(There is a debate on The Pit about a traffic stop. Let’s try to keep this civil here.)
Do you support your police? Has your attitude changed over the past few years?
I am a fairly Conservative sort of Libertarian. I am a retired Army officer. I am well-off. I understand policemen are doing a nasty and dangerous job. Really, I empathize with the individual policeman. Despite all this I do not support the police as much as I once did. Am I alone?
Why do I feel this way?
The police enforce unpopular laws. (Well, ‘Duh’ you say, ‘it is their job.’) They enforce the laws selectively. They seize property on little pretense. The call and ask for bribes (oops! ‘contributions’) when I am at home. They dress in black (who the heck decided on that?).
Silly reasons? Perhaps when taken one by one. But still, the police no longer seem to be helpful civil servants, but increasingly an oppressive and dangerously out-of-control force. It is more a ‘feeling’ than a rational statement, I admit. That does not make it any less real.
Can only post a quick response for now but yes, wholeheartedly. Probably has something to do with my SO being a police officer and a large chunk of our friends are in the force. They do a very important, difficult and oftimes thankless job.
It seems like we dwell on the rare occassion when a police officer gets it wrong. What about all the times that they are there in the thick of it?
I would be happy to join up myself if the pay was comparable with my current job.
I still support my local cops. Sure, they could be more efficient (especially when dealing with petty crime, something they’ve all but abandoned lately), and they definately could use some sensitivity training, but they have an important job to do and they’re streched pretty thin as it is. Remember, they’re the ones who work all day to keep me from blowing up.
Incidentally. Paul, are you referring to American or Saudi cops? Because if its the latter, I don’t see how anyone with a single Liberatarian bone in their body can support them at all - after all, they’re the tools of a nonelected regime.
I still support my local Police department. In both my current town, my previous town and the town I grew up in, the police departments were small and well run without the stupidity of having set speed traps.
All 3 departments only made one solicitation per year. My parents gave when I was growing up and I give yearly.
The Police in my previous down were good and helpful and wore nice old fashion friendly blue not black. (Howell, NJ)
My current Police department is well run and did a extremely professional job in my opinion when my house was broken into.
They are generally friendly and I definitely support them.
Most solicitations for money are not actually my local police but about a dozen state or union organizations. I only give to the locals.
I support my local cops via taxes and never give contributions when they call me and beg.
I know they have a tough job, and I understand the danger factor for most cops. My neighborhood is extremely quiet so I don’t think they see much in the way of real action around here. They’re rude, too.
Nah, you’re not the only one. Yes, the police force do a thankless job (hopefully) for the betterment of our locale, and they deserve support for that. However, not only do they have considerable power to screw up my life (which makes me distrustful on a fundamental level), but I’ve met some knuckleheads that have joined the force, and if I think too much about it, it kinda scares me a bit.
Indulging in a little fictional analogy – perhaps I’m like the object of Jack Nicholson’s ire in A Few Good Men; I want them on that wall, without taking into account what that takes. But the truth was outed there, and it was an all too plausible situation that gives me pause.
My husband is deputy warden in a prison, so it probably stands to reason that, yes, we support the local police.
Cops have a shitty job and are under enormous scrutiny for decisions they have to make in a split-second.
In the prison in which my husband works, the emergency response team (think of them like the prison’s SWAT) had to stop wearing black gloves because they were deemed “too intimidating.”
My dad was a cop. My uncle was a state trooper. My aunt was a police dispatcher. I have worked as a deputy sheriff. IOW, I have known a lot of cops.
I’ve seen a distinct and distasteful militarization of LE over the past 15 years or so. I see it in the uniforms and I see it in the attitude.
I support the concept of local law enforcement; but I’ve know way too many weiners-with-a-badge to make balnket statements like “I support my local police.”
If the idea is to protect the officer’s hands, then white kid leather gloves would serve the purpose equally well. is there a specific reason why black leather is more desirable for them?
Two reasons: The supply company which had always sold them to them only carried the gloves in black (cause that’s the color that goes with everything, of course! ) and they don’t show dirt like white does.
You can’t just buy from anyone when you’re going through the state-- there are rules as to what companies the prisons can deal with. An approved supplier had to be found which could supply the gloves in other colors. (I think they finally settled on brown.)
I hope you all can see I am conflicted here. I like policemen. I know a couple. I know I only see the Bad Stuff in the news; Bad Stuff is news. Still, there seem to be so many policemen in America nowadays, they seem so rude and ill-trained.
Of course, I am talking about feelings, and so I admit I am not being rational. Still, I perceive that ‘The Police’ at least have a large public relations problem.
Let’s put it this way, when I come into contact with the police, I expect Something Bad to happen. It ought not to be like that.
As for the Saudi police, more than a few died rushing in to try to control the stampede at Hajj this year. Once again, I have little respect for the collective ‘Police,’ but much respect for the individuals.
No. For me it was the realization that racism and racial profiling was rampant and acknowledged within our local police force from a conversation I had with an officer. This was “not a big deal” in my life when I was a white woman with white friends who was unlikely to be impacted. Then I adopted a Korean son and had this officer tell me straight out that if he saw an Asian young man driving a nice car, he’d pull him over and search the car. Since its likely that my son (in sixteen years) will be driving a nice car (likely, given Brainiac4’s taste in cars and that our son will likely drive Dad’s car), that was about the time I said “you guys have problems, and you’d better get them straightened out.”
I know its a tough job. And I know stereotypes are helpful as a self defense mechanism. And I know Asian gangs are a problem for St. Paul policemen. I found his “this is the way it is” attitude to be very frightening as a mom.
My husband has the same problem. He looks kind of like Gandolf and drives a nice car. He used to get pulled over quite a bit because he simply didn’t look like he could afford that car. A little different than racial profiling, but profiling nonetheless.
A large part of the problem, IMO, is the result of their being enlisted to engage in (literal) highway robbery in the form speed trap ticketing and the like.
I’d have to say that my attitudes towards the police are significantly more favorable than they were when I was in my 20s. (They’ve declined again in the last decade, though). My first experiences with the police were in New Mexico, Georgia, Texas, Colorado, and California. I found them generally unprofessional belligerent authoritarian gun-totin’ bullies. Selective law enforcement? You betcha. Use of “the law” to intimidate or assault unpopular or unwanted people who were not in fact breaking the law? Yep.
I’ve been living in New York City for some time now, and although they’ve gotten more thuggish in the Giuliani-and-onwards era, police officers here are still mostly fair and professional (at least by comparison with those I’d run into elsewhere).
To an extent, getting older helps, but I’m still a longhaired bearded guy in denim and t-shirt and/or jacket. White, not very ethnic looking, would probably be spot-categorized as a lefty & perhaps inclined to participate in protest activity etc
One thing I’d like to ask as a foreigner reading this thread (about, by implication, mainly the US police forces): what exactly would constitute “supporting” vs. “not supporting” your local police?
As a kid, I was brought up to believe in the whole “protect and serve” thing. I was never one of those who believed it was cool to “diss the pigs” or in the easy generalizations of the type “cops are nothing but fascist jackbooted thugs”.
Today, when I ask myself: what did cops do for me and what did they do against me ? The answer is that they did a whole lot against me and almost nothing for me. I say almost nothing because they did give me directions on occasion.
On the other hand, they did give me speeding tickets, they did nothing on the 3 instances I got robbed or assaulted (and 2 of those times, I had all the info they needed to find and aprehend the guy) and a lot of the feedback I hear from my peers is negative.
It’s understandable though. They’re human. They get desensitized, they get disillusioned , they get cynical and selfish and they stop caring. Add to that the prejudices and shortcomings characterizing their typical backgrounds and IQ range and it’s a downright miracle there are any “good” cops at all.
Nope. I don’t like authority figures, period. I don’t like speed traps and other purely income-generating enforcement actions. I especially don’t like that some steroid goon with a shoe size IQ has the power of life or death over people. I am appalled at how much money is spent on cops, prisons, military, spooks, etc. The “enforcement model” isn’t especially effective, and we’re too stupid to come up with anything better.
I don’t donate money to those claim to be soliciting for the police because I know that at most one cent out of every dollar will actually go there.
I appreciated it when the local gendarmes showed up quickly (along with the rescue squad) when we were worried that my MIL was having a heart attack (she wasn’t).
I did not appreciate it when they accused my daughter of DWI when she was returning home from her bartending job at 3 AM. The reason she smelled of beer was that she had been working with the stuff for over 8 hours. She told them that and had proof of it, but they wanted to get this “dangerous” person off the road.
I did not appreciate having the same experience with cops who could not tell the difference between a middle-aged woman with arthritis and hot flashes and a drunk. And cops whose own video tape showed they were lying. Yes, the charges were eventually thrown out for lack of evidence, but the cops did not have to put me through that.
I don’t like that one town near me is well-known for racial profiling. It was embarrassing to have to warn a new employee who was very dark-skinned that he must be sure not to have a broken tail light or any other slight visible problem with his car as he drove to our office lest he be stopped and detained early and often.
I don’t like that another nearby town has a gung-ho officer who lurks and gives “speeding” tickets to anyone who goes 26 mph in the 25 mph zone. These tickets, if contested, usually get dismissed by the judge.
I know that they also do run the risk of being shot by criminals every time they make a traffic stop. And that they are necessary. I just resent that too many of them are jerks.
) and they don’t show dirt like white does.