[Michael Maher]

I was a cop for 6 years in the Army.
This is a major reason I am not one now.
Too many cops take the law too far into their own hands & act as punishers & judge people instead of just policing people like they are supposed to.
I said no & didn't want anypart of that, I'm not & they aren't above the law!

[Dog Gone]

Thom Marshall is the resident semi-liberal populist at the Houston Chronicle.

He doesn't always get it right, but this time he did.

[Wm Bach]

Is a major police raid like this the best way to deal with problems such as drag racing and late-night congregating on business parking lots?

If there is drag racing going on, arrest the ringleaders and disperse the crowd under threat of arrest. If they are not engaged in commerce, tell them to move on, and only then, arrest those who loiter, for at that point, it is more obvious as to who is loitering.

Don't cops know how to say "Okay, break it up!" anymore? Where is common sense?

[pulaskibush]

I guess if someone robs the bank, got to arrest everybody. And I guess if terrorist from a religion attack America, you've got to punish that entire religion.

[hopespringseternal]

Houston cops planned for weeks to swoop down on a parking lot and nab a bunch of drag racers but couldn't find any when they got there.

Anyone who can't find drag racers in Houston, especially in the vicinity of Westheimer, has an irreversable case of encephaloproctosis.

If that lardbutted captain had put those fifty cops rotating on Westheimer in unmarked cars, he'd still be processing drag racers.

Lots of fast cars and wannabe fast cars who don't bother going to Baytown to the only track in town.

[Darth Sidious]

We should stop calling them "law enforcement officers" and begin calling them for what they really are...

"State Enforcement Officers".

A police officer is meant to be a citizen being paid to render as a professional service what every responsible citizen is meant to do anyway. Apart from that difference, there is nothing separating the police from the citizenry. Nothing. But give some men a badge, and they assume an authority that God did not intend to be conferred upon them to begin with. They cease serving the people and begin acting as lackeys for the government.

They shouldn't be state-enforcment, they should be peace-upholding. And these cops failed to do that.

[anymouse]

Apparently some including the HPD cops involved here don't know how these outlaw drag races are organized and conducted. They use very sophisticated communications and decoy tactics to ensure that the only time a racer is caught is when they crash.

If LeePeeBrown wasn't so busy driving the city of Houston into the ground, he might put back on his cop hat and get the HPD community outreach to work with local businesses and even car clubs (i.e., illegal drag racers) to come up with effective ways to discourage illegal racing.

But this is just another example of how out of touch with Houston that "out of town" Brown is. I guess he is too busy counting up those slavery reparations IOUs. /sarcasm

Too bad LeePeeBrown wasn't making an illegal left turn in front of these drag racers screaming down the street at 100+. It might have saved the Houston taxpayers countless dollars. ;)

[Fixit]

quis custodiet ipso custodes