Free Republic

“What about the heroes that laid down their lives on 9-11-01? 414 were emergency workers in New York City who responded to the World Trade Center.”

What about them? Their deaths have nothing to do with the article I pointed to, or the issues of what is going on in LE. I can praise a person for good actions, while condemning bad ones. And bad actions do not get erased by good ones.

As for the heroes, the ones I admire are the ones who went in after the first building fell. Nor were they the only heroes. There were others, with no official duty, who risked their lives.

“No “good cops” unions, committees, decried this anywhere. Silence per usual.”

The kicker is that when cops got angry about ball players supporting that Ferguson thug, the cops found a voice loud enough to be heard. Clearly, if LE wants to speak out, they can get heard.

“Do you agree that the officers killed tonight did not deserve to die?”

Hell no they didn’t deserve to die.
I’m just tired of the double standard attitude cops have about our lives, vs theirs.

Before I forget, here is a prime example of a blue line game at its finest.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3228539/posts

Do you think for one moment any of those cops didn’t realize they were protecting a brother officer who’d murdered his ex-wife? No cop is going to be stupid enough to buy a suicide by shooting oneself in the back of the head.

He was the bad apple. And so where they for going along with it. I won’t say every cop in the department knew about it. But it is clear the investigating officers knew it, and so did the chief/sheriff.

“You’re basing your opinion about cops killing citizens on reports from the media. The media lies. They leave out important details. Sure a few of the local 750,000 police officers in this country are bad eggs. An overwhelming majority aren’t. “

What you aren’t getting is that when good cops protect their bad eggs, they become bad eggs themselves. Look at that NYC stairwell shooting. When that chief decided it is just ‘an accident’ and the cop should walk away from it, that chief became a bad egg.
In the Harless of Canton OH incident, Harless was the ‘bad egg’. But ALL of those cops stood up for his worthless behind.

I don’t blame LE for the few Harlesses, cowards like the NYC stairwell shooting, criminal cops, or the incompetents that can’t practice proper weapons safety.
I blame LE as a whole for their wholehearted SUPPORT and DEFENSE of those same bad cops. You can’t hold the blue line and still be a good cop. The ‘good’ cops need to decide which is more important. That brother officer blue line game, or being an honest cop. The two attitudes are not compatible.

“Do you imagine there is some back story that would justify such behavior by a sworn police officer?

I can’t say that the back story would justify such behavior, but I have little doubt there is a motivation for it. “

I think his point wasn’t that there is something to ‘justify’ this, so much as explain this. Motivations can be proper, and improper. There is a reason this happened, even if that ‘reason’ is lacking proper reason.

Of course, this could just be a case of the patient had some criminal issue, and the cop was just being a thug about it. That happens plenty.

“I did too. But the site seems to be crawling with those that unquestioningly support big government and police union goons.”

You will never get some of these people to understand there is a big difference between hating what LE has become, and hating LE as an institution. The two are not one and the same. Andy Taylor has long since been replaced by Bufford T Justice, and fat boy can’t understand why everyone hates his guts. He(cops) can’t see his own bad attitude and incompetence.

“Dorner was nothing like Garner or Brown, two black thugs who thought it was a good idea to take on the cops. Glad they’re off the streets.”

Actually, I was referring to the three innocent people shot at during the Dorner hunt. Dorner himself was wanted for killing cops and their families. He was a nut.

But that whole incident brought this thought out. “He’s shooting at the cops, the cops are shooting at us(3 innocent people), who am I rooting for here?”

“So I don’t care about cops.

You should change your name to SharptonFan.”

Why? Because I’m sick and tired of the double standard of cops vs citizens? A cop falls, and I’m supposed to care? But a cop kills a citizen through stupidity and cowardice, and I’m just supposed to return to watching Survivor? NO!

Cops need to start getting the message, before they learn what fear is. Ratchet down the violent military mindset and put the blanking flashbangs away.

I like Levin, but this is one of the few areas he is flat WRONG about.

“The should put the clips of “What do we want? Dead cops!” on TV split-screen next to clips of the murdered cop’s funerals.”

Three way split. Include the pictures of that burned boy, a 7yo girl shot because a cop couldn’t bother practicing weapon safety and had his booger finger on the bang switch, and how about the picture of that guy in the NYC stairwell shooting incident?

Maybe cops need to start paying attention to the issue that they are honking off a lot of people lately. Or they can keep ignoring the anger and keep going as is, and see what that gets them.

You believe what you want. It would not be this controversial if it was as clean as you want to claim, only harming the bad guys. But the concept is clear. Charge the property, without charging the person, then lower the bar to preponderance of evidence. There is only one reason to do that, to stack the deck against the property owner. Add to that, he has the costs of fighting the seizure.

This is far from a fair or Constitutional activity. All I need to understand it this basic truth. If you don’t have enough evidence to charge the person with a crime, you clearly don’t have enough to charge the property as being the product of a crime. At least one state mentioned in the article requires a conviction, but only ONE state. So clearly your above board view of this activity is incorrect.

You clearly operate within LE. I suggest you consider two possibilities. First, that maybe your particular area is being more honest about it. That doesn’t make the rest your equal. For those paying attention, the abuse is clear. Just like the abuse of SWAT is clear.

Two, and I consider this a certainty to at least a limited extent. That you have a rosy view of your own profession and can’t see the abusive activities because you don’t want to see it. You don’t want to see yourself as supporting criminal behavior by cops.
I’ve seen this attitude in a lot of cops I’ve traded with on FR and elsewhere. They have a rosy view of themselves and their activities, and can’t or won’t see the just criticism of that activity. Those Blue colored glasses can hide a lot, if you let them. It is the old concept of ‘can’t see the forest through the trees’. No profession ever looks at themselves critically, which is why outsiders are the ones providing that critical examination. Doctors, truck drives, lawyers, on and on are all subject to external criticism.
And I consider cops no different, except they are largely left to judge and investigate themselves. At most, they answer to that same government that would be responsible for their activities. You aren’t going to get a very critical review out of that.

“By that standard, anything legal is moral. I can assure you that it not the case.”

You got the point though. No one is free to make their own code of ethics, live on them, and never face criticism or even law regarding it.
That is the entire point of LE. For a group to first make it their mission to enforce society’s value, and then decide they are supposed to be free from that same constraint, is hypocritical.

Think about what it would mean if everyone was free to make their own standards of behavior. Think some would redefine the ethics of rape and murder?

Inside your head, you’re free to have whatever values you want. But society is in no way obligated to put up with you acting on it.

Whatever these cops think, I know that taking people’s property when you can’t even charge them with a crime is unethical. And if cops can’t agree with that, then clearly they have no ethical standards. All they have left is your very comment of
“By that standard, anything legal is moral. I can assure you that it not the case.”

“You cannot dictate morality.”

The hell we can’t. That is what law is. They can make any decision about their values that they want. It won’t change mine, or my recognition they are choosing to participate in an immoral activity they KNOW is harming innocent people.

As for “By whose standards of morality?”
I’m not buying that they don’t know this is wrong and against the Constitution. They know it is wrong, and they don’t care.

“Are you suggesting that the investigation was blown? “

I suspect it was inhaled first, then blown.

“Blame the cops all you want, I blame the politicians and the laws they create that allows, even compels cops to do it. They don’t have a lot of choice in following the law.”

Nonsense in the extreme. They are morally fully responsible for any act they perform. They aren’t soldiers at war. If they recognize an act as wrong, they have the moral obligation to refuse that task. They can even quite, if need be.
They can also speak out against it. Cops had no problem getting heard when they got angry at the ball players supporting that Ferguson kid. They found a voice then, so I can only assume they could voice outrage at unethical activity they are ‘forced’ to perform. That is, if it actually bothers them.

Yes, they might be punished or fired. So what? It is time to decide if right and wrong are more important than that almighty government pension. But choose that pension, and don’t be surprised when people hold you responsible for choosing to do the wrong thing.

Sorry but that is not what is happening. Look at the Texas situation last year or before that. LE was literally extorting people to sign away any claim to money seized by threatening them and their children. A court finally slammed that one down hard.

The majority of these cases never result in criminal charges. And, as is pointed out, the government deliberately placed the burden of proof on the defendant. That wasn’t an accident. They also created a situation where the costs of defending oneself can easily exceed the value of the seized property even if successful. And make no mistake, this is not simply happening to people with a 100k in cash. As in this case, it happens to people with no more money than that of a used car purchase. In one case they stole bail money that a family had gathered up for a son.

Yes, most of these will be of criminals. But cops and the system have stopped caring if they harm innocent people with this activity. And as with SWAT, the expanded use of this activity guarantees innocent victims through sheer numbers.

Which is the American way?
1. A cop finds a wad of cash. In his mind, he is ‘certain’ it is from ill gotten gain. I marked certain, because cops are known for being ‘certain’ about a lot of things and are wrong. He then seizes it without being able to even claim a known crime happened. Just assumes one did. Then the suspect has to prove a negative event or loose the property.
2. A cop has to have enough evidence of a crime first, and be forced to make his case that it happened. That in order to make such a charge, he would clearly first need enough to make an arrest and charge the suspect.

One of these two is the American way, the other is the communist way. I think we all know which is which.

I’m with the others. The russian people are clearly lacking stones below. That is why they deal with hardship. Not because they are tough, but because they are unwilling to stand up to their dictators.
Hard John Wayne people are tough, in their own way and with certain limitations that tend to get ignored. But someone just enduring because they ‘have to’ is not tough. That is called a sheep.

They certainly are responsible for using a flashbang in a manner that was unsafe. Flashbangs are not toys, they are weapons. If they had burned a suspect, it would still be wrong.

All these accusations against the family, including this idiotic claim they used their child as a door stop, smell of CYA, made up excuses, and demonizing the victims without evidence.

“I looked up Harless. Isn’t he the poster boy for what’s wrong with our LEA’s.”

Nope. He isn’t the poster child for what is wrong with LE. LE by its nature will attract the wrong people. What is the poster child of what is wrong with LE is how other LE responds to people like Harless. WITH SUPPORT. Team Blue trumps all other concerns.
Time and again, we see these problem officers who are habitual bad cops, and LE as an institution refuses to address it, while they demand public support.

I don’t attack modern LE for their ‘bad apples’. I attack LE because they welcome and protect their bad apples. Because they are arrogant and obnoxious in their behavior. They defend cops that walk the street with attitude problems, the kind who talk down to people. They think it is their due, to be able to vent their frustrations from behind a badge. They protect cops who lie, who commit crimes, on and on. Their idea of professional conduct and accountability stinks.
They attack anyone who questions their actions, as though they are supposed to be above criticism. No other profession, outside of bouncer, would allow such behaviors as LE thinks is their right. And you’ll note that a lot of cops would look at home as a bouncer.

“For a cop to put a gun up to a young
mans head and pull the trigger, there
must have been an EXTREME
provocation.”

Not really. Roid rage, for one. Cops have a lot of loose cannons they choose to protect. Look up officer Harless of Canton. When you teach a group they can get away with murder, you’ll find plenty who use it.