Seems that I had it good in my dangerous professions...another shooting today of yet another officer!

[Guest]

Taxi drivers are in more danger of being murdered on the job than law enforcement.  Almost twice as likely as all causes of death combined for police.  Where's the special treatment for them?  They're just trying to do a necessary, useful job.

 

No special treatment.  We don't call Taxi Drivers for help when we are getting shot at.

[Guest]

And your experience is atypical for police; look at the statistics and the idea that being a cop is a "dangerous" job is mostly perception.  Being a logger is more dangerous than a cop.

 

Because there are more cops on their desks or manning football games than there are beat cops whereas all loggers knock down big logs.  That doesn't change the fact that if you spend your day everyday going after bad guys, you are more likely to get shot than the average guy who spends all day everyday posting on lds.net.

[yjacket]

I don't really understand this entire anti-cop mentality.

It's not anti-cop.  It's anti-"hero, worship the ground they walk on" mentality.

 

Just being a cop doesn't make someone a hero or worthy of praise. 

[yjacket]

Because there are more cops on their desks or manning football games than there are beat cops whereas all loggers knock down big logs.  That doesn't change the fact that if you spend your day everyday going after bad guys, you are more likely to get shot than the average guy who spends all day everyday posting on lds.net.

?? you just contradicted yourself. "more cops on their desks and manning football game" and then "spend your day everyday going after bad guys".  

 

So which is it?

[estradling75]

It's not anti-cop.  It's anti-"hero, worship the ground they walk on" mentality.

 

Just being a cop doesn't make someone a hero or worthy of praise. 

 

 

When a cop is accused of a crime... Waiting for due process to run its course and remembering that everyone is "Innocent until proven guilty" (including cops) is not hero worship.  Yet when ever a cop is accused of something those who are not immedentaly ready to lynch them as the most vile of criminal are "worshiping them"

 

The issue has become so polarized that those who are neither cop hater nor cop worshipper (which I think is most of us) get thrown to one side or the other at the slightest hint of disagreement

Edited September 3, 2015 by estradling75

[Guest]

?? you just contradicted yourself. "more cops on their desks and manning football game" and then "spend your day everyday going after bad guys".  

 

So which is it?

 

Depends on the cop and what the cop is assigned to do.  If you're a beat cop, you go after bad guys everyday.  If you're a desk cop, you sit on your desk everyday.  A beat cop is just as much a cop as the desk cop is.  Nobody really says - oh, beat cop is dangerous job.  They just say, cop is a dangerous job.  Because, when you sign up to be a cop, you don't get a box on your application - will only work desk.

 

But yeah, it only contradicts for someone who is intent on making cops look stupid.

[Guest]

It's not anti-cop.  It's anti-"hero, worship the ground they walk on" mentality.

 

Just being a cop doesn't make someone a hero or worthy of praise. 

 

It's not hero worship.  It is gratitude and respect for the badge on their chest and the institution they represent.  When you have lived in a part of the Philippines where majority of 7-year-olds have walked by a dead body on the road in their lifetimes, you tend to be amazingly grateful and amazed that you can dial 3 numbers on the phone and get some cop to come help you out.

[yjacket]

When a cop is accused of a crime... Waiting for due process to run its course and remembering that everyone is "Innocent until proven guilty" (including cops) is not hero worship.  Yet when ever a cop is accused of something those who are not immedentaly ready to lynch them as the most vile of criminal are "worshiping them"

 

The issue has become so polarized that those who are neither cop hater nor cop worshipper (which I think it most of us) get thrown to one side or the other at the slightest hint of disagreement

 

I certainly agree to a large extent. The biggest issue I have with "waiting for due process" is that the system is corrupt.

Due process when prosecuting cops is a pretty big sham.  

 

I've explained before but there are significant hurdles to overcome to prosecute cops for bad behavior; much higher than for the normal public. The DA (who determines who to prosecute), the police force (who catches "bad" guys), the grand jury (who is influenced by the DA and the evidence the DA presents), the police union, etc.

 

Since the DA and police and the police union all work in conjunction to prosecute normal bad guys, it takes a really tough DA, a really bad crime, or public outrage to prosecute police for bad behavior.

 

Rather than say we should just wait for due process; cops should have a reasonable expectation that their behavior is under even more scrutiny than normal-they should be held to a higher standard.

 

They are the ones that have power of life and death without needing to actually be in danger of losing their life. You or I do not have that power. I'm not for lynching, but we need to realize that the "system" does not work the same for cops as it does for you and I. Calling it corrupt and recognizing these facts-isn't anti-cop; it is realizing the reality of people in organizations (especially bureaucracies) and how everyone protects their own.

[EarlJibbs]

I think anyone that complains about the Police in general in the United States, needs to visit somewhere like Venezuela. Those guys are intense and corrupt. That doesn't mean that some agencies don't have issues though. 

 

Can all of the cop shootings that are reported in the media really be a wide spread collaborated event nationwide? The media would surely have us think so. The thing is, when you turn off the TV and live only in your community, does the world seem so bad? Media makes the US feel like one big city IMO. So now, what is blown out of proportion (or not) on the opposite side of the US, someone on the other side decides to take it out on their local police, which has/had nothing to do with it.

 

Seriously, I feel safe in my neighborhood (very racially mixed by the way), and I am in Houston, where a cop was just gunned down the other day at a gas station. We all have to place this "national crisis" into perspective. Why was this police officer killed? Does it really have to do with a national outrage that is fueled by the media? Maybe so.  

 

In the end, are police heroes? Well, the ones from MY community serving ME certainly do a lot that I never hear about. and again, in my opinion, this is when you know they are doing a good job. What happens in a different City or State, although concerning, shouldn't affect my community. What concerns me is my community.  

[NeuroTypical]

Guess I'll stand up and be counted.

 

I don't have much use for heroes.  Other than Mr. Rogers - he's the exception.  I don't do hero worship.

 

I do appreciate and support cops, firefighters, and other emergency responders.   Someone willing to choose to put themselves in harm's way for me and mine, get my support and appreciation from me - especialy in the face of hatred and backlash from folks I tend to consider misguided.

 

What do I think about loggers and linesmen and park rangers and pizza delivery guys in bad parts of town and other dangerous professions?  I wish them well, and I hope they stay safe.  I don't begrudge them their protective equipment.  I really feel for the the pizza delivery guy - crap job, low pay, and dangerous too?   But since they don't have any authority or power over citizens, they don't attract crap from citizens that cops do.  Got a problem with authority?  You probably don't go lay into the logger.  

 

I wrote this somewhere else a while ago, will share it again here:

Something got made pretty clear to me a handful of years ago, and I'd like to share it with you.  I was involved in a citizens police academy, and they did a SWAT demonstration on us.  We were sitting in a classroom and told the demonstration was going to start. They started pounding on the back door, yelling "Police Officer!  Search Warrant!  Open the Door!"  They opened the door just enough to toss a flashbang in, and we all jumped when it went off within feet of us.  As we turned back to face the front of the class, we saw the line of SWAT folks had already mostly poured in through a different side door on the other side of the room, while our backs were turned, and were now set up in a line in front of us, yelling at us to stick our hands up.  It was quite the impactful experience.

 

They then all took off their equipment, and we all walked through the events bit by bit.  The thing that struck home, was as they described how the officers entered the room.  They call it "the death chute", because the guys running into the room have the highest chances of dying.  A higher chance than just about anything else they do in their entire careers.  The first guy through has really high odds of serious injury or death.  If there's going to be an injury or death, it's probably the first cop into the death chute.  Yet they train to do it, because there are bad guys that make such things necessary.  Despite knowing the high risk of not being able to go home to their wives and children, they still are willing to run the chute.

 

 

[NightSG]

I think anyone that complains about the Police in general in the United States, needs to visit somewhere like Venezuela. Those guys are intense and corrupt.

 

That's like saying that if you catch your daughter making out with her boyfriend, rather than saying anything about it, you should go spend time in a brothel and be thankful she's not that bad.

Get back to Peel's Principles, and we would see a huge improvement in the situation.

[estradling75]

I certainly agree to a large extent. The biggest issue I have with "waiting for due process" is that the system is corrupt.

Due process when prosecuting cops is a pretty big sham.  

 

I've explained before but there are significant hurdles to overcome to prosecute cops for bad behavior; much higher than for the normal public. The DA (who determines who to prosecute), the police force (who catches "bad" guys), the grand jury (who is influenced by the DA and the evidence the DA presents), the police union, etc.

 

Since the DA and police and the police union all work in conjunction to prosecute normal bad guys, it takes a really tough DA, a really bad crime, or public outrage to prosecute police for bad behavior.

 

Rather than say we should just wait for due process; cops should have a reasonable expectation that their behavior is under even more scrutiny than normal-they should be held to a higher standard.

 

They are the ones that have power of life and death without needing to actually be in danger of losing their life. You or I do not have that power. I'm not for lynching, but we need to realize that the "system" does not work the same for cops as it does for you and I. Calling it corrupt and recognizing these facts-isn't anti-cop; it is realizing the reality of people in organizations (especially bureaucracies) and how everyone protects their own.

 

 

Then you deal with the corruption..  All the people you mention are subject to Higher authorities.   If you suspect corruption you call for investigation.. and you keep calling for it.

 

You don't take out your frustration on the first available target.

[yjacket]

Then you deal with the corruption..  All the people you mention are subject to Higher authorities.   If you suspect corruption you call for investigation.. and you keep calling for it.

 

You don't take out your frustration on the first available target.

 

?? It's hard to call things corrupt when people see things as normal behavior.  If I think a cop doing x is bad and he should be prosecuted for it and he is not, the first avenue is certainly to go to the DA or the department etc. and complain.  But then the department says, so what, then what do you do.  Keep complaining?  That's a real good solution when you are just one person, one little ant.

 

If it is corrupt, they won't prosecute, if they are corrupt then proper channel isn't to go to the DA and complain to the DA. Baltimore had a budget of over 5 million a year to pay people off for police brutality!!! No amount of individual complaining is going to make that go away.

 

The only way to make it go away is for enough people to know about the actions that enough people condemn it so that enough people either vote for politicians who will clean house or make police aware of a changing culture.

 

I'll say this many times, it isn't that our society has in actuality become more violent or that cop's lives are now more in danger than they were 15 years ago.  It's that the cops mentality has changed.  Every stop is now treated as a potential dangerous encounter-which is a complete and utter falsehood!!!! 20 years ago cops didn't treat people like they treat them now and 20 years ago crime was worse!!!  

[David13]

 

...  make police aware of a changing culture.   ...

 

Just what is this "changing culture" you are posting about?  Do you mean a culture that thinks that crime is perfectly all right and ok?  And acceptible because people are "oppressed" and "poor"?

Because that's the "culture" that embodies a total lack of morality that you see today.

And it thinks some lives matter but not cop lives.

And it's fostered from the White House on down today. 

And thus we live in a society where there is no morality, no difference between right and wrong.

Or in some cases where wrong is right and right is wrong.

20 years ago when there were cops that weren't alert on a traffic stop there were cops that got killed.  It still happens today but today they know the rule, there is no such thing as a "routine" traffic stop.

I have had one cop tell me she arrested 5 murder suspects on "routine" traffic stops.

dc

[estradling75]

?? It's hard to call things corrupt when people see things as normal behavior.  If I think a cop doing x is bad and he should be prosecuted for it and he is not, the first avenue is certainly to go to the DA or the department etc. and complain.  But then the department says, so what, then what do you do.  Keep complaining?  That's a real good solution when you are just one person, one little ant.

 

If it is corrupt, they won't prosecute, if they are corrupt then proper channel isn't to go to the DA and complain to the DA. Baltimore had a budget of over 5 million a year to pay people off for police brutality!!! No amount of individual complaining is going to make that go away.

 

The only way to make it go away is for enough people to know about the actions that enough people condemn it so that enough people either vote for politicians who will clean house or make police aware of a changing culture.

 

I'll say this many times, it isn't that our society has in actuality become more violent or that cop's lives are now more in danger than they were 15 years ago.  It's that the cops mentality has changed.  Every stop is now treated as a potential dangerous encounter-which is a complete and utter falsehood!!!! 20 years ago cops didn't treat people like they treat them now and 20 years ago crime was worse!!!  

 

People get the goverment (including the enforcement arm) they are willing to tolerate.  Everything you discribe is a larger cultural collapse/apathy issuse which needs to be address by every citizen.  Focusing on the police will not solve it.  Best case is you temporaryly patch one location...  worse case is you delude people into thinking it "is" the problem and dance to the fiddle as everything else burns

[Guest]

Then you deal with the corruption..  All the people you mention are subject to Higher authorities.   If you suspect corruption you call for investigation.. and you keep calling for it.

 

You don't take out your frustration on the first available target.

 

Time to mention Internal Affairs and Civilian Review Board (in Utah).

[Guest]

 

Guess I'll stand up and be counted.

 

I don't have much use for heroes.  Other than Mr. Rogers - he's the exception.  I don't do hero worship.

 

I do appreciate and support cops, firefighters, and other emergency responders.   Someone willing to choose to put themselves in harm's way for me and mine, get my support and appreciation from me - especialy in the face of hatred and backlash from folks I tend to consider misguided.

 

 

And garbage collectors.  Do you know how lucky Americans are that they can just stick their garbage in a bucket, put it in front of their house and it magically disappears every week?

[Vort]

And garbage collectors.  Do you know how lucky Americans are that they can just stick their garbage in a bucket, put it in front of their house and it magically disappears every week?

 

If we didn't have that, you can bet we would create far less garbage than we do.

[Blackmarch]

I'm of the opinion that respect for law and order is alive and well in the United States, and that far more people respect the law than not.  Problems have always existed and always will.  Depending upon whom I ask (and how many years of opportunity they've had to observe life) there have been worse times and better times, over and over. 

It is now. but I wonder where it will be a few years down the road. The media has phenominal power potential.

the opponents of Mao failed to address it, fatally.

[EarlJibbs]

 

That's like saying that if you catch your daughter making out with her boyfriend, rather than saying anything about it, you should go spend time in a brothel and be thankful she's not that bad.

Get back to Peel's Principles, and we would see a huge improvement in the situation.

Respectfully speaking, I don't like your analogy. It has nothing to do with not "saying anything about it" and I never mentioned that we just keep our mouths shut. I have an appreciation for our law system (even if flawed) due to the time spent overseas and seeing in broad daylight the corruption and cruelty of another nations police. So yes, if I see my daughter making out with her boyfriend and then I see a brothel... what is wrong with being grateful that is not my daughter? If I see that she is heading down the same path that would lead her to prostitution, I can address that. The same way, I can address society issues if I feel that they are heading down the path of other cruel nations.

 

What I say is this; I live in Houston, although I love Utah, the police in Utah have no affect on me in Houston. I will focus on my own City/Town/Neighborhood and protest here if I feel it necessary. I won't go badger the police here because of national media portrays an entire system bad. The police are made up of our own, not some busybody in a different state, Not some murderer in a different state. The national Media has created a frenzy, which has, as a result escalated to the point where now, people feel entitled to murder police on the streets. Or at least, that is what they would have us believe. 

[yjacket]

Just what is this "changing culture" you are posting about?  Do you mean a culture that thinks that crime is perfectly all right and ok?  And acceptible because people are "oppressed" and "poor"?

Because that's the "culture" that embodies a total lack of morality that you see today.

And it thinks some lives matter but not cop lives.

And it's fostered from the White House on down today. 

And thus we live in a society where there is no morality, no difference between right and wrong.

Or in some cases where wrong is right and right is wrong.

20 years ago when there were cops that weren't alert on a traffic stop there were cops that got killed.  It still happens today but today they know the rule, there is no such thing as a "routine" traffic stop.

I have had one cop tell me she arrested 5 murder suspects on "routine" traffic stops.

dc

 

This changing culture is the fact that more and more people are becoming aware that police mentality towards the public has dramatically changed over the last 20 years.  

 

Give me a break, no such thing as a "routine" traffic stop.  That is just absolute junk and is exactly what I'm talking about. The reason we are in this discussion in the first place is that cops attitude towards the public has changed. And saying things like "no such thing as a routine traffic stop" is exactly the same attitude that will continue an us vs. them mentality.

 

For the last 15 years (especially since 9/11), the public wasn't quite aware of the increase in militarization of the police using military TTPs and an increase in treating the public in general as an enemy.  The changing culture I reference is that people are starting to wake up and realize that "hey, the police are supposed to be here to help me the regular citizen rather than treat me like some criminal at every encounter".  The attitude change happened first in the police not the public.

[yjacket]

People get the goverment (including the enforcement arm) they are willing to tolerate.  Everything you discribe is a larger cultural collapse/apathy issuse which needs to be address by every citizen.  Focusing on the police will not solve it.  Best case is you temporaryly patch one location...  worse case is you delude people into thinking it "is" the problem and dance to the fiddle as everything else burns

 

Oh I agree, it is a symptom of a much larger problem.

 

Sometimes the thing that helps people wake up is the thing that is very visceral and in their face. EPA government overreach and locking some farmer up in jail doesn't get people fired up . . .seeing a cop kill someone does.  It's sad, I wish it were different but it is what it is.

[Backroads]

That doesn't change the fact that if you spend your day everyday going after bad guys, you are more likely to get shot than the average guy who spends all day everyday posting on lds.net.

What are the statistics on the latter?

[David13]

The attitude change happened first in the police not the public.

 

100% wrong.

The tail does not wag the dog. 

Here's a video (there are 3 segments of it) from 1980.  This video shows what the police in 1980 began to realize they were up against.  That is, undermanned and outgunned by a long shot.

And thus you see the militarization of the police, due to the fact that the criminals have so militarized themselves. 

Prior to this time, and you see it there, cops were risking their lives on revolvers.

dc

[Palerider]

The next time I call 911 I am going to ask for a Logger or Electrican over a Grandstand Cop