How do you feel about the police?

In My Humble Opinion
41

In my experience, the police have utterly failed to produce their intended effect. Their supposed purpose is “to serve and protect”, and yet in the two instances in my life where I was very much in danger, they didn’t come through, and it was only because of my own self-preservation that I made it through both incidents without harm.

Worse, on multiple occassions I’ve been harrassed by police and directly threatened when I was unwilling to waive my rights. One time I was swarmed by police after leaving a store, they blocked in my car and insisted on searching it insisting I had stolen merchandise in it (which I most assuredly did not). When I refused to allow them to search my vehicle, they started making empty threats, refusing to let me leave, and called my dad (I was 18, and his name was on the registration), only letting me go after he implied threat of legal action.

On another case, I was pulled over late at night for mildly speeding (like 40 in a 35), they insisted they smelled pot in the car (and I’ve never touched the stuff), and threatened to tear apart my car and insisting I would go to jail. Fortunately, I had friends in the car who overheard it, and after denying them access, ensuring that they heard their threats, and they proceeded to search anyway, they quickly bolted without giving me a ticket when I tried to get their badge numbers so I could press charges.

On another case, a cop came to the door claiming he had a warrant for one of my brother’s friends and asked if I was him. I asked him to present the warrant and he refused. He then insisted I present ID and of course, being at home, I didn’t have my wallet on me and it was upstais; when I told him that, he barged through the door and grabbed him. Fortunately, my father and brother were home, I screamed for them and they came to witness the commotion. As my dad and brother and I were yelling at him as he continued to assault me, the cop who was apparently in charge noticed the commotion, came to the door, and made him let go of me. As we insisted he give us his name and badge number so we could file a complaint and press charges, the cop who assaulted me quickly went back to his car, and the cop who broke it up refused to give it to us, insisting he’d handle it.
Now, I do of course think police are a necessity, because we need people who are able to enforce the laws, but I think they ultimately do more harm than good. The problem is, the police force self-selects for these sorts of people who enjoy the power trip and are bullies. If we didn’t insist so much on having relatively meaningless laws constantly enforced (like minor speeding and parking violations), we could have a smaller force focusing more on enforcing more important crimes which would mean they could ultimately be more selective of who they let on the force which would, hopefully, reduce or even eliminate these cretins who abuse their power, overstep their bounds, or forget that the whole point of these laws is to protect our freedoms and so it’s counter-productive when they stomp on our rights in the process of trying to enforce laws.

Sadly, at this point, I trust my abilities to protect myself from would-be assailants, thieves, or whatever else more than I trust the cops. Considering that I’ve been physically assaulted or threatened as many times by cops as I have by other people, I actually feel considerably less safe when I see cops around. Granted, the cops in this area are notorious for their assholery, but the sad part is, the worst thing I’ve ever done is speeding; I feel really sorry for the people who do minor things like smoke pot, some of their stories have been even worse than mine.

So, yeah, I voted the fifth option. They seem to do more harm than good and, in fact, I think they’re largely unnecessary in many parts of the country.

42

I worked in a fast food place, but we didn’t comp the officers’ meals. The manager would offer them free soda, but they would decline. There were officers who ate at our place frequently, despite paying full price for their meals. This was in the Denver area, mainly in the cities of Lakewood and Englewood.

I have never had a negative experience with a police officer. My only dealings with them have been with traffic citations, and sometimes the officers would let me off with a warning since I’m always polite and cooperative with them.

43

I’m confident that most police are decent enough, but I don’t know which ones are decent and which ones aren’t so I don’t really trust any of them.

I’m sure a cop could write the exact same thing regarding the civilians he has to deal with every day, but at least he has the luxury of being allowed to defend himself from them.

44

In other parts of the country I have met police who were professional and courteous. But never here. So, as long as I am home, I hate them.

45

I’ve never had any problem with them but I don’t trust them because they are above the law. Some years ago, several police murdered a man and it was all caught on a video tape, but they were never convicted of anything. The story is that a guy (a known-to-the-police lowlife, to be sure) came into a Dunkin Donuts to complain that a cop car had doubled-parked him and he wanted them to move. Instead of moving, they beat him to a pulp and he died about a year later, never having regained consciousness. The doughnut shop had a video recorder that ran all the time and they saved the tape.

A couple years ago, a guy who was suspected (probably correctly) was asleep at his summer cottage when the cops raided it at 4AM without warning. They broke down the door of his cottage, went to the bedroom, managed to shoot his sleeping wife (who recovered) and he picked up the gun from his bed table and shot and killed one of the cops. They tried him for murder, he was acquitted, but still jailed because the gun, although registered to him was registered at his home address.

So, I think most cops are fine, but no cop is ever convicted of any wrong doing and so they can be out of control.

46

Most cops I’ve dealt with are bullies just doing the minimum they can get away with.

47

I love how some posters seem to imply that if you’ve not done anything wrong, the police are your friends, and it’s only people acting criminally that have anything to fear from them. That is so not true.

48

Bullshit.

Cite #1

Cite #2

Cite #3

Cite #4

There are another five million+ hits to the simple google search: police officer convicted

49

…why didn’t you just say, ‘No, officer, I am Blaster Master’. There. Problem solved. Cop out of your house. Everyone happy!

Unless you were covering for the friend, in which case, my sympathy is diminished.

To answer the OP, I took the ‘good, but could always use work’ option. Of course, the extent of my dealings with the po-po have been being a passenger when a family member gets a speeding ticket and one mandatory stopcheck.

50

I have a lot of respect for our local cops (the only ones I have any experience with), who are expected to keep everyone safe against rising crime problems with ever-lessening resources, who constantly try to keep our many rowdy college students from killing themselves in various creative ways against their will, and who are routinely assumed to be evil, though in fact they are a good force. They take a lot of undeserved abuse.

We have a couple of good friends who are in the local forces, really good guys. They go through some dangerous things, and they work hard. It’s a job that damages you, I think. And seeing such constant criminality makes it easy to think that most people are bad guys.

I also think there are some things inherent in the job that make it easy to cross a line. I think many probably overestimate their ability to judge when someone is innocent or guilty–which is part of a general weakness of human nature. Same for the ability to abuse power. That doesn’t make it OK, but it also means that it would happen to virtually anyone in such a position, including me.

The bottom-of-the-barrel reality cop show, Campus PD, had a good time in our town. Here’s a sample–a friend of ours is in the segment but is not the main guy. The segment cuts off early and doesn’t show the girl vomiting hideously and being taken away in an ambulance with severe alcohol poisoning–if the cops hadn’t spotted her she would quite likely have died. Not uncommon in our town at all.

51

Ah yes, a fanatical cop-hater. “Kill the Pigs!” Have you ever considered what society would be like without the police?

52

I feel paranoid about it.

53

I know there are good and bad people in every organisation, and the police force is attractive to some unpleasant types who are mostly interested in misusing the power that the uniform gives them. I know that any human organisation will be flawed and the police force is no exception. Despite that, my interactions with the police have been unfailingly positive (and I tend to run more on the Pollyanna-idealist spectrum anyway) so I generally have a lot of respect for them and think they do a necessary and largely-thankless job.

54

I find they generally have arrested social skills, lack logic and can’t think outside of the box.
I’m painting with a wide brush I know, but heck, it’s my opinion.

55

I’ve only had one direct interaction with the police over the past 18ish years and it was very positive. My 4yo son had gone missing and they were prompt in responding to my call to 911 and very helpful in tracking him down. However… I wish they would obey traffic laws. Is that so much to ask, really? That they drive at the speed limit unless they have need of turning on their sirens? That they not double park? Or turn somewhere where turns aren’t allowed? Obviously, in an emergency, they should drive where they need to and how fast they need to, but it just pisses me off whenever I see the people who are supposed to be enforcing the laws disregarding them so flagrantly. (An example - was going about 78 in a 55 the other day. Saw cop in rear view mirror. Moved over a lane. Cop blew by - lights off - at around 85. Really?)

Also, on the rare occasions when I watch shows like Law and Order, I always, always want the “bad guys” to get away with whatever it is they’ve done, because the police are always such assholes.

56

The cops here will turn on their lights just to get people out of their way, then turn the lights off to speed on by. I find that so freaking obnoxious of them.

57

Back in the mid-1970s, I was actually the night baker in a Dunkin’ Donuts in West Texas. I know it’s a joke stereotype about cops and doughnuts, but the store’s policy really was to give them free everything, to keep them around.

I’ve known a few cops stateside, and they were all pretty good guys. The only time I ever had a problem with one was more of an annoyance. I gave him a license-plate number he needed, but he would not believe it was a full number, but it was. At least in those days, most vehicles had three letters and three numbers, such as XXX-111. However, there was some class of vehicles that for some reason I never figured out had it different, like two letters, and this vehicle in question was one of those. The asshat cop just would not believe it was a full plate number, but I’d had a clear view of it. And I’d seen plates like that before. Finally he called it in as a “partial” number, and I let it go.

BTW: I don’t see a contradiction in the first two choices of the poll. Was this one where you could have answered more than one? Because I could have ticked off the first two easily rather than the first one alone like I did.

58

I’ll get angry about the police flagrantly disobeying speed laws the exact second that they stop letting me do it.

59

There’s a difference between “fuck the police” and “kill the police”. I also don’t think Nzinga woke up one day and just randomly decided “Gee, I think I’ll hate cops now.” I think certain cops taught her to hate them.

60

Spoken like a suburban white kid who feels the cops work for him. Ask the inner city folk what they think and the answer will be quite different.