Lately this has been a really big issue, especially where I live. It's apparent that a lot of people don't like police officers at all, and honestly I understand that. The Eric Garner and Michael Brown incidents as well as others make it apparent that there are really terrible people who wear the badge. Those are incidents I know I can't fight against, but I will stand for the fact that there are good police officers, the ones who now have to use fear as their strength to do their job just so they can go home at the end of the day to their families and live to do the same thing again the next day. In my honest opinion people are terrible as they are hopeful, a badge just makes it that easier and harder. Being a police officer is not easy at all, it's a life and mind changer. Where I live and what I've seen on the media just the bitter hatred aimed at the police amazes me; I always hear people say, "Fuck the cops... We don't need pigs... If my friend became a cop I wouldn't be his/her friend anymore... Take away their guns and let us keep ours". It's sad and sickening to hear such hatred and anger as much as a firm believer as I am in freedom of speech, but it is a job that needs to be done. I have a few friends who are police men and I asked them all the same honest question, "Why did you become a cop?". All of them had different personal reasons which lead to the same sort of answer; they wanted to do good for the people of their home town, and because they became officers they have lost friends whom I also used to be friends with. As I mentioned above, being a cop is a really hard job and the only thing that matters to them once they start their shift is getting home safely to their families so they can do the same thing again the next day and the day after. I'm a very optimistic person, I see hope in everything I can so you can believe that I stand by police officers because yes there are good cops and should I ever be in a life or death situation where a cop and a bystander are near by, it obviously would not be a 'beggars can't be choosers' situation'; I would hope the cop would save me, but should the bystander save me I would be blessed and grateful just as much. Even if the cop was a bad cop and still risked his/her life, clearly that shows hope and humanity. This is my opinion, you can take it for what it is though I am neither right or wrong this my standpoint with the police hatred going around. Good night to you all.
I completely agree with you. In every. single. profession. there's a spectrum of competence and professionalism, ranging from extraordinary to godawfullly abysmal. And police are no exception. Yes, there are a lot of problems... institutionalized homophobia is alive and well, as are things like profiling and stereotyping. But the better officers rise beyond that. And there are a lot of amazing, dedicated, generous officers who put their lives on the line every day to do their best to keep our communities safe. The system is far from perfect, but one of the things that's most disappointing is this: The very people who are screaming the loudest about not wanting to be profiled and stereotyped are often the most guilty of stereotyping law enforcement professionals in a negative light. Something to think about.
I don't know if i can really react to this, as i am not from the same country as you, and the way we see cops in our country may be kinda different. But I agree with what you are saying. As alway, we generalize things, we put everyone in the same box. Yes some cops are racist a-holes and when they fuck up we talk about them. And in general we don't talk as much about the good things cops do, because, well ... it's their job to do good things. Also, generally speaking, people don't like cops because they call you in order when you park you car the wrong way, or when you do things that you're not really supposed to do. And yes, it is frustrating, but they're doing their job and they keep us from being completely in anarchy. So yeah in conclusion, the concept of police officers is important. We shouldn't put them all in the same box. Some are great cops, some are just bad cops, and then you have bad people that are cops and generally we speak about them, and forget about the first category. Bad people are everywhere, no matter if they are a cop, teacher, scientist, ice cream sellers, politicians. The only difference is that some have more power than others.
The concept of good and bad cops are irrelevant , their is no good or bad cops, just cops. The issue of police misconduct does not start nor ends at racism and police brutality. The true issue is the wall of silence, and culture, that contribute to the lack of responsibilty that allows the so called "bad cops" to continue their inappropriate and harmful behavior.
I, for one, am glad that people are outraged about police brutality. I say 'good'. It's about time. The police are there to protect the public yet they're killing people at the rate of 3 a day - no trial or anything. That's craziness. These aren't isolated incidents and it's not about a few bad eggs. There is something systemically rotten with law enforcement in the United States. There are plenty of bad cops out there and that's to be expected; you're going to find that in any profession. But the issue is they aren't being held accountable for their actions. And there's another problem with law enforcement - the supposedly "good" cops who wear "I am Darren Wilson" bracelets and "I can breathe" t-shirts, or tweet #BlueLivesMatter to undermine the BlackLivesMatter movement. These supposedly 'good' cops stand by while police brutality is occurring right under their noses. Not only that, they'll throw their support behind almost any cop accused of police brutality or excessive force. To me, a good cop is someone like Frank Serpico. There's a guy that saw corruption and abuse of power and spoke up about it. In return he was treated as a pariah by his fellow officers. But guys like Serpico are the exception, not the rule. To quote Burke, "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing". Over a thousand people were killed by law enforcement in 2014. Where were all the good cops then?
I underlined the last sentence because I agree with it, but the problem is that it's a two-sided issue. For one, no officer-involved shooting goes through without a criminal trial of the officer to determine whether s/he was justified in using deadly force. The fact that are found to be just by juries might be a better target for outrage. When I say it's a two-sided issue, I mean that the cops are quick to violence, absolutely. But also, why? I was a cop who had the opportunity to patrol for approximately 1 month before I got kicked out. Part of why was that I was called "unsafe." How so? By not being quick enough to rough people up. I don't mean to badmouth my old department because they do phenomenal work. But the expectation is that you win the fight before it begins, not that there won't necessarily be a fight. That doctrine is surely a result of violence towards officers for doing their job. Because cops apparently can't be nice guys and expect not to get killed, they have to swing to the other end to "we're gonna survive even if it means you don't." In the two seconds it may take to identify a black object as a gun or a cell phone, you could be dead, so you find yourself making that three-second decision in one. If you guess correctly, great job. You get to keep working. You guess wrong, and either an innocent* civilian is dead, or you are. It sucks and they eventually get used to the fact that it sucks. That's when they become detached. *I expect to get some flak for asterisk-ing "innocent" but it's never a total bystander who gets blown away. The cases I've seen all involve somebody being investigated for something and they are uncooperative. Either antsy/moving around or actually hide their hands from the officer and suddenly pull something out. In the case of Michael Brown, Wilson was actually getting beaten at the time of the shooting while Brown said "you're too much of a pussy to shoot me." If the cop already suspects them of something outside of that extreme case, you bet he's going to be on-edge if they try some shenanigans.
Of course there are plenty of good cops! I personally have not had a good experience with a police officer (I've gotten in trouble with police in the past, they made false accusations and claimed that we don't have legal rights (like to record them on public property) when we do.) Just because cops put hard work into their job doesn't mean some abuse their power. I don't hate police officers, and I'm sure there's many amazing ones out there. But there are and always will be shitty police officers, just like any other profession.
My obligatory disclaimer here is that these are simply my opinions and observations. I'm not trying to insult anyone, and you're free to disagree, but this is just my opinion and nothing more. The root cause of the current problem with law enforcement is two-fold. The biggest is that departments all over the country foster and encourage a culture of corruption; as has been pointed out above, they lie, cheat, steal, and kill to cover for each other. This fosters the arrogant attitude that far too many officers and even entire departments across the country have all across the country: we can kill anybody we want for any reason, we can do whatever we want whenever we want, and you have no right to complain. Case in point, the NYPD's temper tantrum about Mayor Bill de Blasio's comments about policing and his handling of the Eric Garner murder. That's why Bill Maher refers to them as "New York's whiniest." Here in Michigan, there was a 19 year old who was shot seven times by a cop because the kid had flashed his brights at him. Now I find the whole "blue lives matter" thing laughable for this reason: Police have killed over 500 people all across America in 2015, and 36 officers have died in the line of duty this year. From my observation, there tend to be three types of cops: Officer Friendly, Officer Psycho, and Officer Egotistical. Officer Friendly is pretty self-explanatory. Examples of Officer Psycho are Darren Wilson, the Freddie Gray cops, and the cops who nearly killed Rodney King. But by far, the most common type of cop is Officer Egotistical. These are the kinds of guys that are on a power trip and love to scream "blue lives matter," and I'd argue that many of them only wanted to be a cop because they had issues with authority as a kid and wanted the one job where they'd be in charge every single day. Most commonly, these are the ones who are normally professional, but go apeshit as soon as a camera is involved. Here's a real life example of one: [YOUTUBE]9GgWrV8TcUc[/YOUTUBE] Now you tell me, does calling him a dude warrant being put in a headlock and thrown to the ground? In my small town, the police serve as nothing more than cash registers for the village council. Nothing bad really ever happens around here, and so they sit around writing tickets for stupid little traffic offenses, like not stopping long enough at a stop sign. This isn't just an African American problem, this is a community issue that affects all of us. As has been said since that song came out in 1988, screaming "Fuck the police" doesn't change anything, but then again, neither does anything else. Now once again, these are just my observations and my opinions, and you don't have to agree with them. Am I one that's going to roll down my window and scream "fuck the police" at a cop that's got somebody pulled over? No. Am I one that will revere the police no matter how many people they kill? No. I'm in the middle: I just want to be left alone. I'll call them if I need them, but until then, don't come anywhere near me. I don't want to chat with him, just leave me alone and if someone's breaking into my house, then I'll call 911. Fair enough?
I am totally pro-piggy-wiggy pork pork pork. I can get away with it because I'm English. Buuut I do feel sorry for the states in america which are basically military states because of the way the police run the place.
