Serious Question

[Mythsaje]

Was there a point in time when the "left" and the police were NOT generally hostile toward one another? If so, I'm unaware of it. Half the reason they have the restrictions they do is because we insisted on them. They tend not to like them (I mean, as if Miranda is some great hardship placed upon them). When someone is released on a "technicality," it's always the fault of the system, not because they didn't do their job correctly.

Give me a break.

If the people who support the cops want people to stop bashing them, maybe they should tune in to the fact that if we didn't make a lot of noise about police misconduct, no one would. I mean, the people who allegedly "hate" cops. I don't hate them. I've known a few I really liked. Met a Pierce County sheriff's deputy once I would've loved to have gotten to know better. If I wasn't married at the time, I mean. She was attractive, friendly, and had a great sense of humor. I interacted with several on the PoliceOne message boards while doing some research for my first few books. I saw that cops were pretty much like everyone else and there were a few I really got to like. Some friends and I were arrested in Golden Gate park back in 87 by (among others) a cop who proceeded to sit at the desk overlooking the holding cell and laugh and joke with us while our paperwork was being processed.

But I don't know how anyone can deny that racism is systemic, that they're all too often tend to see anyone as a potential perp, particularly anyone outside the "norm." And any white folks who haven't had a few seriously negative experience in their teens were far less adventurous than me and my friends were.

My favorite incident involving the police involves being stopped walking down the main drag at about 2:30 in the morning on my way home from work. I was wearing my only winter jacket (an old army field jacket) because, well, I was fucking poor (I worked at Pizza Hut). Well, the cops pulled me over, asked me where I was going and why (home, because I just got off work), who I was, etc...etc... I was a white boy with semi-long hair.

I was told that if they ever saw me walking down the street at night wearing dark clothes they'd sick their K-9 on me.

I was threatened with physical violence while doing nothing at all wrong.

I also once got searched (without probable cause) for a pair of "bolt-cutters." In the middle of the day. Because the cop witnessed me and my friend talking to someone we knew in a vehicle idling on the side of the road for a few minutes before heading off again.

I submit that some cops, TOO MANY cops, are thugs in blue, given authority they don't deserve and resistant to any sort of policing of their behavior. If you believe TV, movies, and cop fiction, they even resent their own internal affairs department. This is not the behavior of a group that fills me with confidence regarding their motives or operational tactics. But, then again, I'm funny that way. I actually expect people in authority to act as though they deserve that authority.

[Mind_your_head]

1. I dunno.....It's just like in every other hierachal system.....

you've got the good ones & the bad apples....and most "in-between".

For anyone who is 'licensed', for example a doctor, lawyer, undertaker, realtor, cop.....(are policman licensed? honest question)....there are certain ETHICS rules that they are bound by and MUST know and practice.......

[Xicano]

2. COPS were created in this country as goon squads

to assault and arrest labor activist to put down strikes and the forming of unions.

[cali]

3. Early Police Departments were notably corrupt

calling them goon squads is pretty damned accurate.

[Xicano]

4. Here, here.

:hi:

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

5. Police are representatives of the conservative view of situations

because they uphold the status quo. And too many of them get off on the power they inherently wield.