And then add their names to the state's sex register of nasty folks.

all across the nation these days. The internet is full of stories like this, with videos to back them up.

The nice ones are the rogues...

...people who genuinely are trying to server and protect the community. But let's say this: Imagine if you have 10 cops or even 20 cops. 19 of them are good. One of them is very, very bad. Who's going to leave the impression on everyone?

We had a police officer in my town who was an absolute maniac. Named Roger Magaña. The guy was eventually convicted of forty-two sexual of offenses, including anally raping women while on duty and is now serving 95 years. This was just a few years ago, too.

BTW: He got away with it for six straight years despite continual charges from his victims during that time.

PB

And all the other cops who helped cover it up.

That's awful!

As for police in general, there are just so many of them around the country, all we usually hear about are the bad ones and their horrific actions. Yes, bad apples abound everywhere, but I also don't want to 'convict' all cops just because that's their profession. There are lots of good apples, I imagine.

none of whom had the decency to act?


Yeah, most are 'good' except they cover up for the 'bad'.

But there are bad cops everywhere. The majority of cops who, while they would not personally rape or beat you, would definitely look the other way, or even cover for someone who did.

That doesn't make them good. They may think of themselves as genuine, good, protect and serve type police. They may intend to be so. They may be nice to their own family, kittens, and even minorities. But good cops, they are not.

Its not just the impression of the one bad cop. The bad cop draws the rest into complicity when they decline to protect others against the bad cop, when they turn their eyes and pretend not to see. The rotten apple has spoiled the whole barrel.

It's a dangerous job. It's not just the shooting; as many police are hurt or killed in traffic accidents as are shot at. It's a stressful job where you often see the worst in people. One of the hazards of the job is that it can pressure you to only see the bad; it can push you do bad things, take short cuts, start to look at every citizen as a potential trouble maker or a con artist who needs to be controlled. And then there are the crazies out there. Every couple of years you hear of another nutcase who ambushes cops for no reason.

Given those hazards, police need controls. These were two bad cops who saw a black man with money and assumed he was a trouble maker. Then there were two more officers who showed up and covered up for their colleagues--coworkers who they may need to rely upon in order to save a life one day. That pressure can create bonds of steel. That means there needs to be strong controls, strong regulations on people with that kind of power and every motive in the world to cover it up when a colleague crosses the line.

Yes, those rogue cops need to be punished, and probably fired. But there also needs to be a system in place to help weed out the troublemakers in the first place and to reduce the job stressors that allow once-vigilant officers to drift into corruption. When you have this bad a treatment of two innocent young adults at the hands of the town's police, there's probably more than just a few petty-tyrant cops on the force. The way the coverup happened, it seems like there's probably a culture of gradual corruption in Rochester's PD that's allowing the good ones to go bad.

The " most police are good.." myth.

They stop being good the minute they back up another cop who they know has stepped over the line.

In your example, how do you think he got away with it for 6 years...other cops and the system looked the other way and ignored what he was doing! Just because he was a cop...

Police officers need to be monitored, not by their own...but by independent groups that have the authority to have bad cops removed.

If that were true, this girl would have no problem finding out who these terrorists are. But every cop involved covered for each other.

with that shit.

You should show me thousands of anecdotes of police corruption, and all you'd have proven was that less than 1% of the police force was bad.

Not to mention that, as standards of proof go, "stories on the internet" do not rate highly.

This is not to say that America *doesn't* have a serious problem with police corruption and/or brutality. But if you want to argue positively that it *does* - or to argue any other position, on any issue - then anecdotal evidence is irrelevant.

"Boys will be boys, girls will be toys."

just happened to be black,,,and Kirsten was a nice young blond .

edit:
Ooops ! I just read the story. I was right.

that the couple had a lot of money and were trying to provoke something so they could take a cut of the cash.

Quickly, please.

Obtain the employee roster for the night in question in discovery and subpoena every cop to a deposition. Maybe she and the BF can ID the right cops.

Should be fun.

because they ARE the law!
Welcome to the Police States of Amerika.

that is totally disgusting and then reading the rest - I would say Kristen is actually lucky to be able to walk away.

It is ironic that the Righties are screaming about the feds taking away their rights when we have police departments doing nothing about their officers' abusing power. It almost seems that police departments are having competitions to see how they can escalate their "power' over citizens.

Unfortunately, now police have power, they will never give it up.

And for those who want to say, well if you don't do anything wrong............... not the case - you are just one jaywalk away from being denied your rights.

...for now. My mind can't help but go to the unlucky man in turkey who had his head handed to him by the woman he had abused.

It sounds like it was written by a tenth grader. Where was the boyfriend while his girlfriend was getting brutalized? Maybe it happened the way it's described but it's just somebody's blog post without something to back it up.

This sort of thing does go on and often goes unreported. Could the girl be exaggerating? Sure, it was a traumatic experience. Was it made up from whole cloth? I don't even know if I'm using that idiom correctly. But it sounds like the sort of thing that deserves more attention so that the facts can come out. Me and the internet, we've just done our part.

he would have been beaten, pepper sprayed and arrested.

I want to hear more. Not that there aren't shitty cops out there - way more than should be tolerated but what was the boyfriend doing? Where was his cell phone camera? It just sounds too pat.

if the officers had seen him reaching for his cell phone, from his pocket, perhaps. It's unlikely they would have allowed him to record their actions, anyway.

By "too pat", I suppose you mean glib and superficial, but the account does not seem that way to me.

Have the couple gotten a lawyer? Did they contact the local news/tv and report the story? I know if this had happened to me, putting it on a blog would be the quietest thing I would have done.

I know some police officers who I consider good people, so I don't paint them all with the same brush.

She also doesn't mention what happened to her phone. She said she was trying to surreptitiously record the cops. Did she succeed? Did the cops find out and erase the recording? If she has audio of what happened, why not post that?

The insults sound so outrageous and pervasive, it's hard to believe. Like I said, maybe it happened the way she says but my first impression is that it didn't.

I don't believe everything I read on the Internet.

What, exactly, was he supposed to do in your mind? "Get yer hands off my woman!!!" followed by a gunshot?

But we never hear of anything like that, which makes me suspicious of the entire incident.

Maybe it happened, maybe it didn't. Apparently we will never know.

and sympathetic back-story. Thus, it must be false.

Oooooookay.

ETA: Might just have something to do with the race of the boyfriend and the woman. "Police abuse black man" isn't considered as newsworthy as "Police abuse white woman".

I never said it must be false. But I am keeping an open mind on the story.

All it takes is a little bit of respect for the people you disagree with.
You think you could muster that up?

and should not be shown any, in any context, for any reason.

No one was defending the behavior of any of the police in this case. If you can't make an honest argument, it's time to give up arguing.

defend this like they always defend police misconduct.

once I get that, I will argue, if the argument has merit.

I think you made up "badge sniffers" to be intentionally ineffectual as a slur.

At this point, the burden of proof is on you to show you're not a James O'Keefe wannabe

The first part of that sentence is the important bit.

but no more. If "good" cops cover for the bad cops, they themselves are bad cops. Denver has a real problem, to the point where you don't even want to call the police for anything.

Can you expect normal from anyone who comes from the military and becomes a cop? Many do become cops.

Not saying there aren't good ones, but there are so many good ole boy, power trip pieces of shit out there that ruin what the police used to be. These douche bags deserve prison, and not the nice one with play time, but the ones with the worst showers possible. Fuck tha Police.

Sometimes you need to forget about who is right or wrong and think about defusing the situation. Once you see the cops a butt-hole having him dig in his heels more doesn't help. Just escalates a bad situation into something worse.

Have you ever had your rights violated by police?

Have you ever been roughed up by police?

Have you ever been pulled over for no moving violation?

Have you ever had your car searched without your consent while you sit on the curb in the rain?

This shit happens.

Doesn't mean it's real.

Police brutality, murder of citizens without due process, silencing of dissent, media propaganda saturation, and insulating themselves from prosecution is what tyrants do. Why would it be any different here?

especially since it started because a young black man was racially profiled. That's how this stuff starts. Why would a young black man have much money? He must be breaking some law somewhere. My husband and I are white, middle aged, and wealthy. We have had wads of cash on us often enough and magically have never had the police called because we must be doing something wrong. It looks obvious to me what happened. Black kid had more money than they thought he should have, they called the police because there must be something going on, his girlfriend is in the car and gets hit by their misogyny, and it snowballs. It could have gotten a lot worse, really. For the people saying the boyfriend should have done something to stand up for his girlfriend, uhm, that's how it would have gotten lots worse. He probably knows the script in these things and knows what will escalate things. He didn't want to end up in jail, or with his girlfriend in jail. They ended up walking away, so IMO he handled it well.

LEOs aren't really like that ...



Bake

If it's proven to be true, sure, but the link doesn't provide any corroborating evidence, as far as I could see at a brief glance.

I turn it on as soon as I get into the vehicle, before I've started the ignition.