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

I have been arrested twice, both wrongfully by complete ignoramuses, and have been exonerated for both. In addition I've had plenty of decent encounters with the force, but the details of my anecdotal experiences are largely irrelevant to the over-arching trends being discussed.

To answer your OP, people don't trust cops because:

1. The type of people who become cops tend to have egos and control/anger issues.
2. They operate without fear or threat of being reprimanded institutionally.
3. The power they have over their experience with you is infinite. NOTHING you tell a cop will exonerate you legally, even if your house is on fire or you have been assaulted, a cop is not the help you need. You are obligated to find your justice in the courts, and often when the justice sought opposes the police force, the courts are equally unhelpful. Cops are just fishermen that go fishing for criminals. This is necessary, but the means used today to cast the net catches far too many innocent fish. out criminal charges based on whatever criteria. This is why your right to silence is extremely, extremely important.

Not all cops do, but most of the ones I've met encountered these criteria. It's not that they are bad people, mostly just too misinformed, immature, or otherwise ill-equipped to perform such an invasive, risky, and subjective task.

I am always polite to police, but I avoid them at all costs and do not say anything more than I have to. Playing lawyer with a cop is how most people get into trouble, because, well cops think they are amateur lawyers as well, generally are extremely misinformed about the law, and if you choose to argue at the scene, you are in their court where the law only goes as far as is perceived by the officer.

 

Your original post had nothing to do with respect for cops.
Heck . . ..you have spent have the thread JUSTIFYING the bad behavior of cops
Telling the people they were wrong not the cops . . .

As for the statistics? Remove the relationship to the general population completely. . the reality is those numbers are RIDICULOUS for 'Law Enforcement"

What you are complaining about is like justifying a stat
that says. . . 5 out of 10 teachers are pedophiles
but in the general population . . .3 out of 10 people are pedophiles
to which you would respond .. . well . . . the general population includes kids
old folx and . . so the numbers are skewed . . ..
the issue is not the fricking comparison . .the issues is 5 OUT OF 10 TEACHERS ARE PEDOPHILES!!! THAT IS FRICKING UNACCEPTABLE
[now that was a completely made up stat .. the one you commented on isn't]

The comparison maybe flawed. . but not the statistic

This was your original post
nothing about respect for cops or lack there of
You wanted to know . . . . about the wrongful treatement
and why it seems so many folx on this board have had it

Evidently to answer that question
We actually lived a long enough time to encounter bad cops
We may not bow and scrape to the cops and kiss ass
We may just simply look different to the cops . . .

We understand that cops are PUBLIC SERVANTS . . .
Not Overseers
We are the Public

Maybe we actually expect the COPS to respect us . . . .
Cops get what they give out alot of time .. . alot of times they put out more

Rocket River

 

Post of the thread, 100% accurate and a great explanation of why, when you see a police, you always walk or drive the other way.

I've also been arrested for not doing a single thing wrong and after doing every possible thing I could to subjugate myself to the ******* I happened to end up with. Since then, any time a cop flashes his lights at me I think, well, might be going to jail now.

The OP is being obtuse. He is either a cop or the son of a cop or something. He didn't ask the question wanting an answer.

 

It's not that they're corrupt. It's that they are often times pricks. There are a lot of them who are just rude and give people tickets for silly things. Isn't Texas having a big issue with the Public Intoxication charge? Sometimes they are too quick to give someone a ticket, I assume because it benefits the station.

 

Another common flaw in logic -- it's called the "availability bias". Since you had a personal experience with a cop that didn't go well, you extrapolate your feelings more broadly. That's a very common bias.

It's like if my flight on Southwest Airlines arrives late once, and then I say, "Gosh, Southwest Airlines sucks!" Equally immature thinking.

I'd encourage you to view the full set of facts, Batman Jones. Consider all the GOOD that cops do. Do not let your own anecdotal personal experience bias your thoughts. Think more critically.

 

Has p-gabs posted yet? He has a long history with law enforcement -- including hard time in the G-Po on drug charges.

I would love to hear some of his horror stories during his time in the pen.

 

I have been arrested twice, both my fault. I have never had a bad experience with one ever. A couple of times they have let me go without a traffic ticket. Cops are ok in my book. I think it's one of those things were one ****ty cop makes all of them look bad.

 

Percentage wise, I've met about as many bigots/a-holes with a badge as without.

The difference is those guys without the badge didn't have tasers and a license to kill.

 

You seem to like splitting hairs so I thought I'd split one of yours. In a vast majority of the stories told here the people were dealing with cops that are on patrol. If you take this into account then they have an equal chance of engaging with violent and dangerous people or getting into bad predicaments as anyone from the general public. Its random chance in that case. You can't ask for peoples examples and opinions and then compare them to the broad spectrum of situations that all cops have the chance to deal with. Wouldn't that skew the statistics as well? I mean, since you want to talk about sample sizes and whatnot.

In the end I think there have been a couple people who have really spoken well about WHY people don't like cops and yet still respect the job they do. If you are going to ask, why fight the answer?

Now I could tell my own stories but as someone said, good experiences aren't as fun. Although I will say that when I went out fishing with my uncle (now retired officer) and two other cops he worked with we probably broke more laws that day than I did in a year.

Cops are people, people can be pricks.

 

And not to forget those who have been ambushed by 10 cops hiding in a grocery store parking lot with radar guns in midtown.

 

The latest officer killed in the line of duty was with the Austin PD.


Senior Police Officer Jaime Padron was shot and killed after responding to a Walmart store on the I-35 Frontage Road to investigate reports of an intoxicated man at approximately 2:30 am.

Upon arriving at the scene, Officer Padron was immediately attacked by the man and was shot once in the neck at point blank range. Despite being wounded, he was able to inform dispatchers that he had been shot. Two Walmart employees tackled the suspect and held him down until responding units arrived and placed him under arrest.

Officer Padron succumbed to his wound at the scene.

Officer Padron was a U.S. Marine Corps veteran and had served with the Austin Police Department for three years. He had previously served with the Austin Airport Police Department and the San Angelo Police Department for 14 years. He is survived by his two young daughters and parents.


Read more: http://www.odmp.org/officer/21219-senior-police-officer-jaime-padron#ixzz1rPjYEa4v

 

This is the problem at at it's core. Is it really healthy, for us as a society, to innately fear the institution which is responsible for protecting our civil rights and administering the practical measures of 'justice' and 'lawful society'?.

My heart drops in my stomach whenever I see any sort of cop car, because of my the sum of my experiences, and I am not one who continually should fear law enforcement, or criminal prosecution. I lay low. I am not a law-breaker, and this is because I am terrified of cops (and their power).

It essentially comes down to whether the people feel that a fear of the letter of the law personified, or the temperament of your local law enforcement agent, lying in wait on Texas highways to 'fish' for speeders', is a healthier public fear than the fear of the all seeing-eye 'big brother' camera coverage, akin to European style public security.

I have found that an alarming number of my Texas peers prefer the risk (and I guess reward) of having an armed human officer with his discretion of perceived threat, appropriate response, and the gamut of criminal charges he can throw at you after all is said at done, performing the execution of measures that are supposed to ensure the protection of the innocent, guaranteed civil liberties of all, and prosecute the public criminal threats, rather than rely on the objectivity of public cameras.

I blame rightist dogma.

If you want to catch speeders, you set up cameras and lasers. Simple as that. Anything else, like patrolmen lying in wait for speeders, is a guise to filter through the population as thoroughly as possible.

I express my thoughts on my own volition, not because I think the OP actually wanted a response to his question. I find his discourse to prove the opposite.

 

I am thoroughly confused by the inconsistency in rightist dogma.

Why do they keep saying they're for getting the government out of our lives?

Yeah, Republicans are the party of smaller government.

A small government that likes keeping track of what books you read, listens in on your phone calls, decides what women should be allowed to do with their own vaginas, and roots through your personal belongings at what should be routine traffic stops just because they feel like it and they know there's nothing stopping them.

Atta way to get the government out of our lives!

 

No one wants someone to die . . esp in the line of Duty.
I pray for his family in their time of crisis.
No one ever said their jobs were not dangerous.
That does not give one license to be . . . overzealous.

Also . . I think we should up our respect for the WalMart employess
who selflessly threw themselves into such a dangerous situation
in which they were not paid to do, also.
Give them their roses while they can smell them.

Rocket River

 

Got pulled over for speeding wearing a shirt I got from Venice Beach that said "Kush Klubhouse" with a whole bunch of leaves on the shirt. Cop didn't search my cat and I'm black. One of the coolest cops I've met. I was going 75 in a 60 (hardly exceeding the speed of traffic tho), and he wrote it for 70. Took defensive driving and it was gone anyway. He probably smokes.

 

I was right with you during your first paragraph, but you lost me as you went. You say that we fear our nation's law enforcement institution, but then rationalize that it would be better to expand that institution. You seem to believe the main reason why cops should be feared is because they are armed?

 

The reason I hate US cops (on an organizational level, not a personal level) is because of the % of time devoted to automotive traffic and ticket revenue.

Law enforcement would not be effective if we didn't 'fear' it on some level.

What rhetoric. The "inconsistency in rightist dogma" in this case resides in the fact that we blame whichever principle we don't like on rightist dogma. True "rightist dogma" is smaller government. Sounds like modern Republicanism doesn't match up with classical right anymore, eh? Even the staunchest libertarian is not an anarchist, but believes in a social contract. If we support the existence of a government, obviously it has to have a purpose; like protecting the lives of infants and the unborn. Cops also wouldn't approve of a woman sticking her vagina in other people's faces in public, which even from a leftist standpoint is bad due to the principle that it is harming someone else. So yes, the cops will decide what women should be allowed to do with their vaginas.

What I'm seeing here is that you want to equate "rightist dogma" with zero government and then also fault it for not being zero government in application.

 

There are good cops, and there are bad cops.

You can't tell which cops are good or bad by just looking at them. Therefore I try to avoid any contact with cops whenever possible. I try not to do anything that would make a cop stop me or question me. If I do get stopped by the police I try to not cause problems, and if I get a ticket I will pay it so I can avoid any further problems.

Bad cops have power and are dangerous, best to avoid all cops whenever possible.

 

When I graduated from SHSU I had a bad experience with campus police.

I was parking my car, and I got out and walked towards the dome. One cop said to his radio "here he is, what do you want me to do with him?" That cop then sent me to another cop, away from where I was going. So I went to the other cop. He was a small man. I am 6'4". So he hated me immediately.

The first thing he said to me was "Do you think you're something special?!?!" I said nothing, because I didn't know what to say.

"You think you can park ANYWHERE YOU WANT?!"
"I have parking privileges for this lot. But I'll move if the rules are different for today."
"No! Don't move! I'm going to have your car towed."
"Are you serious?"

At this point he gets very close, and I can see he is literally shaking with rage. I can't help but smile a little bit.

"Don't talk back to me boy! Fine, I won't have your car towed, but if I ever see you again I'll arrest you. You going to live in Huntsville?"
"Definitely" (not true, btw)
"I'll see you again and it will be your ass, kid."

Also, while I was a student in college I worked at Buc-ee's in Madisonville. The state troopers would come in a couple times a day to stare at and talk dirty about the young girls who would be in there. They would occasionally try to bring me in on it since I would often be where they hung out, but I would play no part.

With that said, I worked at Rice for a bit and often worked with the police there for coordinating events. And the cops at Rice were always great.