Words. Fucking. Fail me.

[Deepthroat Chopra]

Bugger. I've advised thousands of elder folk to invest in personal alarms in the belief that it would make them safer. 

But serious, why would police in New York respond to a medi-alert? I've seen ambulances and para-medics in Amerika with mine own eyes.

[East Coast Hustle]

I would like to agree.

Unfortunately, the uniform attracts a lot of power-tripping idiots who shouldn't be allowed to tie their shoelaces without assistance, let alone carry a gun and be given special privileges.  And every few days, it seems someone else is being shot dead, or raided, or tazed, or beaten to within an inch of their life for being the wrong skin colour, or being in the wrong place at the wrong time, for protesting, or simply because, as far as can seen, the cops felt like it.

I know I'm getting to the point where I leave the area if I see a cop around.  And I'm friends with more than a few cops, or families of cops.  The London police see themselves as a gang.  They're corrupt right to the very top, based on most recent investigations, whether that corruption is organised crime, drug dealing, firearms or political in nature.  They kill people, a lot of people, and get away with it all the time. 

And groups like that will force good cops out.  Sure, they still exist.  But they'll be denied promotions, given bullshit assignments, harassed and demoralized, and they will leave the force.  I read a good story a couple of months ago explaining exactly how the LA County Police had been ruined in that way.  Corrupt institutions will self-perpetuate, if allowed to, and they have been, by a sympathetic judiciary, and a press willing to turn a blind eye.

Tanaka? Yeah, that was a pretty fucked-up story, though hardly a surprise to anyone who has ever lived in LA. The Dudley Dooright types that seem to surround RWHN notwithstanding, I'd venture to say that in America, 95% of police/sheriff departments are really just the best-organized and best-armed gang in the area.

[East Coast Hustle]

Nah, there are lots of good, honest and level headed joes out there working in police departments. 

[Anna Mae Bollocks]

Nah, there are lots of good, honest and level headed joes out there working in police departments. 

They could START OUT for the right reasons, instead of being paid to ride around and fuck with people. Give it a little time and they either get corrupted or quit.

[trippinprincezz13]

While I have met a few cops that have seemed genuinely nice, within the past few years, literally every department in the towns surrounding mine have been under investigation, either as a whole or individuals, for some major misconduct or corruption, the latest of which is making defense attorneys in this city quite happy since the lead detective on several cases is being investigated and is either on desk duty or suspended for beating the shit out of suspects/planting evidence/just making shit up. City's already had to pay out on a few personal injury claims and several criminal cases have been dropped. Fun times

[Doktor Howl]

Nah, there are lots of good, honest and level headed joes out there working in police departments. 

I kind of have to agree with RWHN on this one.

[Anna Mae Bollocks]

Nah, there are lots of good, honest and level headed joes out there working in police departments. 

I kind of have to agree with RWHN on this one.

Maybe those are the ones we almost never interact with. That would explain it.

[trippinprincezz13]

Yeah, I'm about half & half on it. While there's the above-referenced misconduct, etc., I have also had cops that were very nice and/or helped me out a lot. Of course, as with many groups of people, its the loudmouths/those doing wrong that get the attention/media over those just doing their jobs.  I'm going to be leery of them, but I'm also going to be nice. And going around with a "fuck you" attitude towards every cop on principle probably won't win many friends in the department.

Case in point: Festival in CT I go to every year. Last year, tons of people complaining online about the "heavy" police presence (though said presence was restricted mainly to the concert area. Except that unless you are blatantly doing something wrong or ingesting/selling drugs RIGHT IN FRONT OF THEM, they're not there bothering anyone and were generally friendly to everyone, especially considering they've got thousands of drug-addled hippies running around for the weekend. They were there to stop those from the surrounding neighborhood (not exactly the nicest place) out, preventing gang activity and busting those only with nitrous tanks and/or being obvious in their drug use/sales.

So, there's the good and the bad

[Cain]

Tanaka?

Yeah, that was the guy I was thinking of.  His name slipped my mind, and I couldn't be bothered to fish for the eXileD article while writing the above.

That case seems somewhat extreme, but I'm sure lesser versions of it are highly prevalent.

[East Coast Hustle]

Actually that's pretty par for the course in LA. Are you familiar with the Rampart scandal? Or the Vikings? There's a pretty rich history of extreme levels of violence and corruption there, and it makes for some interesting reading once you start digging in a little.

[Cain]

Rampart, yes.  Not sure of the Viking one.

I actually meant outside of LA when talking about lesser versions, precisely because of Rampart.  LA's had problems with its police going back to the 50s at the very least though, from what I can recall, and probably a lot earlier.  Get away with it for long enough, and it becomes tradition.  Passed down from corrupt captain to rookie, year after year.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

I would like to agree.

Unfortunately, the uniform attracts a lot of power-tripping idiots who shouldn't be allowed to tie their shoelaces without assistance, let alone carry a gun and be given special privileges.  And every few days, it seems someone else is being shot dead, or raided, or tazed, or beaten to within an inch of their life for being the wrong skin colour, or being in the wrong place at the wrong time, for protesting, or simply because, as far as can seen, the cops felt like it.

I know I'm getting to the point where I leave the area if I see a cop around.  And I'm friends with more than a few cops, or families of cops.  The London police see themselves as a gang.  They're corrupt right to the very top, based on most recent investigations, whether that corruption is organised crime, drug dealing, firearms or political in nature.  They kill people, a lot of people, and get away with it all the time. 

And groups like that will force good cops out.  Sure, they still exist.  But they'll be denied promotions, given bullshit assignments, harassed and demoralized, and they will leave the force.  I read a good story a couple of months ago explaining exactly how the LA County Police had been ruined in that way.  Corrupt institutions will self-perpetuate, if allowed to, and they have been, by a sympathetic judiciary, and a press willing to turn a blind eye.

I've been all over the place, and what I've seen is that police departments are different everywhere, and that departments tend to be very, very good, or very, very bad...With not a lot of ground in between.

Portland, for example. Where the rule of thumb is "never, ever call the police because they will burn your house down, make you lie on the ground naked, taze you, beat you and then shoot you for good measure".

Even if you called about a car blocking your driveway.

Just don't do it. Set the car on fire, so that when your neighbor calls to complain about someone setting his car on fire, they do it to him instead.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Yeah, I'm about half & half on it. While there's the above-referenced misconduct, etc., I have also had cops that were very nice and/or helped me out a lot. Of course, as with many groups of people, its the loudmouths/those doing wrong that get the attention/media over those just doing their jobs.  I'm going to be leery of them, but I'm also going to be nice. And going around with a "fuck you" attitude towards every cop on principle probably won't win many friends in the department.

Case in point: Festival in CT I go to every year. Last year, tons of people complaining online about the "heavy" police presence (though said presence was restricted mainly to the concert area. Except that unless you are blatantly doing something wrong or ingesting/selling drugs RIGHT IN FRONT OF THEM, they're not there bothering anyone and were generally friendly to everyone, especially considering they've got thousands of drug-addled hippies running around for the weekend. They were there to stop those from the surrounding neighborhood (not exactly the nicest place) out, preventing gang activity and busting those only with nitrous tanks and/or being obvious in their drug use/sales.

So, there's the good and the bad

Festival of (I'm guessing mostly-white) hippies getting high in a contained area? I am pretty sure the cops don't want to piss off those hippies' parents. The people in the "Not so nice" surrounding area? Less white with less wealthy parents, I would hazard.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Nah, there are lots of good, honest and level headed joes out there working in police departments. 

I'm with ECH on this one. I mean, "lots" is certainly subjective; 1% of all cops is a lot of people.

But the system itself is so incredibly corrupt, particularly now that certain types of arrests have been monetized and are prioritized over other types of arrests, that I would be very skeptical of more than a small minority of police officers maintaining much ethical integrity.

[navkat]

I still have no words for the way the Mobile County police abused me when shit went down with my ex. I did everything I was supposed to and they treated me like a whore. I was continually rerimanded and talked down to and even yelled at on a couple of occasions. They made it clear that while they were forced to respond to my calls for help, everyone in the department was fully aware that I was an adultress and they resented having to assist the "bad guy" in the situation simply because of something so silly as the law.

I was constantly reminded (inappropriately and inaccurately) of how my indescretions were the root cause of Jay's rage and that essentialy, the burden of his abuse was on my own conscience. I was asked things like "Why don't you just leave and go live with the guy you were seeing?"

To compound the insult, some of Jay's more harassing and cruel contacts with me involved the triumphant information that the cops who arrested him told him they were sorry they had to do it but that I was clearly crazy and if I ran so much as a red light in this town, they'd throw me in jail for being beligerent.

I've been called a liar to my face by them. I have been yelled at and threatened with having my order of protection "nullified" (total bullshit. A cop can't usurp a judge) if I didn't turn my goddamned phone off and go to bed. I have had my phone illegally snatched out of my hand and searched when attempting to call a supervisor about this conduct. I was asked "who the hell" was I calling? This was after being ordered to sit on my driveway and told I was not allowed to remain near the cruisers or to go in the house. I was called "young lady." As in "You go and sit your ass down exactly where I told you, young lady and don't open your damned mouth and say another word or you won't be sleeping here tonight, I can promise you that."

I called them, mind you, to report that Jay had violated the protection order again and come up onto the property. They told me that I was "dangerous" and that "women like me" are the reason why good cops don't come home from domestic violence calls and that I was personally endangering their lives with my bullshit.

I am completely unsafe and unprotcted in this city. I feel violated in a way that is far more profound than being hit and slandered and having my accounts hacked and my laptop smashed, myself and my friends harrassed and threatened, my son's father told that I am a drug addict and a child abuser, money in my accounts transferred out and my car and schoolbooks taken by a psychoticly angry alcoholic. The police were supposed to be protecting me and intead, they took his side without an iota of bashfulness or hesitation. 

And like the good, little victim, I was ashamed. Their conduct was so outrageous, so unbelievable, I knew no one would ever believe me. "Yeah, but what did YOU do?" Is the question I was asked as a child and again, as an adult, in response to the partner abuse. I have learned that telling others about these terrible things only serves to suggest that the things I must have done to drive a man to that point must've been downright infuriating. I must be concealing something. No one's innocent.

I believe that many officers are decent, procedure-fllowing guys with a fucked up job. I believe that a minority are truly fucked up human beings with a decent job. But I also believe there is a shop-talk, "can you believe this guy I had to put up with?" mentality that causes a sort of blindness in even the good guys. Because we all know how the crazy citizens they have to deal with can BE, amirite?

I knew a girl who called the cops to have her boyfriend arrested for hitting her and ended up in handcuffs herself. As soon as the police opened the door, it wasn't "what's going on? Are you alright, ma'am?" It was "Let me see your ID. What were YOU doing while this was happening? What's in your pocket? Could you take it out for me please?"

I will never trust the police again. Never.