Posted on 07/05/2009 1:32:21 PM PDT by SampleMan
I would welcome fellow Freeper input on an exchange I had with the police last night.
First a little background. I've got 20 years in the military, started out my life giving police officers a great deal of respect and knee jerking to their defense. Over the course of years, however, I've lost a lot of respect for the police via watching continual police traffic violations, watching unprofessional behavior and seeing shows of petty tyranny over their fellow citizens.
Although I'd still like to be wholeheartedly pro-law and think the way to get respectable enforcement officers is to demand professionalism, I find that my opinions here on FR often gets me labeled a "cop hater". Unfortunately, I'm quickly becoming callous to that particular "insult".
So here is my experience from last night. I took my daughters to see the fireworks downtown. Being crowded I sat them up on a 5' tall brick pillar with a 36' flat square top. Shortly after I had two police officers approach me and rudely demand to know if those were my children. I don't react well to rude. Anyway I quickly claimed them and was told, again rudely, to remove them from the pillar. Now this pillar is not on public property, so I asked them if the property owner (CSX railway) had complained, "No" then I asked them if the property owner had asked them to keep people off the pillar, "No". I then told them that I didn't understand the legality of their request. This is when they both puffed up like peacocks.
I was then informed that "They" were making the complaint. At this point I told them that I would comply (and started lifting my girls down), but that they had no basis to make a complaint and were abusing their authority. They didn't take this well and the short man then started screaming that he had the authority as a public servant, to which I calmly pointed out that no one in the public had voiced a complaint, that in fact I was the public, and I failed to see how he was being my servant.
My children had now been on the ground for a while, but apparently frustrated they then began accusing me of endangering my children's safety. To which I calmly acknowledged their opinion, and then asked if they were familiar with the legal precedence of parental authority in such matters.
This is where they both appeared to want to cuff me, so I pointed out that I had complied with their dubious orders, but did not intend to kow tow to their logic. They moved about 20' away and glared at me until the fireworks were over.
Now let me be clear, if anyone from CSX had asked me, or if the officers had conveyed that CSX wished for people to stay off, I would have complied without complaint. My beef is essentially that they took it upon themselves to create a problem where none existed and approached me like a couple of bullies in the school yard. Perhaps its just my age or a push back to the totalitarian nature of our new Federal Government, but I'm in no mood to play the role of the sheep.
OK fire away folks. I'm sure a few of you think that they should have tazed me and put my kids in protective custody for the night.
With all due respect, I was not asking for trouble, I was asking for respect and fair treatment of the law by the law. I also feel that I need to show my children that free people are not meant to kow tow to bullies.
I'm not sure what lesson my children would have learned from me acting like a serf and then running over to beg better treatment.
After rereading your Vanity post. Whats really going on with you? I bet it has lots to do with more than a minor run in with some cops.
Yep, its a world of cops against us and us against cops. Neither is reality.
You said they were bullies. Well, perhaps, but that doesn’t go far enough.
They abuse under color of authority, because they can.
But as to the bully status, consider that, far from being lifelong bullies, they may have been two guys who spent the entire six years of high school getting their thermoses pissed in, their ears snapped with rubber bands, and their heads stuck in toilets.
Now, finally out of high school, they’ve found that the uniform allows them to get even.
Id have told them to piss off, let them arrest me, and then sued their asses off.
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You do it your way... it won’t work ,, he will be arrested with unspecified charges and released on bond (standard procedure if you p.o. a cop) .. he will not have any witnesses (except the kids) and if anything comes of it the cops will simply lie to cover themselves.. if this happens during your workweek it doesn’t help your chances of remaining employed to call in sick from jail.
P.S. In my area internal affairs probes are conducted by the cops immediate superior ,, as they naturally want everything tidy they NEVER find any wrongdoing.. so don’t delude yourself into believing that there is any oversight for these steroid shooting ass-clowns.
We always look back on The Good Old Days - but they usually werent as good as we remember. I encountered a lot of power trippers way back when.
So because you think some people require nannies, I should readily accept one? I don't think so. My kids are 9 & 11 and are gymnasts. I'm capable of determining if they are safe on a 5 foot platform. I am neither a drunkard nor stupid and I don't feel obligated to be treated as such by government keepers when I go into public.
Im sure they caught your confrontational vibes from the get go, even though you have convinced yourself that you were the soul of reasonableness.
Of course I had confrontational vibes. They were rudely demanding that I comply with illegal and unreasonable demands. Are vibes now illegal?
You dont like cops and it comes through loud and clear and then you whine when they act like they dont like you either. Surprise, surprise.
I don't like bad cops. And according to you these cops must be psychic, as they were total tools before I ever opened my mouth.
You want to make a difference in law enforcement, try being their friends, socialize with them and their families. Pray for them and support them in staying humanized and identified with the best parts of the community instead of relegating them to and treating them like the worst part of humanity.
I know many cops as friends that aren't petty tyrants, and I've provided armed back up to the police twice. That doesn't make me feel a bit better about what I see as a deteriorating level of professionalism and dignity in their ranks.
I fail to see how accepting bad behavior will help to modify it.
That is precisely why I complied and didn't ratchet up my protest. I stayed calm until it appeared that they were losing control and then I pulled back.
I think you just hate asshats.
Cops are nothing more than publicly sanctioned gangs at this point. You did a great job with them. I push back every opportunity that presents itself. I would file an IA complaint and not let go of it.
Nor was it their pillar. It was CSX's pillar. They had opened up their parking lot to the public. Are you in the habit of staying out of businesses that aren't yours?
What exactly do you mean by that? Public agents are restricted to public laws. They are not empowered to make it up as they go like mini potentates.
I have two CHP (fired) and numerous others patrolling Death Valley and one Sheriff to my name. One CHP is still doing time.
No. But, you don’t have any particular right to sit your kids wherever you want them on someone else’s property.
When cops are patrolling private property, they are protecting the public, and the property owner. In this instance, it seems to me Police’s authority in protecting the the liability risks of the property owner exceeds your right to sit your kids on top of whatever you want.
They don’t need specific instructions about that particular pillar from the property owner — as they are tasked with general protection of the public and the interests of absent property owners.
SnakeDoc
By daring people to fight you mean, going to FreeRepublic which is a forum for the discussion of our liberties and posting a thread asking fellow Freepers what they think about a case where I think I was being pushed around by the government?
I'm a very calm family man that only gets riled when people go out of their way to do so. If you have something constructive to say, I welcome it.
It wasn’t your property. In this day and age if the kids fell and got hurt, the police, the town might of gotten sued.
People not being polite tells you something. Since courtesy works well, cost little, then they not being so, informed you that you were not dealing with the cream of the cops.
So, you had to think on a higher level. They might well of been drunk, drugged, the worst of the worst, or dumb or any combination.
Best would of been to have gotten their badge and written a complaint. Who knows they might of been on their way out for previous bad behaviour.
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