So sick of this. People expect cops to protect them and their property, keep criminals off the streets, live under constant stress that often causes health problems even after they retire, be constantly insulted and threatened, work all hours of the day and night and holidays, see and do things that most people couldn’t handle and do all this for pitiful pay, and then pansy jerks have the nerve to criticize the police. None of the people who sit in their safe houses and write this BS could do a cop’s job for one shift.
Why do so many bad people get off easy?
Ruined countless people’s lives by planting crack on them and didn’t serve a minute in jail. No further investigations, nothing
Blue “justice” indeed!
There’s a heart warming report about an Iowa Highway Patrol trooper and a young lady from Michigan making the rounds. It’s a great story...
Why don’t many good cops get mentioned?
The police deal with criminals, rarely are criminals well behaved. Sometimes, very rarely when looked at as a percentage of interactions with the public, a criminal attempts to flee or even harm a police officer or another citizen. When that happens force is used.
The reason why in most instances the reason police who shoot criminals dead do not get prosecuted is that when you are in the act of committing a crime, particularly a violent crime, you are subject to being shot and killed. If you want to avoid being shot and killed, do not engage in criminal acts, especially violent criminal acts.
Even in the case of little Tamir Rice, he was engaged in a FELONY. A violent felony. He was brandishing a weapon and menacing a community. He attempted to reach for his weapon and was shot. The fact that it was a replica has no bearing on the incident as it looked like a real pistol.
Was it quick? You damn right it was.
Does the police officer have every right to protect himself from a perceived lethal threat? Also, you damn right he does.
Had Tamir NOT spent his time getting his jolly’s pointing a gun in innocent passers by faces, he would be failing the eighth grade right this minute.
What happened to Tamir Rice is tragic, but HE put himself in that situation. The police acted on the threat as they perceived it. Second guessing people is always easy.
As for the fools who lead the police on a high speed chase through city streets for more than half an hour. They where no saints, the cops where a bit trigger happy, but the DA was an idiot to try to prove that the policeman was guilty of murder. Particularly since there where several dozen police officers shooting at the car.
A better way to handle it would have been a manslaughter charge or several manslaughter charges against every officer who discharged his weapon.
Even better, if the idiot driver had not pulled over when the cops tried to pull them over, the whole mess could have been avoided. If they would not have attempted to ram officers with their car when they where cornered in a parking lot, they would most likely have survived to over dose later in the year.
In all fairness, police have a difficult job, and one where they are subject to much abuse, as well as false accusations.
So the police are typically charitable to each other, with an “innocent before guilty” attitude. However, if a cop is convicted of a crime, everything changes. All the other cops turn against him, if not actively, then passively. They will no longer support him.
Problems only arise in three situations. The first is when they turn on each other with just an accusation from an outsider. Second is when the rest of the cops do not turn on one of their number convicted of a crime.
And the third is when there is an internal dispute in the department.
Some do. Some don't.
Ping!
I expected better of Townhall. The two big reasons that cops are so often declared essentially innocent are (1) our policy of “innocent until proven guilty,” and (2) the fact that cops know the law while the people they’re dealing with/accusing them don’t.
I personally think cops should not be charged if they were following policy, as, for instance, the Rodney King cops were, which used to be a major consideration when cops were called up for being out of line, but seems not to be standard anymore. It’s why the cops who arrested Rodney King were initially cleared, but didn’t help them at all in the second trial.
Personally, I am not interested in changing the “innocent until proven guilty” standard. I don’t agree with all the laws the cops work under, but that’s not the fault of the cops. I am also at a loss as to how the cops are supposed to do their job if they aren’t allowed to touch anyone or to literally overpower those who will not comply.
I also believe that, the more people characterize *all* cops as violent and untrustworthy, the less likely good cops are to help flush out the bad ones. Demonizing an entire group rarely encourages that group to self-police; they’re too busy either being defensive, or dealing with people who buy into the demonization, be they those who are demoralized by the resulting self-image, or those who figure that, since they’re going to be considered guilty anyhow, they might as well live up to that label.
I do have major issues with modern-day policing, but those issues are with the laws the police are expected to enforce, not with the cops themselves.
Of course. Everyone knows that our Defenders of Justice would *never*, say, shoot a leashed (knowing it was leashed) Golden Retriever (in Ohio) on the grounds that said defender claimed “I feel threatened”.