How are there so many people on this board that have bad history with cops?

I don't think that at all. Not anywhere near 50%. But many. And police have far too much authority and power over our everyday lives for there to be any.

That is the answer to your question as to why people have problems with cops.

One bad cop is too many.

 

But hey, yes, peace. And right on to the cops. The vast majority of them.

 

Well first you asked why people had problems with cops and here you've answered your own question.

In most professions, the bad seeds aren't allowed to handcuff someone. Or arrest them. Or push them down on the ground with a knee in their back. Or detain someone for up to 24 hours without charging them with a crime. Or detain someone period. Even for a minute against their will. Or run a red light, even if it's really important. It's against the law. Those things are against the law for all the rest of us.

I understand why all these things are needed. But these authorities, coupled with the penalties that come with resisting them, mean that being a police (I love 'The Wire') is different than other professions. And it is more important to root out the bad ones than it is in, let's say, accounting or the arts (my business). I don't have the authority to push someone down on the ground, handcuff them and put them behind bars if I feel like it, even if I really think they deserve it, so it's not the same.

But I cannot leave any further posts without including a caveat about my deep appreciation of the police and the sacrifices they make. I am glad they are around. Very. I got into a blackmail setup with a Mexican cop about 10 years ago and didn't have enough money to pay him off and I was lucky to get out of it, let's say, ever. When I crossed the border I thanked everything that is holy for American cops.

Also, as the OP said at the top of this page, I too have had a loaded gun pointed at my head by a man that was very willing to kill me and that was rough with me. I was unarmed because I don't like guns and I am always unarmed. I've also had my house robbed, more than one of my homes actually. And Marc David Kajs, the victim of a rather notorious murder-suicide several years ago, was a friend of mine going back to elementary school. My mother's best friend was surprised by two youth when she entered her apartment one day and they stabbed her to death because they wanted a car for the day. And I was close with my mother's friend as well.

Justice wasn't served in every case. Mine was a stick-up and I never even reported it. Why bother? I'd taken pains not to look at the guy because I knew I'd be safer that way. My friend Marc died unnecessarily because laws re: gay domestic abuse were different then than for straight domestic abuse, but things have changed for the better and his death was not in vain. My mothers' friend's killers were brought to justice.

These are only random stories and I have many more that, like these, make me appreciate the danger out there and the fact that the police are out there looking for it and responding to it.

Still, those dicks? How about a no tolerance policy for people that misbehave in the process of discharging the law? No tolerance. We have it all the way down to weed in a lot of cases. And weed never locked anybody up because it was having a bad day.

 

You been banging the "THE APPROACH DANGEROUS AND EVIL PEOPLE ALL THE TIME""

Do you think that the number of BAD STOPS by cops nears 50%?
Do you think the number of BAD PEOPLE cops deal with is near 50%?

Why is it so wrong to hold cops to the same standard as you seem to hold everyone else too?


Rocket River

 

Well thought out and fair reasoning. I agree with you.

 

What makes you make such a statement? What do you base it on?

 

Why did the cop pull the gun on you?

Why do cops hate haiku .

 

#1 - I didn't tell him to **** off. I just said ****
#2 - It wasn't the ticket or the towing as much as he had me apologizing to him for 25 minutes before he made his decision and the whole tackling me and handcuffing me (5'8 140lbs kid isn't exactly scary).
#3 - An assistant DA told me I should have filed a complaint, and should have considered filing charges against the officer

 

That's my biggest problem with cops. Some officers will give you a ticket, but not try to be a jerk about it. While getting a ticket sucks, if you do something you know is illegal, and you get caught you can't really blame the officer, but the officer doesn't have to be a jerk about it. I've had very friendly traffic stops where I ended up with a ticket. In my life I've gotten maybe 10 tickets (3 driving without license because I forgot it home, 2 from a hit and run incident, improper lane change, curfew, and a few speeding tickets). Twice the cops were jerks. The other times the cops were nice and upfront with me.

 

It doesn't take a personal bad history with cops to recognize that there is a violent and oppressive culture that has developed. You can read stuff from Civil Libertarian organizations or talk to poor minority kids. I think it starts with the drug war, where cops think that every 18-year-old is on drugs, and everyone with drugs is Pablo Escobar.

The number of corrupt cops is really small, but the justification of that corruption within the law enforcement community makes the effects so much worse.

 

I can't recall having a really bad experience with American cops. I got shook down once by two Indonesian cops and last year when we were in Cambodian a friend of mine got shook down by a Cambodian cop.

I once had a a cop point his gun at me. The duplex I used to live in my neighbor's cousin was staying with her and one day she started acting out, threatening suicide and also violence. My neighbor fled the house and came back with the police. I didn't know what was going on but hearing the commotion I opened the door into the shared vestibule just as the cops were coming in. I guess they were prepared for the worst and I surprised them so one of them drew his gun and pointed it at me. I raised my hands up right away and my neighbor assured them I wasn't her cousin. The cops calmed down and explained the situation to me.

I got pulled over once driving late at night in downtown Minneapolis. I wasn't breaking any traffic laws and they just pulled me over and asked if they could look in my trunk. I let them and after looking they let me go with no explanation. I also got stopped by a plainclothes cop a few years ago just walking down my block. I had injured my ankle the day before and the cop said there was reports of someone kicking in garages and tool sheds so when he saw me limping he wanted to check. Since I showed him I lived in the neighborhood he let me go.

The worst experiences I've had with police were doing the Rodney King Riots. I was covering them in Berkeley for the University of California newspaper and you can tell the police were on edge. During the day when several protesters got down onto the Bay Bridge I was with them and one trying to restore order told me he was going to beat my ass if I didn't get out of the way. That night I almost got beaten up by three rioters who were trying to steal my camera and got away almost to get cracked in the skull by riot police clearing a street. I remember feeling the baton swing just over my head.

Bottom line I agree with Batman Jones there are good and bad cops and its unfortunate the bad cops seem to get more attention than the good. I have trained with cops and from my experience most cops are just like everyone else. They are people out doing a stressful job but for the most part want to do it well. In general if you treat them with respect they will treat you the same. Also it seems like a lot of people are intimidated just seeing cops in uniforms but if you give them a kind and friendly word you will find they are just people like everyone else.

 

I was coming home from school one weekend and I get pulled over by a cop not even a mile from my college house. He gives me speeding ticket for going 35 in a 25 (understandable; only $94). While going through Dallas, I get picked off from a cop on the left shoulder (I didn't see him, and I think it was the whole "slow down when passing a cop" because I think I was going the speed limit). Anyways, he said make sure you slow down next time you go through "MY city". I though it was hilarious. I really don't have anything against cops, but I can understand why some people do. I just think it's funny when people get upset at police for doing their job.

 

I just remembered having a bad experience with the police two years ago. It wasn't so much the cop but with the whole bureaucracy around it.

I got pulled over on I-94 at St. Cloud (a city about a 100 miles north of Minneapolis) by an MN State Patrol. They were running a speed trap and pulling people left and right. I had just pulled onto the interstate after filling up and a squad pulled right behind me. I knew that they had a speed trap on so I kept the needle right at 70 MPH (the posted speed limit) the squad tailed me very close so all I could see in my rear view mirror was the squad. I knew he was just tailing to intimidate me to get me to either speed or drive unsafe so he could pull me over. I was in the right lane and we were coming up to another squad that had pulled over another car. I slowed down and drifted over to the far side of the right lane. As we passed the pulled over car the squad tailing me turned on their lights and pulled me over. The ticket he gave me for was for not going into the left lane when we had passed the pulled over car, MN state law requires if possible to give one lane for emergency vehicles. I stated that I had tried but didn't feel it was safe. The cop disagreed saying that since he was following me he knew there wasn't another car in the next lane. I didn't want to argue the point.

I decided to challenge the ticket on the basis that I couldn't see clearly if there was another car coming up fast in the left lane since the squad was so close to me that I couldn't see anything in my rear view mirror but the squad. The key thing I needed though was the dashboard cam video which would show he was only a couple of feet behind me. So the day of the arraignment I drive all the way up to St. Cloud to plead not guilty so I can take this to trial. I meet with the DA and ask for the video. He says they usually don't have the video in cases like this. He says I have to request it from the state patrol. I go back and call the MN State Patrol and they say I have to ask it from the St. Cloud DA. I call the DA's office again and they say I have to ask the St. Cloud State Patrol branch. I call them and they say they can get it but they will charge me for it and I have to go and pick it up. The charge is more than what the ticket is for plus I can't afford to take time off to drive back and forth to St. Cloud. I end up calling the St. Cloud Court back and change my plead to "no contest" and pay the ticket since fighting it, even though I think I can win, is going to be much more costly.

 

The first time I interacted with a cop was over 10 years ago when I was back in high school. Me and two friends were pulled over for a routine stop. My friend's taillight was out. Fair enough. In the backseat was a 3rd friend, he happened to be black. The cop handed business. Whatever. Then said something along the lines of "y'all got a runaway back there" -- something like that.

That was the first time I've wanted to slam a cop's face threw a window, but it wouldn't be the last.

So I've had bad history, but it wasn't even me who was being targeted. It was just something I saw.

College coaches make sure their kids are always on best behavior. Athletes are held to a higher standard, they're in the limelight. One bad apple sours the bunch. Not all cops are horrible, but the same rule applies to them. They get to carry guns and make life and death decisions of ****'s sake.

Also, the whole God Damn system is arbitrary. Oh ****, you're 10 miles over -- here's a warning. Oh ****, you're 3 miles over -- here's a ticket. Van Gundy would hate cops. Pee-pee games.

 

I am agreeing with BJ way too much in this thread. What the hell is going on?

Believe it or not, I've had lots of experiences with cops. I've had lots of speeding tickets (in my younger days), and I've been arrested twice. Once for indecent exposure (ie. pissing behind the Stop and Go at Westeimer and Montrose on the way to Numbers) and once for breaking and entering (ie. drunkenly breaking into my buddies apartment at 2am trying to wake him up). Neither experience made me hate all cops, even though I was treated pretty harshly. I just chalked them up as life experiences. A couple of funny stories to tell.

I think both sides of this "debate" agree more than they disagree. Everyone (who isn't insane) agrees there are good cops and bad cops. But like BJ says, no one cares about a corporate sales rep who is a douche - whereas a cop who is a douche matters a whole lot more.

What pisses me off are the people who say all cops are pigs, etc. You lose all credibility when you make a blanket statement like that. Same goes for the people who say all cops are angels.