More cab drivers, those who drive us to safety in the dark of night,
are killed in the line of duty than cops.
Why does no one mention the “Thin Yellow Line.”
Sometimes police officers do respond to emergencies without running the sirens to avoid alerting the participants that the police are near. Now if the pull into the drive thru at burger king, thats another story. One guy at the ambulance company did that in front of a cop and got cited for it, then fired the next day.
Whoops ,sorry ,Imeant members of the public.
I have 2 relatives who are police men,they put in long hours, some are called when off duty to help out in many circumstances,they work holidays etc. .
They admit there are some police who dishonor their badge,but they are a small minority,and the other cops do not respect them either and are ashamed for them when they are found out.
My one relative said," I wish this job was not necessary, and I look forward to a day when people are civilized enough that police will not be needed". He knows all his friends and relatives are paying for the survailence, jails, courts etc, and said," if pople would consider others (and what can happen to themselves) perhaps then we ouldn’t need a police force.
Now days even making a traffic stop can be a dangerous job.
I think that most deserve respect.
Monavis
If they WERE responding to an emergency, then why turn the lights OFF after running through said lights? I’m not talking about sirens, I’m talking about the flashing lights.
I’m not saying there aren’t decent cops out there. My cousin happens to be one of them. But as I said, I think the job attracts people who just want a license to be a dick.
I took a defensive driving class once, and the instructor said that often first responders are called to a scene and then a few minutes later–maybe because the emergency turns out to be a false alarm–they are let off the hook. So it’s not unsually for them to abruptly turn off their sirens/lights. We just always seem to notice them when they’ve run a red light.
I dunno. I’ve seen it happen too many times for that excuse to wash.
Yes - It was over 20 years ago.
Because people fear them. That being said, I’d like to say that I’ve never had a police officer directly help me in any way. Ever. Not saying that I wouldn’t accept help from one, but in all my years, I’ve only had negative encounters with them (i.e. tickets, warnings, minor arrest). But overall, I still respect the job they do and know it’s stressful, but i don’t look at them differently than anyone else in the world.
Whatever else might have been said, this is a bizarre and frankly irrelevant criticism. Saying they can’t be sued for not showing up in time does not in any way prove that cops habitually DON’T show up on time. It’s frankly a bit stupid to criticize someone for something they could do in theory. Everybody could do something assholish and not get sued for it. You could, in theory, be a neo-Nazi and I couldn’t sue you for it, but you don’t deserve to be criticized for that, do you?
Now, if you can provide us with some evidence that this is a serious, frequent recurring issue, you’ve got a pretty significant point. I would certainly be concerned if cops were habitually, as a matter of course, ignoring emergency calls. Do you in fact have any evidence that not responding to emergencies is a recurring problem with police departments? I don’t mean finding a couple of exceptions, I mean prove to us this is a chronic issue.
That’s pretty much the story I heard except for the part about not shooting the guns enough. The rifle company was afraid these guys would be looking for excuses to shoot things.
After the assessment I decided they had more of a point than I’d thought. Everybody defaults to that famous incident where the bank robbers had bulletproof vests, but in 99.9% of cases it’s just not a very good idea to give the patrol cop the idea that he can solve the problem with a big machine gun. The weapons in question are immensely powerful and there’s just not many circumstances where the marginal difference between immediate access to a service pistol and immediate access to a C-8A1 is going to be necessary to resolve a law enforcement situation. But there WILL be circumstances where the cops will go to the assault weapon when it exceeds what’s needed in the situation.
Legally speaking, catsix is right.
But here’s the reality. Let’s say the police had a legal obligation to prevent crimes. What would happen then is that if your house got robbed, you’d sue the police department for failing to prevent that robbery. And if they said they didn’t know your house was being robbed when it happened, you’d sue them for dereliction of duty and say they should have been patrolling your street at the time of the crime. And if your house was robbed while the police were patrolling the streets, you sue them because they should have been responding to an actual crime rather than driving around doing nothing. And if your house was robbed while the police were responding to a different house that had been robbed, you’d sue them for discrimination because they were giving that victim more attention than you. And if the police were right outside your house when the robbery occurred and caught the burglar and prevented your house from being robbed, you’d be happy. And the family of a guy who was murdered ten blocks away would sue the police department because they were wasting their time on a robbery when they should have been preventing a murder. No matter what the police did, there would always be somebody who would be able to argue they should have been doing something else and the law enforcement system would collapse under the weight of constantly having to defend every decision it made.
So the courts have basically said that the only way the police can actually do their job of fighting crime is to have total immunity from any claim that they have an obligation to prevent any crime.
C-8A1 immensely powerful? Uh isn’t it basically a .223 M-16 variant? Not exactly an anti-armor tool.
One of our local departments here carries scoped .30-06 carbines as their “in case we need to deal with body armored bank robbers” option. Plink them off from 200 yards away…problem solved without all that wasted ammo 
.
I have seen this before too, I would have to leave the specifics to a cop doper but there is a big difference in response time between sitting and waiting for traffic lights to cycle and bypassing them and shutting down. In the ambulance biz its usually its flash and dash or ASAP while obeying traffic laws. Our calls were broken into 4 classes:
Priority 1 - Immediate life threatening emergency Roll lights and sirens.
Priority 2 - Less urgent but ambulance required injuries, for example, fell and broke your leg or dislocated knee. Obey traffic laws.
Priority 3 - Possible injury but nothing reported like non/minimal injury car accidents, somebody has a few glass cuts that might need stitching…basically just give everyone a look. Obey all traffic laws
Priority 4 - Non urgent transport - interfacility transfers, doctor visits for bedridden folks, stuff like that. Obey all traffic laws, stop for a soda or pick up take out lunch on the way…no biggie just don’t putter.
It also allows them to prioritize. Neighbors squabbling over a window broken by an errant baseball, or the armed robbery. If the robbery suspect is in custody and the neighbors start shooting at each other…priorities change.
As you also pointed out…prevent crime. Preventing a crime can be quite difficult, since you probably haven’t done anything the police can hold you for if you have not committed any crime yet.
Also, can’t say for sure with police but for us, refusing to roll on a call was an instant firing offense. I would imagine police choosing not to go on a call would carry serious disciplinary action as well.
Heheheh…thanks for the compliment. I was a reservist for four years back in the nineties. Resigned in '98.
The book is “The Dirty Work Of Democracy” by Antony Altbeker. It’s a fair and dispassionate assessment of post '94 policing and a worthwhile read. It gives a balanced view of the good and bad eggs, with no easy answers.
The position of a police officer deserves a modicum of respect because of what the job entails, as well as the weight accorded the role they are supposed to fulfill. They have to deal with dangerous and unpredictable situations on a regular basis. They see the worst aspects of humanity practically every day. They have a significant amount of stress stemming from the simple fact that just about every single person they see during their time on duty has reason to be hostile toward them.
Offsetting those things is the potential for abuse inherent in their position. Police officers don’t deserve trust due to their position, just a certain amount of respect for the position. An analogy would be the respect given a public official. Even a crappy mayor or senator deserves the respect given the position. You’re honoring the role, not the person.
I think it’s both normal and good to have a natural distrust of situations with an unequal balance of power. Documented abuses of power also don’t make me or anyone else more inclined to trust police. Any police officer I encounter has to earn trust, he doesn’t get it for free. I will respect them as an officer, but I will treat the situation as a potentially adversarial one, always. The reason is, they have far more power over me than I will ever have over them. Even the best person might misuse power, and it’s pretty obvious that the ideals of most police forces are not being lived up to by many of their officers.
I’ve been helped by police officers just twice that I can recall: once when I was attacked by a guy in Santa Cruz (I had to fight him before the cops came, they finished things) and once when a highway patrol officer called a tow truck when my car broke down on I5 late at night. The latter wasn’t exactly an unalloyed encounter either; he was kind of pissy when I squinted and shielded my eyes from the light he shined directly in my face. I’ve not had many actively negative encounters with police, a few traffic stops for dubious reasons when I was a teen (mysteriously, these stopped being common when I started to look older) and a couple of tickets that I feel were unjustified (I don’t complain about those couple I deserved, and I haven’t gotten a ticket in about ten years).
I mention these things only to show that I don’t have much personal experience to boost my feelings to either the positive or negative side of the scale. My distrust of police is almost entirely due to the potential for trouble. They can cause you a huge amount of trouble just by arresting you, regardless of whether or not you’re charged with anything. If you resist in any way, they can use force, and you would have no recourse in most cases. Filing a complaint against a police officer in most jurisdictions is a joke and actually pursuing a claim would take more time and resources than is practical for most people.
The simple fact that they can ruin your day and possibly your life is reason enough to always be on your guard when dealing with police. A simple mistake on their part is damaging enough. There doesn’t even have to be an intent to harm you. There was a Doper who was arrested recently. I believe he’s still dealing with the courts even though it’s pretty clearly a spurious arrest. Regardless of what happens, even if he is cleared of any wrongdoing, he’s still going to have paid out thousands of dollars in legal fees, simply for being in the wrong place at the wrong time and being arrested by slightly lazy cops.
Something like that would ruin me. I don’t have much money saved and my family is not well-off. I’d have to take my chances with a public defender, and I’d have a risk of going to jail or being forced by circumstances to cop a plea even if I was completely innocent. The system might rightly clear me, but it might just as easily chew me up and spit me out. Either way, I lose, and I lose big-time. That possibility is always running through the back of my mind whenever I see a police officer. If that kind of thing doesn’t scare the crap out of you, then you have a lot more sanguine outlook on life than I do.
As opposed to a pistol? The difference between that and a .223 weapon is astronomical, especially in the close range situations usually faced by police officers.
Thanks, I’ll keep an eye open for it.
No one, I mean no one, deserves respect based on his or her position. Respect is earned through deeds. Period.
No one deserves honor based on his or her position as a public official.
No one deserves any special courtesy based on his or her position.
Every member of society, including public officials, deserves basic courtesy on an equal basis.
Public positions are jobs; they are public service jobs. That puts them lower in rank to an ordinary citizen. No ordinary citizen should be honoring a public official based solely on his or her holding a particular job.
acsenray, I agree with you one one level, but I disagree with you on another.
There are certain protocols of address and form that you follow when a person is serving as a public officer. You address the President of the United States as “Mr. President” even if he’s a complete dirtbag because while he is in office he is not an individual, he is an embodiment of the office. No matter if he’s a bad president or a good one, the office of president deserves respect. Once he’s out of office, or during times when he’s not serving in an official capacity, as far as I’m concerned you can call him “that prick” all you want.
You address a judge as “Your Honor” even if you think that outside the chambers he’s an asshole. You address a police officer as “Officer.” You don’t necessarily do these things out of fear of punishment, but because of the office the person holds. There’s a separation between respecting the person and respecting the office.
And this is exactly what I disagree with. A citizen in a democracy should treat all other members of the community with exactly the same protocols, regardless of the position of the other person, especially if that person is serving in a public office.
No, you should address the president of the United States as “Mr. Bush” or “Sir,” which is exactly the same degree of courtesy you would offer any other member of the democratic community.
And the office is in a subservient position to the ordinary citizen. So an office holder should never be given any degree of deference that an ordinary citizen would not be given.
All members of the community deserve the same degree of courtesy from strangers. No office deserves any respect. Offices are not people. Only human beings are members of the community. Only human beings can be offered respect or courtesy. “Offices” hold absolutely no position in a democratic society. Only people hold positions, and we all hold the same position: citizen.
If we’re talking about an expression of opinion in the absence of the president (or whomever we might talking about), the First Amendment rules and there should be no expectation that that person will be accorded any respect at all, not to mention special deference. It is particularly important in a democracy not to reign in opinions of holders of public office. So if I think that the president is a prick, the democratic spirit demands that no notions of propriety restrain me from referring to him as “that prick.”
Face-to-face, courtesies are due, not because that person holds a particular office, but because that person is a human being. In that case, it is rude to address someone, anyone, as “you prick.”