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To what standard should police be held?

What standard of behavior should police officers be held to?

  • They should be held to a higher standard than the rest of us.

    Votes: 38 74.5%
  • They should be held to the same standard as the rest of us.

    Votes: 9 17.6%
  • They should be held to a lower standard than the rest of us.

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Other

    Votes: 4 7.8%

  • Total voters
    51
Most people will abuse their power if they have enough of it and are not effectively held accountable. Judges and cops are held accountable to at least some extent. Dictators are not. Name a dictator that didn't abuse his power.

So do you have any proof that most people will abuse power?

Not interested in talking about dictators. One, it's very off topic, since there are no dictators that I'm aware of in the US. Two, cops aren't dictators.

Cops are also held accountable. If they aren't in your area, you need to go to the state office and get that fixed.
 
Higher standard.

With the caveat that they need to be trained well - I think a lack of training may be the cause of some issues, but by no means all.

And with the additional caveat/understanding that the higher standard and job requirements will break some of them, potentially at an extremely inopportune time. Constant vigilance as to the mental health of police officers is in order.
 
So do you have any proof that most people will abuse power?

Not interested in talking about dictators. One, it's very off topic, since there are no dictators that I'm aware of in the US. Two, cops aren't dictators.

Cops are also held accountable. If they aren't in your area, you need to go to the state office and get that fixed.

I don't know about you, but from my experience there are cops that misuse their power. They can be belligerent and want to show they have authority unnecessarily. I have also met some cops that are just the opposite, so not all by a long shot carry this bigger than thou attitude. But it only takes a few to ruin it for others.
 
So do you have any proof that most people will abuse power?

Not interested in talking about dictators. One, it's very off topic, since there are no dictators that I'm aware of in the US. Two, cops aren't dictators.

Cops are also held accountable. If they aren't in your area, you need to go to the state office and get that fixed.

I doubt that there are any statistics on the matter. The amount of a accountability for cops varies a lot between jurisdictions and even between divisions in the same force.

Here is an example of lack of accountability for police:
"The LAPD Rampart scandal refers to widespread corruption in the Community Resources Against Street Hoodlums (or C*R*A*S*H) anti-gang unit of the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) Rampart Division in the late 1990s. More than 70 police officers either assigned to or associated with the Rampart CRASH unit were implicated in some form of misconduct, making it one of the most widespread cases of documented police misconduct in United States history. The convicted offenses include unprovoked shootings, unprovoked beatings, planting of false evidence, framing of suspects, stealing and dealing narcotics, bank robbery, perjury, and the covering up of evidence of these activities......As of 2014, the full extent of Rampart corruption is not known, and several rape, murder and robbery investigations involving Rampart officers remain unsolved....

....There have been multiple allegations that Chief Parks and members of the LAPD were actively involved in obstructing the Rampart Investigation. Parks was in charge of Internal Affairs when Gaines and other Rampart officers were first discovered to have ties to the Bloods and Death Row Records. Parks is said to have protected these officers from investigation.[7] According to Rampart Corruption Task Force Detective Poole, Chief Parks failed to pursue the Hewitt Investigation for a full six months. When Poole presented Chief Parks with a 40-page report detailing the connection between Mack and the murder of Notorious B.I.G., the report was suppressed.....

..."An Independent Analysis of the Los Angeles Police Department's Board of Inquiry Report on the Rampart Scandal" was published in September 2000, by University of California, Irvine School of Law Dean Erwin Chemerinsky, at the request of the Los Angeles Police Protective League, the police union. Chemerinsky outlined six specific criticisms of the Board of Inquiry report, namely that the LAPD minimized the scope and nature of the corruption, and abetted the corruption through its own internal negligence or corrupt policies....

The Rampart scandal resulted in more than 140 civil lawsuits against the city of Los Angeles, costing the city an estimated $125 million in settlements...."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rampart_scandal#cite_note-PBS_Transcripts-3
 
Why is a cop who does something "improper" any worse an offender than a teacher who abuses a kid, or a CEO who abuses his power - or a politician who abuses his office?

As a teacher, I am held to a higher standard. If I post pictures of myself drinking on FB, what do you think happens to me? And what happens to the CEO if he does it?

Cops are on the public payroll and are expected to protect the citizens. Of course, they should be held to a higher standard.
 
With all the cop hate in the country.

Just because I expect my officers to act professional and criticize the ones who don't does not mean I hate cops.
 
A lot of the time when discussions come up of police mishandling something, you get people defending them by saying how difficult their job is. That got me curious about how people feel about the subject in general?

To what standard of behavior do you think police officers should be held while on duty? Should they be held to the same standard as anyone else? Should they get some slack because of their difficult job? Or should they be held to a higher standard of behavior because of the enormous amount of power they wield?

"With great power, comes great responsibility"
 
They also are putting their life on the line and their persons at risk far more than the average citizen, even other public servants, are expected, much less required, to do. I personally think that entitles them to some extra power to manage that. I don't see why they must be held to a higher moral standard than a surgeon or pharmacist or HVAC guy or bus driver or any number of other professionals who also hold the well being and sometimes life or death of people that they serve every day that they do their jobs.

So you don't think a cop trafficking drugs should serve a longer sentence than your typical trafficker?

When there is corruption on the police force it diminishes society's trust in our officers. THAT is why they should be held to a higher standard.
 
So do you have any proof that most people will abuse power?

Not interested in talking about dictators. One, it's very off topic, since there are no dictators that I'm aware of in the US. Two, cops aren't dictators.

Cops are also held accountable. If they aren't in your area, you need to go to the state office and get that fixed.

I just remembered a couple of studies that support my contention:

The Stanford prison experiment (SPE) was a study of the psychological effects of becoming a prisoner or prison guard.....Twenty-four male students out of seventy-five were selected to take on randomly assigned roles of prisoners and guards in a mock prison situated in the basement of the Stanford psychology building. The participants adapted to their roles well beyond Zimbardo's expectations, as the guards enforced authoritarian measures and ultimately subjected some of the prisoners to psychological torture. Many of the prisoners passively accepted psychological abuse and, at the request of the guards, readily harassed other prisoners who attempted to prevent it. The experiment even affected Zimbardo himself, who, in his role as the superintendent, permitted the abuse to continue. Two of the prisoners quit the experiment early and the entire experiment was abruptly stopped after only six days.....The results of the experiment have been argued to demonstrate the impressionability and obedience of people when provided with a legitimizing ideology and social and institutional support. The experiment has also been used to illustrate cognitive dissonance theory and the power of authority.

The results of the experiment favor situational attribution of behavior rather than dispositional attribution (a result caused by internal characteristics). In other words, it seemed that the situation, rather than their individual personalities, caused the participants' behavior.....
Stanford prison experiment - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Less directly related, but relevant, is the Milgram experiment which demonstrates how one person in authority can easily get others to act immorally :

"The Milgram experiment on obedience to authority figures was a series of social psychology experiments conducted by Yale University psychologist Stanley Milgram. They measured the willingness of study participants to obey an authority figure who instructed them to perform acts conflicting with their personal conscience.

'I set up a simple experiment at Yale University to test how much pain an ordinary citizen would inflict on another person simply because he was ordered to by an experimental scientist. Stark authority was pitted against the subjects' [participants'] strongest moral imperatives against hurting others, and, with the subjects' [participants'] ears ringing with the screams of the victims, authority won more often than not. The extreme willingness of adults to go to almost any lengths on the command of an authority constitutes the chief finding of the study and the fact most urgently demanding explanation.

Ordinary people, simply doing their jobs, and without any particular hostility on their part, can become agents in a terrible destructive process.
Moreover, even when the destructive effects of their work become patently clear, and they are asked to carry out actions incompatible with fundamental standards of morality, relatively few people have the resources needed to resist authority.'

..Later, Milgram and other psychologists performed variations of the experiment throughout the world, with similar results..."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milgram_experiment

The film Compliance is based on a real event in which restaurant employees were convinced to harm a co-worker after being told to do so by an authority figure.

"The strip search phone call scam is a series of incidents that extended over a period of about ten years before an arrest was made in 2004. The incidents involved a man calling a restaurant or grocery store, claiming to be a police officer and then convincing managers to conduct strip searches of female employees and to perform other bizarre acts on behalf of "the police"...

...Some notable incidents were:


  • On November 30, 2000, a female McDonald's manager in Leitchfield, Kentucky, undressed herself in the presence of a customer. The caller had convinced her that the customer was a "suspected sex offender" and that the manager, serving as bait, would enable undercover police officers to arrest him.[1]
  • On January 26, 2003, an Applebee's assistant manager subjected a waitress to a 90-minute strip search after receiving a collect call from someone who purported to be a regional manager for Applebee's.[1]
  • In February 2003, a call was made to a McDonald's in Hinesville, Georgia. The female manager (who believed she was speaking to a police officer who was with the director of operations for the restaurant's upper management) took a 19‑year-old female employee into the women's bathroom and strip-searched her. She also brought in a 55‑year-old male employee, who conducted a body cavity search of the woman to "uncover hidden drugs." McDonald's and the GWD Management Corporation were taken to court over the incident. In 2005, U.S. District Judge John F. Nangle granted a summary judgment to McDonald's and denied, in part, a summary judgment to GWD Management.[3] In 2006, the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the judgments.[4]
  • On June 3, 2003, a Taco Bell manager in Juneau, Alaska, undressed a 14‑year-old female customer and forced her to perform lewd acts at the request of a caller who had claimed he was working with Taco Bell management to investigate drug abuse[1]
  • In July 2003, a 36‑year-old Winn-Dixie grocery store manager in Panama City, Florida, received a call instructing him to bring a 19‑year-old female cashier (who matched a description provided by the caller) into an office where she was to be strip-searched. The cashier was forced to undress and pose in various positions as part of the search. The incident ended when another manager entered the office to retrieve a set of keys.[5]
  • In March 2004, a 17‑year-old female customer at a Taco Bell in Fountain Hills, Arizona, was strip-searched by a manager who had received a call from a man claiming to be a police officer.....[6]

"
Strip search phone call scam - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 
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I checked "Higher standard than the rest of us" and then I wished I could have taken it back. They should be held to the same standard as the rest of us when it comes to malfeasance on the job. You do something improper as a cop, you should have to pay the price. No more, no less.

Why is a cop who does something "improper" any worse an offender than a teacher who abuses a kid, or a CEO who abuses his power - or a politician who abuses his office?

Have you been a law enforcement officer before, particularly in a supervisory role? In the Navy, I was what would be the equivalent to the chief of police (and later, the assistant legal officer) for a 660-man ship, and then I was a security supervisor on an aircraft carrier on deployment in the Middle East.

And yes, those in law enforcement absolutely MUST be held to a higher standard.

For instance, if you're a business owner and one of your workers says stuff that is not illegal and only says such things when they concern his hours off work...and what he says does not seem to detract from his work - he shows up on time, looks good, puts out quality work. What do you do? Do you as the business owner fire this good worker because he says stuff that you really don't think is true about his life outside of work? In the civilian world, the answer would be an obvious "no". Fire that guy and you're setting yourself up for a lawsuit.

But in the world of law enforcement, someone who makes up crap about his personal life is not someone you want to be in a position of trust as all law enforcement officers are. Not only is he more likely to make up stuff about people to get them arrested, but when - when, mind you - the defense lawyers find out this guy's habit of making stuff up, that calls into question any and all testimony (and all evidence to which this guy had access) that this guy has given in the course of his duties.

Which is why we essentially fired him from his law enforcement duties and sent him back to work in his original job as a mechanic. Such people are always problems waiting to happen...and I shudder to think what he might have done if he'd gotten away with his habit and was one day in a true supervisory position in law enforcement.

Law enforcement officers - like all persons in positions of real trust like doctors and judges - must be held to a higher standard.
 
Police are charged, on behalf of the public, with a significant responsibility. That means a very high standard of conduct. If they cannot live up to that standard, then they have no business being police.
 
If you fight police physically, get shot. Thankfully that is the standard lol
 
State laws also apply to police. Pretty much the same justifications for acts the laws otherwise forbid are available to police. In addition, some are available to police, because of their role in protecting public safety, that are available to other citizens only under more limited circumstances.

So, for example, the use of deadly force by police to apprehend a fleeing felon is a seizure, under the Fourth Amendment. The force police use to effect a seizure must be reasonable. If they use deadly force, it will be reasonable only if the felon threatens death or great bodily harm to the police or others, and the deadly force is necessary to prevent his escape.

Private persons have much the same right to use force to make an arrest as a police officer or someone acting at an officer's direction, but with one important condition. The private person will have a justification defense for his use of deadly force only if the person harmed was actually guilty of the felony for which the arrest was made. It won't be enough that is reasonably appeared the person was guilty.

A private person has a privilege to use nondeadly force to make an arrest if a crime was committed and the private person had reasonable grounds to believe the person arrested has committed it.

There is a 1985 Supreme Court case, Tennessee v. Garner, that involved a slight young black man police had just detained outside a house that had just been burglarized. The facts gave them good reason to think this man had committed the felony. Suddenly he bolted and tried to jump a fence to escape. The officers did not have time to grab him, and when he refused their orders to halt, one of them shot and killed him.

The young man turned out not to have been armed, but the Court held the shooting did not violate his constitutional right to be free from unreasonable seizure. The Court noted that it was unreasonable to expect officers to know detained suspects were unarmed before they had had a chance to search them. It also cited evidence that burglaries are often not the harmless property crimes they may seem to be--many burglars commit other felonies such as armed assaults, rape, and even murder once inside. It noted that for these reasons especially, the officer had a legitimate concern that the fleeing suspect was a danger to other people.

When the cops stop you, especially at night, or when they have reason to suspect you've committed a serious crime, running is not a very bright move. Neither is acting belligerent. Not only do they have a handgun, but they also may be concerned that if they come to grips with you, you may grab it away and use it on them. That's happened enough times to put it in the back of their minds, especially when the person confronting the officer is bigger and stronger.
 
So you don't think a cop trafficking drugs should serve a longer sentence than your typical trafficker?

When there is corruption on the police force it diminishes society's trust in our officers. THAT is why they should be held to a higher standard.

No. I think there should be prescribed penalties for drug trafficking and anybody convicted should serve that penalty. I don't think there should be worse penalties for hate crimes either and no class of people should be subject to more severe penalties than either other. A penalty for crimes should be a penalty for the crime and not based on who a person is or what he/she does for a living. The penalty for malfeasance by ANY person who violates the public trust, however, should be severe, swift, and certain.
 
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They also are putting their life on the line and their persons at risk far more than the average citizen, even other public servants, are expected, much less required, to do. I personally think that entitles them to some extra power to manage that. I don't see why they must be held to a higher moral standard than a surgeon or pharmacist or HVAC guy or bus driver or any number of other professionals who also hold the well being and sometimes life or death of people that they serve every day that they do their jobs.
If they don't want the extra risk and responsibility they shouldn't take the job.

Gee, where have I heard that rationale before? Oh, that's right, all the "law-and order" and "follow-the-rules" types trot that one out over virtually every other similar scenario, but strangely not this.
 
They also are putting their life on the line and their persons at risk far more than the average citizen, even other public servants, are expected, much less required, to do.

Yeah, not so much.

- Police officers do not make the top ten deadliest jobs list.
- Homicide of police officers is roughly 3.8 per 100,000 compared with the national average of 4.8 per 100,000.
- Last year saw the fewest fatalities since 1944.

Sorry, try again.
 
No. I think there should be prescribed penalties for drug trafficking and anybody convicted should serve that penalty.

I strongly disagree. And many courts disagree with you, too. Dirty cops put the reputation of the force in jeopardy. Every time corruption is exposed the populace loses trust in law enforcement. Since the impact on society is greater, the penalty should be greater.

A penalty for crimes should be a penalty for the crime and not based on who a person is or what he/she does for a living. The penalty for malfeasance by ANY person who violates the public trust, however, should be severe, swift, and certain.

Exactly. A dirty cop violates the public trust therefore their punishment should be severe.
 
I strongly disagree. And many courts disagree with you, too. Dirty cops put the reputation of the force in jeopardy. Every time corruption is exposed the populace loses trust in law enforcement. Since the impact on society is greater, the penalty should be greater.

Exactly. A dirty cop violates the public trust therefore their punishment should be severe.

Strongly disagree to your heart's content, but I won't change my mind and agree with you that police officers must be more honest and above reproach than anybody else who holds the public trust or police officers who stumble must be dealt with much more harshly than the corrupt mayor or councilman or city clerk or judge or DA etc. The occasional rogue cop doesn't shake my trust in government anywhere near as much as corruption and graft in those other positions.
 
I work with kids, I am held to a far higher standard than your average parent. Why? Because I get paid to do this, parents don't. Police are paid to uphold the law, when they break the law, it is a far greater transgression than when your average citizen does it. It's a betrayal of public trust, and a waste of public money.
 
Police have been given weapons and authority. When those are abused, it is a serious matter, far more serious than many of the petty crimes that end up being execution offenses. I have seen horrible abuses of police authority... google "Fullerton police beat homeless man to death" for an example of incredible abuse of authority, of downright murder under color of authority, and complete exoneration of those crimes for no other reason than their position as police officers.

However, there is another abuse that we also see all too often... the abuse of guilt assumption for no other reason than they are police officers, so any time they use their weapons they must automatically be gleefully abusing their authority to murder.

I honestly have no idea what Ferguson officer Wilson knew or didn't know when he shot Mike Brown dead, what kind of struggle did or did not precede the incident, how the officer's face became bruised and swollen... and the bottom line is that nobody beyond the officer himself and those who have interviewed him personally know either. Forensics and thorough investigation will tell the tale, but for hundreds of individuals... perhaps even thousands... nothing less than conviction and life in prison will suffice, even though they cannot possibly know the details of what happened that day. He was a cop; the victim was an unarmed kid. Guilt is presumed, and unless the justice system confirms what these people have determined to be fact, there will be hell to pay.

I have been unabashedly outspoken when convinced beyond a shadow of doubt that police have abused their authority to kill and maim; but I'm not willing to presume that every officer who uses his weapon is automatically a cold-blooded killer protected by a blue line of lies. In this case, some of the "eye witnesses" have given statements that evidence proves is untrue. He was not shot in the back, running away; all the bullet wounds were in the front. There is no physical evidence that his hands were above his head; in fact, the bullet wounds indicate that his arms may have been extended as he faced the officer, perhaps in the same way he extended his arms as he intimidated the store clerk with his 300 lb, towering frame.

I hate stories like this, where everyone takes a "side" instantly, and any evidence that doesn't support that "side" is automatically perjured, fabricated or manufactured. Nobody is willing to wait for the full investigation, because the full investigation may not support what we believe, and therefore is automatically judged to be a whitewash and a lie. That concerns me greatly.

As I've said, I do not know what happened. The problem is that neither does anyone else, yet that doesn't stop them from demanding that a man who has neither been indicted nor arrested be put in prison just because they want vengeance, and truth be damned. That is not supposed to be what this country is about.
 
all cops are good


Nobody with any brain would say that because there is no perfection in the world. There are almost 1 million police officers in this country. It's unrealistic to believe that in a group that large, you will find all goodness.

Of course a policeman has power. So do teachers. So do lawyers - hell, lawyers have someone else's life in their hands. I'm a sales manager - I have power too.

You will always find people who abuse power. MOST don't. Just like you can find a scared teenager who drowns her newborn in a toilet, but MOST scared teenage mothers don't do that.

A pilot drinking on the job isn't relevant to the "hold to a higher standard than the rest of us" discussion. None of us are supposed to be drinking and operating a machine. The mechanic isn't supposed to be drinking while fixing the plane either, and he will get fired if caught, so no, the pilot is not held to any higher standard than the rest of us.

Anyone who breaks a law or gets caught abusing his/her power should be punished, no matter what position that person is in.

Pilots are held to a higher standard with regard to drinking. A pilot who drinks ANYTHING within 8 hours of flying under Part 91 (general aviation) is violating FAA regulations and subject to having his ticket yanked. The regulation under Part 121 (air transport operations) may be as high as 24 hours - I don't remember off hand and I don't have time to look it up. Obviously
those are higher standards than people who drive cars.

I could easily find many other examples, suffice to say that the regulations that pilots live under cover a couple hundred printed pages. Drivers of cars are much less stringently regulated.


Cops have far more power than any of the occupations you listed. They embody the state, they are generally presumed to not be lying when they use that power against you, they have qualified immunity. There are few people in this society who could ruin your life faster than a cop who decided to abuse his authority.
 
They should obey and enforce the law...the rest is gravy.
 
Police have been given weapons and authority. When those are abused, it is a serious matter, far more serious than many of the petty crimes that end up being execution offenses. I have seen horrible abuses of police authority... google "Fullerton police beat homeless man to death" for an example of incredible abuse of authority, of downright murder under color of authority, and complete exoneration of those crimes for no other reason than their position as police officers.

However, there is another abuse that we also see all too often... the abuse of guilt assumption for no other reason than they are police officers, so any time they use their weapons they must automatically be gleefully abusing their authority to murder.

I honestly have no idea what Ferguson officer Wilson knew or didn't know when he shot Mike Brown dead, what kind of struggle did or did not precede the incident, how the officer's face became bruised and swollen... and the bottom line is that nobody beyond the officer himself and those who have interviewed him personally know either. Forensics and thorough investigation will tell the tale, but for hundreds of individuals... perhaps even thousands... nothing less than conviction and life in prison will suffice, even though they cannot possibly know the details of what happened that day. He was a cop; the victim was an unarmed kid. Guilt is presumed, and unless the justice system confirms what these people have determined to be fact, there will be hell to pay.

I have been unabashedly outspoken when convinced beyond a shadow of doubt that police have abused their authority to kill and maim; but I'm not willing to presume that every officer who uses his weapon is automatically a cold-blooded killer protected by a blue line of lies. In this case, some of the "eye witnesses" have given statements that evidence proves is untrue. He was not shot in the back, running away; all the bullet wounds were in the front. There is no physical evidence that his hands were above his head; in fact, the bullet wounds indicate that his arms may have been extended as he faced the officer, perhaps in the same way he extended his arms as he intimidated the store clerk with his 300 lb, towering frame.

I hate stories like this, where everyone takes a "side" instantly, and any evidence that doesn't support that "side" is automatically perjured, fabricated or manufactured. Nobody is willing to wait for the full investigation, because the full investigation may not support what we believe, and therefore is automatically judged to be a whitewash and a lie. That concerns me greatly.

As I've said, I do not know what happened. The problem is that neither does anyone else, yet that doesn't stop them from demanding that a man who has neither been indicted nor arrested be put in prison just because they want vengeance, and truth be damned. That is not supposed to be what this country is about.
The Ferguson situation has evolved... devolved?... into an interesting one because it has a lot of what you say.

First, the shooting, and all on one side reflexively blamed the cop.

Then something was released that suggested maybe Mr Brown was doing something wrong, and all of the extreme supporters of the other side immediately jumped up and pointed to that as if they were vindicated.

Rinse and repeat back and forth a couple more times and I've lost track. Meanwhile, very few people have actually slowed down and tried to piece anything together.
 
The standard procedure after a police shooting, no matter the circumstance, is to put the officer involved on paid leave for the six months* or more it takes for his/her co-workers to do an investigation. Then, after the investigation, a secret meeting or hearing is held by his/her superiors and 98% of the time the shooting is determined to be justified due to the circumstances and the officer can return to their normal duties.

*In some cases they are reassigned to do office work.
Never heard of it taking six months. You have a link to any of your statement or proof or anything other than cop hate?
 
The problem is systemic, I believe. Right now the police have been heavily militarized (even though they are not military) because of the Drug War and the War on Terror to the point where they use military (rather than civilian) tactics, weapons and doctrine against suspects and people who question their authority. The only ones who could effect a change in this are city mayors, state legislatures and Congress. Its no longer about serving the people, rather its about enforcing the (too many) laws out there.
 
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