Not angry because it insults or attacks police work, but rather that these sorts of officers are around and this is the cost of their lack of professionalism. It is one of the reasons why the police mission includes building and maintaining a positive relationship with the community they are policing. A person could literally be killed because they didn’t think the majority of police were out there to help them, and all because of the bad cops.
It makes me sad for similar reasons. I cannot help but think that if there is somebody in Chicago who is willing to tell their kid this, they maybe there is somebody in my jurisdication telling their kid the same thing. I sincerely want to be there to help the community, by taking bad guys off the street to the best of my ability, but also to help out in directly positive ways too.
Personally, though I think policing is getting a lot better not worse, but I guess I am likely biased. The problem in my mind is that the media is more than willing to start crucifying an officer at the first sign of even the slightest wrong doing (whether there really is any or not, doesn’t matter it is simply good ratings). If they were to print or report all the positive news done by the police the newspaper would weigh pounds more than it does, and we would need a 24 hour police news station. The thing is we don’t hear about this stuff nearly as much.
And if you walk across the street, a car might run you over. If you get on a bus, it might drive off the side of a bridge. It’s not like 9 out of 10 interactions end up with innocent people being shot to death. If a cop goes through a week with no hitches, it’s great, but you’ll never know about it. If a cop shoots an innocent (for whatever reason), you’ll hear about it for weeks on every station in every newspaper, all over the net, etc. That’s just how the media works…
And if your kid is being chased by someone trying to kill them, would you rather they go up to a cop who COULD be a bad cop that MIGHT kill them, or take their chances with the crazy guy gunning for them?
Personally I think the police are doing a good job (especially considering what they’re up against), but no one wants to hear about that anymore. And to an extent it’s good if you’re a little afraid of the police…it’ll keep you thinking about exactly what you’re doing when you’re interacting with one, and you probably won’t suddenly reach into your glove compartment for some ID or something, heh…
jarbabyj, the advice I give to foster kids (who will quite possibly get into legal trouble) is if the LEO comes to you, our lawyer is your friend; if you go to them, the LEO is your friend.
I’ve had a lot of run-ins with the police. Some have been very nice, professional, in a couple of cases much more helpful than they were required to be. In other cases the cops were abusive and hateful, and abused their power to make my life worse. Most fell in the middle. I don’t think cops as a whole are better or worse than the average citizen. They are just people. I don’t think they should be given as much power as they have, though, since they are just everyday people. The alternative is to use more thorough screening programs to make it harder for bad cops to get a badge, but that probably wouldn’t be practical.
First, I suppose I have to eat some crow, which I’m all too willing to do.
here is the story of LaTonya Haggerty who was shot because she refused to get out of the car and the police confused a PADLOCK for a gun. It also tells of Robert Russ, who did engage police in a chase, but had no guns on him and was shot.
In the case of Robert Russ, I can see how perhaps it looks suspicous, but I still don’t understand why the penalty for evading police or refusing to get out of a car should be death.
Both of these cases started as routine traffic stops. There were no guns, no drugs, just traffic violations. The drivers and passengers were violating the “don’t be a jerk rule”, certainly, but I don’t know if they needed to be killed for it.
Glitch, I’m sorry that this saddens you, and I’ve already said that I’m sure there ARE good cops. I’m glad to hear from so many of them over the past couple of days.
The media likes to focus on the bad, and that’s where I (and a lot of Americans) get most of their information.
Let me ask you a question though, do you think there are enough good cops out there that would report bad cops? I’ve heard all the time about the “blue code” that you don’t rat out the corruption, it’s just understood that you shut your trap. Would you report a cop abusing his or her power?
Other than a few traffic tickets and recovering my stolen car, my only experience with the police has been through our neighborhood watch patrol in Baltimore. Since I’m a “watch commander,” I get to ride one evening every seven weeks with an officer in the command car.
Obviously, the Baltimore Police Department has its problems, as does any large city police department. But I get to hear some of what goes on behind the scenes - some of it good, some bad. I tell you, I’ve got more respect for officers now than ever before. It’s unbelievable what these men and women go through every day. IMHO, there is something very special about a person who will do this kind of work for the garbage and abuse they receive every day. (Not to mention the terrible pay; an officer with 15 years experience makes just about what I do as a technical analyst with 3 years in the company. Many of these men and women live on overtime, because the pay is so low.)
Are there bad officers? Of course there are, but there are bad analysts, doctors, and bankers too. It’s just because police are much more in the public eye than other professions.
I was always taught (as a kid) to respect officers, and I try to pass that on to my kids as well. I think respect comes with the uniform, unless the officer proves that he/she doesn’t deserve it.
What was it that Frank Serpico said? “10% of cops are completely corrupt. 10% are completely honest. 80% wish they were honest.” Or something like that. Of course, that was about 30 years ago; who knows how true that is today (or, for that matter, how true it was then)?
Part of the problem is that we hear about every time a bad cop does something terrible and gets caught, but for every such instance there are countless numbers of completely honorable things that cops do that no one hears about. It seems (though I have no proof of this) that cops are more heavily scrutinized now than they have been previously, which also contributes to the perception that jarbaby speaks of.
I happen to feel the same way (emotionally, if not intellectually). I have certain benign anarchic tendencies; when I see I cop, I think of a boot on my neck. If that sounds unpleasant, it should. I also perceive the misconduct of police officers more clearly than I do thier good actions, as I descibed above. I’ve seen police officers harass black teens in white neighborhoods just for being a group of black teens in a white neighborhood (in the outer boroughs mostly, not so much in Manhattan). Last summer a friend and I were stopped by two officers around 3:00 AM in midtown and asked to empty our pockets. The cops said that we smelled like marijuana (we didn’t), which was quite clearly a bullshit pretense for doing a spot-check on us. Things like this get noticed and leave a really sour taste in one’s mouth.
Most of the experiences I have had with police have been fine. They get right to the point, do not screw around, and are polite. The only bad experiences that I have had are with small town police officers and sheriff deputies.
I cannot tell you how many times my best friend and I (me being Native American and him being Hispanic)have been pulled over due to “loud music”, “suspected of not wearing seatbelts” and so forth to end up w/ the officer telling us to get to were we are going and get off the streets or harassing us in general. All of this with us doing nothing wrong and in early evening at all times. We have been told, not asked, that they are going to search his car, and if we try to point this out we get crap about “talking back to an officer” and so forth and threatened with going to jail for the night. And considering that some of my white friends can drive past the officers late at night w/ music blasting and they get nothing for that.
I have respect for a city officer, and do not fear being pulled over. But when it is evening and you are pulled over on a dark road in the backwoods heading over to your girlfriends house by 3 deputies and all of them harassing you, then you really do begin to wonder about all those bad cop stories out there and start wondering if you are going to be the next story.
My point: city cops, good. Hick cops or deputies, bad.
Hmm… tough question. I think there are plenty of officers who are genuinely concerned about the state of policing. I think this is an ever increasing number. I think improved training is making for a better generation of police officers with each round. I think for the most part though they focus on their behaviour and not the behaviour of other officers. I think many officers would probably act in a manner similar to my answer below.
This also a very tough question. The answer is yes and no, or it depends. “Abuse of power” is a pretty broad term. Is a police officer recieving an unsolicited free cup of coffee abusing his or her power? Yes, but I certainly wouldn’t be reporting it to anybody. At the other extreme, if an officer is on the verge of a breakdown and is putting his service revolver to suspects head and threatening to blow their heads off, is he abusing his power? Yes, and this kind of stuff has to be dealt with. This is a ticking time bomb waiting to go off.
Would I go running straight to internal affairs? I don’t really now, since I have never been in that position. Again, I think it would all depend on the specifics of the abuse and how quickly I think action needed to be taken. If I knew the officer very well personally I would probably talk to him or her first. Or speak to one of their friends. Or bring my concerns to my sergeant. Or their sergeant. In other words, I would act to preserve public safety and order, but also to try to help out a fellow officer, in whatever way I felt best accomplished both of those goals, with public safety being the more important.