I’ll grant that “like” is probably the wrong word. I know I wouldn’t want to work from 10pm to 6am, sitting on the side of a road in a cruiser aiming a radar gun at people driving by so I can hand out tickets for speeding and broken tail lights. Probably a better way to put it is that they find some aspect of their job satisfying.
Which brings this back full circle to the point I was making earlier (that you conveniently sidestepped and ivan didn’t like because he’s an unemployed “student of life” :rolleyes:): just because a person finds satisfaction in helping other people through their job doesn’t mean that they shouldn’t be able to make a decent living out of it. The market will pay them what it can bear. Your dislike of cops is a stupid reason to insist they should all be perpetually broke.
Here’s the way I see it - there are two jobs on offer, one is stacking shelves in Walmart, the other is as a LEO. If both jobs offered the same minimum wage that is supposed to be enough for less important citizens to barely get by on, then straightaway you’ve eliminated one negative reason for joining the force. You shouldn’t be taking any public service job mainly because the financial prospects and job security seem certain, because if one day those wages don’t match your expectations, your enthusiasm for these vital jobs is going to falter.
Do you generally wait until the job interview to mention that you need to be high all the time to control your violent temper, or is it printed on your résumé to save time?
I don’t dislike cops. I dislike the bad ones who taint them all. Whenever you encounter a cop in the line of duty, you breathe a sigh of relief when you get one who is polite and not overbearing. When you get the latter, it can escalate into something ugly and expensive. You try to be hyper sensitive to not piss him off, but it does not always work. When you are a kid and get a ticket, a cop can make it a miserable experience. They can be abusive and try to push you into making a mistake so they can escalate it into something bigger . There are plenty of cops like that.
I wonder if you think they are there to serve the people?
If you dare to stand up to them for stepping over the bounds, they can manufacture a case against you. Go to court and the judge believes the cop. You lose.You can also get beat up.
All jobs have boring aspects. Some cops hate nailing people in speed traps ,but they follow orders. I feel for them. That has to eat away at you a little.
I have a friend who is a Detroit detective. He says he comes in and there are 15 cases in his inbox. He reads through them and tries to find the easy ones ,so he get something done. He tries to work the phones because going out, kills the day and tomorrow, there are 15 more in his inbox. It is not like TV.
I’ve never had good dealings with the police. From the time I was in my twenties and got stopped twenty-five times in two years (with only one ticket, my final stop before selling my distinctive car) to now, as a forty-three year old, who was practically treated like a criminal when my house was broken into and my Toyota was stolen.
I’m giving you a little background so you understand that this isn’t coming from a cop apologist; but what you did was a bad idea. For your intent, I commend you. BUT, those “innocent” kids might have been victims of an over-zealous cop or they might have been the kids that just broke into my house, stole my truck,and tried to steal my guns. Maybe he didn’t want witnesses to his abuse or, MAYBE ,he didn’t want to have to worry about having to protect you if these teens in a stolen car had stolen weapons too.
I don’t know all the details. neither did you at the time.
Police Forces seem to attract a certain amount of jerks. Even with my dealings with them, I’m still willing to give a certain amount of latitude to them.
As to to the OP. If 1% of cops are “trigger-happy rednecks,” that’s .099% too many. You see, there’s lots of trigger-happy rednecks. But, the second they have a badge, they’re able bully and threaten the general populace. Police are, and should be,held to a higher standard. Even if I can legally carry an open weapon, I don’t have a badge, uniform, and/ or fellow officers to protect me and my actions.
If my meter-reader is a trigger-happy redneck, I pay more on my next bill. If the cop who pulls me over is a trigger-happy redneck, I die.
Even if the trigger-happy redneck shoots me, history says the “good” cops will usually protect him.
So, we have three types of cops: “bad” cops who will shoot you because they feel like it, “goodl” cops who follow the bad cops version of the facts, and “honest” cops who usually don’t last too long because they don’t tow the thin blue line of the other two.
What I knew, was the police were being extremely loud and aggressive with 2 young men. If the cops were politely doing their duty, I would not have been drawn outside. If the kids were actually guilty of something ,they could have handled it in a professional manner. I don’t like bullies and some cops are. Most are not.
I live close to a 16 mile long parkway. Youngsters act up and do immature kid stuff in the act of growing up and maturing. That does not deserve abuse.