# Why cops and their unions don't care about the public

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-cops-and-their-unions-dont-care-about-the-public/792876>\
**Category:** The BBQ Pit\
**Created:** [August 5, 2017, 11:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-cops-and-their-unions-dont-care-about-the-public/792876 "2017-08-05T23:16:26Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 167

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**Author:** ![Clothahump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/51bf81/32.png) [@Clothahump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Clothahump)\
**Post date:** [August 8, 2017, 7:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-cops-and-their-unions-dont-care-about-the-public/792876/167 "2017-08-08T19:22:28Z")

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> [@UCBearcats](#):
>
> Savage, brutal, barbaric acts. Yes we should completely trust them.
> 
> [Black Lives Upended by Policing: The Raw Videos Sparking Outrage - The New York Times](https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/07/30/us/police-videos-race.html)
> 
> [https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/02/02/opinion/the-police-killed-my-unarmed-son-in-2012-im-still-waiting-for-justice.html](https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/02/02/opinion/the-police-killed-my-unarmed-son-in-2012-im-still-waiting-for-justice.html)?
> 
> [https://mobile.nytimes.com/2016/07/08/us/study-supports-suspicion-that-police-use-of-force-is-more-likely-for-blacks.html](https://mobile.nytimes.com/2016/07/08/us/study-supports-suspicion-that-police-use-of-force-is-more-likely-for-blacks.html)
> 
> [Blacks Are Killed By Police At A Higher Rate In South Carolina And The U.S. | FiveThirtyEight](https://fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/blacks-are-killed-at-a-higher-rate-in-south-carolina-and-the-u-s/amp/)
> 
> [The NYPD Officers Who See Racial Bias in the NYPD - The Atlantic](https://www.theatlantic.com/amp/article/384106/)
> 
> [What the Data Really Says About Police and Racial Bias | Vanity Fair](https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2016/07/data-police-racial-bias/amp)
> 
> [http://mobile.reuters.com/article/amp/idUSKBN0K11EV20141223](http://mobile.reuters.com/article/amp/idUSKBN0K11EV20141223)

In any group of people, you will find a bell curve distribution. There will always be a few under the left end of the curve who pee in the pool and ruin it for others.

Let’s turn it around. You listed a handful of incidents and used them to declare all police as being untrustworthy. There are nearly 63 million contacts between citizens and police a year (original figure from 2011, revised 2016. [PDF here.](https://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/pbtss11.pdf)). If we take out your contacts, that leaves us with 62.8+ million contacts where the police did not run amok and slaughter people indiscriminately as you would have us believe they do. You stand a better chance of being hit by lightning (1 in 700,000) than you do of being shot by a cop.

Yes - we should trust them. Deal with it.

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