And the others won’t? A lousy doctor will really screw you up with bad diagnoses and bad prescriptions if he doesn’t kill you outright. A lousy lawyer will screw up your case and you’ll wind up in the slammer instead of walking out a free man. A lousy priest will seduce your 10 year old son.
This has been said before, but it bears repeating. Cops are human, no different from anyone else. Put any large group of humans together statistically and you will always have some under the left end of the bell curve. Unfortunately, they are the ones who pee in the pool for the rest of the group and get the lion’s share of the attention.
There have been lots of postings of videos cops doing bad things. Go over to YouTube, search for “cop saves” and take a look at some videos of police doing their jobs. Here’s just one example. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e1q-XDeWMY8
Doctor’s “kill” more people in a year than police do. They also save many more lives; but we don’t know how many lives are saved by police - it’s not measurable. Study after study has also shown that racial bias has a significant impact on treatment in the medical establishment. On the other hand, a doctor isn’t likely to get shot in his line of work. I don’t really even know where I’m going with this, so I’ll just stop now.
Indeed. The cop ‘featured’ in one of the videos linked to earlier in this thread - showing him shooting a guy in handcuffs - was said also to be the subject of a media storm showing him buying boots and socks for a homeless guy (2nd link - see last paragraph). So, even for an individual cop, it can work both ways.
I’ve got to agree with the OP; I just can’t stand the law. A bunch of no good, fun hating, spugwit ginks the lot of ‘em and they’ve been on my back ever since I was a juve. First time I ran into one of those bastiches was when me and my man Paulie were scrawling our names on some walls up in Chelsea Clinton block. Paulie mouths off to the Judge and gets whacked up one side of his head and down the other with a daystick for his trouble and he ain’t ever been the same since. I guess there’s a reason they call them daysticks the “one second lobotomy.” But scrawling ain’t a big deal. Everyone does it. Why do those judges care? I’m only writing this as a warning to the rest of you juves out there because the Judges made me. They’re jerks and they’ll stomp on you hard if you step out of line. So keep your noses clean and you’ll stay out of the iso-cubes. I don’t care how tough you think you are. The law is tougher.
I doubt very much doctors even occasionally say to themselves “I’m gonna fuck this asshole up real good!”
I have no doubt cops occasionally say to themselves “I’m gonna fuck this asshole up real good!”
I have had a lot of dealings with police officers over the years due to my employment (news photographer), many of them bad, but I have learned a few things that put it all in perspective: Of course police officers are as human as the rest of us, it’s just that they deal with the one thing that no normal person is allowed to touch, the liberty and freedom of individuals. No ‘regular’ person has the right to detain another, or remove their option of free will like a police officer. That is the great dividing gulf.
Unfortunately like any other normal human being, police officers may get desensitized to how terrible this is to people who are not normally in contact with the law. Officers often deal with career criminals, people who have been arrested before and know the routine. For anybody else, the idea of losing free will is horrific, and we do not recognize the often temporary nature of detention.
So combining the sometimes callous approach to detention a jaded officer may have vrs the outright fear a citizen has to being detained you have a situation ripe for mistrust. Officers may think “What are you so worked up about? Go with the program and you will be released in due time.” Inexperienced citizens rightfully fear any thought of loss of personal liberty.
Police officers have to deal with bad, ugly people who lie, cheat and steal. Any sane person exposed to this on a daily basis has to become desensitized. It’s easy to forget how scary this power of detention is to a law abiding citizen, or the citizen who has really screwed up for the first time. Toss in the confusion of circumstances: an officer who so regularly deals with lying bastards meets an innocent person in the wrong place at the wrong time and mistakes them for a criminal and you are sure to have bad consequences.
If I had my wishes I would hope police officers would remember how scared normal citizens are to having their liberty restrained, and act accordingly. I would wish that citizens be aware how truly vial people are to police officers and understand that your moral outrage to his interaction with you looks little different to that of an artful liar attempting to weasel out of trouble.
In my life I have had my times when I have had to heatedly argue with the best of them when I knew I was being treated unconstitutionally; but in most circumstances being friendly, lucid and considerate resolves most issues to the benefit of all with the least amount of trouble.
I have overheard police talking (at Bryant Park during a subway series celebration) speaking about the “savages who should all be locked up.” These were not people acting scared or in trouble or breaking the law. These were normal Manhattanites enjoying some MLB sponsored music, food and games. And what about how they treated two lost and scared children. Their distain for us for no good reason cannot be explained by how differently the police and the public view the taking of liberty.
Here’s another story of policemen not giving a fuck about people or their jobs because, hey, it’s only a bunch of blacks and Puerto Ricans, who gives a fuck?:
I was a smart kid that loved school which made me ripe for the picking. In intermediate school I picked up my own personal bully. She was in a gang and enjoyed following me around, spitting at me over the bathroom stall wall and other such fun bully tactics. I wasn’t your average bully target in that I didn’t just take it. I was walking home from school one day and she came up from behind and pushed me. So, we fought because, hey, don’t touch me. I won. Her gang did not like that at all and about 10 kids threw me in on the ground and pummelled me.
A police car was stationed in front of this school during dismissal every day. One of the officers came out of his car, broke up the fight and got back into his car. Once he was in his car the gang proceeded in their pummeling. He got out of his car and told me “why don’t you walk home in that direction?” As if walking up the block and away from my home instead of down the block to my door would discourage the beating. “I don’t live that way.” was my answer. “Fine,” he said, “It’s your life.” He shrugged and got back into his car to stay. Did I mention I was in intermediate school? Which made me about 12?
Of course the gang of kids heard this. This time they threw me between two parked cars and, using the cars as leverage, proceeded to stomp the ever-living fuck out of me. From what I gathered the next day when my aunt and my grandmother came to school to have that girl arrested, a teacher called the police and they sent a beat cop. By the time he came I was bleeding out of my nose, mouth and ears.
He walked me home. All the way home. Even up the stairs. And then he banged on the door like police do (why do they bang like that) and my poor grandmother opened the door to a cop and her little granddaughter with blood running out of all her head holes.
TL;DR version: Police cannot be bothered to do their jobs if their jobs involve helping the “savages”.
Alas, I don’t think our OP is coming back. I get the impression that his beef with law enforcement derives from the fact that he was breaking the law and got caught.
I did not know at the time I was getting stomped that the teacher called the police. I found out when my aunt and grandmother came to school the next day to have the girl arrested that the teacher called the police.
I’m white and English, and therefore unshot by the filth, but I’ve only had bad experiences with them. Bad and neutral, anyway. I’ve been a victim of theft on numerous occasions and they’ve done bugger all, if you want to call that neutral. I got stabbed and they gave me the run around. A policeman threatened me with a stick for walking past a crime scene. On another occasion I got stopped and searched by the police, again for walking past a crime scene.
The police are generally people who’ve chosen a job that allows them to rough up and boss about innocent members of the public, and their job requires that they be willing to be the iron fist of the state when a protest needs kettling or some students or travellers need their skull cracking. So it attracts the bad and repels the good.
To be fair, in some cases, the “something illegal” could be “Being in a gathering of more than 5 people [While not being White]” and “peacefully marching for the right to vote [despite not being White].” or “Going to the wrong beach [when not White]” or “Dating a White woman [if you’re not White]” People who are all “Cops are just doing their jobs” should try living in a real police state, sometime.