Have you ever been personally and directly helped or harassed by police officers?

[ZombieHorde]

By directly I mean an incident which involved a police officer targeting you specifically for either help, harassment, or both.

[nadinbrzezinski]

1. As a medic I worked side by side cops for years

so yes, my experience is very different than most...

And there are good people and bad people with badges and guns. Some shouldn't have them to be precise... while some are a credit to the profession, one that is one of the hardest in the US.

Overall there are more good people in it, but the bad ones, they are bad.

[Xipe Totec]

2. I'm not the right person to ask...

Rolling a drunk cop and stealing his cap disqualifies me...

That's all I can say...

[Buzz Clik]

5. No, I don't think so. It disqualifies that cop from answering the question:

"Has Xipe Totec ever helped/harrassed you?", but you're still good.

[Xipe Totec]

7. On the advice of council,

and the diplomatic attache,

I decline to elaborate...

[Ohio Joe]

3. Number 2 for me - nt

[Regret My New Name]

4. I don't think I've ever had any direct interaction with a police officer...

Obviously I have spoke to some, but never of anything of any relevance. Nearly all of them have always been nice though, I don't recall any being dickish...

[angstlessk]

6. here ya go...my friend and I and my husband were getting drunk one night

he became belligerent and threatening and while he was threatening me...I told her to call the cops..which she did. Well, all of us were pretty tipsy..okay we were drunk..the cop came and my friend was out with the dog and the cop ARRESTED HER.

Then to add insult to injury...when we went to court..of course the charge was dropped I said to the judge "we want our day in court"..well I was arrested for 'contempt of court'..and I spent the day in the same cell she spent the night in!!!

PS..she is white, I am white and my husband is black..and the cop was white. I do not know what that says..but it is our experience with the 'call the cops' crap!

[Interloper]

8. Security Guard

As a security guard I have been helped by police. As a private citizen the police have been helpful when I have called for them.
Once the police came to my house suspecting me of being a deadbeat dad. It was somebody with the same name as me. But, as I was the only person in the phone book with that name they naturally assumed it was me. I explained to them that I had no children and that people often call my home searching for the other guys with my name. It was just a short chat.

Once, my sister were in a motel in town when they heard a woman screaming for help in the next room. She called the police. But, by the time the police arrived the people in the next room were gone. So, the police decided to interview my sister and her husband with questions unrelated to the incident. The police decided that my sister and her husband had been drinking in their room and accused them of being drunk and disorderly. A huge arguement ensued...the police threatened my sister with arrest. In the end I was called by my sister to come down to the motel to pick them up and let them sleep on my couch. The police followed me home, aggressively passing us and tailgating along the way.

Most cops are okay, but some are just jerks. Same as everybody else.

[Iggo]

9. Yes and Yes.

[liberal N proud]

10. Just last weekend I had a DC cop trying to incite an incident

We were going through security into one the Ronald Reagan :puke: building to attend Capitol Steps.

This cop was giving my wife an in your face hard time because she had given me her ID to carry so she didn't have to carry a bag.

He was in her face and told both of us we could be arrested, it was state law (funny we were not in a state) to not have your ID on your person (Your papers, mamm, I must see your papers).

We did everything we could to not be confrontational. He wanted to make a scene.

[doodadem]

11. Well, just today........

We had the new sheriff's dept. lieutenant for our area at our dining room table. We had asked him to meet with us so that he could see, a) that we did not have 3 heads, and b) to ask him to help us in keeping our bad neighbor situation from escalating while it finishes moving thru the court system. He listened, was polite, and said he would instruct his deputies to maintain the status quo for now--which is all we were asking for, along with documenting everything.

On the other hand, I had to tell him a little bit about his one deputy that roughed me up, dragged me off to jail, and falsified his report. That's the kind of cop who not only needs to lose his job, he needs to be prosecuted.

[inna]

12. i voted "helped but not harassed" - but that is just my personal experience,

and it's not like i was "targeted" either. (in fact, i'm not exactly sure what you meant by "targeting for help". :shrug: the officers were just doing their job, but were truly helpful, and i was very impressed and grateful. but again, that is just my personal experience.)

[emilyg]

13. Same here.