Respect, Corruption, Law Enforcement and You

Reply to post by semperfortis

Have you?

You have some clairvoyance that permits you to know that should you have done what you did a life would have been lost with 100% certainty?

It was not prevented simply because another person cop or not enteredthe scene? How many lives are saved because some drunk frat boys happened to walk by a woman about to be choked to death by her angry boyfriend and saw them and chose not to? How many crimes both real and non are prevented just by a human presence cop or not?

How many situations escalate to violence and lost lives because a cop entered the scene? That is a cop tactic after all, isn't it? Intentional and deliberate escalation of force.


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reply to post by jefwane


Yeah the sticker is not really a good idea, in my opinion of course..

And every cop needs to carry a notebook...

Ever try and do an investigation with nothing to write on?

I actually learned quite a bit about police while I was in the National Guard. Most of them put any assets in their wife's/parent's/sibling's name to avoid having anything worth taking in a suite anyway.

Originally posted by butcherguy
Have you ever encountered a fellow law enforcement officer that was drinking and driving while off duty?

I have observed this act occurring with LEO's repeatedly, and it makes my blood boil.

Just this weekend I had a friend who had a terrible experience with DCF. She has an abusing husband who has visitation rights. When the husband brought the child back he was accomanied by DCF who forced her out of her car at gunpoint, and then searched her house illegally. According to the child, the DCF officers were sitting around drinking at the husband's house for 5-6 hours before the event.

Actions like this are not due to the attitude of the population and are entirely the fault of co-officers who refuse to rat them out. We have bad police and such because the good police will do nothing to get rid of them. If the good guys don't go after the bad guys how can you trust the good guys? That's the real problem.

reply to post by thisguyrighthere

That is a cop tactic after all, isn't it? Intentional and deliberate escalation of force.

No

That statement, more than any of your other posts, personifies that you have no idea of what we are discussing here..

But thank you for your participation anyway..

Semper

Originally posted by jefwane
Semper you seem to know what I'm talking about with the thin-blue-line sticker (ironically enough blue surrounded by black, I heard some really politically incorrect joking about that while I was in the National Guard like "why does it have to be blue surrounded by black?"). I've only known one person who had the notebook to go with it to record "favors". She was a cutie and her 10year older cop boyfriend only gave it to her after they got really serious. I've made it a point to let everyone I talk about police with know that that sticker means either cop or cop family. That sticker is pervasive enough and given that I'd probably not want to advertise who are my family if I were a cop, there has got to be more to it than just a show of support.

I do agree that our over litigating society probably removed the type of cop that I grew up around and occasionally wanted to be forever.

My father in-law is a firefighter and I often use his van to go to work.

A firefighter sticker in the window and on the license plate, you may or may not be surprised how many times I've been pulled over and never been written a ticket when I'm in that vehicle. I can't even imagine the benefits of the sticker when it suggests that you are part of the actual police force itself.

i will disagree and say yes it is

"Now we have college boys and girls that stand 50 feet away from granny and taze her if she does not comply. Instead of just walking up and slapping the cuffs on her, they gas her. Now how is anyone supposed to respect that?

Why taze granny? Why gas granny? YOU...... That's right I said it, YOU. "

And that is why you guys will never EARN our respect back. Nope has nothing to do with current.com... kind of behavior. Sorry LEO I remember to when things changed and it was long before the lawyers jumped in to feed off your mistakes. How many blacks sued the cops who beat the hell out of them during civil rights marches? Who got sued over Kent State? Selma?
So yeah take the "it's all your fault you nasty civilian" crap to the yard and bury it because respect was lost by the actions of your brothers. Your reversing the blame for the present state of affairs only cements the rift between "you" and "us". it also sends a message that we gonna get tased or gassed because you guys are scared. Man, until you guys act worthy of my respect you can stay on the list de merde`.As one of the "YOU" all I can say is we pay you,you work for us. Do a better job because your bosses are getting very displeased with performance lately.
seed

First and foremost, Thank you Semper, for stepping forward as an ATS member, and Law Enforcement professional.

In these times, we, a nation and people are already divided enough by politics and a bad economy, high unemployment and other "stuff", lately there seems to be a growing trend of contempt and even open hatred for law enforcement, in large part from the actions of bad LEOs and widespread publicity of it.

I reject the notion that ALL LEO's are bad, and accept that a few are... Most are genuine good people just trying to make a living, in an extremely risky profession.

I fear that the hate and contempt for law enforcement will grow, and there is a possibility of violence. in some places, that could potentially spread... Because too many people simply are convinced that ALL LEO's are corrupt, bad and can't ever be trusted.

I think we all need to realize that we need law enforcement, and that is never going to change... I think there needs to be a very public effort to confront the issues of corruption, rogue cops, brutality and unjust application of law enforcement.

Semper, you bring a unique perspective here, because you are both an ATS member, and have experience in Law enforcement.. You can take us places that otherwise only speculation and assumptions attempt to.

That is an opportunity the ATS community should jump on.

Thanks again Semper, and I'll post more here in time.

Reply to post by semperfortis

So there's nonsuch thang as the continuum of force then?

Is this one of those "is not a quota, it's a performance scale" word games?


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Originally posted by semperfortis



No

That statement, more than any of your other posts, personifies that you have no idea of what we are discussing here..

But thank you for your participation anyway..

Semper

and what are we discussing? I just see a lot of bickering with 2 members.. Really

Originally posted by MachiventaMelchizedek
They wont bring him back to life, THEY WILL make jokes about your brother, maybe take personal flicks on their phones. and quitly looking around your house for any thing illegal to arrest you. or maybe they will jump on my wii and go for a round

I have personally looked at the pictures of which you speak.

There was no official reason for me to look at the official police 8"X10" glossy photographs of somebodies father/brother's head ground into the asphalt as that half of the car came to a halt in the accident! The man that died was not a criminal, he did not deserve the indignity of complete strangers viewing photos of his mangled corpse, IMO.

Originally posted by semperfortis
reply to post by FortAnthem

 

Best post I have read on ATS in a long while

FortAnthem gets it

Thanks for the compliment. Every once in a while something intelligent manages to knock itself out of my brain. Wish it happened more often.


I was talking to an ex-sheriff yesterday and he was telling me about how many police department quotas are driven by the federal grants the police departments receive.

He told me about a time when he delivered his dept's stats to some government office and they looked them over and asked why there weren't more DUI arrests? They totally overlooked the fact that the dept responded to hundreds of domestic abuse calls and were dealing with a major auto theft problem at the time. All they cared about was the number of DUI arrests made, the rest was unimportant to them.

He says that the Feds gave them a grant to put a cop out once a month count the number of motorists driving without seatbelts. They were required to pull over and ticket a certain amount of drivers for not wearing their seatbelts in a month in order to collect the grant. Another grant required them to set up a specific number of DUI checkpoints during the year and gave them a quota on the number of DUI arrests they needed to have in order to qualify for that grant.

A lot of people think police quotas are driven by local revenue needs, and to some extent I don't doubt that is true but, this really opened my eyes to the amount of influence the Feds have over local law enforcement.

The Feds need to keep their hands off of local law enforcement and let them handle the needs of their districts instead of chasing stupid quotas in order to qualify for their grants. Or better yet; the local departments should refuse to take any more of this federal money when it comes with strings attached. Do that many local police departments really need their own SWAT team armed to the teeth with automatic weapons?

I don't think so. :shk:

reply to post by semperfortis

Understand that I have been hearing the same garbage in real life, not from an anonymous, perfectly safe keyboard in some basement somewhere, for just short of 30 years. It is so predictable and every time exactly the same, it is far more hilarious that any comedy show.

You know the old saying "If you hear the same thing (on and offline) for 30 years don't worry, you are perfectly right/sane, thats just 30 years of crazy people". Maybe you should stop laughing and realize that this isn't a "comedy show" to the rest of us. Police should start with that if they want to earn their respect back.

No there is no handshake, there may be in some of the organizations but as I don't belong to any, I would not know it. There is no favor book or any other crap like that. No quotas or any of the other stuff you are dreaming up to validate your point.

As far as "handshakes" or "favor books" go, They are called PBA cards and i am sure you know 100% well how they work. They entitle the owner to get off on 85% of minor offences which the average citizen would have no option. I'm not even going to talk about quotas which are WELL documented.

There are currently 750,000 or so officers.. Want to impress someone? Post 200,000 corruption videos, not 6 or 8.....

Whenever a citizen tries to film a police officer the officer always gets upset, feels threatened or somehow figures out a way to stop the recording. Want to impress someone? Tell your fellow officers to stop this practice.

If a police officer is being corrupt do you REALLY think they are going to let you pull out a camera and record them? People get shot for pulling out their wallet. Besides, if a officer wants to arrest you falsely the only thing you can do is run (and face more charges) or be arrested and fight it in court (who wants to do that).

reply to post by semperfortis


I think most us really want to respect the police and all that goes with them but with increased injustice and the way the system has protected them makes us feel they are no longer on our side.
Sure the bully tactics have something to do with that but the one that really wounds is the fact the courts serve them over us. A kind of rot has spread down from our elite leaders one that is eating away at the facade of democracy and showing us all its real colors.

I find it funny, that the loudest criers against police, are the ones who don't find that they should fall under any rule. Perfect example, is a site that allows the freedom to express your disdain with governmental facilities, yet their posts are removed for breaching rules of the site. haha.

Of course the opinions of a "LEO" would be skewed.

I have many reasons for leaving law enforcement. On the list was not so much corruption, but the smaller the town I was posted, the more of this "unwritten" brotherhood existed. I wasn't comfortable not following P&P's to the letter, because it would make work for others, or looking the other way when fellow officers wouldn't. I didn't and took a lot of flack because of it. I filed multiple reports and the farther north I would get posted.

People post 6 or 8 vids of "cops" being the bad guys. But we could post thousands of joe public being MUCH worse in general than in the past.

reply to post by thisguyrighthere


According to Ask.com there are 683,396 police officers employed in the US. If you figure every single one of those officers encounters at least 10 or more situations per day, that is about 7 million interactions between police and civilians. (Very conservative estimate, many of those officers are seeing 50 civilians per day!)

Now, each and every one of those interactions is necessarily a confrontational scenario, and an armed one at that! So, we have at least 7 million armed and confrontational scenarios per day involving police.

According to this Insurance link, in one particular year there were 5986 reports of misconduct and 386 fatalaties. Statatistically those numbers are insanely complimentary of the police force!! Doctors kill 70,000 people per year with their mistakes, and they have agreeable patients!

In regards to the lawsuits.....$347.5 Million in lawsuits and settlement that same year!!

So, to sum it up, 2.5 billion armed and tense interactions and only 0.00024% end up in reports of misconduct, but each of those reports of misconduct results in an average settlement of over $50,000.

So, yes, police are extremely professional and well-trained in their jobs, and yes they do routinely get sued and lose despite their best efforts.

I know Youtube makes it look worse, but just think, for every youtube video there are at least 1 million other interactions with police that went very well!

reply to post by FortAnthem


Let's face it

We would ALL be better off if Big Brother, ie the Feds, would stay the heck out of our lives..

What you mentioned in your post is 100% accurate..

If a department wants more money to buy say.. Bullet Proof Vests.. They darn well better arrest more DUI's or Uncle Sam just wont pony up... Nothing wrong with arresting drunks mind you, but not at the exclusion of other things like Community policing..

Yes I am a Huge advocate of Community Policing..

Many things changed for the worse when Cops stopped walking among the communities and talking to the citizens..

Semper

Originally posted by MachiventaMelchizedek
cop hater yes i am and from the looks of it your a people hating cop. so whats new. so now the real cop comes out. lol we knew it would.

Be a proud cop hater all you want, but if we are ever going to get anywhere, it is going to begin with mutual respect.

Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

Innocent until proven guilty, applies to law enforcement as well as to the rest of us... We've got to set aside this divisiveness and the notion that all law enforcement is bad, if we are ever going to get anywhere here.

Hating cops, just because they are is as stupid and ignorant as hating people because of their race, religion or culture.

If this trend of blind hatred doesn't end now, it could end badly at some point in the future somewhere, and that doesn't have to happen... We can all find a way to get along, and the first step is going to be mutual respect, identifying the problems, confronting them, finding solutions and ultimately acceptance and understanding.

This confrontational adversarial relationship between law enforcement and the people needs to end.

So, how do we get there?

reply to post by memarf1

Now, each and every one of those interactions is necessarily a confrontational scenario, and an armed one at that! So, we have at least 7 million armed and confrontational scenarios per day involving police.

An armed one at that!

Yes, but you should consider that most of those situations involve only one side being armed.

The police!