“Look...we all know there are mistakes made. What is the point of posting every abberant situation? What exactly does it contribute to the important topics around here. Every other day there is a, “See!!!! Another bad cop story. Gee, we are good to catch these bad apples.” Please. Don’t waste the bandwidth...we get the picture, already. “
First things first, brushing aside violent crimes, committed under color of law, as ‘mistakes made’ is abhorrent.
Second, these cases are publicized, and should publicized, because not only does the difficulty of a cop’s job not excuse criminal behavior, but rather a cop’s position makes criminal behavior by the cop (and particularly violent criminal behavior) far worse. Cops are public servants, who hold vital positions of public trust. When they commit violent crimes under color of law, they not only violate the law, they also violate that trust. That’s why these cases are, and ought to be, publicized every single time.
Look at this article - this guy was charged with “aggravated assault by a public servant” - there’s a reason that is a separate category of crime, not just plain aggravated assault.
Rather telling that he/she/it doesn’t consider government employees abusing and harrassing law-abiding private citizens to be “[an] important [topic]”
Change “police officers” to “redcoats”, and some here on Free Republic would still be loyal Tories, insisting abuses were “not that bad”.