If an officer acts in a manner that is illegal, or against established policy of the department, s/he is no longer under the protective umbrella of the LEAs lawyers and legal counsel. The officer is responsible for their own actions.

Reframe all of their training to eliminate the de- humanization / seeing all people as adversaries, of "civilians"--- Listen to cop talk - it's all about interacting with people as objects. And their group behavior is all about combat language - making the "other side" into a potentially dangerous enemy, so therefore they must be neutralized and dealt with in a manner that is centralized upon "taking them to ground". Cops are trained to see us as objects, not people. To see us as people means conversations and dealing with problems with words, instead of deadly toys.

The other issue is the way cops will protect another cop. They forget the old creed, "a bad deed done by one person tarnishes the entire group". They should be coming down like bricks on those bad cops who dishonor the badge. like drumming them out of the corps or something, when they are caught lying, killing stealing, beating, breaking the law. They forget the term "honor". They have none, anymore, and if they have no honor amongst themselves then why do they expect us to honor and respect them? The cops have become a force of their own, above the law and no longer responsible to the people they claim to serve, instead, they have become a gang.

vote any puke out of office who tries to fund them - let them sink like a rock

practical step that can occur is for communities to require their constabulary forces to live within the municipal boundaries. Brown's killer Wilson live in the tony suburb of Crestwood where the median annual family income of some $65,000 is roughly twice that of Ferguson's $33,000. A Ferguson City Council that represented the demographics of Ferguson could require that its peace officers reside within the borders of Ferguson.

Thank you for asking the question. It needs to be asked and re-asked.

Bring a focus on the issue.

Expose the depth and breadth of the problem.

Help come up with workable policy solutions.

Lead to national legislation.

But commissions are also a means of just kicking the can down the road.

Your idea of requiring cops to actually live in the communities they "serve" is a good one.

Making them feel financial pain for misdeeds somehow might also help.

And many more prosecutions of police misconduct.

I think we're getting to the point where is something isn't done a major city or two is going to light on fire one of these days.

pain of others' misdeeds would also help. Settlements from lawsuit should come from the police pension fund, and any budget that the police department has.
As soon as they know that Officer Smith's beating up a teenage suspect is a reason that three of them are being laid off for budgetary reasons they will start policing themselves. No more of the standing around watching a kid get tased six or seven times just for the hell of it. Someone will step in and stop it.

And if we don't buckle they won't stop hurting the innocent they'll let the criminals know it's open season on the citizenry.

firings for dereliction of duty. Jail time I'm general population for cops that violate rights. Busting the police union.

Denying ANY workers thier right as workers to fair representation and due process just because you don't like them or think they are doing a bad job is how the right works- you can't bash them for trying it with teachers when you are trying to do it for another group of government workers.

They are the enemies of workers.

The majority of cops are dedicated, honest women/men who want nothing more than to help the citizens of their jurisdiction and go home safe at night to their families.

of white Americans are not yet convinced there is 'a problem'. And thus I fear a 'national commission' would issue findings that fell on deaf, uncaring ears.

I agree with your fears for a future if nothing is done.

I too am going to look at the beach (Venice, CA) but will be back on later tonight.

Wanted to say 'thanks' again for your asking the questions; they must be asked.

That would help a lot. The cops don't bother to really know the people in the community. Andy Griffith maybe took it to one extreme, but we have ended up at the other end.

(I hope I haven't dated myself by referring to money as bread! That used to be a thing, too!)

the poor stay poor for a reason.

instead of the shooters. That would be too bad as there are good cops. But when people are put in a hopeless situation they do fight back. These bad cops are doing no one any good including themselves.

One thing I think needs to be done is making a list of the total number of unarmed helpless people who have been shot down since Trayvon Martin. This list should then me spread around the media. When I say total number I do not mean just black victims - I mean all the victims that are being targeted in the US. Homeless, disabled, all minorities, etc. I think this list might just shock many. I at least hope it would.

The ones who say, "I don't do drugs so I have nothing to worry about." These folks are as big a part of the problem as the drug prohibitionists because they don't connect the dots.

Prosecutors rely on LEOs for their evidence and testimony on most all criminal cases, so when one of them gets charged, how hard do you think the prosecutors are going to work to get them indicted and convicted? YEah, me too. Kinda makes one think the prosecutors are in on the whole "code of silence" thing.

That's a serious flaw in the system, if I am seeing this right.

but I think it's a very good point. There is no reason in the world we couldn't separate from the prosecutor's office.

They always get off. Always. That one simple fact--that there is no accountability--lets them be thugs.

I'm glad the OP brought this up. It troubles me greatly.

Right around the time of the Brown shooting, I heard a radio show that said that the quality of people being hired as cops has changed drastically. Why? In a time of unemployment, would there be a lower quality of candidate? I think this needs to be looked into.


Cher

You strike me as a think only of yourself type that will be screaming from the rooftops when your rights are violated.

Don't be so damn sure about that.

Go away you bother me.

he's a racist thug.

Wrong address no knock warrant

You shouldn't be so quick to dismiss the actions of bad police officers

black people, especially young black men, are ASSUMED to be thugs and therefore are treated differently by cops and people in general........a black coworker of mine tells me how when he's crossing the street he hears women locking their car doors, and this guy is so freaking gentle. See, you're stereotyping although I do agree it's not right to stereotype law enforcement folk either. By the way, you're really at the wrong site - your kind of simplistic, er, black and white thinking is better appreciated by the non-critical thinkers at the free republic site

It all makes sense!!

On newer cars, the doors automatically lock when the gear is shifted to drive.

With my old car, the first thing I would do is manually lock the driver side door and put on the seat belt, no matter where I was or where I was going.

Don't most people lock their car doors?

At the Occupy protests, cops assaulted protestors who were not violent or aggressive. Spraying seated protestors who were surrounded by police was a violation of their right to peacefully protest. Deceitfully directing marching protestors onto bridges and then arresting the for being where the police told them to go is a violation of their rights.

How about tasing a man for not wearing a seat belt and not providing ID while a passenger in a car? Is that OK with you? http://ktla.com/2014/10/07/couple-file-lawsuit-after-police-use-taser-on-man-during-seat-belt-stop/

Cops pointing guns in your face based on an anonymous tip that they had not checked out? http://www.heraldtribune.com/article/20130718/COLUMNIST/130719612?p=1&tc=pg

What about the man who grabbed his gun and then was killed when the camouflage wearing cops invaded his yard then broke in his door without identifying themselves as law enforcement. The Castle Doctrine is a long standing part of American law and in my opinion that man had every right to defend his home against home invaders. For all he knew, they were criminals breaking in to rob his house - which had been burglarized days before. Instead they were criminal cops who killed him without ever telling him they were cops. http://www.policestateusa.com/2014/david-hooks-raid/

Cops have gotten out of control. If citizens don't immediately jump to and obey their every command, justified or not, the cops are going to excessive force as their first resort, not their last one.

spraying sitting college students in the face with chemicals is admirable?

with a badge.

.... what is the saying about opinions ....?

considering how easy it is to get charged with a crime these days.

we could start selling and using cop-shaped shooting targets. Let them know that we can play that game, too...

There appears to be an "us" against them attitude ... the police need to understand that their role is serving the community that has hired them.

if you are, I would suggest that you google the wealth of information out there indicating the community as a whole is extremely dissatisfied with the police.

I would also suggest that you search out information related to police profiling as a problem in the US.

I am a 50 something year old college educated white woman .... I have never been arrested. I am a homeowner and an 'up-standing" member of my community.... I am the demographic least likely to be abused by the police .... I AND MANY OTHERS living in my working class (professional) community are extremely dissatisfied with our police department tactics. I am sick of the civil rights violations and the law suits that follow .... this pales in connection with my disgust associated with the racism and profiling that has has occurred.

the police work for our community .... we are not a bunch of sociopathic red-necks (though we have a certain percentage that are).... this needs to end.

I don't know if they do this or not. I know that about 15 years ago the daughter of a co-worker wanted to be a cop and she had to take a psychological evaluation. They determined that she was not mature enough. She was a good kid, but her Mom agreed with the assessment. Is there any kind of screening done to try to weed out people who don't have the mental balance to handle the job? If not there needs to be, nation-wide.

I had one when I got hired and had to get another before being accepted onto our tactical team. Lots of people are diqual via psych eval. Additionally, many officers are taken off the street and either fired or med retired over psych issues- usually PTSD stuff.

Each state has their own standards. Even with a psych eval, I have seen plenty go by the wayside. I think it just weeds out a few extra. Most people have never been under the same kind of stress a cop has and actually been required to restrain themselves. Most officers handle it pretty well and some dont.

which cover for them should be investigated (undercover if necessary) and prosecuted repeatedly, to the full extent of the law. Of course that has never been done and would not be an easy thing to accomplish politically or logistically. This is one of the most important issues America faces, it is leftover from the Jim Crow era and needs to be changed. It makes me extremely angry every time I see that another person has been killed or treated violently for doing nothing wrong, for eating a sandwich or waiting for his children to get out of school. Police should behave with respect for citizens, unfortunately, too many police behave like criminals.

Easy.

People like us need to join the force.

If we have motherfucking coops in this country, then they should be arrested and prosecuted.

Who would want to be a cop? That they HAVE TO enforce laws they don't believe in? And arrest people who in their mind might really not need to be arrested, but they have to because they swore an oath to follow and uphold the law?

Compounded by the specter of police "unions" ... just about the ONLY unions allowed by the 1% to thrive and to wield considerable influence over local elected officials, officials that come and go every election year, while the police and their "union" STAY INDEFINITELY, for life.

For starters, this will require massive sustained "as needed" Federal interventions at local levels of government, on a scale not seen since the civil rights struggles in the South under JFK.


And that's just for starters.

If someone dials 911 or a non-emergency number, the police have no choice but to respond.

If someone calls to complain that there is a suspicious 'person' in their neighborhood, they have to go. In my experience as a dispatcher, suspicious 'people' are more often than not, people of color. This type of public complaint takes many forms. The point being, if the agency is called to investigate a complaint, they don't have a choice, they have to go. Problem one is racism in the community.

When I suggested to the local liberals here that when planning their Republican National Convention protests that they actually coordinate their peaceful protests WITH the local agency, I was laughed out of the thread. Everyone has every right to peacefully protest, however your protests also must be legal. Problem two is refusing to work with the local agency.

Many communities have set up civilian review boards. They have worked well in the past.

There are many other ways to provide feedback to your local agency. One other poster suggested becoming a cop, also not a bad idea, but that idea would require you to work with people that hate you all day.

you get people making stuff up to get neighbors in trouble, calling cuz a black kid is going door to door selling whatever, so and so is out in the back yard beating his wife etc...

As a dispatcher you know many of those calls were BS and some were not. Bottom line is if the officer elects to not go, then he is subject to discipline.. we fired cops who blew off calls and didnt go handle things.

A national commission on law enforcement standards and practices.

Increased, and, I might add, effective, civilian oversight of law enforcement.

Reversing the militarization of the police.

-------

I would add exerting pressure on state and local elected officials. Demand hearings, demand legislation.

Maryland has taken the first step to reining in SWAT teams, with a law requiring reporting of SWAT deployments. I think there is a similar bill in Michigan. Those kinds of laws could be helpful, too.

And somehow making law enforcement--not the community--pay for all those wrongful death, deprivation of liberty, and police brutality settlements. Maybe if they can't afford new cop cars because they had to pay the family of someone they killed they might start to get th message.

I'll check back in later.

Look for me as well.

Sorry you were alerted on. For what it's worth I agree with your cop assessment.

It might take voter amendments to force them, but we can do it.

one that could/ would be relatively easy to initiate

that way, paid by the 1%.


"The banks own the place."

Then they will always get caught

Congress has written some very bad laws over the last 40-50 years that have turned our police into an occupying military force. It started to get bad with the controlled substances act of 1970 and the creation of the DEA. The DEA is embedded into may police departments all over the country. They have diverted police attention from real crime. Take for example the recent story regarding all the rape kits that were never tested. I think it was in Memphis, but I'm sure that whatever city it was the cops were more interested in looking for drugs than rapists. We need to 'unfuck' ourselves from drug prohibition. We need to start asking politicians what they are going to do to end the fucking drug war. As adults over 21 I believe the majority of us can avoid drug abuse on our own, but I don't think people should be locked up for drug use. Drug prohibition is the cause for much of the violence that goes on all over the world. These policies have caused all sorts of absurd civil forfeiture laws which need to be repealed as well. Many folks that I speak to are afraid of legalized drugs, but the reality is that drugs are everywhere and easy to obtain despite our insane laws. Congress also thought it would be a good idea for the defense department to give military grade weapons to local law enforcement officers. The law that started that mess needs to be repealed too. Finding the political will to do that is going to be hard because there is so much money to be made, freedom be damned. Another idea is to go to local city councils and find out how much the city loses in lawsuit payouts do to police misconduct. Those payouts should come from police pension funds and police budgets. Hit them in the pocketbook and the changes will start to take place. Unfortunately the way things are now, the police are allowed to steal and kill with impunity because of bad laws written by our local reps. We need better candidates. We are suffering from a massive wave of greed in this country.

My God, I just can't grasp the abuse of power. I plan on posting my story in hopes somebody can give me advice.

Civil penalties if they are caught doing it.

I hate lying to citizens, but lies are needed to deal with some, unless you think they can walk up to the Mafia don and say "hello, we are wiretapping you because we are hoping to catch you when you order people to get whacked."

And they produce people who use manipulation as opposed to reason to deal with others.

Do you expect criminals to stop lying, be they muggers or wall street crooks, Mafiosi or Hell's angels. Criminals will lie, and to think that they will swim into the net by being honest is foolish. Some people cannot nor will not be reasoned with.

For example, let's take "to catch a predator", now, what happened with this was, you had people posing a decoys, in room known to have child sexual predators. Said predators would then try to arrange to meet the child to have a liason, driving miles out of town. Now, most of the shock in that series comes from when you watch people, who had driven so far, come and find that cops were waiting instead of kids. Add to this that many of the pedos were repeat offenders, one memorable case involved someone who, after saying he would never do this again 24 hours ago, did the same thing again, only to run into another decoy.

Now, was deception an important tool, yes, because you were dealing with people who themselves were willing and able to deceive, and who targeted children because they were more vulnerable. If Cops could never lie, then stings like this would fail, and then we would wonder how come we never ever ever seem to catch pedos.

Because they were illegal busts.

I think you're being unfair about what I mean by "cops can't lie." Cops make up all sorts of stupid procedural crap when it comes to detaining people, then, when they get people riled up, then they arrest them for resisting arrest (even if they weren't under arrest to begin with). This is authoritarian to the core. I think the root cause is that they lie in their investigative process.

A cop pulls me over, asks what I'm doing in that area of town. I can legitimately say "I am just driving around," and that is it, period, I don't have to say where I'm going or what I'm doing. "I am just driving around." But a cop will then lie, "This is a drug neighborhood, you know. I have probable cause to search your vehicle." No, that is a lie, the cop is a liar, and no he does not have probable cause to search my vehicle. He instructs me to get out of the car.

I am still thinking about him wanting to search my vehicle because I have a box of perfectly legal but very embarrassing things in there. I turn around to address him and he grabs my arm and says "stop resisting, stop resisting!" There, I just get a resisting arrest charge, and he ruffles through my car.

It all starts because the cop is a liar, not because of anything else.

1. Make it illegal for cops to lie, fuck civil, I want *criminal* penalties.

2. Eliminate paid leave. If they are "under investigation," they can go get another job until investigation is over.

3. Eliminate tazers and body armor completely. Patrol officer can nolonger carry guns. If a gun incident occurs, they can retrieve shotguns from the station armory.

4. All lawsuits are paid out of the pension fund.

5.Body cameras are on and turned on 24/7.

6. Any fatal incident the cop is charged with murder. He has to prove self defense in front of a jury. None of this failure to indict bullshit.

1. Agree, if it's illegal for citizen's to lie to cops, then the same needs to apply to cops.

2. Agree, paid administrative leave is just an unscheduled paid vacation.

3. Disagree. Tazers have their use, as does body armor. This ain't the UK where the Bobbies don't carry guns because most criminals don't carry guns, here in the US, it would be a sick joke to disarm patrol officers.

Justifiable homicise though is an affirmative defense. You kill somebody, you have to prove it waa self defense

As far as the above situation goes with the stopped car, I expect the officer to either get in his car and leave, or hide behind cover and wait for backup. We dont need gun battles, thats how innocent people get hurt.

I also think body armor invreases officer aggression becuase they feel safe from being shot. With no vests, they would be more cautious in dealing with people.

That is acceptable in some countries but not in this one.

No cops.

Would you be willing to put on a badge and do the job under those circumstances?


I wouldn't.

And most people here wouldn't fare very well in a situation where there was no longer any law enforcement, nobody to come when you dial 911, no reason for those inclined to victimize others to not do so.

There would still be plenty of officers.

You would see en masse resignations if what you posted was policy.

Yeah, all us who have ever need cops were out to do was kill black people, even those of us who are not white. Dammit, you've broken the secret code, what do we do now.

Maybe because it would be impossible to work in said circumstance. No body armor? All use of forced considered murder and must be defended at trail no matter what? No ability or tools to defend yourself?

It's just plain idiocy, and it shows how far out of touch with what police work is all about, and with reality, so many here are.

Or it just shows they are anti-cop bigots who irrationally hate all cops and label them in the same way so many teabaggers do Muslims- it's pretty much showing the same thought process. Some of group XXX do bad stuff- everybody in group XXXX must be a bloodthirsty murderer!

But go ahead, keep in apologizing for law enfotcement, the most dangerous gang in America.

or criminals who have no compunction on carrying firearms.

Your solutions would just end up with more cops killed or no cops at all.

You will never have a police force in this country like Britain's, and if you can't fathom that, then I think we are done here.

Or maybe they ran into a few of those "bad apples" badge lovers keep claiming are in the minority and learned that it isn't really all that uncommon.

If the "good" cops knowingly protect the "bad" cops, then there aren't any good ones.

And read it and see just how your bigotry is just like all the islamaphobes on the right.

Because your thought process and theirs are almost an exact mirror, aside from your choice to people to hate.

Muslims aren't comparable to police. People that think you can be somehow magically bigoted against authority figures (Especially ones that abuse that authority) are sort of like folks that think reverse racism is not only a thing, but super important and common. Muslim might be directly comparable to police if the vast majority of Muslims supported the extremists, which they don't. Cops, on the other hand, most certainly do support the worst among them. Muslims weren't going out wearing "I am ISIS" wristbands after beheading videos.

If someone says "I don't like assholes." you can't run up and start yelling "Replace asshole with Jew and you're literally Hitler!!!" at them and expect to be taken seriously.

They'll learn good skills and good manners.

That insane evil #%^* doesn't happen here.

Really.

From the linked article:

On DU, if the suspect is unarmed, the cop is automatically a murderer and a racist too if the person shot was Black. Perhaps you have not ever said that, but as a rule, that is how DU rolls.

Heres a quote from the article:

"From 2008 through 2013, the number of people shot by officers and state troopers has grown every year. Over that time period, there have been 86 shootings, 67 of which were determined to be justified. Two were classified as accidental, and two led to recommendations that the officers be retrained. The rest remain under investigation. Last year, Boston officials investigated six officer-involved shootings, compared with 1 in 2012. State Police investigated 17 in 2013 compared with 14 in 2012."

67 of 86 are deemed justified. That is only a 77% good shooting average. Of course they are still investigating a ton of them...These are all 2013 and earlier- Nearly a year has passed since the most recent one. Why is it no one in mass is rioting because the investigation wasnt done thirty minutes after the shooting? How long does it take to investigate them?

My point is if you are going to be ok with them to take up to a year or more to investigate all these shootings in Mass, then you/we should be ok with that being the practice everywhere before we start to assume the cops are just on a murdering rampage.

We also need to remember the boston bombing suspect who was unarmed when shot. Unarmed is unarmed. Although I agree with their shoot- he was still unarmed and just laying there.

problem is many agencies dont belong to it...Mostly because the standards are "too lofty" or expensive for them to attain. It is pretty much a paper drill / policy implementation exercise and it has its values so long as the agency trains it, uses it and enforces it- that is where the problem is. The standard in my opinion is not really all that difficult. I worked some accreditation inspections in my agency and our policies far exceeded CALEA's.

They enforced the standard too which is why we dont see them all over national news for some crazy shit...sure we have had some clowns get through the process, but for the most part the agency has done a very good job. They are a mid-size (1000+ cops) agency so its not like a two cop town who has nothing but a cornfield to watch. Plenty of opportunity to make the news.

Another reason is because the agency not only abides by those standards, but has used them as a baseline and exceeded them so they aren't members either.

http://www.calea.org/content/commission

The only way to really enforce that kind of thing is to institute a federal police force. Of course we can see how they handle whistleblowers (Veterans Affairs) so probably wouldnt work.

Fix LE pay. In most places a rookie cop starts out just barely making enough to get by and they have to work side jobs to really make it. Much like teachers, if you want hire good people and keep them you have to pay them properly. You want more, pay more. You want officers to take more risk? Pay accordingly.

This also comes into the realm of residency requirements I have seen some suggest here. Yeah, you can try and have them- but that works both ways. That means officers in Beverly Hills will have to be paid enough to actually live there too- and what that will lead to is a system where new rookie officers all go work in low income areas, but as soon as they have a few years under thier belt keep apply to more well off areas that have to pay more due to residency requirements. Then you end up with good, experienced officers working in affulent areas, poor areas get rookies and the ones who can't get hired on anywhere else.

Support real due process rights for all officers- full union representation and backing. Cops are workers just like anyone else and deserve full labor protections- to deny that to ANY worker is very anti-progressive. A cop who knows he/she has a strong union will feel a lot more free to speak out about abuse and criticize superiors when they are wrong.

Eliminating pensions and putting cops on 401k type programs. I know in most cases this is a bad thing, but a pension in LE had a bad side. I saw a lot of cops who were totally burned out and just didn't care anymore. But they had 18-20-22 years in and were just doing the bare minimum to survive the next few years it would take to be fully vested in the pension and retire. If they had a retirement plan that allowed them to switch careers at any point without loss with no "end date" they had to work to they would have left the profession when they burned out.

Eliminate 12 hour shifts- 12 hour shifts wear down judgement and reasoning toward the end of the shift.

Eliminate odd swing shift schedules- this is bad because officers work tired often, but also because it leads to isolation- when the only people you know who are off when you are off are cops, that is all you hang out with and it ends up isolating them.

Quit bashing all cops- look around at the blatant and bigot attitude toward cops in this forum. How many cops come across this forum, read that crap, and get turned away from progressive politics? More than you think. It leads to more alienation from yen community and helps foster the "us vs them" mentality.

Quit asking cops you do know to fix a ticket or run somebody's license or other stuff like that. It's illegal, puts them in an akward spot and leads once again to cops just hanging out with cops and isolating themselves.

Establish a VA type system of pension and health care for those injured on the job. Every time a use of force incident happens people on here call the cops cowards and assert that the cops shoild have been more willing to accept risk of death or injury to avoid harming the individual they were dealing with. If you want that and want cops to take more risk you need a system that will take good care of them if they get injured and can't work the job anymore- tossing them out on Social Security Disability is the only plan most PD's have, and that doesn't cut it.

Quit rushing to conclusions every time some incident happens. There are lots of bad people out there, not every officer involved shootibg is a racist murderer on a rampage. Give it at least 48 hours to play out before pronouncing judgement based on a few sensational media accounts. Saying "racist pigs murdered another" 5 minutes after an initial report just shows your own bigotry and once agains serves to alienate all other cops from you and your cause.

Quit lying or exaggerating about cops actions. Take the recent case a Salisbury NC- the NAACP held a press conference accusing local police of harassing a local minister a year prior- saying the officer was aggressive and racially profiled him. The video was produced and the officer was nothing but polite and professional. How do you think that affected relations between the NAACP, other minority leaders, and officers of that department?

Before screaming all over about how a cop should have "shot him in the leg" or "used a taser instead of a gun" try gaining a little experince in the use of those items to see if your screams are realistic.

Don't hire anyone under 25 for LE- give them enough years as an adult to get experience in the "real world" but also to see what mistakes they make and if they keep a clean background until then.

I have plenty more for when I am at a computer- this was a lot to type on a phone.

How about cops do their jobs like other workers instead of being power hungry bullies? All unions do is protect the *numerous* bad apples in law enforcement- cops need less legal protection, not more. They already get away with enough bullshit.

Is this how you really think?
Cops don't deserve the same protections that ordinary citizens get per the Constitution?
The Constitution shouldn't apply to cops like it applies to citizens?

To demand that any worker get less than full labor and workers rights.

But it's ok if it's cops for many progressives, just like teabaggers think its ok if someone is undocumented, poor or a teacher to deny their due process and labor rights. Same mentality, just a different group to hate on.

I don't get the visceral hatred for all cops by a few here, yes there are bad cops that deserve to be prosecuted to the full extent of the law, but by and large, most cops are honest, dedicated to their profession who want nothing more than to help the citizens of their jurisdiction and then to be able to go home at night to their families.

Like your comments here on this thread, you're full of it.

Your comparison is invalid.

Since in the state of NC all cops have virtually zero due process rights and can't even have real union representation.

And I would wager that plenty of teachers look the other way when a teacher is doing a bad job out of solidarity. I know of one case where several teachers were aware of misconduct and said nothing because they hated the principal more.

Anyone who advocates ANY worker be deprived of the due process rights every worker should have equally cannot claim the title of progressive.

How does that work?

How many labor actions regarding police and what their unions do did you study to form your conclusion that all they do is protect bad apples?

Ohh, I bet you just depended on the sensastionaist media for all your knowledge about it....

If we replaced "cops" with "teachers" your statement would be right at home at a tea party rally. Same bigoted mentality, fueled by the same kind of ignorant hate.

and having to back to the station to retrieve a firearm if needed.

given a "rec" to a thread, but I wish I could rec your post. A hundred times.

It's really pathetic how armchair analysts can sit around judging something or someone they know nothing about.

I have a couple of points to add.

One...people say that the cops should be de-militarized. By that I'm guessing they should not have body armor, or weapons more powerful than their service pistols (and maybe some people would prefer that cops be unarmed completely). That pretty much leaves them powerless against criminals out there running around with military grade weapons themselves. Oh, and how precious would it be for the cops to get a call where someone is holding someone else hostage at the end of a shotgun or something? Weaponless cop: "OK, drop the shotgun or I'll throw my flashlight at your head!!!!"

Two...People judge the cops, call them pigs and worse, heap nothing but hatred on them, but when it's suggested that they do the job themselves, oh noooooo! No "proper" liberal would ever think of enforcing laws they don't agree with! So who ends up manning the police forces? That's right. "Batshit crazy" (as lots of DUers like to call them) RWers with shitty, racist attitudes.

Way to go, guys!

So, liberals...let someone else take the risks. Let someone else have to make split second decisions that will be picked apart by people who have no clue what it's like to be out there on the street having to deal with people who hate them. Let someone else deal with the cheats and liars...and one thing cops have to deal with a lot is liars. Make a DUI stop, ask the driver how many drinks he's had, and the answer is almost always "two beers" even as the guy blows 3 times the legal limit on a breathalyzer.

Liars...Cop stops a car for traffic violation, driver/passengers acting strangely, he suspects maybe they're carrying illegal drugs, pats a person down, pulls out a rock of cocaine and the guy says, "Hey man, those aren't my pants! I don't know how the coke got there!" They'll swear on their grandma's life that there's nothing in their pockets. They'll throw drugs into the bushes in front of a camera, then swear they never did.

So let's disarm the cops and send the most critical people out to do their jobs for a while and see if their attitudes change.


PS...one thing I can get behind 100% is cameras. Makes sense for the protection of all.

They do several things. First is they cut out most bogus complaints. When dash cams first came out and people were not used to them when there was video of an alleged officer misconduct in more than 90% of cases it vindicated the officer, and in fact in 50% of cases once the complaintent became aware there was video they withdrew the complaint.

The case is cited above in Salisbury where a minister and the NAACP were claiming abuse is a great example. I can only assume that the minister assumed that after a year the footage of the stop where he claimed he was mistreated was long deleted- but it wasn't.

False allegations against LE way, way outnumber legitimate ones. Some people do it just out of spite. So do it for attention. So do it hoping they can get out of whatever trouble they are in. Some hope for a payday. Cameras and audio can go a long way toward reducing that, making it easier to go after legit misconduct cases.

That said, it must be remembered that you have to keep video in context, what is on the video is not all or everything the officer sees, it can be more or less. Cameras don't have peripheral vision and don't turn as the officers head does. In low light situations or looking into the sun the cameras optics may be able to see better, or worse, than the officers eyes do. A camera can't show things like an officer feeling resistive tension as they go to cuff somebody, a sign of tensing up before one begins to resist or fight.

They are a great tool, and should be more widespread. But they record a version of events from only the cameras perspective, so what they record has to be kept in perspective.

Thank you for being willing to stand up to the ridiculous cop bashing on this forum. Officer pay is a travesty as are benefits. One would think the people asked to put their life on the line would be some of the best paid instead we show time and again that we don't actually value that sort of contribution.

there needs to be a civilian oversight board.
The board must have the power to subpoena witnesses and compel testimony.
It must have the power to activate & hand off cases to a grand jury.
It must operate independently of the county administration and the D.A.'s office.
That is what it will take to get the minority of bad police officers out of the forces.

Until the bad cops face jail time and fines, nothing is going to change.

IMHO.

(I love in Portland, Oregon, where it is easier to pull the moon out of its orbit than to fire a police officer.)

Incoming police men and women are taught that everybody is a criminal, they just haven't been caught yet. But here's a thought: I know there are good cops out there, BUT when a good cop excuses or fails to report bad behavior of bad cops by erecting the Blue Wall, they become bad cops. Accessories to any criminal behavior places the "good cops" on the other side of the line that separates legal behavior from illegal behavior. That ends up tainting the entire group. It isn't good enough that they can say, I wouldn't do something like that," they must report and testify and uphold the law no matter what.

After 300 years of this abuse and second amendment thinking so mainstream, it seems logical that the solution is to arm black communities across America. An armed society being a civil society, every black person in America should be given an ak47 as reparations.