How Much Do You Trust The Police?

Do you trust the police in your area? I like to think we can always trust in the police, to be professional and have integrity. I also do think on the whole most will be. However the thought of some one going to jail who is not guilty is an insult to every law abiding person in the country.

Here is a story that shows this injustice happening and the story in question has another twist.

A man convicted of murdering a photographer 3 1/2 years after his release from prison for a rape he did not commit was sentenced Friday to life in prison with no chance for parole.



Steven Avery, 44, was convicted in March of killing Teresa Halbach, 25, on Halloween 2005 near his family's rural auto salvage lot. She had gone there to take a picture of a vehicle for an auto-sales publication.

Avery also was convicted of being a felon in possession of a firearm and sentenced to 10 additional years on that charge.

I know an argument can be made for each side. Please take which ever side you want.

There is WAY too much information missing to make any form of statement on this article.

It states he didn't do it... why? The article would be credible if it posted some form of evidence.

I'm sorry, if anyone can post a link to a more in-depth version of this article, then maybe a serious discussion can be started.

Essentially all it says at the moment is "This guy was scentanced for a crime... but he didnt do it."

Not entirely sure on that being an injustice due to lack of actual facts..but hey.

I have a prime example of injustice in the British Justice System, but having read both in newspapers some time ago, I would rather not start a thread without supported evidence. Take my word for it, as both of these stories are too absurd to be false.

Firstly, there was a case in England of a woman who killed her husband of numerous years because he "nagged too much". Apparently she flipped one day, and lodged a kitchen knife into his chest. She then went to her sons house, told him what happened. He went back to the house, found the body, took the knife and hid it. So, you've got a woman who has murdered her husband for no reason, and a son who has hide a murder weapon. What were the sentences? The woman got 4 years, the son got 8 months community service. Oh yes.

Secondly, a man is out with his 8 month pregnant girlfrien. A fight breaks out between the pregnant woman and another woman, the other woman attacking the pregnant one. The man intervenes, shoving the attacking woman away. Said woman then falls down some stairs, breaking her neck and dies. So, in defending his heavily pregnant girlfriend, with little force on the aggressor, but which unfortunately results in death, what sentence did the man get? Life. He got 25 to life for that.

There is alot of injustive in the world.

Originally posted by johnsky

I'm sorry, if anyone can post a link to a more in-depth version of this article, then maybe a serious discussion can be started.

Johnsky,
If you follow the first link and click on editors choice it will give you the full article.
Or you can go here where there is another posting of the article. Here is a few paragraphs from it. We are not suppose to post the full article on ATS.

``You are probably the most dangerous individual ever to set foot in this courtroom,'' Willis said Friday. ``From what I see nothing in your life suggests that society would ever be safe from your behavior.''

``He got what he deserved,'' said Halbach's brother, Mike. ``He murdered my sister. There's no doubt about that. He should pay for it. I hope we never hear from Steven Avery again.''

Avery previously spent 18 years in prison for rape. He was freed in 2003 after DNA samples proved another man committed that crime.

I guess I'm not seeing how it's the police's fault... they only arrested him, it was the court that found him guilty and sentanced.... or am I missing something... it is early ya know...

I do trust the police, I have to, at least until given a reason not to.

Elevatedne,
Yes it is the police who arrested him, and then thus provided the courts with the evidence. That evidence which was proven to be false eighteen years later. Then after filing the civil case against the police he is arrested for murder. So the question is would the police be vindictive enough to put him back in jail for another crime that he did not commit? I do not know, I have no way of knowing. With out a doubt this man in question is not a model citizen. He sounds to be a rather sick individual. But still should not be sent to prison for something they did not do.

As to trusting the police until give reason not to, yes that is a very key point. We all half to trust the police. That is what makes it that much worse when an injustice like the one on this thread happens. What do you do when people who are tasked with your protection turn into the ones you are suppose to be protected from?

Originally posted by RedGolem
Do you trust the police in your area?

Sure I do. They haven't given me any reason not to.

ALSO - every group has a bad apple or two. It's human nature. I'm not
going to judge every cop in the country based upon the alleged bad actions of a few.

That would be like judging every black person in this country based upon the bad actions of O.J. Simpson ... or juding every white person in this country based on the actions of Hollywood idiots like Britney Spears and Paris Hilton.

Edited once to fix the quote



[edit on 6/5/2007 by FlyersFan]

Flyers,
very nicely put, thanks for your input. I also kind of feel that sometimes it also makes a difference where the bad apple is. For instance what if the bad apple is at the top of the tree? I had just heard some stories of that being the case from one or two former police officers.

i went to work for the police 2 days in 1998, and ever since me life has fallen apart. so from my experience they are there to destroy lifes.

people just need to make stuff up about people and pretend your doing this and that, and the police would jump at the chance to destroy your life, and especially if youve never done anything wrong.

for me they are there to destroy lifes, and not protect them.

i could go more into this, but its no use.

Andy,
you are saying that for two days in 98, you were a police officer?
Or were you working for the police department but not as an officer?

The police and the courts are part of 'the system'. So far, for the most part I trust the system as it functions in Canada. Yes there are bad apples and incompatents, but I sincerely feel that the our police and judicial systems are working for the best interests of the citizenry. Mind you, that's not the case everywhere and I recognise that in many places the people are the enemies of the state, and the police serve as the government's iron fist.

Individual cops I give the benefit of the doubt until they start acting like bullies.

"The police" as an entity I don't trust at all.

The politicians that write the laws I consider straight-up enemies of liberty.

Just my opinion in response to the OPs question: 'How much do you trust the police': I feel Mr. and Mrs. Average are able to trust the police regarding everyday situations such as home break-ins and 'Officer, I think I saw a suspicious character lurking at the bottom of the yard' -- also traffic accidents, etc.

In other words, the average person with a spotless record (and I'm one) receives, as a rule, assistance, courtesy and professionalism.

There are other members of society however, who are treated differently by the police, I would imagine.

For example, when in my late teens, I worked and lived at the home of a family for a brief time. I didn't know what they did for a living. Both the husband and wife spent most days at home with occasional disappearances spent riding, travelling, etc.

After a day off, I returned home one night to find my belongings had been tampered with. When I enquired, the husband apologised and went on to say their home had been 'searched' earlier in the evening by the police. No further information was forthcoming, so I concluded the 'police search' must have been in connection with possibly a break-in at the home prior to my arrival.

Some nights later, three men in suits arrived at the home. I briefly saw the husband speaking with the men, who appeared to be checking various items of furniture within the home. Shortly afterwards, I saw the men removing several items of furniture: a large stereo system, etc. I thought no more about it, assuming in my ignorance that the men must have been from an insurance company or somehow connected with the police visit.

I returned to my own home shortly afterwards and in the new year, returned to school. Later that year, on the return flight from an interstate visit, I was shocked to discover on the front page of a newspaper, a blurred photo of women for whom I'd worked. The accompanying article stated she was beseiged by journalists and reporters in connection with the shooting of her husband, the night before.

The article described the husband as a minor criminal, who'd been apprehended, shot and killed by police during the course of a robbery.

Immediately after the plane landed, I contacted the man's widow, to see I could be of assistance. She was then eight months pregnant with her third child. Despite her ordeal, she was calm and resigned. She said her husband had been a small time criminal and went on to reveal that the 'men in suits' whom I'd seen while I lived at her home, were in fact plain-clothes police. She said her husband had been required to regularly 'pay them off' while he was alive. She named the 'leader' of the corrupt police and told me which police-station he worked out of.

I remembered the corrupt policeman in particular, because he'd been very polite and pleasant when I'd seen him at the house.

Apparently, the men I'd believed were 'inspecting the furniture' were not insurance men but other plain-clothes, corrupt police. The widow informed me now that what they'd actually been doing was selecting the items they wanted for themselves. She explained that her deceased husband's 'business' hadn't been doing very well at that juncture. As consequence, he hadn't been able to make regular payments to the corrupt police. In leiu of money, the police had agreed to take furniture.

The widow also told me that the police had done a deal with her deceased husband and his 'business partner'. The corrupt police had informed the two men that they urgently needed to 'clear up' a number of outstanding offences and seeing as they had not been keeping up their 'payments', one of the two would have to be charged, even though they were not guilty of those particular offences.

The husband's 'business partner' suffered from a condition known as 'hole in the heart'. He did a deal with the police. He said he would agree to be the one charged, on the condition his 'business partner' undertook to support his wife and several children. This was agreed and the man was charged. He was sent to a prison in the north of the State: a place long notorious for extreme brutality. For example, the prison guards alternately tossed boiling and freezing water on prisoners whom they didn't like. Many prisoners died as result of various torture. It was an open secret, apparently, amongst those with reason to know. Police corruption was entrenched. The media turned a blind eye. And if a prisoner died in jail before his sentence was complete, his body remained the property of the State and was buried within the jail grounds. It's said that quick-lime was thrown on bodies to hasten decomposition and thus obscure the brutality which had killed them.

The man with the heart-condition knew what confronted him but agreed to go because he believed he wouldn't live much longer in any case.

The widow's small-time criminal husband now had the responsibility of supporting his own and his jailed 'partner's' family. The widow told me it wasn't long before he fell far behind in his forced pay-offs to the corrupt police.

On the night of his murder at the hands of the police (said his widow) they were visited in the early evening by a salesman for a funeral home. After concluding his spiel, he suggested several times that the couple take advantage of the fact that were they to sign a contract and pay the initial installment immediately, the husband's funeral expenses would be honoured by his company --- even if the husband were to die that night. Chuckle, chuckle.

The widow told me she'd told the salesman that they couldn't afford it, sorry.

The salesman apparently countered with: ' Look, even though you're only young -- accidents happen. It's only a very small amount of money. And look at the security it would give you.'

She replied again that she couldn't afford it. Then, as a joke, she said that if her husband died, she'd just have to hang him in the wardrobe.

The salesman departed.

Half an hour later, said the widow, she'd found her husband busily tearing up slips of paper and flushing them down the lavatory.

That evening, he went out 'to work'.

Just after dawn the police banged on her door to tell her that her husband was dead. He had been shot by the police during a robbery.

She now realised it had been the police who'd sent the funeral-plan salesman. And she realised that her husband had known this, which is why he'd torn up the slips of paper (she assumed they'd contained other criminals contact and other details). She realised now that her husband had known -- before leaving 'for work' -- that he would not be returning home ever again.

Several months later, the widow was again in the news. The widow had taken on the corrupt police: had accused them of premeditated murder. She lost.

When I contacted her, she said that the officer who'd fired the fatal shot had claimed he'd tried to apprehend the husband, who had made a run for it. The officer claimed he'd shouted: 'Stop or I'll shoot', but the husband had kept running. The officer claimed that he had tripped, and this had caused his gun to fire accidentally, thereby shooting the husband in the back and killing him. But no-one in the vicinity had heard the policeman shout a warning.

Six months later, the dead man's brother's 'mysterious murder' was on the front page of the newspapers. It was claimed he'd been shot in the back by 'person or persons unknown' whilst taking his dogs for a walk in the park in the early evening. It remains an unsolved case but the widow had no doubt the police were responsible.

(continued next post)

Originally posted by RedGolem
Andy,
you are saying that for two days in 98, you were a police officer?
Or were you working for the police department but not as an officer?

i worked as a civilian for 2 days. it was a rather dubious two days that i worked for the police in oxford city for those two days, that i will never forget. they have the power to wreck anyones life no matter if youve done any thing wrong at all. being innocent means nothing to them.

but i have had real problems in my life since 1998. i was told never to return to london, when someone told me this, i thought he was only joking, but he turned out to be right. i never listened to him, because i never did anything wrong in my life, but being very naive i came back to london, and my life has been wrecked ever since.

well anyway theres nothing i can do about it, they have ruined my life, and i suppose they must do it to many others. the bit that gets me it that i have never did anything wrong, all people have to do is make stuff up.

this is why i always say this is just a tabloid newspaper world.

anyone else catch this from the story...

Four months after Avery was arrested, authorities charged his 17-year-old nephew, Brendan Dassey, after he said the pair raped and killed Halbach and then burned her body. He later recanted his statement but was convicted in April of first-degree intentional homicide, second-degree sexual assault and mutilation of a corpse.

SO as he might not have been the one who raped her, it appears that he could have been there and involved in this somehow.... just because this guy recanted his statement doesn't mean that it didn't happen.....

How Much Do You Trust The Police?


I trust the average bobby on the beat (so to speak), i do not trust CID and other elements further up the chain within the police.

My trust of the police is inversely proportional to the power of the central government.

I don't like National Security Letters that draft private citizens into the War on Terror. Who are the police these days?

I don't like "intelligence fusion centers" that blur the line between the Federal Intelligence apparatus and local law enforcement. The Founding Fathers saw local municipalities as valuable for a reason.

And I don't take it as a good sign when when police officers start disabling the GPS units in their own squad cars. Why are cops paranoid?

If they want me to believe I have nothing to worry about so long as I'm not a terrorist, they have a lot more convincing left to do.

[edit on 5-6-2007 by America Jones]

(cont.)

While I worked for the couple, I had twice discovered the husband in the process of trying to hang himself from a beam in the garage. On one occasion, his young children interrupted him.

He pleaded with me not to tell his wife. I agreed on the condition he not attempt to kill himself again. I asked him to consider his family.

I was young and shocked by the incidents and by the fact the husband -- who outwardly appeared very relaxed, cheerful and pleasant -- was actually suicidal. It was these incidents which hastened my departure from the couple's home. Looking back of course, I was extremely regretful I hadn't done more. But the couple were considerably older than I and were my employers. Youth, inexperience and misplaced politeness caused me to behave as if the suicide attempts hadn't occurred.

Later, after the husband had been killed, his widow told me that he and his brother had been placed in care by their mother, when little more than infants.

Throughout their formative years, the boys had been passed from one foster-home to the next, with periods also spent with their maternal grandmother, who lived in reduced circumstances.

From an early age, the boys were sent to correctional institutions for petty theft and other misdemeanors. They received little education or training.

In later years, they spent periods in jail, again for petty theft, to which they returned repeatedly as a means of 'earning a living' or obtaining life's essentials.

The two were half-brothers and bore absolutely no resemblance to each other.

The man mentioned in the above post married a young girl who was already pregnant. As he was aware, she was dating another man at the same time as himself. The other man was of unusually short stature, whereas the man under discussion was 6' 4" tall. When the child was born, he loved it as his own and dedicated himself to providing for his family. Having had no family of his own throughout his entire life, he was in love with the concept of 'home and family'.

Another child was born to the couple shortly afterwards which bore no resemblance to the first and which soon towered over it's older sibling. It seemed clear that the man's first child had in reality been fathered by his wife's other boyfriend. It made no difference to the man. He loved both children to distraction. And he made his older child's biological father welcome in his home.

After his death at the hands of the police, his widow married this man, who was her oldest child's father.

At around the same time, her deceased husband's half-brother was also killed by a shot in the back.

The widow told me that her husband had initially tried repeatedly to gain a 'real job'. He wanted to be 'respectable' and a 'good family man'. He wanted to provide his family with the social-acceptance, love, security and material comforts he'd never known.

But because of his police history, people would not employ him. Also, the only training and skills he possessed had been taught him by criminals in the correctional institutions in which he and his brother had spent most of their lives.

So, he'd turned to crime as naturally as if it were a normal occupation.

He was ashamed of what he did 'for a living' but it was a treadmill from which he could see no escape.

I found him to be decent and kind. He had a childlike innocence. He liked orderliness and cleanliness and kept his home and property in very well-maintained condition. He was infintely patient and loving towards his wife and children. He had an inexhaustible appetite for knowledge and constantly attempted to 'improve' himself. Physically, he wouldn't have been out of place in a movie. He had an athlete's body and perfect Nordic good-looks.

So much potential. Such a waste.

Until I met this family, learned of their sad experiences and came to learn of the police corruption and ruthlessness which caused them all so much suffering, I'd believed the police were the ultimate good-guys.

In my own dealings with the police, they have lived up to their good-guy image. But since the above and other experiences, I've learned that some in society see the other side of police and the law.

Some of us are very fortunate. Others are not.

My opinion of the police has gone downhill in a major way lately.

I have been repeatedly harassed & interrogated by the police for the crime of helping some young friends of mine out.

Some background: I had a friend I worked with, I became very close with him and his family, but they had problems. The wife had a drug problem and disappeared for a while, I helped them through a lot of it. Once he got his wife back & clean, after a couple of years of misery, he kind of lost his mind and decided he hated his family and that they were all "scumbags".

He became very abusive to his wife and two sons, especially the younger one who is 15. The kid is gay (and not real happy about it either) and he was physically and verbally brutalizing him constantly, saying charming things like: "why don't you get AIDS and die you little f*****" etc.

It got to the point where I basically told him that if he didn't stop I was going to break some of his favorite bones. Needless to say the friendship ended right there. But he stopped beating the kid up anyway, so it wasn't a total waste.

Anyway, he threw the two sons and the wife (who is still clean) out. So I have been trying to help the kids out, making sure they get food and have a safe place to stay, trying to help them get their GED's and jobs and the like. They're kind of like my adopted nephews and they need my help.

Anyway, since I've been spending a lot of time with them, I've been pulled over four times for entirely bogus reasons. Every time they pull everybody out of the car, interrogate everybody, search the car - finding nothing of course, though they lied to me once and told me they found pot in the car. Then when I asked to see it they said they "lost it". Yeah

Every time they ask the same stupid questions and say the same stupid things:

"Did you meet these kids on the Internet?!?"
Err, no.

"How much are you paying them?!?"
Excuse me?!?!?

"What drugs are you buying them?"
Uhhh, Wendy's, McDonalds, pizza... you know, the hard stuff

"Do you think I just started this job yesterday?!?!" (When I try to explain what's really going on.)

And funniest at all: "Do their parents know they're with you?"
Err, their scumbag parents don't give a flying damn where they are, that's why they're with me in the first place.

So after going through this almost identical routine a few times, and being released each time after an hour or so of being pushed around and accused of being a drug dealer and child molester, I have lost most of the respect I once had for the police.

Not to mention their absolute refusal to press any kind of charges against the father for abuse, despite the presence of multiple witnesses. One of the cops actually told the kid "well you just have to get used to that kind of thing if you want to be a queer."

Originally posted by RedGolem
Do you trust the police in your area? I like to think we can always trust in the police, to be professional and have integrity.

No.

I too would like to think we can trust the police but since I've randomly lived in the suburbs, the city,and the ghetto I've had various interactions with the police that left much to be desired. It's a pretty subjective area to go into and a lot of factors have to be considered when trying to reach a consensus on whether or not the police are entirely trustworthy. Like life, some people are honest and some are not. I recall once an officer staring at me coldly and patting his holster. Gee, what did that mean?

White cops once asked me for my ID and when I reach to get it they pulled their guns on me??!! They claimed I looked like some dude but still...their mistake wcould have cost me my life.

Black plain clothes cops ambushed me at the bus station after a trip from New York wanting to search my bags. I started to refuse and they said "well we can get the dogs". I almost let them go through the whole thing and look foolish but I allowed the search of my bags. Nothing. Afterward they said "well can we search you now?" I became irate and they became confused and nervously said "Okay never mind".

I traveled back and forth to New York because...I was working with Marvel Comics! I've worked with the likes of Erik Larsen (you geeks know him right?) I'd drop off artwork every other weekend and apparently they were watching me and thought I was a drug runner. In actuality I was what I thought society wanted...a productive member of itself.

A few officers in my city failed the integrity stings that were secretly being conducted. One officer was fired for planted the drugs he found at a bench on a black male he randomly stopped. Those drugs were placed on the bench by his department. He almost ruined someones life and he was never charged.

Partly I realize the police have a job to do, partly I think they are looking at certain people to try and get a quick arrest. If you constantly search a certain demographic you're going to find something arrest worthy. What most people don't realize is that just many drug dealers and users in the 'burbs it's just that no one is knocking on their door to search their homes. Heck even Rush Limbaugh acknowledged this...

I lived with a dealer in college and he supplied a lot of the goods to the dorms. He was a geeky white guy that got away with it because no one thought he'd be a dealer. HE didn't consider himself a dealer. Mentally I think he had a picture of one and he didn't fit it. Imagine that. If they'd searched him instead of me they'd have had what they were looking for.

I couldn't see the point of what you were quoting in your original post, however if it was about innocent people behind bars there are far better examples of innocent folks being held for decades.

Innocent Man Released from Prison After 22 Years
DNA Excludes Convicted Rapist

Anthony Capozzi is a free man, and spent Easter Sunday with his ecstatic family in their Buffalo, NY home. Despite having served 22 years in a New York Correctional Facility for rapes he did not commit, he is not resentful, he is optimistic, and grateful to be free.

More?

[edit on 5-6-2007 by lee anoma]