That says something about what the cops have become.

meaningless distinction, imo.

It's sad when I feel like I can deal with criminals in more safety than cops.

"I am at more risk from cops than criminals" would say something about the cops, but would also be obviously false.

Sure the Mafia or the Cartel is more dangerous, but generally criminals no.

For one, I'm afraid to make quick or wrong movements around them. A guy was shot for reaching back into his vehicle to retrieve license & registration after the cop asked him for it.

It is interesting how remarkably similar organized crime, military, and police are the same. One thing is, their threats were backed up by murders and getting away with it because they had so much influence over & in police departments. Cops have even done "hits" for the mob.

There is a lot of talk & concern about "mercenaries" or private military security when it comes to defense contractors but it is far from the biggest problem. While Qatar has received a lot of outrage over their exploitation of migrant workers, US private contractors do they very same shit from the very same labor supply sources & very few people seem to know about it or even care.

Homicide by cop is the leading cause of death in Utah btw.

"If you divide homicide deaths in Utah into a large number of semi-arbitrary categories, all or almost all the other categories are smaller than "by police"".

Is that what you mean?

The world has been turned upside down.

overnight, the police began enforcing the laws for their new masters without missing a beat. Former childhood friends were turned in by policemen if they knew they had anti-nazi feelings. The police are unfeeling mercenaries who will support whatever authoritarian regime is in power. Unfortunately, we need the police because there are so many selfish and immoral people with guns who commit crimes and have no humanity inside of them. It could be that it's our dog-eat-dog competitive society that breeds them.

to stop the guillotines.

Some cops are good, some cops are bad.....

Hyperbole on the other hand is almost never good.

That is who the question was directed to.

Furthermore, as long as any cops cover for other bad cops doing evil things, ALL cops bear the guilt. And I don't care if you agree or not.

I just like engaging with bullshit artists pushing illogical memes.

I got it, you hate cops and like criminals. Thank you for your honesty. I wish all societal malcontents that hated authority were as honest as you, it would make sorting people out much easier.

Ahh yes...

How very fucking authoritarian of you.

Welcome to gone.

said the guy/girl calling all cops bad.....in essence sorting people out.


Damn that must burn.

was kind of a tell, wasn't it.

That is why I never put anyone on ignore. Sooner or later they tell on themself.

Cheers 99Forever.

I use the Ignore feature, as I don't suffer fools well.

I damn sure want to know them.

Besides, the ignore feature makes me miss some rather good subthreads.

to elicit a negative response from a person "sorting in their own way". 99forever did exactly what I wanted them to do. I am speaking to the wider audience of DU that doesn't hate police, not the spoiled children that do.

I'm glad we kept him. It's very entertaining.

I do enjoy bringing my progressive liberal views to people whose minds are clouded by hate.

This is the same poster who defended torture or expressed some amazing cognitive dissonance, pointing out he was there while the torture was taking place and said if anything, they made sure to hide the evidence but that it will still go on.

Similar cognitive dissonance that leads to noble cause corruption which is a widespread problem among police forces.

On edit - Too bad you can't reply to this because of the hide but I understand completely why you feel the way you do.

that you think the wider audience of DU hasn't had or know of someone having had a bad encounter with the police.

You might find a dozen or so of the thousands here.

You think we are spoiled children. I think you might be a little delusional.

Did I do exactly what you wanted?

statistics is you never have to prove them.

And you did about 85% of what I wanted, a good solid B, almost a B+. So as my wife who works at SeaWorld says "Whale Done".....

I offered no statistics.

And I will continue to dream of a world where you and I are close friends. Dreams do come true sometimes.

You don't want to play anymore.

Damn, just when it was starting to get fun.

Who do you and your friend think your fooling?

of chances to play. Take heart, our good times are just beginning.

I hope you are prepared.

Old women like me don't have much to lose.

"The fun part about bullshit statistics is you never have to prove them."

Much like "some are good, some are bad..." Certainly no inconclusive waffling there-- an objective, peer-reviewed number that can only be questioned by people who hate.

I had a flat tire by the side of the road, and the police officer who pulled over just wanted to write me
a ticket for my extremely bald tires. I explained rather angrily because he was a bit smary in his communication
style that I was a single mom with two kids, one with a disability, and I had no money for safe tires and that
made me sick to my stomach every mile I drove to work every day. I said I need the car to have my job, as
opposed to going on welfare and raising taxes (implying 'your' taxes).

Meanwhile, my petite little female roommate was changing the tire and putting on the spare because I didn't
know how to do it (we worked at the same place).

He didn't give me a ticket, just re-emphasized his point about how i could kill someone else on the road if I lost
control of my vehicle, and he was sort of trying to regain his manly pride at the same time. But he simply drove
off.

That's not bad. He had a viewpoint; I modified it. Good for him.

because they ARE criminals.

Sure they are.

Said no one in this thread except *you*.

Keep sucking up to Authority, maybe they'll throw scraps your way like a good doggy.

You need reading comprehension classes.

Now you run along, bootlicking line forms to the right....the far right.

I can say they don't work at the Broward County Florida Police Department with some authority. http://www.wsvn.com/story/23070302/ticket-talk

There the department was engaging in improper communication with the Judges in traffic court. Now, if the police department was trained to cheat, to lie in court about things as mundane, as irrelevant as simple traffic offenses, what makes you think you can believe them on something larger, something more important.

A curious trait I've discovered about liars, they don't just lie when it is important, they tell little lies all the time.

Perhaps we can look at another situation.

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/crime/police-dash-cam-video-exonerates-nj-man-implicates-cops-article-1.1701763

New Jersey gives us a good example of the "Routine Lie". The man was arrested for "resisting arrest" which made it a felony. But the dashcam video shows him not doing anything that the police say he was. All of the officers involved wrote reports that supported each other. All of them told the routine lie. The man was sitting there with his hands up while the police are shouting stop resisting, stop reaching for my gun. That latter phrase was code word to kill the man if you felt like it guys.

Perhaps it's Departments, individual departments that are corrupt, but not all the police is that right? I mean, all those cops were from the same department so that is a good answer. Otherwise, how could you know that the other officers would back up your story?

Chicago, two different departments. Cops who barely knew each other lied on their reports, and on the stand. http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2014-04-15/news/ct-police-testimony-lies-met-20140415_1_police-officers-five-officers-chicago-police

They were caught because one of them forgot to turn off the dashcam video. Durn that video proving that the police were lying.

Cookeville Tennessee. Dashcam shows excessive force, and the officer planting drugs on the accused.

one that identifies corruption? Just curious......

Because you seem to be applying the thuggish "snitches get stitches" motif to police.

So my question is are the only good cops, ones that report corruption. Is there any other way a cop can be good? Because if that is your only measurement criteria, this is going to be an interesting conversation since it is founded entirely on a series of bullshit rules that you created and you can move the goalposts anytime you feel like it.

They're supposed to uphold the law. All laws. If they let it slide for brothers in blue, they shouldn't be cops and they're bad.

Chicago cops are notoriously horrible. The brutality is legendary here.

telling the truth to hateful people living outside of reality will get you called names.

Honestly, I do like this thread, it helps us all see who is prejudiced and hateful and who is progressive and open minded. Progressive, open minded people do not blanket label all the members of a certain profession as evil.

But not until he shot the daughter of a man he was angry with three times in the back of the head, and her fiancé 7 times in the head, face, back, and neck.

The two LEOs he murdered didn't even work for the LAPD and left four fatherless children, aged from four MONTHS to 10 years.

Fuck Murderin' Christopher Dorner's charred corpse with a cactus. If there is ANY "truth" associated with his despicable cowardly ass it's that when the worms return even the slightest bit of him to the soil, the Earth will be more tainted than it was the day before.

But you go right on and hold that flame in the air in his honor like you're at a fucking concert or something. Classy...

That is the question I am asking. No moving goalposts. No vague fuzzy headed questions. If you lie are you a good person? Bush lied, perhaps like the cops, he pretends that the lie served a higher purpose. But do lies serve a higher purpose? Can the ends justify the means? If cops lie to cover up actions of their fellows, are they still good?

This is why video is so dangerous to police. This is why the police hate video. They get exposed as liars. Remember Rodney King? What did we learn. We already knew that police beat people, so we didn't learn that. We learned that the events reported, those reports they write, do not match what actually happened. In those reports the police, all of them, wrote they swarmed Rodney King. It never happened. But that was the authorized technique according to policy, and the cops knew to write it.

Look again at the story from New Jersey. Look at the one from Tennessee. In both the police are shouting the words demanded by policy, but the words don't match the circumstance. The accused was not resisting. Their hands were up in surrender.

Now, are they doing this every single day? No each officer is not actively doing so every day. But they are always ready to. Worse, each cop is ready to write that report to back one another without question. Then they are prepared to lie on the stand under oath to protect each other. Does that sound like a thuggish gang to you?

I return to the question within my posts. How can they be good when they lie, cheat, and cover for each other regularly?

If you and I were friends in RL, and you wanted me to lie to cover you with your wife. You would have to brief me on the lie. You would have to help me know what story we would tell, and you would have to confirm with me the willingness to do so. I find it fascinating that the police do not have to do this. That is why I call it the routine lie. They are trained to write it, to tell it, and sound sincere.

How is it that of five cops in Chicago that was not one who would tell the truth? How could they possibly know everyone would go along? Tennessee, same thing. How could they know that everyone would agree to be a part of the conspiracy? Why doesn't fear of exposure enter into the equation? Your handle is Analyst. You analyze it and tell me. Do the corrupt cops look around before beating a guy to make sure that Bob, Mike, Mary or Dana aren't there? Those four you can't trust, they'll tell the truth.

If a majority of cops are "Good" why are there so many stories and videos of misconduct? It can't possibly happen in a vacuum and I don't believe that we catch them the first time. That is improbable to the point of laughable.

So how can these things go on if the bad cops are the minority?

an cannot be a good cop.

A complacent cop is a bad cop.

The Mollen Commission found the police unwillingness to police itself more troubling than the corruption itself. "Stop snitching" goes all the way up to the White House. Don't blame low income gangs for this phenomenon. Why do you think whistle blowers are unpopular? No one likes a tattle-teller.. where does this come from?

You remind me of OMC without the charm.

Without the charm. I couldn't find the ROFL smiley.

I will get another one soon. My fan club does love me so. But to quote Freddie Mercury, "the show must go on"

He was kinda classy that way.

now? I haz a sad.

When I worked at Albertsons in high school, someone pulled a gun and popped a bomb no the counter (fortunately, the bomb ended up being fake). We called the police and were happy with the results. Caught the guy doing the same thing a week or so later in Colorado..

Deflection would be my guess.

Topic: Police are now an entirely evil force and NONE of them should be trusted EVER.
Reply to topic: Asked them if they are paranoid.
Your reply to said reply: Asked that person if they were blind.

I read that to clearly claim the person is blind for not agreeing with the idea that police are evil and should NEVER be trusted. I replied with an example where I relied on the police and it worked out fine.

... who is inerested in being interrogated by you. I'm not.

And yes, I can understand why you aren't interested in having it exposed.

Someone must have gotten their browser windows mixed up!

complicated - they do what they are allowed. Throw enough of them in prison and they'll stop brutalizing the populace.

When people applaud nonsense like this.

"The non-rich are literally killing themselves ..."

Yeah, we're dropping like flies out here. Right.

if you want to believe hype from Alternet

Mcdowell county with a whole 22,000 people
and Tunica, Mississippi with 10,000 people

compared to Fairfax, where I guess the 1% lives - 1.1 million people (about 12% of the population of Virginia)

or Marin County with 252,000 people

The death rate is 8.39 per 1,000
giving you
185 deaths a year in McDowell county
84 deaths a year in Tunica county
92,290 deaths a year in Fairfax county
2,114 deaths a year in Marin county

Consider some other statistics. I have played 4,276 games of spider solitaire at the medium level and have lost 1,382 of them, giving me a win rate of 67%. My win rate is really 67.68%. Sometimes I consider, that even if I win 15 games in a row, my win rate will still only be 67%. 67.79% is still not 68%.

Suppose, however, I had only played 84 games and had won 56 of them. My win rate would be 66.67%. If I win 7 games in a row, my winning percentage shoots up to 69%.

My point is that a few car accidents, a few homicides, suicides a few untimely deaths at a young age by heart attack or stroke has a bigger impact on those small counties. Considering how mobile people are, I am not sure how you do life expectancy for a county anyway. McDowell County had 100,000 people in the 1950s and now about 70,000 of them have moved away.

Comparing death stats to a fucking card came is really low.

You are partially right, but IMO your conclusion is exactly what the One Percent seek.

The One Percent is deliberately creating this adversarial relationship between police and the people.

They are creating it through grants and training programs to militarize police, make escalation and violence routine policy, and teach them to see the public as the enemy.

And they are creating it through incessant Republican and Third Way propaganda that trains us to view the monstrous transformation of police as the result of their inherent evil rather than the result of deliberate government policy and agenda.

A police force that recognizes that they are citizens, too, just as exploited and impoverished by the corporate looting of this nation as the rest of us, is very dangerous to the One Percent. What they need to understand is that their training is corrupt, their militarization is corrupt, and that the very system they are now being trained to work within violates every aspect of what it should mean to be a police officer: to protect and serve.

The One Percent is doing this. We need to get police to understand what is being done to them.


Photo Of Young Boy Hugging Officer At Ferguson Rally Goes Viral And Becomes 'Icon Of Hope'
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/11/30/young-boy-hugs-officer-viral_n_6244604.html

and we agree that right now that cash is coming from Wall Street. However, the public needs to stop supporting them, and defending them and apologizing for them. Instead it is time to get tough and let them know that we are aware of the corruption and abuse and it must stop.

http://www.salon.com/2011/10/07/the_nypd_now_sponsored_by_wall_street/

Tomorrow the cop in that picture will pull that woman over, ticket her for driving while black and she'll pay a fine. The truth is in the data, from all the killings, beatings and corruption that is slowly leaking out shows just how broken our system of justice has become.

but I believe you are correct that that's a planned next step. Our corrupt corporate politicians are doing everything they can now to try to build financial incentives for police to protect the corporate system of looting and corruption, and they are funding propaganda to obscure their own role and redirect outrage *solely* to police officers so that police and citizens will hate and fear each other.

Under corporate politicians, funding for police, for police militarization, and for police salaries is being weirdly exploded, while other public service departments are routinely being squeezed:

Obscenely high police salaries: Where’s the political outrage?
http://www.salon.com/2014/04/11/obscenely_high_police_salaries_wheres_the_political_outrage/

Asset Forfeiture Reform is a Good Thing. Why do Democrats leave it to Rand Paul?
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10025288578

Another serious failing of this Administration. Asset forfeiture policies:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023418682

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10025596182

Things will change. Not.

That time will be too late.

Here.

they are now. Nothing infuriated him more than an arrogant cop using the uniform to abuse people. I am almost glad he's not around to see this. Almost. I grew up respecting the institution, but no more. This country is fucked. And so are we.

If a serial killer lived next door I wouldnt call the pigs.

This article, that was posted to another thread by easychoice, pretty much shows what cops think now about the people they're supposed to serve and protect

http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/what-some-seattle-cops-think-the-problem-is/Content?oid=6266406

Over and over courts have ruled that cops can lie to you. So when they say, we have evidence, or we have an informer who says xxxxx, or we have a surveillance camera that shows you doing such and such, then your response should always be, "I want a lawyer." You'll get thrown in lockup until a lawyer shows up. And if you're poor, the lawyer will probably be an asshole, who only has 20 minutes to serve you. But NEVER admit to squat during interrogation. Deny nothing; admit to nothing; say only, "I want a lawyer." The cops will threaten and scare you with a million years in he clinker, but admit to nothing. Silence is golden.

The kkkops have been turned into militarized super-Gestapos for a reason and this is it.

TPTB worry about the military, which just may not turn on the citizenry when they feel it necessary. The kkkops will massacre protesters without a second thought.

Huh? What does this mean?

some of us understand the meaning quite well.

I get the calls constantly. I have nothing for them.

I was just reading about them.

You'd think they'd be ashamed to do it.

Make sure when you decline a donation, that you politely mention how broke you are, and assure them you are open to future donations.

I am not kidding about that.

Are they corrupt?

Are negative comments on the phone, risky behavior?

You are either deflecting or I can't help you.

.... or to act as a bag man.

We had a guy work for us a very short time who worked in a police charity boiler room prior to working for us. We got rid of him pretty fast but not before hearing some stories. Last I heard of him he was up on counterfeiting charges.

and they call routinely, identifying themselves as "officer so and so" asking for donations for their benevolent assoc. or whatever.

Only laws. Fuck laws that protect people I guess

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/28/politics/28scotus.html

see laws that have nothing to do with protecting the populous, but merely raise revenue.

can do no wrong, etc. and the rest of us should be very glad that we have them around. It started, IMHO, on 9/11 with the glorification of the "First Responders", conveniently ignoring little facts like Giuliani neglecting to give them the equipment that would have helped them, that all but a handful of people who survived in Manhattan did so by their own initiative or with the aid of their co-workers (it annoys me that the regular office guys who died looking for more people to rescue are rarely mentioned) - the New York police and firefighters became the poster people for heroism (I have no problem giving credit where it's due; I find it interesting that when 9/11 comes up there's very little mention of the Pentagon, possibly because the military largely took control). Then as the War on Terror ramped up police forces started getting equipment the military didn't need - even assault vehicles - since TPTB had to keep the money flowing to defense contractors: of course the police are going to feel like they're under siege - they have the weapons to prove it.

There seems to have bee a shift in how police talk: the people they're supposed to be serving are "civilians", making them subtly the other, and distancing the police from the people. The recent cases of police killing unarmed men (and a boy, in the case of Tamir Rice) I think stem in part from this.

How to fix this? The first thing I'd do is disarm the police, or at least require that they have a several year period with no citizen complaints before their allowed to carry a firearm. Working body cameras are a good first measure. Get the police more involved with the people they're supposedly working for: bring back the beat cops (San Francisco has them in some areas).

I'm sounding a bit paranoid. As a somewhat elderly white woman, I don't get hassled much, but it does happen to my fellow Americans.

76 year old man brutalized for not having up to date inspection sticker
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10025960537

The wrap around sunglasses, skin heads, the assault weapons, these are not good people.

I swear they are recruiting from the scum of the earth.

Bullies, goons and adolescent power trippers = cops.

Until it doesn't. There is still work to be done as long as the machinery of humanity is in need of maintenance.

Have determined that it's in our best interest to provide for our own protection.

Nothing overt, no need to appear to be obviously "strapped", but it's there and not all registered with the local authorities.

The 2nd amendment is not to protect us from our neighbors, it's to protect us from the Jack booted thugs from the government.

I'm really surprised that there are still people who would give up that right to the very powers that seek to control our lives.

As you stated, I am not afraid of my neighbors.

I keep a 38 and a shotgun (Biden's favorite home defense) at the ready for the first person that comes through my door on a "no knock warrant" or in a home invasion.

To clarify: There are no children in the home. The guns are locked up when the grandchildren visit (the youngest is a teenager). No one here is stupid enough to clean a loaded gun.

Unfortunately, I also know too many people with weapons they have no business having.

I wish I knew how to prevent the slaughter of school children. I wish I knew how to prevent the killing of citizens by LEOs.

I wish we weren't such a violent nation.

A Canadian news documentary stated that sociopaths are in jobs, right across the board; in the top 6 were, CEOs, lawyers, doctors and cops.

Google him if you have no idea of the name.

Sheriff in charge of the Steubenville rape.

Before he was a sheriff he was a pervert that liked to sneak up on couples making out and aim his flash light at girls breasts.

Yeah. I know this. This happened to me.

They always promote the scum.

A bullshit number like those claiming teachers make 100k a year.

I'll hold my outrage in abeyance.

But the number wasn't "round" like 100k - it was crafted to sound convincing, a jagged "163k".

I do have a book that says 6 is the number people most frequently use when they make up fake numbers. For that reason, it's a flag for the IRS.

Last year, there were around 14,800 homicides. You can say things like "I fear the police more than criminals", but that fear is exposed as irrational when examining the numbers.

A reasonable number is obtained by published, verifiable news reports
http://fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/another-much-higher-count-of-police-homicides/

Even with this aggregated data the number real number is higher.

As far as beatings, over 99% are not investigated and estimated to be in 10s thousands per year.

And based on the Cleveland report - the number could be much higher, in the millions per year.

for one hour unsupervised into a police department or the general population of a prison.

Which one would you choose? Obviously the police are nowhere close to as dangerous as criminals.

Where I live I have to call the police on a regular basis. Last time was for the stupidest chopshop in the world-- so obvious even the mail carrier called the cops on them.

I understand what you're saying, but damn.

Every single day, it gets worse.

police, they are an ARMY and their enemy is the people. Bloomberg told us that, the NYPD is 'my army' he said.

Every once in a while the 1%, like Bloomberg, let's the truth slip out.

you'll have to accept that these kinds of outcomes are inevitable.