Experiences with police

[Valjean]

Well here in Australia, I don't know much about the average American cop.

American cops are authoritarians. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Authoritarian_personality
American cops have high RWA scores. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right-wing_authoritarianism

 

[psychoslice]

I'm glad your experiences have been good.
My wife works in mental health, and her general comment is that the cops try to do the right thing when they are aware of mental health issues, but oftentimes they aren't really sure what 'the right thing' is.

Yes and I can understand that, it can look frightening when someone goes psychotic.

 

[psychoslice]

American cops are authoritarians. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Authoritarian_personality
American cops have high RWA scores. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right-wing_authoritarianism

I don't really know if that's true or not, it certainly couldn't be true for all cops, and lets face it, who would want to be a cop in some parts of USA, like it can be like a war zone with the idiot criminals they have there, you would never know if it was your last day at work.

 

[Valjean]

Here's what's going on here -- and the police aren't nearly as intimidating as they were in Baltimore.
http://www.realcrimes.com/Corruption_Overview.htm

When the supervisor of the Albuquerque Police Department’s Cold Case Squad criticized the grieving mother of a homicide victim for questioning the actions of “an impeccable police department,” the families of over a dozen New Mexico murder victims decided to take a long look at that “impeccable” department, as well as other investigative agencies in the Albuquerque area. What that group has uncovered underscores the headline in the Albuquerque Journal, “THE CITIZENS OF ALBUQUERQUE ARE AFRAID OF THEIR COPS.” Honest police officers are almost as intimidated as the public -- afraid to speak out against their colleagues and supervisors for fear of retaliation against themselves or their loved ones.

Police in New Mexico have a long and on-going track record of murder, bank robbery, kidnapping, extortion, sex crimes, burglary, drug dealing, aggravated battery, auto theft, fraud, brutality, entrapment, the planting and/or destruction of evidence, intimidation of witnesses, and – above all – the cover-up of crimes committed by police officers. According to the battered wife of Deputy Scott Finley, a member of the Bernalillo County Sheriff’s Department’s elite Crime Suppression Unit, when she threatened to call 911 to report a vicious beating, her husband’s response was: “Go ahead and call. How can you break the law when you are the law?”

 

[Father Heathen]

From my personal experience, cops tend to be polite, respectful, and professional if you do the same.

 

[HonestJoe]

American cops are authoritarians. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Authoritarian_personality
American cops have high RWA scores. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right-wing_authoritarianism

Are you sure that’s specifically police officers and not Americans in general? In a lot of the videos we see of incidents between police and members of the public, both sides tend to be guilty of escalating the situation. There is also evidence to suggest similar incidents occur even without police officers present. Police officers should certainly “be the better man” in such situations but I think this needs to be viewed as a social issue rather than just a law enforcement one.

 

[Valjean]

When police are criticised, supporters are always quick to point out that "it's only a few bad apples"; that most of the department are fine, upstanding citizens dedicated to "protect and serve"
Now I'll admit, there are good cops out there. In some places they might even be the majority, but how do you explain something like the shooting of Laquan McDonald in Chicago?

Officer Van Dyke drove up to McDonald, as McDonald was walking down the street with a knife. Van Dyke got out, and gunned him down-- emptying a 16 round clip into McDonald as he lay in the street.
Now here's the problem: There were eight other cops there who witnessed this. Why did they not immediately arrest Van Dyke?

Why did they go to a nearby Burger King restaurant and erase its surveillance tape?
Why did the FBI come by later and seize the recorder itself?
Why was no action taken against Van Dyke?
Why was the incident swept under the rug for over a year?
Why did the police refuse to release the officer's dash cam footage of the incident to the public, resisting two FOIA requests for it?
Why was nothing of this mentioned in the mainstream press?
Why did it take a whistleblower and an independent journalist to get some of the footage released?

This incident had to have been known by many in the police department, including higher-ups. Many must have seen the dash-cam footage. Are those that cover up police misconduct not bad apples themselves? Wouldn't this include everyone involved?
Not a single cop came forward to do the right thing.

This is why many believe the police are generally corrupt; an old-boys network at best, a street gang at worst.

 

[Politesse]

This is why many believe the police are generally corrupt; an old-boys network at best, a street gang at worst.

This is a problem. I remember some time ago in the city where I lived, an affluent town in San Francisco's East Bay region, there was a scandal involving the resale of confiscated illegal drugs by the police; when the newspaper first started publicizing the issue, there were promises from those in charge that the perpetrators would be brought to swift... well, "disciplinary measures". But it eventually surfaced that the police chief himself and indeed nearly everyone in the department knew about what was going on and had done nothing to stop it. This is not attributable to "American society"; we are not talking about some gang-ridden, drug addled, gun slinging barrio. Aside from the scandal itself, I think the most serious crime this department ever had to deal with was shoplifting from the upscale mall downtown.

 

[HonestJoe]

This is not attributable to "American society"; we are not talking about some gang-ridden, drug addled, gun slinging barrio. Aside from the scandal itself, I think the most serious crime this department ever had to deal with was shoplifting from the upscale mall downtown.

I’m not defending the crimes in the police department you’ve reported here but I will point out a subconscious distinction you made. You presented the community (e.g. everyone other than the police) is being little short of perfect, nothing more than a little shoplifting from the upscale mall, creating a strong contrast between the evil drug-dealing police department. The problem with that though is exactly who did they confiscate the illegal drugs from in the first place? Who were they selling them on to? Maybe that line between good citizens and bad police isn’t as clear cut as you’d like to imagine.

Again, I’m not saying there aren’t bad police, just suggesting that maybe there are “so many” bad police because there are “so many” bad people. Looking at this as exclusively a policing problem risks masking at least some of the root causes.

 

[Wirey]

If you do the right thing in society, then you have nothing to worry about, that simple.

Maybe if you're white.

http://www.innocenceproject.org/

 

[Shadow Wolf]

There was one dick of a sheriff here who has had me in his car twice, and he was rather pushy, impatient, and well deserving of his reputation (it's not good). But typically the county sheriffs here don't mess with people, they don't try to make things hard, they are generally helpful, and with the exception of the one sheriff, and another when I was doing 60 in a 35 (the guy still wasn't rude or pushy with me), any time I've been pulled over they just let me know why (usually a light went out on my car) and then let me go on my way.
Now, when you go to one town, the cops are mean, pushy, corrupt, walk around like they're trying to intimidate, and they love to search people. Another town had some pretty nasty ones (including one cop who threatened to kill people over not getting a day off - a day he didn't even go through with the procedure to request a day off) but they've recently pruned their force.

 

[Politesse]

I’m not defending the crimes in the police department you’ve reported here but I will point out a subconscious distinction you made. You presented the community (e.g. everyone other than the police) is being little short of perfect, nothing more than a little shoplifting from the upscale mall, creating a strong contrast between the evil drug-dealing police department. The problem with that though is exactly who did they confiscate the illegal drugs from in the first place? Who were they selling them on to? Maybe that line between good citizens and bad police isn’t as clear cut as you’d like to imagine.

Again, I’m not saying there aren’t bad police, just suggesting that maybe there are “so many” bad police because there are “so many” bad people. Looking at this as exclusively a policing problem risks masking at least some of the root causes.

Well, it's not as though wealthy snobs don't do drugs...

My point is that the neighborhood was not of the sort the above posts imply all of America is like.

I don't see how "too many bad people" force police to be corrupt - wouldn't they be a somewhat more effective defense against all of those bad, bad urbanite wannabe hipsters if they weren't dealing drugs to them?

 

[psychoslice]

Maybe if you're white.

http://www.innocenceproject.org/

Maybe its because a lot of coloured people do more crime, and it just seems that way ?.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

Maybe its because a lot of coloured people do more crime, and it just seems that way ?.

That's doubtful. Such as, both white and black people (in America, at least) use drugs at the same rate, with white people probably using them more. But yet black people are disproportionately arrested and convicted when it comes to drugs. And then there are corporate/white collar crimes, where white people tend to be disproportionately represented, meaning they are the ones doing most of those crimes. And of course there are hate groups such as the KKK, New Black Panthers, Neo-Nazis, or the Brotherhood. But take a guess at which groups tend to get busted and which group tends to have more judges presiding over those cases?

 

[psychoslice]

That's doubtful. Such as, both white and black people (in America, at least) use drugs at the same rate, with white people probably using them more. But yet black people are disproportionately arrested and convicted when it comes to drugs. And then there are corporate/white collar crimes, where white people tend to be disproportionately represented, meaning they are the ones doing most of those crimes. And of course there are hate groups such as the KKK, New Black Panthers, Neo-Nazis, or the Brotherhood. But take a guess at which groups tend to get busted and which group tends to have more judges presiding over those cases?

Yes that could be true, but really. one isn't better than the other, to me it sound silly to argue one colour is better than the other, there as bad as each other, and not just black and white, but all races.

 

[Valjean]

Maybe if you're white.

http://www.innocenceproject.org/

I've got a complexion like a halibut's belly, and I've still had bad experiences.

A few years ago I was riding West and came to an intersection where police were diverting E-W traffic either North or South. But traffic on the N-S road was allowed to turn West freely (what sense did that make?)
I could see the business I needed to go to 100m ahead, but could not proceed. So I turned North, as directed, rode ~50 meters and made a (legal) U-turn. On returning to the intersection the cop diverting traffic recognized me as someone previously riding West, and pulled me over -- pissed off that I'd found a way to continue West past his diversion. I could see his annoyance. i could see his mind working to find some way to arrest me, but I'd made a legal turn North (as directed), a legal turn-around, and was now following a line of traffic turning West.

I think I ruined his day. I'd done nothing illegal and was obsequiously polite and deferential. He could think of no excuse to detain me. He had to let me continue the 100m West to my destination.

 

[Timothy Bryce]

I'm glad your experiences have been good.
My wife works in mental health, and her general comment is that the cops try to do the right thing when they are aware of mental health issues, but oftentimes they aren't really sure what 'the right thing' is.

One example was a matter I was involved with: my office at the time represented the family of a schizophrenic who had been witnessed to have been surrounded by 4 police officers (following this individual's technically harmless, but disorderly conduct) before one dared the man to "run at him," which he did, with grievous consequences.

My position is that the occupation of law enforcement is inherently obnoxious by the very nature of what the role actually involves. I commend the people who have brought up the fact that there are various types of "policing" that can be conceived of on a kind of spectrum or categorising. Ultimately the character of those who hold the position varies as much as any other job as stated already in this thread; however, I have encountered an alarming amount of completely incompetent, unnecessarily aggressive or just plain condescending officers in my time. I've seen police, on countless occasions, proceed with charges that literally no other person wants to see proceed to a logical and inevitable conviction; this, sometimes happening after cops advise people not to take reasonable measures in protecting themselves legally only to have things go the other way and people's lives, sometimes entire families, are destroyed as a direct result of a cop's willingness to do anything to advance their career in spite of circumstances in which literally everyone except the police and prosecutors are left wishing that the police had never gotten involved in the first place.

Media coverage of police in the western world does a lot to compound what has always been an incredibly ugly situation. We're only making small steps in the right direction now.