I try to obey the laws. I pay my taxes without grumbling. One the couple of occasions I’ve had information I thought the police would need to know, I called them and told them.
It wasn’t like I fingered any drug kingpins. I just told them, “hey, there’s this guy on the ground over there, and he said he was beat up.” And when my license plate went missing, I made a report. That’s been about it, though.
But yeah, I guess that’s supporting the police. What else do they want?
On my department we have a doctor of pharmacology, a licensed phd counselor, several MBAs, multiple masters degrees. The education requirement was less years ago but for at least the last 10 years a college degree has been required. We have a mixed group as to race, ethnicity and sexual oreintation. Which typical background are you speaking of or are you just wallowing in your own prejudices?
I have to lend my support to this. I know a lot of cops, and they range from very well-educated to avgerage-joe.
Being a cop is not just as simple as “Og smash!” Police officers have a lot of training they have to complete before they get on the job, because there’s a lot they have to know about the law in order to work effectively. They also have to be able to file reports and evidence-gathering procedures.
Why would a department want to hire a drooling thug? They know the media is scrutinizing them constantly, so why would they want to hire people who seem to be eager to violate citizens’ rights? The more professional and intelligent people they can hire, the better-- just like in any profession. Would you hire an idiot to work with you? If you were a sergent, would you want a workforce full of people who get your ass chewed by a comissioner?
MLS, I regret what happened to you and your daughter, but when it comes to drunk drivers, officers have been taught that it’s better safe than sorry. They should investigate anything suspicious, and no, they shouldn’t take your word for it. Drunks can lie. They don’t know you, or your situation.
Local police here never gave me any trouble.
In general, though, I can’t endorse cops.
I’m sure most of them are good guys, but there are just enough flat-out nutjobs that make it onto a police force that I can’t ever give a blanket endorsement.
It’s a shame, too, as some of the cops I’ve known were among the nicest, most selfless people I’ve ever met. Then there were the cops who beat one of my handcuffed relatives, his 9 pound dog and then… ran part of his record collection under hot water in the bathtub in his apartment.
Too many stories of cops gone bad for me to ever lower my guard with them enough to say I “support” them.
Cops aren’t a force for good or evil.
Cops have a chilling effect on chaos, an effect I find useful, but are like other humans in that they present a substantial risk to those around them.
Mixed
I don’t like the double standard, how they can get away with speeding, DWI and the like while we can’t.
I can’t fault them for driving 75 on a road that is designed and safe for that speed but posted 55, They have to enforce the laws, not make them, and if they can get away with breaking them w/o conquence that is OK w/ me.
But things like getting away with DWI is very very wrong, almost so that I sometimes want another police force that just polices the police.
You give them a few bucks when they come to your door? I got in a lot of trouble last time I tried that…
No. I watch these jerks set up speed traps and write tickets on our stretch of I-270, and hang out at the local QT for coffee and donuts, while real crime goes largely unchecked.
Prejudices? As I said, I started out very sympathetic to cops. They are the ones who changed my perspective. With THEIR actions. How could I possibly be prejudiced? Doesn’t the pre- imply that I PRE- Judged them (negatively) ? It doesn’t make sense.
You’ll have a a hard time contesting that the vast majority of cops are NOT smarter than average (in fact, wasn’t there a guy that scored TOO HIGH in their IQ tests and was turned down?). Smarter people usually pick higher-paying jobs (again, there are exceptions).
And I’m sure that if you looked at the statistics, you’d find very few cops who come from affluent families. Most will come from a lower class bracket. That usually entails a lesser education, lack of sophistication and culture all of which can lead to a better understanding of the world at large and possibly more tolerant views on it. Tolerant as in “maybe marijuana is not evil” and “people who don’t fit in are not necessarily criminals”. Granted, that is a pretty flimsy reasoning with two “maybes” throw in there but I believe it’s still significant enough to be mentionned.
All this said, my uncle is a chief of police. He’s a smart, educated guy. So yeah, they exist, they are simply too rare to count much.
Perhaps, but they don’t have to lie. They don’t have to say you could hardly stand up when their own video shows that to not be the case. Ditto they don’t have to say you were weaving about in the lane when the video clearly shows you put on your turn signal and correctly pulled over at the first available spot on a dark road. They don’t have to say you went through a red light when the light turned YELLOW while you were already in the intersection. They don’t have to administer **all ** of the DWI roadside checkpoint tests WRONG and then try to get you to confess to something you didn’t do. They don’t have to promise to drop the DWI charge if the blood test shows under the limit and then, when it does show sobriety, hit you with the same punishment as if it had been over the limit. They don’t have to refuse to allow a young person to call her parents. They don’t have to report you as “rude and obnoxious” when you expect to be addressed respectively. The last time I read Miss Manners, asking to be called “Mrs.” is not being rude and obnoxious.
A person with this power and authority should be able to tell the difference between a drunk and an old lady with arthritis. An old lady with arthritis walks stiffly and leans on the door for support when she stands up. A drunk may be unsteady on his feet, but not in the same way.
I do not support them, but I do not try to undermine them. There are too many members of that particular group that do not live up to the standard of being the watchmen over the rest of society.
For instance, the chief of one of the smaller 'burbs around here recently resigned after it was publicized that he said he would not have any “gooks” on his force. If you can rise to the level of chief without anyone caring that you are a racist, there is something terribly rotten in your police force, not just the chief.
My last extended experience with a cop was with one that was not willing to even collect all the possesions that were buried in the planters in front of my job. We were reporting a woman fleeing a parking lot in conjunction with reporting finding these items. She had run down the street, frantically trying every door on the way (we saw her doing this from three floors up, and she was gone by the time we were able to get to the ground floor). It certainly looked like something was up, people usually do not bury their license, purse, etc. It just seemed like the last thing he wanted to deal with was the public’s problems.
That said, I knew the son of another chief in this area. He is a man of so much integrity that I am amazed that he was able to get to the top of any organization, much less one with such a political aspect. If you had a force of persons at least approaching his quality, then I might be comfortable with them. That’s not going to happen, and they will continue to be what they are. They’re not your friends, and the less contact you have with them, the better off you will usually be.
I recall it was the Anglo-American film director, Alfred Hitchcock who said, “I am not against the police, I am afraid of the police.”
I generally “support” the police. I’ve been pulled over for traffic violations a few times in my life, and on all but one of those occasions the officers (both state troopers and town/city police) have been polite and professional. I’ve also called the police a few times, and have been satisfied with their responses.
The things I don’t like are situations when I feel like the police are ‘out to get me.’ I lived in a town last year with really one main road in/out. The police always seemed to be waiting around one or two of the corners. In the year I lived there I was pulled over three times (once for not coming to a complete stop before turning right off an exit ramp at 3AM… he was just checking for drunk drivers, once for having a headlight out, and once for someone else’s headlight being out, who went on to pass me before the cop turned on his lights and pulled me over), none of which resulted in tickets for my violations, but I got to feeling very uncomfortable driving home; like the police were waiting to get me for any reason whatsoever.
Anyway, yeah, I support them, but I’m not all that comfortable around them.
Who polices the policers? 
My local police? Yes, I do. When I have encountered them they have been polite and kept good control of the situation without being unnecessarily confrontational. I don’t notice them pulling over one race more than another, and I have seen them confront litterers and make them pick up their mess.
Police in general? Less than ever. I have personally encountered rudeness and arrogance that is breathtaking. I see the damn Park Ridge policy stopping people for DWB it seems like every time I go through that place. Many don’t seem to think the law applies to them, or at least the one that backed into my car seemed to think he did not need to even tell me his name. A couple of years ago a rogue park police force was abolished near here for harrassing people. From chasing and killing old men to showing up in large numbers at trials to intimidate witnesses, most of the times I see cops in the news, they are doing something new to tick me off.
Too often police make bad situations worse. They whine whenever people want to video tape them, yet are all for surveillence of the public. I want all interrogations on video. I want video of traffic stops. Police can make bad situations better. They can be helpful. Many don’t help and their contempt for non-police is staggering.
It is hard to argue about recording all confessions on video, and yet some police departments do. I for one never trust a confession.
But later in this same post, you say:
If you had to lean against the door for support, I can understand why they could think you were hardly “able to stand up.”
When did they turn on the camera? Was it just after they turned on their flashing lights? If so, the video may not have shown you driving before they decided to pull you over.
Does the video show this? I ask because once, my husband saw me driving down the street and told me I had run a red light. I argued with him that it was yellow, but he had a clerarer view from his vantage point. If it turned red while your car still had not cleared the interesection, you might not have been able to see it from inside the vehicle.
How did they administer the tests incorrectly? And, of course he’s going to try to get you to confess. That’s what cops do. The fact that they tried (apparently) repeated times tells me they really did think you were drinking, because drunks are often easy to trip up if you keep asking them the same question.
I’d like to know more details about this. Did the test show any alcohol consumption? Did you go before a judge?
Unless she’s a minor, they have no obligation to allow her to do so. If she is arrested, she gets a phone call at the station, and she can call whomever she wishes. Understand that cops have a reason not to want outraged parents on the scene, potentially causing a ruckus.
If you were arguing with them and lecturing them on calling you “Mrs.” while they’re trying to do their job, I can understand why they would feel that way. In my dealings with the police, my responses have been limited to “Yes, sir,” and “No, sir”. If I were ever in a position to be arrested, I would add to that repetoir, “I refuse to answer questions, sir, until I speak to an attorney.”
Remember the Miranda warning? “Anything you say can, and will, be used against you.” Don’t get into an argument with the cops. You can’t debate them out of following procedure if they are suspicious. Trust me, they hear arguments constantly. The guilty argue just as vehemently as the innocent, and a lot of the time, the more you argue, the more suspicious they get. “Methinks the lady doth protest too much.”
So, now you want cops to be medical professionals as well. Believe it or not, drunks behave in widely varying ways-- even a doctor may have to rely on blood tests to tell if someone is intoxicated. When my husband is intoxicated, I would challenge anyone to be able to detect it without medical science.
Old ladies with arthritis can be drunks, too. Hell, I know a couple.
I support the police by paying taxes and not breaking the law. I’m as polite to them as I am to anyone else. Beyond that, no, I don’t support the police.
The local police have not been particuarly helpful or polite when I’ve had to call on them. Their presence makes me feel nervous, not more secure. The local sheriff is a corrupt good old boy. The sooner he gets voted out of office, the better.
Mixed feelings. in my hometown, I had zero contact with them, so thought nothing one way or the other.
When I got older and moved to NYC, I thought they were generally OK. (Mind you, I’m a white male.) But I found their laziness startling on the few occasions my wife and I interacted with them. Case 1: Delivery truck driver in SoHo is clearly drinking a large 22-oz. Heineken as he slowly drives through traffic at 8:30 in the morning. My wife complains to a couple of cops parked right nearby–they can see the truck, too. Their response to her concern about someone drinking and driving on busy streets in a large vehicle? “You aren’t from around here, are you, miss?” They laughed and drove off, doing nothing. Case 2: My wife puts on a fashion show in NYC. Her wallet is stolen from the dressing room by one of the models, who then uses the credit card to order merchandise and have it sent to her apt. in the Bronx. My wife knows who this person is, and where she lives, but when she tells the police, they shrug and say that they can’t do anything about it.
My current location–rural area. The few times I’ve met the state troopers, they’ve been nothing but polite, etc. The local cops … let’s just say that it often feels like we’re trapped in some sort of protection racket. Cop stops you for going through a red light. You absolutely did NOT go through a red light. It’s his word against yours. You’re f—ed. You go to court, and plead down to some other, no-points charge like “parking on pavement,” because you don’t want points on your license. You have just put another $150 into the local coffers, and there’s not a damn thing you can do about it.
I think we could use something akin to Amnesty Intl’s Witness program here in the US, to encourage drivers to put video cameras in their cars to catch instances where the cops are abusing their powers (or abusing citizens).
Well, my local police, I support. But that is largely because they aren’t a bother. I live in a small resort town (pop. 1,400 year-round, 2,900 in season), and the cops, unlike too many of the other small towns near me, don’t make their living with speed traps. In fact, in the 2+ years I have lived here, I’ve seen the cops pull over only one car - and that one for driving too slowly (25 mph in a 35 mph zone, with seven cars stuck behind it). And the police roster in our bimonthly local paper makes for hilarious reading (“police called to investigate suspicious noises … a cat/dog/raccoon/gecko was found”).
But in general, I don’t support the police. The fact of the matter is, when I see a cop, I get a fight/flight response. I see selective enforcement, my wife was pulled over for “driving while poor”, etc. I get anxious because I simply don’t know how to respond - is today the day they decide to pull me over for no good reason?
But most of all, I absolutely despise the scofflaw attitude too many cops exhibit. Cops passing me on the highway at speeds well above both the speed limit and the natural flow of traffic. Cops (argggghh!!) turning on their lights to run a red light, then immediately turning them off again. If cops want my support, they should stop busting people for behavior they routinely engage in.
Sua
You say that you don’t pre-judge and then you paint thousands of people from all across the country with the broadest brush possible. Of course that is prejudiced. If I had a bad experience with an Afican-American, Latinio etc and let that cloud my judgement of the entire group I would be prejudiced. Your entire post is full of assumptions without any facts. You presume and prejudge all the cops you meet to be uneducated and low class.
I can not speak for everyone. Most of my exerience has been in NJ. I am sure my experience is much greater than yours. In my experience most cops are at least as smart as average. Most are college educated. Most deartments are making it a requirement. Those that want to be promoted past sergeant have to get a masters degree. Most come from middle class to upper middle class families. Smarter people take higher paying jobs? Bullshit. For one I know five people I work with (see my first post) who left very high paying jobs to become cops. They all had their personal reasons and I won’t speak for them. Besides how much do you think police officers make? I know there is a big difference depending as to what part of the country you are from but around here it is a decent paying job. There are always a ton of applicants for every job available. I am making four times as much now as when I was a cubicle dweller for a multi-national corporation.
As for “tolerant” and “world view” I have had plenty of private discussions about the legality of marijuana and other issues. The opinions I found are as different as you would find in any group.
I’m not going to turn this into a “Ask the cop” thread. It’s been done. I’m sure you can find it if you look. Badge (where did he go?) did a good job with it. I will say this, you don’t know where he is going or why. Everytime the overhead lights go on a cop is taking a risk. You would not believe how stupid people get when they see those flashing lights. I have seen cars slam or their brakes and come to a complete stop in the middle of a 65 mph highway. I put them on as little as possible. There are three ways I can go to a call. If it is just a paperwork call, I’ll get there when I get there. If it is a hot call I have to turn on the lights and go all out to get there. Then there are most of the calls. Ones that I need to get there soon but I shouldn’t risk my life to get there. Then I will drive fast but generally keep with traffic. If I come to an intersection I will flash the lights and do through to save time. If I wasn’t going to a call why would I do it? I’m going to be driving around for 11 hours, where am I going? I’m in no hurry. I have received many dirty looks when driving fast or with my lights on and then slowing down and going on to 7-11 or some place else. The reason? I was called off the call I was going on. From where you are sitting it is not possible to know what is going on.