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cops

What is your opinion of cops

  • I lean left and think most cops are good

    Votes: 15 34.1%

  • I lean left and think most cops are bad

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • I lean right and think most cops are good

    Votes: 23 52.3%

  • I lean right and think most cops are bad

    Votes: 6 13.6%
  • Total voters
    44
Goshin said:
When my son turned 16 and got his full license, and started going out on his own some, I had to have a conversation with him about Dealing With Cops. This was the gist:


1. Be polite, even if the cop is acting like an asshole. The more polite and respectful you are, the less likely they will be looking to give you trouble.

2. Cooperate fully and immediately. You have to assume that any cops you encounter would be pleased to have an excuse to Taser you or even shoot you dead; don't give them an excuse.

3. Say as little as possible. If they seem to think you've actually done something, say "Want my lawyer" and shut up.


It saddened me to have to do that, too. I used to be in LE, and there are lots of good cops... but as a parent I couldn't take the chance. All it would take would be one encounter with Mr Trigger Happy with-a-badge, and Son#1 doing something thoughtless, and that could be the end of the most important person in my world.

Regrettably it seemed necessary, things being how they are.
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Maybe I've been lucky but I have never run into what I would call a bad cop. I have always treated cops with courtesy and respect and got the same in return.
 
Goshin said:
When my son turned 16 and got his full license, and started going out on his own some, I had to have a conversation with him about Dealing With Cops. This was the gist:


1. Be polite, even if the cop is acting like an asshole. The more polite and respectful you are, the less likely they will be looking to give you trouble.

2. Cooperate fully and immediately. You have to assume that any cops you encounter would be pleased to have an excuse to Taser you or even shoot you dead; don't give them an excuse.

3. Say as little as possible. If they seem to think you've actually done something, say "Want my lawyer" and shut up.


It saddened me to have to do that, too. I used to be in LE, and there are lots of good cops... but as a parent I couldn't take the chance. All it would take would be one encounter with Mr Trigger Happy with-a-badge, and Son#1 doing something thoughtless, and that could be the end of the most important person in my world.

Regrettably it seemed necessary, things being how they are.
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1 and 3 make sense.
2 I have a hard time letting someone try to bully me. As a mostly law abiding citizen, traffic laws not withstanding, I have a big problem with LE expecting compliance to search requests and such. If you give up your rights so easily, are you really entitled to them in the first place?

The justice system has become a bad joke. It makes chicken jokes and knock knock jokes look like roflers.
You can't count on the justice system being just and fair anymore.
 
SmokeAndMirrors said:
That's just weird to me. Honestly, when I'm by myself, I tend to just disappear where ever's handy and not be too worried. But if I'm with a man, my heart rates goes up FOR him if a cop's around. Double if he's black. And double again for the particular black guy I'm most often with, who's a 6 foot 2 tower of a dude. Cops seem to be even nastier towards big men, including my father, who was the least dangerous man on earth.
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Truth. For some, it is a matter of potential threat appraisal. For others, it is a matter of ego and feeling less than Master Of This Situation. Cops are in fact trained to assert dominance in all encounters, which practice I question. Public servants? Hm.


One reason I worry for my son. He's a giant of a man and looks rather ferocious when he is unhappy, though in fact he is no threat to any cop or law abiding citizen.
 
Goshin said:
I can't answer the poll, as it is too left/right and too absolute... but as an ex-cop I'd like to comment.


Police are like everyone else in one sense; there are all kinds of personalities in every department. You've got your starry-eyed rookies with "To Protect and Serve!" written on their brains; your tired old hands who just want to get through the shift with a minimum of bother; your "by the Book" uptight pricks with sticks up their @#$#$es; your para-military gung-ho types who are over-eager to use force; and yes you have a few outright bad ones who revel in their own authority and ability to lord it over the general public.

In my experience, about a third are really GOOD cops; another third or so are mediocre but tolerable; and nearly a third have no business wearing a badge.


That was close to 20 years ago. At that time I was disturbed by the trends of militarization within the police department, which was really just getting started, as well as the enhanced and aggressive search and seizure rules coming out of the so-called Drug War, making the police mindset more "war-zone" related and more "us vs everyone".

On top of that is a natural tendency, after spending some years dealing with scumbags and also with citizens not-having-a-good-day, to view humanity with a jaundiced eye and assume all cits encountered are potentially scum or problematic until proven otherwise.

More and more, politicians and their laws are turning Peace Officers into Government Enforcers and Revenue Gatherers, and this isn't helping LE-Citizen relations at all. Nor is the recurring image of menacing-looking black-armored cops with helmets, face masks and military rifles comforting to the citizenry.

Add in extreme media and Internet hype over any questionable police use-of-force and you have a strong recipe for citizen unhappiness, or even hatred, or even "push-back" acts by the more extreme.


Here in my home county, we had a recent incident of a man targeting badge-wearers for murder. He murdered two security guards and then attacked a police station, badly wounding a cop before being shot dead. There's also Ferguson, and the Bundy Ranch, and the other attacks on police that made national news. The citizenry is turning against LE, and the negativity towards LE is becoming more and more mainstream.

It doesn't help that LE and Gov response to a lot of this LOOKS like "closing ranks and protecting its own".



We have a serious problem developing, and it needs to be addressed on a national level and soon. Some of it is more perceptual than reality, but some of it is real.
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The trust issue tends to go negative more at times when the leadership In Washington DC is perceived as overbearing if not outright tyrannical. When that occurs, in the citizens mind...it rolls downhill. And it does not help when the white house fans the flames in places like Ferguson....for the sake of a man who had just committed a strong arm robbery and assaulted police officers.
 
ObamacareFail said:
I think that the vast majority of cops are good. Think about where we would be without them. Sure....there are a few bad ones. However that is what review boards and Internal Affairs investigations are for. And to be honest.....what you are seeing as a rash of bad shootings is just the fact that today, they are more on the news media's radar. I don't think there is an actual uptick in bad shootings.
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You know you make me wonder one thing. Has there been more bad shootings than their used to be or is it just nowadays with video cameras everywhere bad shootings are being found out about.
 
RogueWarrior said:
1 and 3 make sense.
2 I have a hard time letting someone try to bully me. As a mostly law abiding citizen, traffic laws not withstanding, I have a big problem with LE expecting compliance to search requests and such. If you give up your rights so easily, are you really entitled to them in the first place?

The justice system has become a bad joke. It makes chicken jokes and knock knock jokes look like roflers.
You can't count on the justice system being just and fair anymore.
Click to expand...


We've discussed refusing to consent to search. I never give permission for searches, but I do so very politely and carefully.

My son is 18. While he has good manners he is not eloquent when upset, and I don't want him scaring the police into something rash.
 
lifeisshort said:
You know you make me wonder one thing. Has there been more bad shootings than their used to be or is it just nowadays with video cameras everywhere bad shootings are being found out about.
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Impossible to say. Accurate stats on this stuff are not available. I've looked.
 
lifeisshort said:
Maybe I've been lucky but I have never run into what I would call a bad cop. I have always treated cops with courtesy and respect and got the same in return.
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I have, both in and out of uniform. :)


Granted... if you are polite and come across as Joe Solid Citizen, you are FAR less likely to be harassed. In fact, most good cops will be extra-courteous and might even give you a break on something small if you are polite and seem "solid".


But there are exceptions, and they are not as rare as they should be. I've encountered some really bad apples at times, I regret to say.
 
Goshin said:
Truth. For some, it is a matter of potential threat appraisal. For others, it is a matter of ego and feeling less than Master Of This Situation. Cops are in fact trained to assert dominance in all encounters, which practice I question. Public servants? Hm.


One reason I worry for my son. He's a giant of a man and looks rather ferocious when he is unhappy, though in fact he is no threat to any cop or law abiding citizen.
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At least around here, it seems like pure ego to me. Just wanting to swing their dicks around. I watched them abuse my father even when he was being totally polite and was obviously extremely ill and, despite his size, probably not capable of killing a fly, much less a cop.

I have never been so close to losing my mind despite the risk in my life. But I managed to hold it together and use the full power of my "cute innocent little white woman" to try to bring things back under control and stop him from getting basically attacked. It took every ounce of self-control I had.

I was the one on the edge of my sanity in that situation, not the suffering man these assholes were messing with. If they had hurt him, I don't know what I would have done. I call for help and I got this bull**** instead. I felt like I was negotiating a hostage situation.
 
lizzie said:
THat's one of the reasons I couldn't be a cop. My impulse would be to go rogue.
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At a very weird point in my life I joined a municipal police force in central Ontario. Then, you went to work like any other cop, unarmed and in the company of a cop half the time, while taking studies the other half. Three months and one domestic dispute and it was all over for me. The bastard let me see him punch his wife in the eye. My "partner" threatened to charge me with assault....so I quit and went to work in a record store.

I have to say, along the way I have met some cops of whom I can only stand in awe, to remain calm and unaffected in the face of some really ugly **** is astonishing. I have no problem if one of them one time loses it and goes ape on some deserving ****. My argument is with cops who think everyone they encounter is a deserving ****.
 
SmokeAndMirrors said:
At least around here, it seems like pure ego to me. Just wanting to swing their dicks around. I watched them abuse my father even when he was being totally polite and was obviously extremely ill and, despite his size, probably not capable of killing a fly, much less a cop.

I have never been so close to losing my mind despite the risk in my life. But I managed to hold it together and use the full power of my "cute innocent little white woman" to try to bring things back under control and stop him from getting basically attacked. It took every ounce of self-control I had.

I was the one on the edge of my sanity in that situation, not the suffering man these assholes were messing with. If they had hurt him, I don't know what I would have done. I call for help and I got this bull**** instead. I felt like I was negotiating a hostage situation.
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Yeah, sounds like you got a bad one on that call. I'm sorry you had to endure that, truly... as someone who used to wear the badge, I apologize on behalf of good cops who find that story appalling.

It is kind of a crap shoot when you call 911, as to what "flavor" of cop you'll get.... which is one reason I try not to make that call if I can help it.

Sad state of affairs, isn't it?
 
Fearandloathing said:
At a very weird point in my life I joined a municipal police force in central Ontario. Then, you went to work like any other cop, unarmed and in the company of a cop half the time, while taking studies the other half. Three months and one domestic dispute and it was all over for me. The bastard let me see him punch his wife in the eye. My "partner" threatened to charge me with assault....so I quit and went to work in a record store.

I have to say, along the way I have met some cops of whom I can only stand in awe, to remain calm and unaffected in the face of some really ugly **** is astonishing. I have no problem if one of them one time loses it and goes ape on some deserving ****. My argument is with cops who think everyone they encounter is a deserving ****.
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I regret to say that a lot of times, that is a result of desensitization from long-term exposure... and the seeming unaffected-ness often results from not giving a **** any more.


It's not something you want in your head, the way long-term LEO's get hardened and often indifferent to the terrible things they see... it's a defense mechanism, and keeps you halfway sane, but the price tag is high.
 
Goshin said:
I regret to say that a lot of times, that is a result of desensitization from long-term exposure... and the seeming unaffected-ness often results from not giving a **** any more.


It's not something you want in your head, the way long-term LEO's get hardened and often indifferent to the terrible things they see... it's a defense mechanism, and keeps you halfway sane, but the price tag is high.
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That's called "burn out". Modern policing is addressing it, one of many ways of doing so is altering tasks, re-assigning etc.

If that's the issue, it's time the populace started demanding their police forces come out of the 19th century.
 
Goshin said:
Yeah, sounds like you got a bad one on that call. I'm sorry you had to endure that, truly... as someone who used to wear the badge, I apologize on behalf of good cops who find that story appalling.

It is kind of a crap shoot when you call 911, as to what "flavor" of cop you'll get.... which is one reason I try not to make that call if I can help it.

Sad state of affairs, isn't it?
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What was really ****ed up about it is that the cop wasn't even the worst one, though he was bad enough. The worst one was the first responder. I had called for an ambulance. As soon as they found out he was on painkillers, they basically decided he was a druggie and called the cops.

I was so furious. These people were supposed to be helping him, and he got treated like a criminal instead, by both the police and medical professionals. It was almost like having no help at all.

The only thing that saved me, honestly, was my dad doing with me pretty much what you did with your son, plus an extra lesson on "use their stereotypes against them and be the damsel."

Thank you. Sorry for the rant. As you can see, I'm not over it.
 
Fearandloathing said:
That's called "burn out". Modern policing is addressing it, one of many ways of doing so is altering tasks, re-assigning etc.

If that's the issue, it's time the populace started demanding their police forces come out of the 19th century.
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I've been saying for years that we need some kind of rotation system, or making LE service more like the military, where most serve a few years and move on to private sector careers. Over the long haul the way it affects the mind is scary.... it took me many years to "recover".
 
SmokeAndMirrors said:
What was really ****ed up about it is that the cop wasn't even the worst one, though he was bad enough. The worst one was the first responder. I had called for an ambulance. As soon as they found out he was on painkillers, they basically decided he was a druggie and called the cops.

I was so furious. These people were supposed to be helping him, and he got treated like a criminal instead, by both the police and medical professionals. It was almost like having no help at all.

The only thing that saved me, honestly, was my dad doing with me pretty much what you did with your son, plus an extra lesson on "use their stereotypes against them and be the damsel."

Thank you. Sorry for the rant. As you can see, I'm not over it.
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I understand. Thanks to this so-called War on Drugs, it has gotten to the point in this country where people with legitimate pain issues are treated like druggies by both LE and medical personnel, and we seem to think it is more important to keep anyone from getting high than making sure people with serious or chronic pain issues get the meds they need to manage it. Appalling.

We need to declare an end to the WoD. It isn't working; like Prohibition it is just making things worse.
 
I don't have anything against cops. Hell! There's a good chance that I might wind up as one them if the military doesn't pan out.

I can't say that I've had any particularly poor experiences with them either. I actually get off more often than not.

However, I will say that I occasionally find our country's approach to law enforcement to be rather counter-productive and overly draconian in general. A lot of cops these days are basically armed to the teeth, and trained to "shoot first and ask questions later" with an attitude to match.

For that reason, you should, at the very least, be wary of them.

Do the wrong thing around the wrong cop in the wrong mood, and you might very well wind up dead.
 
Gathomas88 said:
I don't have anything against cops. Hell! There's a good chance that I might wind up as one them if the military doesn't pan out.

I can't say that I've had any particularly poor experiences with them either. I actually get off more often than not.

However, I will say that I occasionally find our country's approach to law enforcement to be rather counter-productive and overly draconian in general. A lot of cops these days are basically armed to the teeth, and trained to "shoot first and ask questions later" with an attitude to match.

For that reason, you should, at the very least, be wary of them.

Do the wrong thing around the wrong cop in the wrong mood, and you might very well wind up dead.
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This is true, and it is not supposed to be that way. In a free country, lawful citizens should not fear police.
 
Goshin said:
This is true, and it is not supposed to be that way. In a free country, lawful citizens should not fear police.
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Exactly. The sight of a police officer is rarely the relief or source of comfort that it should be.

It generally means that you're either about to be harassed, fined for something ridiculous, or that you're in a dangerous area.
 
Goshin said:
I understand. Thanks to this so-called War on Drugs, it has gotten to the point in this country where people with legitimate pain issues are treated like druggies by both LE and medical personnel, and we seem to think it is more important to keep anyone from getting high than making sure people with serious or chronic pain issues get the meds they need to manage it. Appalling.

We need to declare an end to the WoD. It isn't working; like Prohibition it is just making things worse.
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The funny thing about it is that my dad was actually under-medicating his pain pretty much the whole way through his cancer (I mean, seriously, is there anything more legit than cancer?) and couldn't be talked into taking more than the bare minimum it took to keep him sane. He hated the pain meds.

I had to resort to showing the cop a picture with a timestamp of him 2 months prior looking dramatically healthier, and his earlier paperwork with his diagnosis. They should have been able to just look at him and know he was sick. It was obvious.

But anyone with an oxy prescription, no matter what their condition, is just a drug peddling low life apparently, especially a big man. This needs to stop.
 
SmokeAndMirrors said:
The funny thing about it is that my dad was actually under-medicating his pain pretty much the whole way through his cancer (I mean, seriously, is there anything more legit than cancer?) and couldn't be talked into taking more than the bare minimum it took to keep him sane. He hated the pain meds.

I had to resort to showing the cop a picture with a timestamp of him 2 months prior looking dramatically healthier, and his earlier paperwork with his diagnosis. They should have been able to just look at him and know he was sick. It was obvious.

But anyone with an oxy prescription, no matter what their condition, is just a drug peddling low life apparently, especially a big man. This needs to stop.
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Agreed. I have friends and relatives with legitimate chronic-pain issues (including one disabled veteran!) who have been treated like criminals over their pain meds. Disgusting.
 
Goshin said:
We've discussed refusing to consent to search. I never give permission for searches, but I do so very politely and carefully.

My son is 18. While he has good manners he is not eloquent when upset, and I don't want him scaring the police into something rash.
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If they want to search you, your car or your house, they will do so. Your permission is de facto irrelevant even if de jure it is supposed to be relevant.

They smell alcohol...
My dog smells drugs...
You clenched your butt cheeks...
You look nervous...

etc.

They even seize your money and force you to spend hours and more money to get it back.
 
In this day and age, I do think most cops are decent folk trying to do their job.

I still hold a shred of suspicion towards them by default unless I personally know them. Just act properly and carefully, and you should be fine.
 
lifeisshort said:
You know you make me wonder one thing. Has there been more bad shootings than their used to be or is it just nowadays with video cameras everywhere bad shootings are being found out about.
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In my opinion it's the latter. It's just more in the news when it does happen. A lot of it is the 24 hour cable news networks. Everything is sensationalized. Just as with the OJ Simpson murders, the Trayvon Martin affair, that young mother who killed her baby girl and got away with it, etc.
 
The question is flawed because I have no idea what you mean by "most cops are good/bad." I'm not going to say that cops are inherently bad. A police force is a societal necessity and a sweeping statement claiming everyone in a certain field is corrupted would be heavily misguided.

At the same time, serious reforms are needed to reduce police brutality and prevent the United States from becoming a police state. I do think that the police are a bit too restrictive on some trivial issues. For example, in regards to speeding or using a phone while driving, I do believe that these should be illegal, but some of the speed traps set up by police cars can be irrational.

So I didn't vote, because I don't consider myself pro-police or anti-police.
 
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