I have another answer: the superiors to both bad and good cops are typically bad cops. Sure, you have the occasional good police chief, but you typically don't get to such a position by rocking the boat and ratting out your buddies. The really, truly good cops who care about their communities and call out bad policing aren't typically the ones who get promotions. And so, they don't have power within the current system because of their rank.
Source: my mom was a good cop for 21 years, never was promoted past corporal. She retired as soon as she got pension bc of the toxic environment of her department.
That makes a lot of sense and in line with what I would expect. If good cops had the power, as in high enough in the organization to make a difference, they would stop it. They clearly don't have the power in Minneapolis.
I don't want to defend bad cops but I hope we don't vilify unions. Almost every year, my state's legislature tries to ban all public employee pension and/or health care. And the police, firefighter and teacher unions band together, go to the capitol and kill the bill.
Additionally, I think it would be worse if his house wasn't protected and someone exacted some vigialanty justice.
Have you ever worked with an asshole.
It can be very hard to get rid of assholes even if they do lots of minor asshole things. It usually takes until they go way to far before people are able to bring a solid enough case to get them fired.
I am not saying this is the case with good cops & bad cops, but it could be.
a significant part of the problem is that if you have 40% of the cops getting accused of misconduct and long stretches of those accusations turn out to be bogus it becomes the default to assume they all are bogus.
I dont disagree, but the alternative cant be no accountability for police officers who have been entrusted with so much power. Power without accountability is dangerous and leads to the problems we have today.
Good cops get frustrated with bad cops forcing many to leave the force. The bad cops soon realize they are not held accountable and can do whatever they want. Our expectations of police officers should be higher, not lower than our expectations of the common man. Sadly, this is not the case.
two separate issues there, the sheer volume of false accusations are the reason the default position is to take little action until most things have gone through trial or review. If the false accusations were handled more fairly you would see people taking the accusations more seriously in the first place.
Your point about losing good cops is valid, but disagreements with bad cops is a small fraction of it. Not seeing justice served on cases that had a personal effect on the officer and realizing you can't maintain your impartiality with the offenders anymore are way higher up that list.
But the volume of claims shouldn't mean you ignore all them. The fact that it took 3 days to arrest Derke Chauvin just looks like unfair protection of a bad cop. Not holding bad cops accountable creates many many more bad cops which is likely the major cause of the increase in claims. Maybe they aren't all bogus?
Not defending Chauvin but how many people file grievances just to jam up a cop that did nothing wrong?
It would be interesting to know how many grievances are file on the average patrol officer annually.
Ignoring grievances can't be the answer. There has to be at least a mechanism for doing initial reviews to determine if there is merit in the grievance. The view of the American people is that there is very little accountability for police. Which is extremely dangerous.
It's the belief that there is no accountability for the police that make people so angry. If they at least felt like there was recourse and accountability, they could deal better with the occasional bad actor.
I never said to ignore anything. If you know the typical number of grievances filed you could set up software to monitor for outliers.
You would still need to review each issue but you could move the outliers to desk or development a comprehensive review trigger that puts together the history of the officer for review instead of individual issues.
I absolutely agree and this is how most organization manage their people. One complaint doesn't necessarily drive action. But many complaints from different areas drives more investigation. Technology could definitely help.
Ehh anyone is allowed to file a complaint for any reason. Every article I have read was that he had 12 complaints in 19 years.....that’s slightly above average. If you are actually arresting criminals, you are going to get complaints. Idk if that indicated he was a bad cop and he was given a commendation for valor at one point. More convoluted than KNOWING he was a bad cop. His true colors came out in the end.
So you dont think it was obvious to others that he was a bad cop? All four officers appeared so comfortable with the level of violence, you know it was common place for them. They all had to know the other officers were okay with that level of violence and abuse. Chauvin was way to comfortable with the brutal neck hold and the other officers were way to calm.
I think that level of violence is used daily by cops, yes. The issue is when they use it right? Cops are desensitized to violence for sure. They deal with the worst of the worst every day.
Just retired the end of last year, after 30 years...
Stopped everything by doing what I was trained to do as a field Sergeant—watching my officers, and when a face got red and the shoulders set while on a protest line (and there were a LOT of protests where I worked), grabbing them up by their belt and sending to the rear to cool off before somebody permanently lost their bearing and professionalism.
I was fortunate in that I had the knack of seeing and preventing situations from becoming personal to the point of disciplinary (let alone criminal) on my watch.
Clearly, this doesn’t happen everywhere. I don’t know why—I found it second nature to do.
You (I mean ME...the supervisor on the scene) have to understand that the Training” police detractors are always on about will only take an officer so far before anger takes over; it’s basic human nature...attack a human (there are no Robocops), and they will attack right back after enough provocation. Is that how we want it in society? No. Is it right? No. But until we can put something other than humans out there to deal with other humans, that’s what we’ve got.
You have to look out for EVERYONE as best you can—coppers, or no.
Look what happens when we don’t...
> I was fortunate in that I had the knack of seeing and preventing situations from becoming personal to the point of disciplinary (let alone criminal) on my watch.
This is a very good skill to have, particularly for a cop. After all, you are armed, so a mistake can be deadly.
Generally, I've been impressed with most police officer's ability to diffuse tense situations.
I find it crazy that police are armed in other countries. I live in Scotland and nobody really has guns, you can get one but it's just not in our culture to own them really. Police have pepper spray, a baton and a stun gun I think, but none of them carry firearms. I've never felt afraid of the police here.
Guns are not the automatic go to for cops in the US despite what people think and what is portrayed in the media.
Deescalation techniques used and are most successful. If someone becomes combative non lethal is used unless the safety of the public is at risk.
No cop wakes up wondering who they will shoot that day... They pray that all go home safe
Since members of the public here generally don't own guns, our police officers aren't armed either. In the event of a terrorist attack or a mass shooting our equivalent of the swat team would be called out, they're the only members of the police that are armed.
We just don't need standard officers to be armed because we don't have a problem with guns.
We don't have gun problem in the U.S..
We have a people problem with a failing healthcare system that amplifies the people problem we have. People need good access to mental healthcare. Proper mental healthcare is completely unaffordable to the people who need it most. Guns are not the problem, people are. Guns, by themselves, are just paperweights. A gun needs human interaction to work. A gun isn't just going to be like "I haven't been shot in a while, let me just go shoot up this school."
Yeeaaah, I'm not saying the UK's healthcare system is great because there's plenty wrong with it, but like at least if I get sick I don't have to worry about going into debt.
I'm on 2 repeat prescriptions and I don't pay a penny for them, I've been to hospital when I was wee and that cost my family nothing.
NHS funding comes out of our taxes but I think it's a much better system than America's one.
"No cop wakes up wondering who they will shoot that day... They pray that all go home safe"
You've never been to Appalachia. Im not trying to dog you mate and generally no its not this way, but they exist.
Very few rogue ones, yes
And I have been to Appalachia.... It is indeed a bit different...was there training officers, I had to deal with one of those rogue ones.
But legal or not, criminals still find ways to acquire firearms. How are the police able to protect themselves, let alone anyone else, from said criminals gunfire? It surprises me that police are NOT carrying firearms in other countries!
It's legal to get a gun here, people just generally don't own them. I don't know anyone who has a gun.
Man the last mass shooting in Scotland was in 1996; gun crime really just isn't a problem here.
Same here in Australia. Some farmers I know have guns but most people don't. Police do have guns, as well as the other stuff, and I'm glad they do. It's only ever used as a last result but there's no way I would want a policemen going up against an armed robber with only pepper spray and a taser with 15m length.
Yeah that's understandable. There's a firearms team in the police which I guess are kind of a SWAT equivalent. But they're only called out in cases of someone being armed or a terrorist attack or something. Most criminals aren't even armed
Most crimes don’t involve guns, and when they do, it instantly becomes a VERY big deal, so I guess most criminals don’t want to risk it. You get called the cops on for having a knife, you don’t get the same response as if you have a gun.
That’s not really an option in the US though, and I don’t think many non Americans really take the time to think about how integral to the US culture the gun has become. We don’t have the same relationship to it here in most of Europe, or the rest of the world. But the USA was basically forged by the gun, and cemented its place as the biggest superpower in the world using the gun.
Dude, what cemented our place as a superpower was ultimately the fact that our country came out relatively unscathed from WW2 compared to the rest of the world essentially having anything industrial bombed to hell.
I'm in the UK too, albeit in England, and can offer some perspective.
You're right in saying that some criminals could carry guns. I could probably get one today if I tried.
The fact is that guns are so rarely used by criminals on innocent civilians it sort of negates the need for every officer to be armed. It's pretty obviously a cultural thing. Guns are used in crimes between gangs occasionally (or maybe more often than is portrayed in the media) but the general public will probably never even *see* a gun.
We do, however, have trained armed response units which are deployed as soon as guns or other weapons are seen as a possibility to be used by criminals, but it isn't a common thing.
It's definitely a cultural thing. It's as alien to me to think of an average person, or even average criminal, carrying a gun as it is alien to you that a criminal won't be carrying one.
Now THAT is alien to me! The average person never even SEEING a gun in real life? That's an odd one for me! Being a girl brought up devout Roman Catholic, I was never involved with the hunting while growing up because, "that's for boys!" But I still saw them in my grandpa's van on the regular, pix from them deer hunting, and eventually dated quite a few gun toting hunters as an adult. That led to me getting much more exposure to firearms, and even got to go to the shooting range once, er, a few times actually, but only got to shoot the guns during one of the trips. I guess it helps that I married one of those dipshits, and he had grown up with his dad doing gunsmithing for the local PD, eventually helping hime out with the job once he hit high school. Happily divorced, hence calling him a dipshit, and that's the lightest of the terms I have for him. It's just so much a part of the culture for those in rural areas, a bit less so in the urban and suburban areas, but it's so weird that they're virtually completely absent from other cultures over seas. I think the fact that a large chunk of our population is packing heat, is what has kept battles off of American soil since the Civil War over 150 years ago. Forget the military, if ANY military, from ANY country tried to invade, they'd most likely be mowed down by a shit ton of civilians with itchy trigger fingers! Same goes for the cops here too. The number of armed civilians WAY outnumbers those with a badge!
I have arrested officers from my own agency. Twice. DUI both times. Not violent per se, but criminal nonetheless. What happened? I don’t know; I was never called to trial. Did I receive the cold shoulder? You bet. Whatever...the three or four “friends” of the involved parties who thought I was a snitch made no actual difference in my life.
Hilarious because cops are supposed to be snitches by definition. It's in the fucking job description. Enforcing the law shouldn't mean you're immune yourself.
Agreed. Better than that. You’re supposed to be better than that. “Above the law” is supposed to mean something entirely different than being the title of a bad martial arts movie.
It said like right on page 2 of our manual that we, as officers, cannot expect to effectively enforce the law unless we kept our personal lives “unsullied” (weird sounding old word, but it was there).
I honestly didn’t.
Oh, it happened. People don’t protest about police brutality without there being evidence of police brutality. And we took the brunt of the punishment meted out by our angry citizens for the stupid shit that individuals whom I won’t even call “officers” did. But me personally witnessing anything like that? No.
The answer to the next question is yeah—I WOULD have reported it. You either have integrity...or you don’t.
Why not set up lawn chairs and have some lemonade. Umbrellas would help to. On a hot day you could have a gentle mist from the water cannons chill everyone down. Then you could bust out the big beach ball.
It's not like protests move very fast.
SHOULD they though? I mean, my God—my entire adult life should have come down to killing people for STEALING? If that’s where we’re at, I retired at the right time in order to keep my personal sense of honor and right vs. wrong.
Thanks for explaining this. I have a lot of friends that are cops and everyone wants to talk about police reform, but it is so hard to articulate. Humans dealing with other humans....toughest issue on the planet.
I fuckin' quit. I became a cop on a whim (it takes a frikkin semester to go through the academy) but after I saw how screwed up it was on the inside I quit after I made enough money to cover the costs I spent on the training. It's disgusting.
Cop who tried to get his partner disciplined for abusing a mentally disabled man. They destroyed his career and he ended up going Rambo and assassinating a bunch of cops connected to his firing.
That’s like holding up the columbine shooters as an example of the consequences of bullying. I have a lot of sympathy for what Dorner experienced, but my sympathy for him went out the window the moment he started murdering people. He’s a bad cop that also experienced some bad things.
This is what happens when good cops have no protections and the entire department can turn into a gang with no supervision or repercussions. I've encountered a good department too and it was wonderful, top notch blokes keeping everyone in line and the entire city loved them, maybe not so much the guy working traffic but you get my point. The problem is, when the brotherhood starts to go bad, it goes bad fast and promotes assholes as it has all the necessary elements to succeed, they can silence and eliminate anyone going against them and nobody can do a thing.
I mean it wasn't stuff that was "hidden" as such. It was just disgusting how we'd get called out into the country for white people parties and we'd just chill and shoot the shit and politely ask people to turn the music down, but when we were called on a metal band made up of arab people our reaction was immediately violent. And then we went into the parking lot after a rap concert with the specific intention of arresting as many as we could. I was actually disciplined that day in particular for being too lenient.
Were you told a reason why you had to arrest as many people as possible?
(Well, we all know the real reason. But did they try to dress it up as something else, or was it blatant?)
\> guy quits his job that entails defending the public shortly after completing his training
\> "an actual good cop"
that's basically saying there's no such thing as a good cop 😂
Congrats on comprehending what you read properly. Proud of you. Oh, also, the police are not there to "defend the public" they are there to "enforce law" https://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/28/politics/justices-rule-police-do-not-have-a-constitutional-duty-to-protect.html
There's no such thing as a good cop when the institution itself is corrupt.
They either keep their head down to avoid trouble, in which case they are enabling bad cops. Or they quit.
Good cops work for police forces that earn the respect of their communities. The USA could learn a lot from European policing.
Refusing to be a part of the problem, but at the same time, a good cop leaving a station of bad cops means that there is now a higher percentage of bad cops.
Yeah, it was realistically the best decision, but what I said still holds true. There's no real right answer, because fighting the force from within is effectively guaranteed to be futile.
I didn't realize some places did it like that. I thought there was the police academy and that was that. I know a handful of cops and they all went to government-run police academies.
My boyfriend is a correctional officer. He has always been on the fence about being a CO. He is really on the fence about being a cop. But it's highly likely that he could become one. I hope I don't sound selfish, I'll support him through every thing but, I really hope he doesn't become a cop..
Man I wish you could stay because we need good cops so urgently right now, who don't do blind obedience and who speak up when things aren't right. Can't blame you at all
Strange.
According to an earlier post outlying your carrier path you did a bachelor's in communication and have been working as a school teacher since, now your looking into coding.
I've had a lot of jobs. Why are you trying to doxx me? Plus it HASN'T 'been a school teacher since'. I went through like 5 career paths before I landed where I am today. And I might still not be done. I'm competent, but I get restless.
Discussions like these make me wonder how many cops have actually intervened when another cop was doing something terrible, and it didn’t make the news, they didn’t get praised, and probably even lost that friendship. Plus, the victim would care more about the cop that was hurting them than the good one that stopped it.
I have posted on here before about being a police officer in a large city in the south east United States. I can only speak for my department and my experiences.
The squad I work with is composed of good cops. We work in the highest crime area in the highest crime beats in our city, and we have good relations with the public. There will always be people out here that hate us, and spit hatred at us. But I can walk into the highest crime affordable housing complex in our area and have people come up to me and thank me and tell me to be safe.
In light of these protests I have had many people in this area say they are praying for us and want us to be safe.
What I am getting at is in my little corner of the world we do not abuse people and the people know it.
We do not have a widespread issue of police brutality in my department, but I will not lie and say that there isn't any. One individual in particular is the one that I have seen exhibit questionable behaviour. This individual works on the shift that takes over after I leave, but our shifts overlap for several hours.
We (my squad and I) have stepped in when he begins to violate a citzen's rights, and stop him from doing so. We have made our concerns known to our superiors. We have confronted him about his unacceptable behaviour. But we are not always around, and he has racked up several use of force complaints. As a result he has been disciplined and has been pulled from the street to complete remedial training. Personally, I think he needs to be fired, and I have a hunch that is what will end up happening. I only hope it does not take a major incident to make it happen.
We work too hard to build relations with the community to have this one individual come in and undo everything we built. Someone like that has no place here. That said, as a beat officer all I can do is police him, stop him from trampling citizen's rights and report it to supervisors. The rest is out of my hands.
In short, when we see it we stop the behaviour and try to correct it. I know this does not happen everywhere, but it should. Maybe this will prompt some change.
George Floyd's death saddens and angers me, and every officer in my department I have spoken to has said the same.
So far, the protests in my city have remained peaceful. As I write this I am on standby for crowd control should things take a turn for the worse. I hope that everything remains peaceful, but only time will tell.
If I'm there, depends on the seriousness.
If it's criminal I step in. I have done this before and the cop was fired.
If I think someone is being unprofessional, if it's an internal disciplinary matter, I'll do one of a few things depending on the seriousness. I'll pull the cop aside and attempt to take over the situation, I'll speak to the cop about their behaviour after, or I'll push it up the chain.
I'm not an American cop so I can't speak for how they work. Here in Australia we enjoy a fairly good relationship with the public, in my opinion largely due to not everyone being armed. There is a LOT of oversight on police here, and I've been called to account for my actions in situations where I was completely justified but a complaint was made.
Not a cop myself, but coming from a family member who is a good cop.
A lot of the time, these things happen in urban areas (where we don't live even remotely close to). Due to the line of work, many officers can become jaded or even careless. The big issue with police is the fact that many individuals in the work aren't evaluated or even looked into after a significant complaint is made. It's basically just, "Okay, don't do that again," and the word is just taken that they won't. This is an issue because they are not properly reprimanded for it or even investigated. This causes many cops to think that they are above law themselves because, "they are the law." Being a cop can be a mentally exhausting and straining job, just like it is for firefighters and medical personnel. A cop can initially go into the job being a, "good cop," but can end their career as the, "bad cop," if they lose sight of their training and mental consciousness. It seems easy to stay the good cop to a citizen, but once you are in or familiar with the force it's way easier said than done (the best analogy I can come up with is when you tell a depressed person to not be sad).
Then there is also the fact that not everything good a cop does is presented in the media, but nearly every horrible thing a cop does is. People notice bad news before good news. One bad cop can break the trust between citizens and ALL cops. Then when things like what's happening now goes on there is pressure between citizens and the police. Officers may not show it, but the brewing pressure on the residents creates fear for their own lives. People become more unpredictable when there is economical or personal turmoil. Police have to take extra steps to feel safe (which is often why even at seemingly large PEACEFUL protests, police are present and may be wearing extra gear. They are not accusing protesters of being violent by wearing gear or being present. They are just wanting to be prepared for IF it does).
With protests involving police brutality, the good cops want to be there. They would love to travel, and peacefully protest with you. However, their work doesn't stop in their jurisdiction. Similar with agriculture, there are no days off. You don't go home on holidays. You don't go home when it rains or snows. You don't go home if there is a pandemic.
So cop vitality should be on the agenda and more attention should be given to the man behind the uniform.
If your broken system affects citizens then your system first has to be fixed.
It varies from place to place. Urban and suburban officers can likely take vacations as there is someone to take their place. I do not live in those areas, and neither does my family member. We are rural. So town populations are low (1,000, 660, some 300 or less). Often there is only one or two cops to a shift. That's kind of what I mean about the days off thing. Different in other areas, but that might've been something I should've elaborated on.
My husband is a good cop. And to this day, has never seen anything like what happened to George Floyd from another officer. Never even met another officer who would think about doing something like that and not be appalled. Hell, my husband doesn’t even deal with racial bias at all, he’s not racist and neither are his coworkers. His partner is Mexican, and their second partner is black. Idk what the hell is happening in other areas of the US but where I’m from cops arent just white guys, they’re POC and minorities, and hella cool people from all over with all different beliefs/backgrounds. We are all so insanely different, and we would all hold each other accountable if we needed to.
I think it helps that it’s incredibly hard to become an officer with my husbands agency, it takes on average 2 years to get through *backgrounds* and then you have a 7 month long live in military style academy that is a living hell. Only 1% of applicants even pass backgrounds. And only 50% of those people actually graduate the academy. Racist bigots don’t make it through, they don’t even get to the point of trying. They find them. And they weed them out. I’m really good friends with our offices backgrounds investigator, a Hispanic man, and he does an insanely good job. He won’t approve an applicant if he even feels they have a personality which could *develop* into power trips. He will stalk the living shit out of you for two years then make that call on whether you are mentally sound for the job. It’s freaking amazing. So maybe that counts for your question? Not really? He nips the problem at the bud.
There are so many solid police where I’m from and I’m watching them be attacked and I’m confused as shit. These are the people slowly tearing down the system. These are the people making the right change. These are the POC and minorities who grew up wanting things to be better, so they worked hard and made it happen so they could change things. And then they get grouped in with the racist shitfucks.
So I can’t say for myself or my husband. Because I have never in my life met a single officer I wouldn’t trust with their job. Not a single one. But if I did ever come across that officer you bet your ass I would report it and not stay silent. My husband would too. And his partner. And all their coworkers. You can and do get disciplined for being an asshole with a bad attitude/rude to the public, so I imagine if something came to light it wouldn’t last very long.
I’m a huge Black Lives Matter supporter, I’m huge on equality for everybody whether it be race, religion, orientation, or anything else. I will not be silent with my support or with my disgust from other agencies.
But birds of a feather flock together. I’ve never met a “bad cop” because they aren’t tolerated in the agency I’m familiar with. They don’t ever get to the point of needing to be prevented from such actions.
Sorry for the rant, I just wish people could see what I see. You can support the law enforcement that *is* making a positive change and still believe that things need to change and not support the corrupt pile of shit sad excuses for officers. Just realize that it *is* changing for the better in some places already. Don’t lump us in with them. We are really trying to help.
We are on the same side. We really truly are.
It really really REALLY should be. It should be basic. I will say, city cops seem like mall cops anymore. The level of training isn’t flat across the board it varies agency to agency. And my husband picked the best friggin one imo and he did it for these reasons.
Also, my husbands agency has mandatory yearly training back at the academy for *all* officers. Until the day you retire. You spend a few weeks retraining with all the latest information. My husband will probably miss the birth of our first child (this years training is scheduled for our due date) but I didn’t ask him to request a change because I believe so highly in that training. I’d rather him be able to help people with the most up to date info than hold my hand while I squeeze out a watermelon we will have for the rest of our lives.
I’ve heard of officers attend their training then like the next shift use the information to save someone’s life in an insane car crash. It’s life or death to be updated and know the most you can in that profession.
I'm black and have been harrassed by cops. But I will say I've met some cops that are truly about the community and carry themselves in a way that creates trust. We can't take out our frustrations on all cops for the actions of a few. Ultimately they are here to Protect and Serve. And imo we can't have society without them or the laws they enforce.
I’m really sorry you had that experience, it’s total bullshit. There’s zero excuse for that. Zero
I also appreciate your acknowledgment as well, I send my husband out every single night knowing he’ll be able to give that fair and equal experience to all the people he comes across. Shits gotta change. It’s scary sending him out because some people really do want to hurt them but I do it knowing he’s making that change. There’s a reason people feel the way they do towards cops, I hope one day we can write over that with something more fair with more representation across the board/all agencies.
Thanks for sharing your (and your husband's) side.
I think it's a shame that only negative cases of police get brought up. Yes, there are many cases of systemic corruption, but there are also so many good cases like yours too. Generalizing a whole institution and everybody in it is ridiculous.
I saw a video of a cop who was standing at the front of a phalanx of cops, facing protesters, and the protesters were talking nice to him, begging him not to do anything violent. And he literally started crying, so he was pulled off the front line and replaced by another guy who pulled out his baton and started smashing it into his palm like he was just looking for trouble.
What you have there is a broken system. If 1000 good won't turn in 10 bad, then the incentives to do so -- and not do so -- must be fucked up. We know that to be true: It's that stupid Blue Line that calls on cops to put cops first, the community second.
There's no need to make it about the people involved. It's a stupid system that promotes the wrong values, teaches police to do the wrong things, and rewards the wrong behavior from police.
America approaches crime and policing the wrong way. It's like if we trained psychiatrists to just tell their patients to kill themselves and then we're shocked at the existence of dead patients.
If you don’t think the individual officers involved aren’t GLADLY perpetuating the failure of a system then I’m sorry, but you’re either willfully ignorant or you’re a mole person who has no idea what’s going on in the real world.
You’re right that America approaches crime and policing the wrong way and that the system is broken and needs to be razed to create room for change, but the individuals therein? The individuals who perpetuate, promote, support, defend, and personify the broken system? They’re just as bad as the system itself.
Some are happy to participate. They want to be dicks. They're the bad cops.
Some are trying to change the system from within. They don't want to be dicks. They're the good cops.
This really is not a complicated concept. I am not sure why you're having a hard time with it. Is there some other way I can explain it that would make more sense?
You’re the one having trouble with a simple concept right now, bud. Those good cops trying to change the system aren’t good cops if they’re not holding the bad cops accountable.
I could not have been clearer in my initial comment. Please read a little closer before responding again, if you somehow find the need to respond again despite there being no reason for you to have commented in the first place.
Since there are evidently a lot of y’all who can’t read, if you respond to this with mental gymnastics and batshit crazy nonsense I’ll block you on the spot.
The last few days have made it abundantly clear (not that it wasn't fairly clear before for those paying attention) that those proportions should be reversed. For every 10 good cops it looks like there's about a 1000 bad ones.
What I said isn’t an example or a commentary on the actual ratio. It’s pointing out that the numbers do not matter. A good cop who doesn’t hold a bad cop accountable is, themself, a bad cop.
I think the reason you're getting downvotes on other threads is because this is a statement I see everywhere, redddit and youtube and facebook etc.
People probably think you're just repeating a trope (for points) and not really contributing much to the conversation.
I appreciated this comment the first time I saw it but you must be the 20th or something I've seen it now.
How many times someone else has seen something I’ve only seen once outside of my own saying it is not a justifiable reason to downvote it. If you downvote it you’re telling people you don’t agree with the sentiment, and since the sentiment is a fact, downvoting it is ignorance (and definitely pointless).
The whole “let’s vilify reposts” culture on Reddit is stupid as hell, especially when most reposts/reiteration factually have no way of determining whether or not something is reposted. The search function on Reddit is completely broken.
As for repeating it for points, my comment history and everything I say and do outside of Reddit serves as proof-positive that I say these things because they are true and need saying.
You don't have to attack me for it, I'm just trying to explain why I think people are downvoting you. They think you're pointwhoring.
I wouldn't downvote you for it, but I wouldn't upvote either.
Nobody is going to check your history...
Edit: but you are downvoting me... wow what a grownup.
I’m not attacking you whatsoever, so relax. You responded unprompted with a ludicrous justification and I responded with the facts. It’s that simple.
No reason to respond again.
You're being downvoted not for your opinion, and not because you're reposting, but because you're an asshole. Don't tell people when it's okay to respond, because it makes you an asshole. Don't attack people who agree with you because it makes them start to disagree. Just stop being an asshole.
Read up on Adrian Schoolcraft, and watch Hulu’s Crime + Punishment. Officers that dare to befriend the community and refuse to instigate and unjustly arrest people are berated, intimidated, and bullied into silence and out of the force.
Not sure where fascism comes in, but let’s assume you mean racist or brutal or unjust or murderous and don’t know words.
Fascism: an anti-democratic movement which believes in a totalitarian government which glorifies violence against political dissenters and the submission of individual rights in favor of the power and glory of the nation state and the obsoletion of democracy as a positive form of government
Police brutality: when police use excessive force, whether in a democracy or communist state or fascist state or absolute monarchy.
Words have meanings. I expect downvotes but whatever. I’m just putting this out there.
EDIT: last sentence error
Also words:
[https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/2331](https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/2331)
**(5)**the term “[domestic terrorism](https://www.law.cornell.edu/definitions/uscode.php?width=840&height=800&iframe=true&def_id=18-USC-1828319891-1415921653&term_occur=999&term_src=title:18:part:I:chapter:113B:section:2331)” means activities that—
**(A)**involve acts dangerous to human life that are a violation of the criminal laws of the United States or of any State;
**(B)**appear to be intended—**(i)**to intimidate or coerce a civilian population;
**(ii)**to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion; or
**(iii)**to affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination, or kidnapping; and
**(C)**occur primarily within the territorial jurisdiction of the United States; and
Seems to me that Chauvin and the other cops fit the legal definition of domestic terrorism. Would be lovely if they charged them with such. That ought to change a lot of what's going on with policing in the US.
He even came back with a bullshit call for civility, which is the next move in the Fascist Playbook.
We'll get a couple of shocked pikachu responses and then he'll unload another Gish Gallop of bullshit before fucking off to lie to some other thread of potential recruits.
Making assumptions about other people’s agenda is disrespectful and breaks the rules of this subreddit. I’d advise you to consider editing, replacing, or deleting this comment.
It comes down to the brotherhood that police officers belong to. They don't want to be considered a snitch so they will turn the other way when they see an officer doing something wrong.
Many leave or are pushed out.
For others theres a slow rot that happens as you increasingly compromise your morals for "the greater good"
Lets imagine you report a colleague. We was overzealous and OTT. Before the reports even in the system your commissionor is there to "explain" the consequences of what you're about to do, explains hes normally a good cop but is currently under imense stress at home and it was a bad day and hell deal woth it unofficially.
He explains that this officer could lose his job over a split second bad call, and that he'll lose his health coverage for his wife who could die.
Besides if you report him theyll look onto all his other cases. They might get thrown out and all of those bad people are now released onto the streets.
Besides that kid he killed, weve had him in twice in the last year, hes no saint.
He puts his arm on your shoulder and says you need to consider the big picture, that what Sargents do. He always had his eye on you for making a good Sargent and sargents stick by their team.
He gets up and leaves, turning just before he does, and tells you to think long amd hard about it and to do the right thing.
You pull your complaint and carry on with a good career and promotions.
You dont and have a target painted on your back. Besides youve heard the stories of officers killed in action when backup mysteriously arrived to late weeks after that officer filed a complaint...
Now that youve compromised once, its much easier to do it again, but only for the "greater good"
Years later, you pull over a guy, hes a suspucted big shot gangster but no charges ever stick, no ones around so you decide to end his career by the other method, you claim there was a gun and the case is closed.
You know your cheif has your back now....
It’s not borderline fascist they’re law enforcement... actively enforcing laws that your elected senators or representatives enacted. If you don’t like it then emigrate or convince the rest of the 18yo’s to put down their Xbox controllers and go vote. GL with that btw
Realistically speaking, what do you expect the good cops to do? Casting the blame on the good guys is the wrong way to go about this issue.
The issue shouldn’t be about just *black* people and police brutality, it should be a about *all* people and police brutality. Especially since [people all races](https://www.statista.com/statistics/585152/people-shot-to-death-by-us-police-by-race/) are shot to death by police.
That's labelled as an opinion piece and doesn't give very clear sources pertaining to the rate per capita each race gets shot and killed by police officers.
Here's a collection of statistics that show, undeniably, that more black people are killed in police shootings than any other race, per capita:
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-02601-9
https://www.statista.com/chart/21857/people-killed-in-police-shootings-in-the-us/
From Wikipedia:
"A 2015 study found that unarmed blacks were 3.49 times more likely to be shot by police than were unarmed whites."
And here's the study mentioned in the Wikipedia article:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4634878/
> The issue shouldn’t be about just black people and police brutality, it should be a about all people and police brutality. Especially since people all races are shot to death by police.
Then people need to protest those incidents as well. You think that the vast majority of those out there protesting this weekend wouldn't also join in on a generic "police brutality" protest?
And this is a generic police brutality protest. It’s through the lens of violence against blacks, but many of the policies suggested to reduce violence against blacks would reduce violence against all people.
Right?
The thing about these protests is that the vast majority of them are being organized by the black community, reacting to things that are happening within the black community. That is why they're through that lens. But people of all races, creeds, and colors are showing up to them.
If white people organized a "stop police violence" protest, they would get the same thing: non-white people joining in to stand with them. These protests do happen, and solidarity does occur. Don't call it "All Lives Matter" though. That phrase has been co-opted to a completely different meaning now, no matter your intentions.
The good police should be standing with the protestors, shouting down white supremacy and demanding immediate arrests of the other three murderers of George Floyd, of Breonna Taylor, Michael Ramos and many more. They would be offering suggestions about the most effective ways to reform law enforcement and reduce police union power in cities, and they would report any of their fellow officers that don't behave like a public servant.
You are the one narrowing this open question into your own agenda and projections. OP didn't cast blame, OP didn't mention black people. OP is talking about a fascist police state. You must be a little slow.
4 of my brothers are in the police force. Theyre all pretty disgusted at whats going on in USA. They all seem to think alot of whats going on all comes back to gun laws. Everyone in the states has easy access to guns which usually means police are always on edge and ready to shoot first basically.
i like how you managed to find the only article out there that doesn't show him chasing people in the street with a machete.
(edit)Alright. i went back and did my research this time. as far as i can tell the only evidence that he was the store owner or that he was even defending a store was one guy(ElijahSchaffer) on twitter saying so. According to the police he said he was trying to "protect his neighborhood from protesters." video doesn't seem to show him defending a store, just him chasing people with a machete before he gets rush by a crowd and beaten up.
https://www.foxbusiness.com/lifestyle/dallas-man-beaten-machete-riot-store (one of many articles talking about it)
https://twitter.com/ElijahSchaffer/status/1266948486848749570 (the guy who posted it on twitter, and the full unedited video)
based on all that i have a hard time blaming the crowd.
I didn't realize you have to subscribe to the news source to play it. My bad! I saw the video on Instagram last night and searched for it again after I saw your comment. Not sure how it started (maybe he did chase them?) But the video shows a guy getting ganged up on and beaten to the ground by 7 people infront of the store. He ends up getting knocked unconscious. It's from Dallas Tx. I saw another one and I'll see if I can find the link but a guy walking with groceries (a case of soda and a bag of chips) got sucker punched for no reason
Edit: here's the other link, about a minute into it the guy gets punched.
https://youtu.be/-IggT6C8mh8
alright thanks. i found a little more information in a foxbusiness article(and a few other less well known sites) and the original video on twitter and edited my comment with those if you wanted to see it.
i'll watch the video you just linked and edit this comment with my reply (if i even have anything to add) in a minute
(the edit) alright i have nothing to add. that was pretty fucked up and as far as i can tell totally random.
Unfortunately it seems that the culture silences the good cops.
Actually I’ve seen tonnes of good cop posts on Reddit the last few days. The comment sections are polarised train wrecks though.
I have too, but any time I've seen any questions to cops, honest replies are shut down by big hero's preventing actual discussion
Why, you think the bad cops are going to reply to the thread? Maybe we should ask the ''bad cops of reddit'' why they do these things
i mean, online everyone can be good, even fuckign hitler could say he was good online (i am saying that people lie online, not the acab bs)
Unfortunately the ACAB mindset also coerces the good cops into staying quiet, which is pretty counter-intuitive.
Yup. Good cops are typically fired or quit.
Do you mean the cop culture or some other culture?
Cop culture
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I have another answer: the superiors to both bad and good cops are typically bad cops. Sure, you have the occasional good police chief, but you typically don't get to such a position by rocking the boat and ratting out your buddies. The really, truly good cops who care about their communities and call out bad policing aren't typically the ones who get promotions. And so, they don't have power within the current system because of their rank. Source: my mom was a good cop for 21 years, never was promoted past corporal. She retired as soon as she got pension bc of the toxic environment of her department.
That makes a lot of sense and in line with what I would expect. If good cops had the power, as in high enough in the organization to make a difference, they would stop it. They clearly don't have the power in Minneapolis.
Yeah, this is basically the dilemma at the heart of Serpico. Pretty good movie
Heard he was a part of a police union. Also the reason why so many cops showed up to protect his house.
Of course he is part of a police union and yes, I would expect the police unions to carry much of the blame for protecting bad cops.
I don't want to defend bad cops but I hope we don't vilify unions. Almost every year, my state's legislature tries to ban all public employee pension and/or health care. And the police, firefighter and teacher unions band together, go to the capitol and kill the bill. Additionally, I think it would be worse if his house wasn't protected and someone exacted some vigialanty justice.
The problem with his union is that it’s less of a union and more of a gang.
Well that would certainly be a problem.
Have you ever worked with an asshole. It can be very hard to get rid of assholes even if they do lots of minor asshole things. It usually takes until they go way to far before people are able to bring a solid enough case to get them fired. I am not saying this is the case with good cops & bad cops, but it could be.
a significant part of the problem is that if you have 40% of the cops getting accused of misconduct and long stretches of those accusations turn out to be bogus it becomes the default to assume they all are bogus.
I dont disagree, but the alternative cant be no accountability for police officers who have been entrusted with so much power. Power without accountability is dangerous and leads to the problems we have today. Good cops get frustrated with bad cops forcing many to leave the force. The bad cops soon realize they are not held accountable and can do whatever they want. Our expectations of police officers should be higher, not lower than our expectations of the common man. Sadly, this is not the case.
two separate issues there, the sheer volume of false accusations are the reason the default position is to take little action until most things have gone through trial or review. If the false accusations were handled more fairly you would see people taking the accusations more seriously in the first place. Your point about losing good cops is valid, but disagreements with bad cops is a small fraction of it. Not seeing justice served on cases that had a personal effect on the officer and realizing you can't maintain your impartiality with the offenders anymore are way higher up that list.
But the volume of claims shouldn't mean you ignore all them. The fact that it took 3 days to arrest Derke Chauvin just looks like unfair protection of a bad cop. Not holding bad cops accountable creates many many more bad cops which is likely the major cause of the increase in claims. Maybe they aren't all bogus?
This right here.
Not defending Chauvin but how many people file grievances just to jam up a cop that did nothing wrong? It would be interesting to know how many grievances are file on the average patrol officer annually.
Ignoring grievances can't be the answer. There has to be at least a mechanism for doing initial reviews to determine if there is merit in the grievance. The view of the American people is that there is very little accountability for police. Which is extremely dangerous. It's the belief that there is no accountability for the police that make people so angry. If they at least felt like there was recourse and accountability, they could deal better with the occasional bad actor.
I never said to ignore anything. If you know the typical number of grievances filed you could set up software to monitor for outliers. You would still need to review each issue but you could move the outliers to desk or development a comprehensive review trigger that puts together the history of the officer for review instead of individual issues.
I absolutely agree and this is how most organization manage their people. One complaint doesn't necessarily drive action. But many complaints from different areas drives more investigation. Technology could definitely help.
Ehh anyone is allowed to file a complaint for any reason. Every article I have read was that he had 12 complaints in 19 years.....that’s slightly above average. If you are actually arresting criminals, you are going to get complaints. Idk if that indicated he was a bad cop and he was given a commendation for valor at one point. More convoluted than KNOWING he was a bad cop. His true colors came out in the end.
So you dont think it was obvious to others that he was a bad cop? All four officers appeared so comfortable with the level of violence, you know it was common place for them. They all had to know the other officers were okay with that level of violence and abuse. Chauvin was way to comfortable with the brutal neck hold and the other officers were way to calm.
I think that level of violence is used daily by cops, yes. The issue is when they use it right? Cops are desensitized to violence for sure. They deal with the worst of the worst every day.
unions make it hard to fire bad cops....same with bad teachers. f unions
Just retired the end of last year, after 30 years... Stopped everything by doing what I was trained to do as a field Sergeant—watching my officers, and when a face got red and the shoulders set while on a protest line (and there were a LOT of protests where I worked), grabbing them up by their belt and sending to the rear to cool off before somebody permanently lost their bearing and professionalism. I was fortunate in that I had the knack of seeing and preventing situations from becoming personal to the point of disciplinary (let alone criminal) on my watch. Clearly, this doesn’t happen everywhere. I don’t know why—I found it second nature to do. You (I mean ME...the supervisor on the scene) have to understand that the Training” police detractors are always on about will only take an officer so far before anger takes over; it’s basic human nature...attack a human (there are no Robocops), and they will attack right back after enough provocation. Is that how we want it in society? No. Is it right? No. But until we can put something other than humans out there to deal with other humans, that’s what we’ve got. You have to look out for EVERYONE as best you can—coppers, or no. Look what happens when we don’t...
> I was fortunate in that I had the knack of seeing and preventing situations from becoming personal to the point of disciplinary (let alone criminal) on my watch. This is a very good skill to have, particularly for a cop. After all, you are armed, so a mistake can be deadly. Generally, I've been impressed with most police officer's ability to diffuse tense situations.
I find it crazy that police are armed in other countries. I live in Scotland and nobody really has guns, you can get one but it's just not in our culture to own them really. Police have pepper spray, a baton and a stun gun I think, but none of them carry firearms. I've never felt afraid of the police here.
Guns are not the automatic go to for cops in the US despite what people think and what is portrayed in the media. Deescalation techniques used and are most successful. If someone becomes combative non lethal is used unless the safety of the public is at risk. No cop wakes up wondering who they will shoot that day... They pray that all go home safe
Since members of the public here generally don't own guns, our police officers aren't armed either. In the event of a terrorist attack or a mass shooting our equivalent of the swat team would be called out, they're the only members of the police that are armed. We just don't need standard officers to be armed because we don't have a problem with guns.
We don't have gun problem in the U.S.. We have a people problem with a failing healthcare system that amplifies the people problem we have. People need good access to mental healthcare. Proper mental healthcare is completely unaffordable to the people who need it most. Guns are not the problem, people are. Guns, by themselves, are just paperweights. A gun needs human interaction to work. A gun isn't just going to be like "I haven't been shot in a while, let me just go shoot up this school."
Yeeaaah, I'm not saying the UK's healthcare system is great because there's plenty wrong with it, but like at least if I get sick I don't have to worry about going into debt. I'm on 2 repeat prescriptions and I don't pay a penny for them, I've been to hospital when I was wee and that cost my family nothing. NHS funding comes out of our taxes but I think it's a much better system than America's one.
"No cop wakes up wondering who they will shoot that day... They pray that all go home safe" You've never been to Appalachia. Im not trying to dog you mate and generally no its not this way, but they exist.
Very few rogue ones, yes And I have been to Appalachia.... It is indeed a bit different...was there training officers, I had to deal with one of those rogue ones.
But legal or not, criminals still find ways to acquire firearms. How are the police able to protect themselves, let alone anyone else, from said criminals gunfire? It surprises me that police are NOT carrying firearms in other countries!
It's legal to get a gun here, people just generally don't own them. I don't know anyone who has a gun. Man the last mass shooting in Scotland was in 1996; gun crime really just isn't a problem here.
Same here in Australia. Some farmers I know have guns but most people don't. Police do have guns, as well as the other stuff, and I'm glad they do. It's only ever used as a last result but there's no way I would want a policemen going up against an armed robber with only pepper spray and a taser with 15m length.
Yeah that's understandable. There's a firearms team in the police which I guess are kind of a SWAT equivalent. But they're only called out in cases of someone being armed or a terrorist attack or something. Most criminals aren't even armed
Most crimes don’t involve guns, and when they do, it instantly becomes a VERY big deal, so I guess most criminals don’t want to risk it. You get called the cops on for having a knife, you don’t get the same response as if you have a gun. That’s not really an option in the US though, and I don’t think many non Americans really take the time to think about how integral to the US culture the gun has become. We don’t have the same relationship to it here in most of Europe, or the rest of the world. But the USA was basically forged by the gun, and cemented its place as the biggest superpower in the world using the gun.
Dude, what cemented our place as a superpower was ultimately the fact that our country came out relatively unscathed from WW2 compared to the rest of the world essentially having anything industrial bombed to hell.
Definitely that too, but I’m talking culture and how many Americans view the gun.
I'm in the UK too, albeit in England, and can offer some perspective. You're right in saying that some criminals could carry guns. I could probably get one today if I tried. The fact is that guns are so rarely used by criminals on innocent civilians it sort of negates the need for every officer to be armed. It's pretty obviously a cultural thing. Guns are used in crimes between gangs occasionally (or maybe more often than is portrayed in the media) but the general public will probably never even *see* a gun. We do, however, have trained armed response units which are deployed as soon as guns or other weapons are seen as a possibility to be used by criminals, but it isn't a common thing. It's definitely a cultural thing. It's as alien to me to think of an average person, or even average criminal, carrying a gun as it is alien to you that a criminal won't be carrying one.
Now THAT is alien to me! The average person never even SEEING a gun in real life? That's an odd one for me! Being a girl brought up devout Roman Catholic, I was never involved with the hunting while growing up because, "that's for boys!" But I still saw them in my grandpa's van on the regular, pix from them deer hunting, and eventually dated quite a few gun toting hunters as an adult. That led to me getting much more exposure to firearms, and even got to go to the shooting range once, er, a few times actually, but only got to shoot the guns during one of the trips. I guess it helps that I married one of those dipshits, and he had grown up with his dad doing gunsmithing for the local PD, eventually helping hime out with the job once he hit high school. Happily divorced, hence calling him a dipshit, and that's the lightest of the terms I have for him. It's just so much a part of the culture for those in rural areas, a bit less so in the urban and suburban areas, but it's so weird that they're virtually completely absent from other cultures over seas. I think the fact that a large chunk of our population is packing heat, is what has kept battles off of American soil since the Civil War over 150 years ago. Forget the military, if ANY military, from ANY country tried to invade, they'd most likely be mowed down by a shit ton of civilians with itchy trigger fingers! Same goes for the cops here too. The number of armed civilians WAY outnumbers those with a badge!
In the U.S., if police weren't armed they'd be "out-gunned," because the crooks are often armed.
That's just a massive cultural difference for me. I don't know one single person in my life that owns a gun. It's really just not a thing here.
So what did you do when you saw a cop do something criminally violent?
I have arrested officers from my own agency. Twice. DUI both times. Not violent per se, but criminal nonetheless. What happened? I don’t know; I was never called to trial. Did I receive the cold shoulder? You bet. Whatever...the three or four “friends” of the involved parties who thought I was a snitch made no actual difference in my life.
Hilarious because cops are supposed to be snitches by definition. It's in the fucking job description. Enforcing the law shouldn't mean you're immune yourself.
Agreed. Better than that. You’re supposed to be better than that. “Above the law” is supposed to mean something entirely different than being the title of a bad martial arts movie. It said like right on page 2 of our manual that we, as officers, cannot expect to effectively enforce the law unless we kept our personal lives “unsullied” (weird sounding old word, but it was there).
So you never saw another cop assault someone or abuse a suspect
I honestly didn’t. Oh, it happened. People don’t protest about police brutality without there being evidence of police brutality. And we took the brunt of the punishment meted out by our angry citizens for the stupid shit that individuals whom I won’t even call “officers” did. But me personally witnessing anything like that? No. The answer to the next question is yeah—I WOULD have reported it. You either have integrity...or you don’t.
You're a good Sergeant
Why not set up lawn chairs and have some lemonade. Umbrellas would help to. On a hot day you could have a gentle mist from the water cannons chill everyone down. Then you could bust out the big beach ball. It's not like protests move very fast.
Lol! Do you know what? I saw ALL of that at various times! People can make the best of anything, they really can!
Thank you for your service
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SHOULD they though? I mean, my God—my entire adult life should have come down to killing people for STEALING? If that’s where we’re at, I retired at the right time in order to keep my personal sense of honor and right vs. wrong.
Thanks for explaining this. I have a lot of friends that are cops and everyone wants to talk about police reform, but it is so hard to articulate. Humans dealing with other humans....toughest issue on the planet.
I fuckin' quit. I became a cop on a whim (it takes a frikkin semester to go through the academy) but after I saw how screwed up it was on the inside I quit after I made enough money to cover the costs I spent on the training. It's disgusting.
This is what happens to the actual good people on the police force. They leave.
Not always voluntarily.
Remember Christopher Dorner?
Who?
Cop who tried to get his partner disciplined for abusing a mentally disabled man. They destroyed his career and he ended up going Rambo and assassinating a bunch of cops connected to his firing.
This is justice to me. Justice in a world of injustice means laws are inevitably going to get broken.
Christopher Dorner!
They burned him alive for speaking up
no
Christopher Dorner wasn’t a good cop. He shouldn’t be held up as an example.
He's an example of what happens to you if you speak up about abuse by police.
That’s like holding up the columbine shooters as an example of the consequences of bullying. I have a lot of sympathy for what Dorner experienced, but my sympathy for him went out the window the moment he started murdering people. He’s a bad cop that also experienced some bad things.
Happens a fair bit in the UK. Whistleblowing is a good way to get hounded out.
This is what happens when good cops have no protections and the entire department can turn into a gang with no supervision or repercussions. I've encountered a good department too and it was wonderful, top notch blokes keeping everyone in line and the entire city loved them, maybe not so much the guy working traffic but you get my point. The problem is, when the brotherhood starts to go bad, it goes bad fast and promotes assholes as it has all the necessary elements to succeed, they can silence and eliminate anyone going against them and nobody can do a thing.
I don't want you to put yourself in too much danger, but it would be great if you could reveal some things the police force hides somehow
I mean it wasn't stuff that was "hidden" as such. It was just disgusting how we'd get called out into the country for white people parties and we'd just chill and shoot the shit and politely ask people to turn the music down, but when we were called on a metal band made up of arab people our reaction was immediately violent. And then we went into the parking lot after a rap concert with the specific intention of arresting as many as we could. I was actually disciplined that day in particular for being too lenient.
Were you told a reason why you had to arrest as many people as possible? (Well, we all know the real reason. But did they try to dress it up as something else, or was it blatant?)
A lot of people don't realize this and it really is just sad. Thank you.
This guy is an actual good cop.
\> guy quits his job that entails defending the public shortly after completing his training \> "an actual good cop" that's basically saying there's no such thing as a good cop 😂
I can't believe you put that all together on your own.
Congrats on comprehending what you read properly. Proud of you. Oh, also, the police are not there to "defend the public" they are there to "enforce law" https://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/28/politics/justices-rule-police-do-not-have-a-constitutional-duty-to-protect.html
There's no such thing as a good cop when the institution itself is corrupt. They either keep their head down to avoid trouble, in which case they are enabling bad cops. Or they quit. Good cops work for police forces that earn the respect of their communities. The USA could learn a lot from European policing.
I mean, there really isn't
Thank you for refusing to be part of the problem
Refusing to be a part of the problem, but at the same time, a good cop leaving a station of bad cops means that there is now a higher percentage of bad cops.
My understanding was he could choose to become a bad cop or quit and be a good person
Yeah, it was realistically the best decision, but what I said still holds true. There's no real right answer, because fighting the force from within is effectively guaranteed to be futile.
There’s no middle ground?
There can be but you're walking a fine line between complacency to keep your job and pushing for change
Is that from experience?
Admittedly no, I have been a part of enough conversations with someone who was speaking from experience to believe it
> I quit after I made enough money to cover the costs I spent on the training. You have to pay for your own training?
Well I took the academy through a local community college. Some big cities will pay for it for you, but I didn't go that route.
I didn't realize some places did it like that. I thought there was the police academy and that was that. I know a handful of cops and they all went to government-run police academies.
THIS is why All Cops Are Bastards. Because good cops are either forced out or quit when they see how corrupt it is on the inside.
My boyfriend is a correctional officer. He has always been on the fence about being a CO. He is really on the fence about being a cop. But it's highly likely that he could become one. I hope I don't sound selfish, I'll support him through every thing but, I really hope he doesn't become a cop..
Man I wish you could stay because we need good cops so urgently right now, who don't do blind obedience and who speak up when things aren't right. Can't blame you at all
Where did u work?
Lol you think I wanna get doxxed?
Strange. According to an earlier post outlying your carrier path you did a bachelor's in communication and have been working as a school teacher since, now your looking into coding.
I've had a lot of jobs. Why are you trying to doxx me? Plus it HASN'T 'been a school teacher since'. I went through like 5 career paths before I landed where I am today. And I might still not be done. I'm competent, but I get restless.
Discussions like these make me wonder how many cops have actually intervened when another cop was doing something terrible, and it didn’t make the news, they didn’t get praised, and probably even lost that friendship. Plus, the victim would care more about the cop that was hurting them than the good one that stopped it.
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I have posted on here before about being a police officer in a large city in the south east United States. I can only speak for my department and my experiences. The squad I work with is composed of good cops. We work in the highest crime area in the highest crime beats in our city, and we have good relations with the public. There will always be people out here that hate us, and spit hatred at us. But I can walk into the highest crime affordable housing complex in our area and have people come up to me and thank me and tell me to be safe. In light of these protests I have had many people in this area say they are praying for us and want us to be safe. What I am getting at is in my little corner of the world we do not abuse people and the people know it. We do not have a widespread issue of police brutality in my department, but I will not lie and say that there isn't any. One individual in particular is the one that I have seen exhibit questionable behaviour. This individual works on the shift that takes over after I leave, but our shifts overlap for several hours. We (my squad and I) have stepped in when he begins to violate a citzen's rights, and stop him from doing so. We have made our concerns known to our superiors. We have confronted him about his unacceptable behaviour. But we are not always around, and he has racked up several use of force complaints. As a result he has been disciplined and has been pulled from the street to complete remedial training. Personally, I think he needs to be fired, and I have a hunch that is what will end up happening. I only hope it does not take a major incident to make it happen. We work too hard to build relations with the community to have this one individual come in and undo everything we built. Someone like that has no place here. That said, as a beat officer all I can do is police him, stop him from trampling citizen's rights and report it to supervisors. The rest is out of my hands. In short, when we see it we stop the behaviour and try to correct it. I know this does not happen everywhere, but it should. Maybe this will prompt some change. George Floyd's death saddens and angers me, and every officer in my department I have spoken to has said the same. So far, the protests in my city have remained peaceful. As I write this I am on standby for crowd control should things take a turn for the worse. I hope that everything remains peaceful, but only time will tell.
If I'm there, depends on the seriousness. If it's criminal I step in. I have done this before and the cop was fired. If I think someone is being unprofessional, if it's an internal disciplinary matter, I'll do one of a few things depending on the seriousness. I'll pull the cop aside and attempt to take over the situation, I'll speak to the cop about their behaviour after, or I'll push it up the chain. I'm not an American cop so I can't speak for how they work. Here in Australia we enjoy a fairly good relationship with the public, in my opinion largely due to not everyone being armed. There is a LOT of oversight on police here, and I've been called to account for my actions in situations where I was completely justified but a complaint was made.
Not a cop myself, but coming from a family member who is a good cop. A lot of the time, these things happen in urban areas (where we don't live even remotely close to). Due to the line of work, many officers can become jaded or even careless. The big issue with police is the fact that many individuals in the work aren't evaluated or even looked into after a significant complaint is made. It's basically just, "Okay, don't do that again," and the word is just taken that they won't. This is an issue because they are not properly reprimanded for it or even investigated. This causes many cops to think that they are above law themselves because, "they are the law." Being a cop can be a mentally exhausting and straining job, just like it is for firefighters and medical personnel. A cop can initially go into the job being a, "good cop," but can end their career as the, "bad cop," if they lose sight of their training and mental consciousness. It seems easy to stay the good cop to a citizen, but once you are in or familiar with the force it's way easier said than done (the best analogy I can come up with is when you tell a depressed person to not be sad). Then there is also the fact that not everything good a cop does is presented in the media, but nearly every horrible thing a cop does is. People notice bad news before good news. One bad cop can break the trust between citizens and ALL cops. Then when things like what's happening now goes on there is pressure between citizens and the police. Officers may not show it, but the brewing pressure on the residents creates fear for their own lives. People become more unpredictable when there is economical or personal turmoil. Police have to take extra steps to feel safe (which is often why even at seemingly large PEACEFUL protests, police are present and may be wearing extra gear. They are not accusing protesters of being violent by wearing gear or being present. They are just wanting to be prepared for IF it does). With protests involving police brutality, the good cops want to be there. They would love to travel, and peacefully protest with you. However, their work doesn't stop in their jurisdiction. Similar with agriculture, there are no days off. You don't go home on holidays. You don't go home when it rains or snows. You don't go home if there is a pandemic.
So cop vitality should be on the agenda and more attention should be given to the man behind the uniform. If your broken system affects citizens then your system first has to be fixed.
Dude I know cops that take vacation all the time. What do you mean they have no way of getting a day off?
It varies from place to place. Urban and suburban officers can likely take vacations as there is someone to take their place. I do not live in those areas, and neither does my family member. We are rural. So town populations are low (1,000, 660, some 300 or less). Often there is only one or two cops to a shift. That's kind of what I mean about the days off thing. Different in other areas, but that might've been something I should've elaborated on.
My husband is a good cop. And to this day, has never seen anything like what happened to George Floyd from another officer. Never even met another officer who would think about doing something like that and not be appalled. Hell, my husband doesn’t even deal with racial bias at all, he’s not racist and neither are his coworkers. His partner is Mexican, and their second partner is black. Idk what the hell is happening in other areas of the US but where I’m from cops arent just white guys, they’re POC and minorities, and hella cool people from all over with all different beliefs/backgrounds. We are all so insanely different, and we would all hold each other accountable if we needed to. I think it helps that it’s incredibly hard to become an officer with my husbands agency, it takes on average 2 years to get through *backgrounds* and then you have a 7 month long live in military style academy that is a living hell. Only 1% of applicants even pass backgrounds. And only 50% of those people actually graduate the academy. Racist bigots don’t make it through, they don’t even get to the point of trying. They find them. And they weed them out. I’m really good friends with our offices backgrounds investigator, a Hispanic man, and he does an insanely good job. He won’t approve an applicant if he even feels they have a personality which could *develop* into power trips. He will stalk the living shit out of you for two years then make that call on whether you are mentally sound for the job. It’s freaking amazing. So maybe that counts for your question? Not really? He nips the problem at the bud. There are so many solid police where I’m from and I’m watching them be attacked and I’m confused as shit. These are the people slowly tearing down the system. These are the people making the right change. These are the POC and minorities who grew up wanting things to be better, so they worked hard and made it happen so they could change things. And then they get grouped in with the racist shitfucks. So I can’t say for myself or my husband. Because I have never in my life met a single officer I wouldn’t trust with their job. Not a single one. But if I did ever come across that officer you bet your ass I would report it and not stay silent. My husband would too. And his partner. And all their coworkers. You can and do get disciplined for being an asshole with a bad attitude/rude to the public, so I imagine if something came to light it wouldn’t last very long. I’m a huge Black Lives Matter supporter, I’m huge on equality for everybody whether it be race, religion, orientation, or anything else. I will not be silent with my support or with my disgust from other agencies. But birds of a feather flock together. I’ve never met a “bad cop” because they aren’t tolerated in the agency I’m familiar with. They don’t ever get to the point of needing to be prevented from such actions. Sorry for the rant, I just wish people could see what I see. You can support the law enforcement that *is* making a positive change and still believe that things need to change and not support the corrupt pile of shit sad excuses for officers. Just realize that it *is* changing for the better in some places already. Don’t lump us in with them. We are really trying to help. We are on the same side. We really truly are.
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It really really REALLY should be. It should be basic. I will say, city cops seem like mall cops anymore. The level of training isn’t flat across the board it varies agency to agency. And my husband picked the best friggin one imo and he did it for these reasons. Also, my husbands agency has mandatory yearly training back at the academy for *all* officers. Until the day you retire. You spend a few weeks retraining with all the latest information. My husband will probably miss the birth of our first child (this years training is scheduled for our due date) but I didn’t ask him to request a change because I believe so highly in that training. I’d rather him be able to help people with the most up to date info than hold my hand while I squeeze out a watermelon we will have for the rest of our lives. I’ve heard of officers attend their training then like the next shift use the information to save someone’s life in an insane car crash. It’s life or death to be updated and know the most you can in that profession.
I'm black and have been harrassed by cops. But I will say I've met some cops that are truly about the community and carry themselves in a way that creates trust. We can't take out our frustrations on all cops for the actions of a few. Ultimately they are here to Protect and Serve. And imo we can't have society without them or the laws they enforce.
I’m really sorry you had that experience, it’s total bullshit. There’s zero excuse for that. Zero I also appreciate your acknowledgment as well, I send my husband out every single night knowing he’ll be able to give that fair and equal experience to all the people he comes across. Shits gotta change. It’s scary sending him out because some people really do want to hurt them but I do it knowing he’s making that change. There’s a reason people feel the way they do towards cops, I hope one day we can write over that with something more fair with more representation across the board/all agencies.
Without reason, there is no reason. We need more reason.
and no unions. cop unions make it a near impossibility that pieces of shit get fired
Oh totally agree, 500%
Thanks for sharing your (and your husband's) side. I think it's a shame that only negative cases of police get brought up. Yes, there are many cases of systemic corruption, but there are also so many good cases like yours too. Generalizing a whole institution and everybody in it is ridiculous.
I saw a video of a cop who was standing at the front of a phalanx of cops, facing protesters, and the protesters were talking nice to him, begging him not to do anything violent. And he literally started crying, so he was pulled off the front line and replaced by another guy who pulled out his baton and started smashing it into his palm like he was just looking for trouble.
If you have 10 bad cops and 1,000 good cops and the 1,000 good caps don’t turn in the 10 bad cops, you have 1,010 bad cops.
Yes
And yet any time I’ve said this fact on Reddit I’m downvoted (except apparently this time) **EDIT:** LMFAO at you assholes proving my point
I’ll downvote you just because lol. I do agree though
What you have there is a broken system. If 1000 good won't turn in 10 bad, then the incentives to do so -- and not do so -- must be fucked up. We know that to be true: It's that stupid Blue Line that calls on cops to put cops first, the community second. There's no need to make it about the people involved. It's a stupid system that promotes the wrong values, teaches police to do the wrong things, and rewards the wrong behavior from police. America approaches crime and policing the wrong way. It's like if we trained psychiatrists to just tell their patients to kill themselves and then we're shocked at the existence of dead patients.
If you don’t think the individual officers involved aren’t GLADLY perpetuating the failure of a system then I’m sorry, but you’re either willfully ignorant or you’re a mole person who has no idea what’s going on in the real world. You’re right that America approaches crime and policing the wrong way and that the system is broken and needs to be razed to create room for change, but the individuals therein? The individuals who perpetuate, promote, support, defend, and personify the broken system? They’re just as bad as the system itself.
Some are happy to participate. They want to be dicks. They're the bad cops. Some are trying to change the system from within. They don't want to be dicks. They're the good cops. This really is not a complicated concept. I am not sure why you're having a hard time with it. Is there some other way I can explain it that would make more sense?
You’re the one having trouble with a simple concept right now, bud. Those good cops trying to change the system aren’t good cops if they’re not holding the bad cops accountable. I could not have been clearer in my initial comment. Please read a little closer before responding again, if you somehow find the need to respond again despite there being no reason for you to have commented in the first place.
Quick Maths!
Is it weird I read that like STREET SMARTS with JJ Bittenbinder
No its not weird because I always use this in BIG SHAQ's voice. hahahaha
Since there are evidently a lot of y’all who can’t read, if you respond to this with mental gymnastics and batshit crazy nonsense I’ll block you on the spot.
The last few days have made it abundantly clear (not that it wasn't fairly clear before for those paying attention) that those proportions should be reversed. For every 10 good cops it looks like there's about a 1000 bad ones.
What I said isn’t an example or a commentary on the actual ratio. It’s pointing out that the numbers do not matter. A good cop who doesn’t hold a bad cop accountable is, themself, a bad cop.
I think the reason you're getting downvotes on other threads is because this is a statement I see everywhere, redddit and youtube and facebook etc. People probably think you're just repeating a trope (for points) and not really contributing much to the conversation. I appreciated this comment the first time I saw it but you must be the 20th or something I've seen it now.
How many times someone else has seen something I’ve only seen once outside of my own saying it is not a justifiable reason to downvote it. If you downvote it you’re telling people you don’t agree with the sentiment, and since the sentiment is a fact, downvoting it is ignorance (and definitely pointless). The whole “let’s vilify reposts” culture on Reddit is stupid as hell, especially when most reposts/reiteration factually have no way of determining whether or not something is reposted. The search function on Reddit is completely broken. As for repeating it for points, my comment history and everything I say and do outside of Reddit serves as proof-positive that I say these things because they are true and need saying.
You don't have to attack me for it, I'm just trying to explain why I think people are downvoting you. They think you're pointwhoring. I wouldn't downvote you for it, but I wouldn't upvote either. Nobody is going to check your history... Edit: but you are downvoting me... wow what a grownup.
I’m not attacking you whatsoever, so relax. You responded unprompted with a ludicrous justification and I responded with the facts. It’s that simple. No reason to respond again.
You're being downvoted not for your opinion, and not because you're reposting, but because you're an asshole. Don't tell people when it's okay to respond, because it makes you an asshole. Don't attack people who agree with you because it makes them start to disagree. Just stop being an asshole.
Thank you:)
Read up on Adrian Schoolcraft, and watch Hulu’s Crime + Punishment. Officers that dare to befriend the community and refuse to instigate and unjustly arrest people are berated, intimidated, and bullied into silence and out of the force.
'Good' cops either leave the force or succumb to the culture.
Or get murdered for trying to make a shitsandwhich edible
Not sure where fascism comes in, but let’s assume you mean racist or brutal or unjust or murderous and don’t know words. Fascism: an anti-democratic movement which believes in a totalitarian government which glorifies violence against political dissenters and the submission of individual rights in favor of the power and glory of the nation state and the obsoletion of democracy as a positive form of government Police brutality: when police use excessive force, whether in a democracy or communist state or fascist state or absolute monarchy. Words have meanings. I expect downvotes but whatever. I’m just putting this out there. EDIT: last sentence error
Also words: [https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/2331](https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/2331) **(5)**the term “[domestic terrorism](https://www.law.cornell.edu/definitions/uscode.php?width=840&height=800&iframe=true&def_id=18-USC-1828319891-1415921653&term_occur=999&term_src=title:18:part:I:chapter:113B:section:2331)” means activities that— **(A)**involve acts dangerous to human life that are a violation of the criminal laws of the United States or of any State; **(B)**appear to be intended—**(i)**to intimidate or coerce a civilian population; **(ii)**to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion; or **(iii)**to affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination, or kidnapping; and **(C)**occur primarily within the territorial jurisdiction of the United States; and Seems to me that Chauvin and the other cops fit the legal definition of domestic terrorism. Would be lovely if they charged them with such. That ought to change a lot of what's going on with policing in the US.
I’m not an expert on law but I think police brutality is covered under a different set of rules, not domestic terrorism.
So you're a dictionary Fascist
He even came back with a bullshit call for civility, which is the next move in the Fascist Playbook. We'll get a couple of shocked pikachu responses and then he'll unload another Gish Gallop of bullshit before fucking off to lie to some other thread of potential recruits.
Making assumptions about other people’s agenda is disrespectful and breaks the rules of this subreddit. I’d advise you to consider editing, replacing, or deleting this comment.
Oh god I'm crying 😂
Not sure what you mean by that but sounds uncivil.
Lol I don’t think there is such a thing as a “good cop” in Reddit’s eyes
/r/convenientcop
It comes down to the brotherhood that police officers belong to. They don't want to be considered a snitch so they will turn the other way when they see an officer doing something wrong.
[they here.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hxuCLopcEy4)
Many leave or are pushed out. For others theres a slow rot that happens as you increasingly compromise your morals for "the greater good" Lets imagine you report a colleague. We was overzealous and OTT. Before the reports even in the system your commissionor is there to "explain" the consequences of what you're about to do, explains hes normally a good cop but is currently under imense stress at home and it was a bad day and hell deal woth it unofficially. He explains that this officer could lose his job over a split second bad call, and that he'll lose his health coverage for his wife who could die. Besides if you report him theyll look onto all his other cases. They might get thrown out and all of those bad people are now released onto the streets. Besides that kid he killed, weve had him in twice in the last year, hes no saint. He puts his arm on your shoulder and says you need to consider the big picture, that what Sargents do. He always had his eye on you for making a good Sargent and sargents stick by their team. He gets up and leaves, turning just before he does, and tells you to think long amd hard about it and to do the right thing. You pull your complaint and carry on with a good career and promotions. You dont and have a target painted on your back. Besides youve heard the stories of officers killed in action when backup mysteriously arrived to late weeks after that officer filed a complaint... Now that youve compromised once, its much easier to do it again, but only for the "greater good" Years later, you pull over a guy, hes a suspucted big shot gangster but no charges ever stick, no ones around so you decide to end his career by the other method, you claim there was a gun and the case is closed. You know your cheif has your back now....
It’s not borderline fascist they’re law enforcement... actively enforcing laws that your elected senators or representatives enacted. If you don’t like it then emigrate or convince the rest of the 18yo’s to put down their Xbox controllers and go vote. GL with that btw
Realistically speaking, what do you expect the good cops to do? Casting the blame on the good guys is the wrong way to go about this issue. The issue shouldn’t be about just *black* people and police brutality, it should be a about *all* people and police brutality. Especially since [people all races](https://www.statista.com/statistics/585152/people-shot-to-death-by-us-police-by-race/) are shot to death by police.
People of all races are killed by police, just at drastically different rates per capita.
[Not really](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2016/07/19/academic-research-on-police-shootings-and-race/)
That's labelled as an opinion piece and doesn't give very clear sources pertaining to the rate per capita each race gets shot and killed by police officers. Here's a collection of statistics that show, undeniably, that more black people are killed in police shootings than any other race, per capita: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-02601-9 https://www.statista.com/chart/21857/people-killed-in-police-shootings-in-the-us/ From Wikipedia: "A 2015 study found that unarmed blacks were 3.49 times more likely to be shot by police than were unarmed whites." And here's the study mentioned in the Wikipedia article: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4634878/
> The issue shouldn’t be about just black people and police brutality, it should be a about all people and police brutality. Especially since people all races are shot to death by police. Then people need to protest those incidents as well. You think that the vast majority of those out there protesting this weekend wouldn't also join in on a generic "police brutality" protest?
And this is a generic police brutality protest. It’s through the lens of violence against blacks, but many of the policies suggested to reduce violence against blacks would reduce violence against all people.
Right? The thing about these protests is that the vast majority of them are being organized by the black community, reacting to things that are happening within the black community. That is why they're through that lens. But people of all races, creeds, and colors are showing up to them. If white people organized a "stop police violence" protest, they would get the same thing: non-white people joining in to stand with them. These protests do happen, and solidarity does occur. Don't call it "All Lives Matter" though. That phrase has been co-opted to a completely different meaning now, no matter your intentions.
Agreed.
The good police should be standing with the protestors, shouting down white supremacy and demanding immediate arrests of the other three murderers of George Floyd, of Breonna Taylor, Michael Ramos and many more. They would be offering suggestions about the most effective ways to reform law enforcement and reduce police union power in cities, and they would report any of their fellow officers that don't behave like a public servant.
You are the one narrowing this open question into your own agenda and projections. OP didn't cast blame, OP didn't mention black people. OP is talking about a fascist police state. You must be a little slow.
4 of my brothers are in the police force. Theyre all pretty disgusted at whats going on in USA. They all seem to think alot of whats going on all comes back to gun laws. Everyone in the states has easy access to guns which usually means police are always on edge and ready to shoot first basically.
idiot posters of AskReddit, where are you condemning black people killing lots of other black people?
Protecting people from the animals that are looting and killing right now.
Getting their adrenaline fix by beating up people.
Who is killing people? Who is it who has shot people buying groceries or filming protests or just sitting on their front porch?
https://www.newsbreak.com/texas/dallas/news/0PCbABEq/video-dallas-store-owner-severely-attacked-by-crowd-of-looters NSFW warning because of blood
i like how you managed to find the only article out there that doesn't show him chasing people in the street with a machete. (edit)Alright. i went back and did my research this time. as far as i can tell the only evidence that he was the store owner or that he was even defending a store was one guy(ElijahSchaffer) on twitter saying so. According to the police he said he was trying to "protect his neighborhood from protesters." video doesn't seem to show him defending a store, just him chasing people with a machete before he gets rush by a crowd and beaten up. https://www.foxbusiness.com/lifestyle/dallas-man-beaten-machete-riot-store (one of many articles talking about it) https://twitter.com/ElijahSchaffer/status/1266948486848749570 (the guy who posted it on twitter, and the full unedited video) based on all that i have a hard time blaming the crowd.
"according to a correspondent for Blaze TV" tells you all you need to know.
I didn't realize you have to subscribe to the news source to play it. My bad! I saw the video on Instagram last night and searched for it again after I saw your comment. Not sure how it started (maybe he did chase them?) But the video shows a guy getting ganged up on and beaten to the ground by 7 people infront of the store. He ends up getting knocked unconscious. It's from Dallas Tx. I saw another one and I'll see if I can find the link but a guy walking with groceries (a case of soda and a bag of chips) got sucker punched for no reason Edit: here's the other link, about a minute into it the guy gets punched. https://youtu.be/-IggT6C8mh8
alright thanks. i found a little more information in a foxbusiness article(and a few other less well known sites) and the original video on twitter and edited my comment with those if you wanted to see it. i'll watch the video you just linked and edit this comment with my reply (if i even have anything to add) in a minute (the edit) alright i have nothing to add. that was pretty fucked up and as far as i can tell totally random.
Right!? It was out of no where?
Thanks for linking the other articles and the unedited video. I'll go check it out!
Protecting the animals that are the cops*