[Titus Quinctius Cincinnatus]

I have a question about bad cop behavior in general. Is it mostly urban law enforcement that perpetrates such atrocities on the public or do rural sheriff deputies act equally poorly?

I've generally noticed two things:

1) Rural departments in general, whether county sheriff or municipality, tend to avoid this sort of thing. Probably because rural areas tend to offer less ability for bad cops to hide in the weeds, so to speak.

2) Sheriff's departments tend to have less of this sort of thing going on. Probably has to do with the fact that in most counties, the sheriff faces elections, and if the deputies did this sort of thing, and it didn't get dealt with, the sheriff would pay for it at the polls. The rumour in my county is that the sheriff has told the deputies not to even give out traffic tickets for routine stuff, so as to not hurt his re-election chances.

[stefanbatory]

as opposed to this county where they are revenue desparate and ticketing profusely...

[GraceG]

City Cops are unacountable and usually get power and tend to abuse it more.

I like the country sheriff departments better.

[jwparkerjr]

And in many smaller, rural setting the officers know practically everybody with whom they have contact. Situations that would be very dicey with a stranger are much less likely to get out of hand when the deputy knows the person they are encountering, and the person knows the deputy.