There seems to be more and more police misconduct or cops going gangsta style.The trend now of cops arresting firefighters for the fire truck blocking on car crash calls ,cops pulling EMS truck over ,cops arresting person for filming them ,cops arresting news reporter taking pictures of them ,protesters so on.
I don’t remember things like that in the 80’s and 90’s.In the 80’s and 90’ cops where more casual they know who the bad guy was and who was not.In the 80’s and 90’ it was more clear he has a gun or knife shoot him:eek::eek::eek: you not social worker to talk him down.You get in street fight ,bar fight or guy resisting no question out comes the baton.
Now comes seem to be taking the frustration out on every one
And it funny most all the youtube clips are mostly all in in south west US and Florida.I know cops on fox or should I say spike the cops show , cops do seem more hyped up and get excited easy on Clint Eastwood style , in south west US and Florida.
My guess is that cops are probably “better” now. The bad ones are simply more likely to be captured on video. There have always been reports of the baton being used if a suspect resists arrests for attempts to flee.
I expect it’s the ongoing moral & institutional corruption resulting from decades of the cops being able to get away with anything without consequences. Since that shows no sign of changing you can expect them to get worse before they get better, if they ever do.
Well, for one thing they didn’t think they were soldiers. The show The Wire did a pretty good job of illustrating how when you’ve got a War (on Drugs), you wind up with troopers fighting an Enemy, and while you can’t get rough on a citizen the Enemy deserves a boot to the head. Add to that all the tactilol shit that’s finding its way into police precincts and it’s got to have some impact. Words and rethoric matter.
You ever hear a cop refer to non-cops as “civilians” ? Always makes me grit my teeth. You’re a civilian too, asshole !
All of that being said, the police back in the 80s and 90s was pretty terrible too, from what I remember. Remember Rampart ? Good times…
That’s one element, and there’s also the emphasis on weapons that do less harm to suspects. It’s good that they’re less damaging, but the ‘safety’ of the devices may encourage police to use them more often. And the most concerning factor is the one Kobal2 mentioned: the militarization of policing.
But it is moved past just rough up some bad guys and break some legs on some gang members and burglars!! They are arresting firefighters for the fire truck blocking on car crash calls ,cops arresting person for filming them ,going thuggish on teens and skateboarders than just calling parents or giving them a citation. Also cops pulling EMS truck over and cops more hyped up and get excited easy.
I’m going to go out on a limb here and say part of your problem is dividing the world between “good guys” and “bad guys”. It’s part of their problem too, really.
The good old days really weren’t all that good - you just weren’t really very aware of how bad they were! (Seriously, there weren’t 150 24/7 cable news outlets looking for the next big scoop, plus the other 44 kajillion internet news/“news”/social media outlets. We weren’t all walking around with handy video recording devices, capable of sharing our experiences with the world.) Today, if a patrol officer farts in someone’s general direction, the world knows about it within minutes.
Today, as in the 80s, 90s, and every decade prior to that, there are good cops, bad cops, and everything in between. In fact, it’s arguable that the vast majority of officers today are less corrupt today than ever before, because there’s so much proof of actions - dash cams, body microphones, the proliferation of surveillance recordings and portable recording devices in every public and many private places.
So may be the problem is liberal media ,government and police chief where cops are scared to bring out the baton in street fight ,bar fight or guy resisting now or to shoot guy armed with out saying 5 or 10 times drop the gun or knife that they are stressed out and frustrated and taking it out on non criminals and public safety fire/EMS and public service now days.
Here in Toronto at least, the reputation of the cops is much improved over the 80s. Back then, getting beat up by the cops was so common, it entered the slang - the “Cherry Beach Express” - there was even a popular song with that title!
[It referred to the practice of cops targeting people they identified as “scum”, taking them to Cherry Beach - an isolated place on the waterfront far from any witnesses - and beating the shit out of them. Back in the '80s, “scum” in the cop’s opinions mostly equalled punk types, drunks/druggies, and gay people]
QUOTE=Kobal2;17400454]I’m going to go out on a limb here and say part of your problem is dividing the world between “good guys” and “bad guys”. It’s part of their problem too, really.
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But the problem is they don’t seem to know who is the bad guy today? Or are just stressed out and frustrated and taking it out on everyone.
