I’ll be making this Saturday. If I don’t like it I will of course murder a hobbit.
Really? Is this the case with every city and town and small burb in America?
I actually have a completely irrational fear of the police in my city. (Google “Constable Jason Nevill” for the long story if you’re curious.)
I’ve never had a bad interaction with police personally, and I know that one “bad apple” shouldn’t cause me to distrust the whole bushel, but I still have an aversion to anything cop-related.
I’d put more faith in Barney Fife than I would in our local force.
Would they beat a confession out of a suspect? No, definitely not.
Will they show up in a timely manner when I call them? No, definitely not.
Will they lose my statement and not follow up with me. Yes, certainly.
Will they lock themselves out of their cruiser and need a ride from my husband back to the station to get the spare set? Yes, certainly.
I don’t question their morals. Just their competency.
And we had this little turd blossom on the Minneapolis force.
I’m a middle-aged, middle-class white guy in a small suburban city. I don’t have any reason not to trust the cops; but I’ll admit I haven’t had a lot of dealings with them either.
The scout den I lead took a tour of the station one evening and that guy was pretty cool - he let them play with the siren in his car, even.
Let me put it this way: I trust the cops a lot more than I trust some of my neighbors.
I agree mostly with you. The encryption issue wasn’t an issue when you needed to buy a $400 scanner and have the smarts to program it. Cell phone apps screwed it up for hobbyists and law enforcement alike. However realtime tactical ops of any significance has always been encrypted everywhere I worked, I just need to hear enough of a call to know if I should respond or not to a scene. And will state simply here in DC police are very good at not giving us information in a timely manner.
With regard to newspapers they were killed off by a public that prefers everything free. People stopped buying papers when they found they could get most of their news from the web.
Newspapers never found a good way to monetize the web, nor have TV stations. We lost lots of great reporters with great sources because they cost too much.
Zeroing in on this specific statement I have two responses. First, news agencies have a very hard time getting a FOIA for many recordings. Also you have to have some prior knowledge an event happened or a recording exists before you can ask for a copy.
Second, and more important, good reporting requires timely response. In the event of a crime or some other event, it is important to get reoporters to the scene to be able to piece togther the facts properly.
Imagine how it would be if detectives were only allowed to investigate all the crimes they have to work on starting 24 - 48 hours after they happened, the scenes have been cleaned up and everyone went home? Doesn’t work very well.
I picked that most were good with a few bad apples, but I don’t rely on anecdotal data as much as some seem to be doing.
Regards,
Shodan
Same here. I really can’t comment until I see the results of the peer-reviewed, double-blind study into how much I trust the police.
Those Price George’s County police are, indeed, a troublesome lot.
I’m an elderly woman. Regardless of race we tend to be treated fairly well by the police, probably because we’re not considered dangerous.
I’m a middle-class white woman in Western Canada. I trust the police completely.
If I fit other demographics, my answer would be quite different…
I’m a middle-class white guy and my interactions with police have always been courteous and professional. The lone questionable exception occurred when I was about 21 and pulled over with two ounces of pot in my possession. I was not arrested and the two county mounties making the stop confiscated (obviously) the weed. Could they have been more interested in the loot than in performing their duty (this was the mid seventies)? I’ve always wondered. At the time I thought it was a very small price to pay. Still do.
Most are good, but if it is ever a cop’s word against yours, they will lie every time. My wife was involved in a minor accident (caused by the other driver). The cop showed up 25 minutes after the accident-and his report showed my wife as the guilty party. That did it for me, I won’t ever give a dime to a police charity.
Are you trying to say a police officer can never determine what happened in an accident if he doesn’t witness it? Because otherwise your statement makes no sense.
No, he’s trying to say his wife told him a different story about the accident than the police report showed, so the cop is lying.
So Ralph, were you in the car to witness the accident? Otherwise, how do you know that your wife didn’t, er, whitewash some details to make herself look innocent?
I guess that depends on your state. Within the last few years we had a strong open records act in place. If it is evidence in an open case and the prosecutor thinks it could be prejudicial to be released, it still may have to go in front of a judge.
I understand your point about reporters showing up at the scene. But quite frankly I don’t think it’s as big an issue as you are making it to be. We have had our encrypted system for less than a year. In the 15 years prior to that I saw reporters on the scene maybe 3 times. And I don’t exactly work in the sticks.
What I am saying is that the oncoming driver was going over 45 MPH in a posted school zone (20 MPH limit). There was no way that my wife was at fault. BTW, the other drive committed insurance fraud.
I live in a small (20,000 people) city that has a municipal force. We are also served by the State Highway Patrol and the county sheriff. I trust the city police because I am white and old, a combination that usually results in decent treatment. I don’t have a lot of confidence in their competence, and I know from observation that many of them are lazy and arrogant. When I drive through our largest city park at night, I often see two police cars parked next to each other facing in opposite directions. This is on a force that sometimes only has two patrol cars active on a shift. They also drive way too fast with no lights or sirens pretty much wherever they go.
My impression is that the State and county gets the best candidates, and the city force gets the castoffs.