, if I was only interested in trashing him personally, but I was hoping for something a little more serious and nuanced to develop.
Because his attitude isn’t his alone. It is clearly shared by some or many active police, and the notion has at least been proposed that the design and approach of our law enforcement system is producing and reinforcing this attitude increasingly in officers.