The time for law enforcement reform is now!

reply to post by MikeNice81


There is alot of truth in what you have said, and I know first hand that there are police officers out there who for the most part are good people, I would also have to say, as far as my own first hand knowledge and experiences and a very large amount of cases and stories I have studied, there are far more officers who abuse there authority on a regular basis, some worse than others.

My take on it is that any private citizen should be allowed to film interactions between police and other citizens or themselves on public property. If law enforcement has nothing to hide, this shouldn't be a problem, however, the majority of officers strongly oppose any video taping of there interactions when in fact they themselves almost always are videotaping.

It is a two way street, if we, the people have to tolerate being photographed and videotaped by 20 different cameras on our way up to the local grocery store because we have no expectation of privacy on public property, how can a public official performing public duty expect to have privacy?

reply to post by GovtFlu


Excellent post GovtFlu, I agree with 100% of everything you said. Us Vs them is a big part of the problem as many officers have forgot that you actual are innocent until proven guilty and jump the gun on assumption without doing any actual investigative work before making an arrest.

There is also a disturbing trend to make arrests for charges that are far to broad to be on the books, you can be arrested for "smart mouthing" which is a right under the 1st amendment and have it labeled as interfering with an officer and that is just one small instance. Sure the DA most likely won't prosecute but you are still robbed of your freedom for a short time and usually of some amount of bail money.

I would like to see consequences for arrests made in which the DA refuses to charge the individual due to lack of evidence.

What defines "bad" cop?

He, or she, is busy doing his/her job, and some would be "nattering nabob" sticks a camera in their face, they get a bit preturbed, and over react? If that's your sole definition of "bad", then yeah, I quite see your point. I'm hoping that that isn't your sole critieria, though...

What's a "good" cop?

One that allows him, or her, self to be intimidated by some would be "nattering nabab" who sticks a camera into their face when they're trying to do their job?

Being a police officer, or any other sort of LEO, is about as thankless a job as I can think of... You are, nearly without exception, considered the enemy. Even I, who support most police endevours, look upon them with reservations. Don't trust them overly much. Seek ways to avoid them, even when I'm not doing anything wrong (which is most of the time, mind you...),

I see threads like this on a very regular basis, yet I see few threads that take into account the very real fact that the vast majority of LEO's are decent, hardworking men and women (though a bit jaded by what they have to deal with, day in, day out...) who are genuinely trying to make things around them better. ...and they do this with the sure and certain knowledge that for every success, there will be inumerable failures, or events that they aren't aware of, or if aware lack the ability to alter the outcome.

When critisizing the police, or any other public servant, just remember that most are just trying to do a job to the best of their abilities. They aren't servants of "evil", they're just rather ordinary folks.