Privileged position? Wonder how privileged the wives and families of the New York police officers who were killed yesterday are feeling right about now. Wonder how privileged the wives and families of the ones who are out right now trying to help the rescue efforts feel.
I know I feel awfully ‘privileged’ when I, as the wife of a police officer (former detective and current sergeant) get to wait for hours without word when I know my husband is in a dangerous situation. I know I feel awfully privileged to have to act as the buffer for his children. I know I feel just showered in privileged glory when I get traffic tickets like everyone else – and pay them just like everyone else.
Higher standard of morality? I guess having to be willing and able to lay your life down for the lives of people you don’t know (who, by the way, could be some of the same ones calling you ‘pig’ and claiming you’re a fascist) doesn’t count for a higher standard of morality. :rolleyes: Gosh, it’s amazing how much cheaper life becomes when it wears a police officer’s uniform or that of a military person, isn’t it?
Care to enumerate some of these so-called ‘privileges’ you claim police officers get, Moonshine, and tell me on what authority you have this information? I’d be really interested in hearing as to what these benefits are. Let’s see: what could those wonderful benefits be?
Money? Nope, that can’t be it. My husband is a trained computer forensics specialist who could make disgustingly more in the private sector than he does as a cop. He’s a cop because he is a truly good person who wants to make the world safe. He doesn’t believe he would be able to make that contribution in the private sector, and so he does not. Maybe by some standards, that makes him a ridiculous idealist; for my own part, I love him all the more for having those ideals.
Benefits? Let’s not joke. My benefits at the firm I work for are so much better than his, it’s ludicrous, and the most hazardous thing I do all day is report to a 56 story high rise and deal with Dallas road rage. Moreover, my husband is required by law to respond if he is on the scene of a crime, even if he is off duty, whether he is armed or unarmed…but neither the city he works for nor the state will provide insurance coverage if he is injured.
Great working hours? Well, let’s see. Since his last promotion, we get approximately 10 hours a week together. Our schedules do not mesh and we cannot make them mesh. They won’t mesh for a year, at the very least.
And that’s just the day-to-day ‘privileges’ we get. Somehow or the other, I just don’t feel very ‘privileged’, though.
Let me put it in perspective. You have one side of the story. You do NOT have the other sides. How about getting both sides of a story and evaluating both before you make sweeping, wholesale judgments? There is Eris’s side, the side of his friend (which we do not know first-hand or completely) and the side of the officers involved.
The fact is, a crime WAS committed and an illegal handgun was present. Given the evidence, had the police failed to thoroughly investigate the scene and evidence was lost, you can better damn bet that the business owner would have sued the police officers, sued the police department (quite a different thing, and no, the cities do NOT pay for attorney representation of individual officers), sued the city, and sued anyne and everyone else connected with the case. In an era where everyone is screaming for greater officer accountability, these guys sound as if they were trying to cover all the bases – and of course, they get slammed for it.
As for your assumption that they should have to put up with someone being a dickweed – they are paid to uphold the law. They are NOT paid to put up with excessive rudeness or complete and total bullshit, and if you can find that clause in any contract anywhere, I’d be interested in seeing it.
Personally, I don’t know how my husband stands to be as courteous as I know he is with some of the ilk he has to deal with. At every other job I’ve been at, I’ve been told that it was not part of my job to take verbal abuse and verbal harassment, and I refuse to do so. Why should they have to take it? Because they’re cops? Nice bloody double standard. I’ll bet my last dollar you wouldn’t take it. Why should they?
Personally, I’ll tell people that when they can act like adults, I’ll deal with them, and refuse to do another damn thing until they settle down. I won’t accept or cater to children having temper tantrums, and I damn sure won’t change my policy if it’s an adult. I see no reason to expect others to put up with crap that I won’t put up with, be it a cop, a teacher or a hairdresser.
The thing that burns me on that one is – what the FUCK do they have to do in order to ‘earn that respect’, might I ask? You take for granted the fact that they can and do die every day in the line of duty. You take for granted the shitty hours and crappy pay. Basically, you TAKE FOR GRANTED everything that damn sure earns some respect from me.
Finally, I have one good question I would love to see answered. If you demand that they earn your respect, why the heck do you think you don’t have to earn theirs in turn? Fair is fair, after all.
Except in the OP. And in other posts I’ve made. Repeatedly.
Ok… not everyone agrees here, your dogmatic assertations notwithstanding.
I believe I addressed this very clearly by outlining and amending that, for those unable to perform the feat themselves, to mean “no viable choice” in lieu of other options.
Consider, for a moment, what I could say to the judge. “Your honor, the cops did not ask me to search the car. They simply informed me they had probable cause and one of the officers was already opening the door.”
Cop: “Your honor, we asked this individual if we could search his car to clear him of any tie with this case.” OR
Cop: “Your honor, we saw him attempting to speed away from the scene.” OR
Cop: “Your honor, we thought we smelled pot on him.” OR
Cop: “He’s right, your honor, we did feel we had probable cause because there was already a robbery there previously.”
Judge (this is you): ?
In any scenario, it is my judgement of the situation versus the cops’ judgement of the situation. Remember that “respect” we’re all supposed to have for the police officers? Remember my mentioning that my area was very “tough on guns?”
Thus, no viable option. Had I not been offered the plea, I would have fought. I would say “obviously” but I am no longer sure that word applies to our conversations here.
But…but… :shrug: Then why post this? Are you simply acting randomly today? Wait-- don’t answer that. In light of your inability to read my posts I no longer give the smallest shit about your opinion. (not true, of course, but since you don’t care anyway I shouldn’t be able to say anything that would offend)
Hmm:
Robb
I was charged with concealed carry. I believe it was plead down to either “concealed weapon” or “improper transportation of a firearm…” I cannot remember which, and both are first degree misdemeanors where I lived at that time. I will say it was most likely the latter as I knew a fellow who had received a “concealed weapon” charge (a knife in his pocket) and didn’t receive anything near the judgement I did. He got a smallish fine.
Despite multiple edits and proofs (or actually because of them) I cut what I shouldn’t have and failed to elaborate where I should have. The following two quotes are from my previous post. To clarify:
Note: I’m not discrediting Eris’s side of the story, simply stating that we don’t have all points of view. Eris, I give you my sympathies in that it doesn’t sound like your friend did you any favors at all.
That should have read, “A crime was committed IN THAT (not and) an illegal handgun was present,” said crime being the one Eris referred to regarding the possession and/or location of the handgun. I’m not implying Eris committed another one.
I should also note that I am aware that police officers by nature of what they do have to expect that they are going to put up with a lot more abuse than the average Joe. I also know that they are expected to be able to handle it – and I know for a fact that a lot more gets handled than most people ever give them credit for having to handle.
However, I also believe that there are a lot of people are deliberately much more rude and offensive to a police officer than they would be to people in another profession. For that reason, my position still stands that if I do not and will not put up with verbal abuse from other people, I shouldn’t expect someone else to take it from me. If I knowingly break a law and get caught, the person I should be cussing out is myself for making a bad judgment call – not the guy who caught me doing it.
End revision; hope that makes my first post a bit clearer.
You know, in reading these responses I am drawn to a question: was I really being a dick to the cop? I admit that the answers I give in the OP are short, and IRL they did eventually reach that "short"edness (heh), but was I downright rude and/or a dick to him?
I felt like I was cooperating 100%… after all, I knew I had the gun in the car. I didn’t want to give them one single reason to search it and frankly, I didn’t think they had one either.
This is my only bad experience with police officers. They aren’t fascists or racist as a rule, but they do have some pretty impressive and somewhat arbitrary power to wield, and that is merely a metaphoric amplifier for the bad things they do perform.
We give cops more power than the average schmoe, and demand better from them than we do the average schmoe. Normally I think it all works out OK (I have some issues with why a person would want to be a police officer, but whatever) and I do trust the average cop I meet. But they are under a higher scrutiny, and I no longer trust the government or its police force… the distinction is not petty. For a similar perspective for those of you who fail to understand a damn thing I’ve said this thread: I like the average guy walking down the street too, you know?-- But I still lock my doors at night.
Lion, no, my friend inadvertently helped the case through his lie since that caused the officer to basically stop asking questions. He could quickly accept that we were some kinky homosexuals, but not that we would simply be turning around in a drive. He didn’t help the legal discussions which followed, of course (“he” being my friend), but the cop was obviously satisfied by two different stories instead of the same one. Like I told him, if all he wanted was for me to make something up he could have said that at the beginning and saved us both some trouble. Being a writer in my spare time I’m sure I could have whipped up something amusing for him (hard to top the one my friend came up with tho… latent homosexuality?? ;)).
Jodi’ “dogmatic assertions” are right on point with the law. First, they had probable cause to search because of the burglary. Second, you told them the gun was in the car, before they found it, which gave them probable cause to search for the gun. Don’t try and protray Jodi’s statements as just “dogmatic assertions,” when they are in fact well-reasoned, legally correct statements. Sorry but none of your Fourth Amendment rights were violated.
No matter how you say this, it’s still bullshit. File a motion to suppress and challenge the stop. Do your legal research. Argue to the judge that the evidence should be suppressed. You seem like a bright enough person (cough) to do this yourself. Also, if you feel your 4th Amendment rights were violated, sue the cop! That way you have no criminal repurcussions to bitch about.
More fucking bullshit. You would tell the judge what factually happened, and the cops would tell the judge what happened. Then the judge decides whether the facts show your 4th Amendment rights were violated. This “argument” or yours is nothing but a veiled attempt to say… Well the cops will lie about the stop, and the judge is out to get me too, so I had no choice." More fucking bullshit. You woulda had a fair hearing before the judge to determine if you had your rights violated, no grand conspiracy to get you. I need my waders to get through huge pile of shit you’re spewing.
Fighting ignorance: The Eighth Amendment reads:
Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.
Being locked in a holding cell that is cold and not allowing poor Eris to put his arms in his shirt is a long, long, long, long, “I cant even see it from here” way from “Cruel and Unusual Punishment” The case you are talking about (I assume) would have been dealing with a defendant’s 5th amendment rights against self-incrimination, and would have dealt with the voluntariness of a confession. Since the events occurred after he was questioned, that case has absolutely no relevance to this one, and none of Eris’s constitutional rights were infringed upon.
um. well, yea. You were giving smart ass answers/rhetorical question back to their questions.
Question by cop:
Instead of "I sometimes target shoot at such and such a place and forgot it was in the car. When you started searching, I remembered it and alerted you to the fact it was there.
Instead of “wanna tell me about those?”
Well, it’s been cold in the mornings lately. My job requires me to work outside in the mornings, so I keep the gloves and scarf in the car. In addition, because I’m clearing brush, the gloves are also good at keeping the bushes from poking me.
“why are they black?”
they matched my winter jacket/my mom bought them for me/ the other ones I had to select from were an ugly color/ just anything but “so, …”.
As I’ve often told my son, when some one’s already pissed off at you (suspicious/whatever), that’s not the time to play word games (he wondered allowed one day about 'shouldn’t it really be ‘SOA’ as in ‘Son of A bitch’?)
I repeat: they were searching the car already when I told them there was a gun in it. I wasn’t going to pretend, as they pulled the seat back and were rifling through everything, that they would forget to check under the seat.
RE: “Why do you carry one?”
I see that as the answer: “To subdue criminals.” For me it merely gets a small add-on: “To subdue criminals who would hurt me.”
RE: Being a dick
Honeslty, I can get pretty short when irritated (who doesn’t?), but it wasn’t like I insulted him or anything.
RE: Bullshit
OK. Perhaps being a convicted felon is no big thing. I guess you’re right: I was stupid for protecting my own interests. What the fuck was I thinking?
This response indicates to me that once again your question of ‘was I being a dick’ was rhetorical in nature IOW you are apparently quite certain and assured in your own mind that you weren’t being one, hence your objection here ‘hey is wasn’t like I insulted him or anything’. If you don’t want other opinions, don’t ask. If you do want them, responding ‘no I wasn’t’ isn’t really indicative of a receptive mind.
In the interest of adding to the greater sum of ‘smarts’: ‘being a dick’ is not solely limited to times when you’re insulting some one. It can also include (as in this case) giving smart ass answers to questions posed seriously, or responding with challenges instead of an answer. There’s lots of examples of ‘being a dick’.
Eris: Warning: this is really long. But you brought up some points that I honestly wanted to answer from a slightly different perspective (I hope) than had been answered before. Please bear with.
Actually, I have to respectfully disagree on this one. Let’s set aside the fact that you know what you were or were not doing, and look at it from an outsider’s perspective. Moreover, let’s look at it from the perspective of someone who is paid to be suspicious and paid to keep the peace.
An alarm goes off. We laugh at the fact that it was a lumber yard but in actuality, building materials are not at all cheap. Also, especially with some of the older companies which put their materials in fenced lots versus indoors, a lot of materials are much more readily available. Businesses like that typically get targeted for a lot of petty vandalism. What’s done may be small potatoes to the vandal, but it’s a whole other story from the owner’s point of view. Therefore, in all likelihood, the police have had problems here before (especially if it’s set back somewhat from the roadway with some cover.) Two men in a small car are hastening away from the scene. They are stopped.
Granted, you had a small car, which would rule out the option that you were taking anything large…but then again, cash isn’t all that big and could easily be taken. Credit card receipts can prove very useful for fraud. Further, they have no way of knowing what other damage could have been done inside of the business, if any.
Given that a) an alarm was going off at the business that these guys are frantically driving away from and b) nobody knows what set it off and c) nobody yet knows if there was any vandalism or burglary committed, the police do indeed have probable cause to search your car – and they should. It’s not as if there wasn’t considerable evidence to indicate that something might be rotten in Denmark. If you were charged with the task of investigating a possible b & e, wouldn’t you think that was the logical next step? I would.
The officer asks about items in the car. He is informed of the gun. However, other items are found as well, one of which can be used to conceal the face, and one of which would obscure fingerprints. Both are dark in color.
Let’s examine a couple of other things here. First (Eris, I’m going by your description of the law in your state; I’m in one that permits concealed carry with a permit), the gun’s not supposed to be there. Period. Add the facts again: alarm goes off + two guys apparently fleeing the scene + gun + other items. This is not looking good.
(Small digression: I should note that my husband has known more than one officer who has gotten killed by people who have had guns in the car. That’s also one reason why so many states have laws against having guns in the car or restricting how they are carried. Digression over.)
When asked about the gun, the owner of the gun does not give a straight answer. Great, he has no past criminal history…but by the same token, the flippant answer doesn’t exactly lend credence to the claim that he and his buddy just ‘happened’ to be there, especially in light of the other circumstances. Had the answer been, “Yes, I know it’s against the law, but I do carry it for security reasons,” or in fact, ANYTHING which seemed somewhat reasonable and reasonably politely spoken, I would daresay that what followed would have been considerably different.
Let’s consider the words about the gun. Personally, if I’m trying to impress the gravity of a situation on someone and most (if not all) of what I get in return are flippant answers, I’m certainly not going to think the person’s taking what I have to say seriously.
Again, however, let’s look at it from the cop’s perspective. Let me make this clear: No cop has anything to gain from shooting someone.
First off, it appalls me that anyone could think of taking a life as such a casual thing for anyone, police officer or no. It’s like they think an officer would come home and if asked how their day went, casually toss off, “Oh, I blew some mope away. No biggie.” Nothing could be further from the truth. Officers live in dread of ever having to do it, simply because it is the taking of a human life. Never mind the reason; it is blood on one’s hands, and it never comes clean. (If you don’t believe me, ask a military person who’s actually killed someone up close and personal. Most people talk a good game and have no clue of what a person of conscience goes through in that situation.)
Secondly, given that there was already a weapon involved in the situation (and one that was illegal on top of that), the guy would have been forced to take action to defend himself had his arrestee’s actions been such that an attack was deemed imminent.
So basically, he doesn’t want to kill anyone, and he damn sure doesn’t want to get killed. Can you blame him, for heaven’s sake?
Yet when he’s trying to impress upon the person he’s interviewing just how bad the situation could have been (maybe in hopes of getting it through this person’s head not to ever get in a similar situation again, both for this person’s sake and for that of the next officer he runs into), all he’s getting is …again…flippant remarks. So he phrases it in a manner which, while enough to scare the liver out of the person he’s addressing, at least gets taken seriously.
Hope this at least sheds a slightly different light on the situation. Again, I don’t know both sides, and I am not a police officer myself…but I do know a good one, and I’m taking the best gander I can at his thought processes on this.
Actually, I don’t like all of them either, and I’ve certainly had my share of unhappy coincidences (none as bad as yours, but definitely NOT good. If you ever want to chat sometime, I’ll tell you about how I managed to be dumb enough to get my license suspended once…and then got picked up driving out of a bar parking lot while my license was suspended. No, I wasn’t drinking, I had a good reason to be where I was, nor did I even go inside…but that’s another story.) I’ve actually had worse experiences with doctors than police officers, though, believe it or not. I’ve even had more bad experiences with EMT’s or firefighters than cops, for that fact of the matter.
Point is, in any profession (particularly ones with some real power of life and death over members of the public) you’re going to find people you do not like and you’re going to have bad experiences with them. That’s the law of averages. My beef is that it doesn’t matter how good the good cops are, nobody ever gives them any credit. Nor do people often say, “Yeah, I was speeding, I got a ticket, it was my own fault.” Nope, it’s, “I can’t believe that stupid cop gave me a ticket for speeding! Blah blah blah!” (I have been guilty of this one myself, btw, and had to stop and slap myself to sensibility.) Well, sheez. The guy’s paid to enforce the law. You don’t like the law, exercise your real constitutional rights as a citizen and take it up with the shikepokes who make it and make them change it. But don’t take it up with the guys who have to do the dirty work of making it stick. They didn’t make the law any more than you did.
Point: I’ll bet most cops dislike working with racists and/or fascists more than those of us who have to deal with them in the general population, just because they tend to be brainless schmucks who can give the whole profession a bad name. Also, such thinking can lead to some very bad judgment calls that can get a lot of people hurt, if not killed. I’ll also bet (though I freely admit I have no cites) that there are more ‘free citizens’ who are fascist, racist, sexist, bigots or whatever -ist than there are cops who share such beliefs.
Actually, I wonder that, myself. I sure wouldn’t pick what seems to me to be an utterly unrewarding profession, and to be absolutely honest, I can’t really see why my husband wastes his time and sometimes risks his life for people I honestly don’t consider to be worth it. But as I mentioned in my earlier post, he’s the idealist; I’m the confirmed cynic and society-basher. He thinks it’s worth it, and I respect him for having more ideals (not to mention principles) than I do.
Actually, I picked this out not to pick a bone with you; I was glad to read the rest of the paragraph. In fact, I fully agree that one should always be wary of who holds the power. (My husband would second that concern.) It kind of brings to mind something related, though.
My concern over a lot of the bad press that cops get is that eventually, it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. You DO get people who take up the profession because they honestly want to do good. I live with one, and I’ve known several others. It’s not that they aren’t smart enough or talented enough to do something else: they want to wake up in the morning and go in to work, and feel at the end of the day that they’ve done something, however small, to better the place they live in. IMHO, these are the people you want in the profession: people who want to and should be able to feel proud of what they do. These are the people who are willing to uphold the law, but not abuse public trust.
As citizens, we shouldn’t want people who are in it for the machismo quality or the power rush in this particular profession. Yet given the growing disrespect for the value of policing, the people in category I aren’t going to want to police any more – and why should they? Why be willing to do what you consider to be good, if no matter what you do, everyone is going to spit upon you and consider you shit? Why risk life and limb for a bunch of people who take it for granted and disparage your efforts? In short, our growing attitude eliminates the wheat and leaves us with the chaff.
(Granted, the above is another slight digression…but I think it does have a considerable amount to do with what we’ve been talking about, if only peripherally.)
I do get your point. (If you haven’t figured out, I have very little faith and a lot of suspicion about government in general and politicians in particular.) But…when all is said and done, I have more distrust of my fellow man on the street than I do most police officers. In fact, I’d be a libertarian if I had any faith at all in my fellow man…but the fact is, I have damn little. It begs the question: if we could police ourselves, who then would have to do our policing? And wouldn’t it be a wonderful world if it wasn’t needed?
I’m off the soap box at long last; if you made it this far, hope it provided some good food for thought, or at least another view.
P.S. Please, don’t base your knowledge of what police do off COPS. It portrays the profession just about as accurately as ‘Welcome Back Kotter’ or ‘Saved By The Bell’ portrayed high schools and teachers, or Ally McBeal or L.A. Law portray(ed) lawyers and/or law firms. Shows like COPS are edited by the producers for maximum effect, not maximum accuracy. I wish you had a way of talking to someone like my husband, or riding out with him and seeing what he really does do in a day.
Well I really do try to look at this from the cop’s perspective… and all I can come up with is for some questioning and a flashlight search of the car for anything “obvious.” Then, when I gave no signs of difficulty, he would ask me, “mind opening the trunk for me?” Upon which I would give him the keys. “Poke around all you want.” They find nothing. “Can we search the rest of your car?” “Well, I’d prefer you wouldn’t do a full search after the way you just ravaged my trunk, but you can certainly take a closer look.” I would open the door for them, maybe lift the seat back, open the little compartments for a look around.
They could not, I repeat, could NOT see a gun under the seat from any perspective. They would need to simply feel under there… the way the floor and the seat are prohibit looking under the seat… but they also prohibit just about anything from being under there.
“Why do you have these dark clothes?”
“Oh, if you’ll look here you’ll see I have a McDonald’s uniform… I do maintanence there, and it has been cold in the mornings.”
“But they’re black.”
“Well, you don’t see many other leather gloves that aren’t. The scarf isn’t even mine-- its my grandmother’s. I don’t own one, and its the only one she has.”
“We’d like to take you down to the station for some more questions. Understand you aren’t being charged with anything.”
“Ok, no problem. I assume you’re driving? ;)”
Instead, of course, nothing similar to this happened at all. I was put on the defensive immediately, and was summarily ignored as lying. Ok, perhaps the situation doesn’t warrant chummy feelings from Johnny Law, but give me a break, man. If you don’t want me to answer don’t ask me any questions. I’ve got an 8 ball you can play with for probable cause questions.
What you’re summarily failing to think of, eris, is that you would say similar things to what you did if you were, in fact, going to break into the building and set off the alarm doing it. It doesn’t matter how reasonable you sound to yourself. Any cop in his right mind would count on the possibility that you’re lying, even if he didn’t think so, and would act on that assumption for fear of letting a criminal go.
Put yourself in the cop’s shoes, eris, and simultaneously forget what you know yourself to be the case. Then try it again.
What Hansel said. Sorry, Eris, but police are not mindreaders. I keep getting the feeling that your point of view is that they should have just known that you meant them no harm and that despite all evidence to the contrary, you had no intent or wish to commit larceny. And frankly, I just don’t see support for that. It’s a position that it sucks to be in if you’re innocent, but even an innocent man would have to admit that there was a ton of evidence to suggest that a robbery had been committed or had been attempted.
They have every right to protect their safety by asking you to get out of the car as they did. They have every right to be concerned about an illegally carried gun. They don’t know you don’t plan to blow their heads off or something – and frankly, if it were my husband we were talking about here, I’ll trade your being torqued over his being dead, in case you had been someone who had meant him harm. I mean, do you just automatically open your door for everyone who knocks without looking to see who it is? (Hopefully, the answer is a resounding ‘hell, no’!) Don’t expect them to automatically think the best of you when doing so can wind them up on a morgue slab. I surely hope you don’t think that’s just an acceptable risk they have to take. (Please, please, say no.)
The scenario you wanted could have been very easily possible (although I’m sure you probably would have still gotten the weapons charge) had the attitude just been different. Again, with all due respect, the very typical action of someone who is guilty (with nothing else to lose) is to be a smartass. I’m not saying grovel, but I am saying be polite.
I mean, if someone had done it, do you think they’re going to say, “Oh, yes, sir, officer, I tried to break in, but it didn’t work. So sorry.” Highly doubtful. They’re most likely going to express themselves in a manner that does nothing to heighten their credibility as a respectable adult. You’re complaining that they didn’t give you a chance – but the fact is, you didn’t give them much of one to think differently of you, either. They didn’t know you from Adam’s off ox, and the first impression was, to say the least, not good.
Had your demeanor or attitude been at least civil, I honestly think you would have seen a whole different situation. As my dad sometimes says, if you’re at Toilet Central during a major shitstorm, it generally behooves you to float instead of splashing.
One other quick note. I am reminded, given this situation, of what happened to a young officer named Aubrey Hawkins in our area last Christmas Eve.
Hawkins was one of several officers in a neighboring city of ours who was sent out on a report of a burglary (at a local sporting goods store with a lot of outdoor equipment). He followed correct procedure down the line…except this time, he and his peers were dealing with seven inmates who had escaped from maximum security at a Texas prison.
Hawkins went around back to cover the exit, and encountered three of the 7 escapees. Outmanned and outgunned, he was disarmed, and held his hands up in surrender as he was told.
They gunned him down in cold blood.
I believe Hawkins would have been either 25 or 26 this year. He left a wife and a very young child.
It’s also the best reason I can think of as to just why anyone in law enforcement can’t afford to simply ‘assume the best’ about people they don’t know who are suspected of violent crimes.
Sorry for the double post, but I thought it was pretty telling.
Well, this is one way to win an argument. Just keep shouting dumb ass things until all the smart people leave. I’m joining Jodi, you have absolutely no grip on what is being said to you, and you really don’t seem to care. Did you even read my fucking post?
Enjoy, erislover, maybe you can chase everyone out and think of yourself as having won. Enjoy your cross!
Mother fucker, I am not expecting them to think the best for Eris’s sake! I was NOT upset about being in handcuffs. I was NOT upset about being pulled over. I was NOT upset about being asked a battery of questions.
REGULAR COP BEHAVIOR DOES NOT BOTHER ME.
What I WAS upset about is that they asked me those questions, then ignored the answers and assumed I had lied anyway. In other words, hansel, don’t ask if you aren’t going to use my answers to gain a better perspective, see? If they suspected I was a criminal, and were automatically going to discount any reasons I gave at the scene, then why ask me anything at all? Can anyone answer that question? Why ask me a question if you’re only going to discount the answer?
I was presumed dangerous at the scene: understandable given the scenario. That is not my beef! After I was secured, I was then presumed a liar as well. Bull…fucking…shit.
I don’t think you’re stupid enough to argue “why didn’t they believe me? I was being honest.” I don’t think that’s what you’re arguing.
Yes, you were presumed to be lying after you were secured. You were interrogated. You weren’t completely unhelpful, but you were kind of snotty in your co-operation.
Do you understand what interrogation is? It’s trying to break down your story. It’s asking you the same question seven times to see if you give the same answer seven times. It’s making you tell your story over and over again while trying to detect minute changes in the content of it that indicate fabricated details. It’s pressuring you with the consequences of lying and seeing if you hold up. They’re not trying to gain a better perspective; they’re seeing if your story changes under pressure. This is standard police technique.
I notice, though, that you didn’t get charged with attempted B+E. By the end of the night in jail, they’d pretty much decided you were telling the truth. I’d imagine that, at the point that you and the cop began to bullshit with one another, he’d made up his mind that you were innocent; thus, the comradely warning about the seriousness of the situation with the gun.
So their presumption that you were a liar under interrogation is sufficient justification for this?
It begs the question: if we could police ourselves, who then would have to do our policing? And wouldn’t it be a wonderful world if it wasn’t needed?