Want to know why I lump all cops together?
Because the good cops won’t finger the bad ones. They know who is bad, they know who is corrupt.
But the whole “thin blue line” BS keeps them from cleaning out the corruption from within their ranks.
And it not only keeps the bad cops on the force, it also costs the taxpayers huge monetary awards in court or out of court, when the PD realizes that they have a problem. They dip into the bottomless well of taxpayer money to cover the situation over with a payout.
Cops seem to think that they have such a terribly dangerous job. They don’t. It isn’t even in the 10 most deadly job descriptions measured by deaths per 100K population. Sanitation workers die at a higher rate than cops do. You don’t see garbage collectors holding bagpipe parades when they get killed, do you? Nor farmers or ranchers.
Quite frankly, when I look at many state and town budgets, I blow my top at the amount of money being thrown at cops and firefighters. It’s far, far more than they deserve, and it’s beyond what the city/town/county/states can afford. Some states are worse than others in this regard, but big city cops are among the most over-compensated when one looks at their benefits package of all public employees.
If cops don’t like being hated by the public, they can either improve their attitude and performance, or they can get a different job.
That’s a good post, and I mostly agree with you. It is, to a large degree, a “gang mentality” that keeps good cops from fingering bad cops. Cops feel alone - - their world is us and them - - and so they believe the only people they can ever truly trust to have their backs are their fellow cops, and that includes the bad ones. I do suspect, however, that internal affairs gets “anonymous tips” from good cops from time to time. At least, I hope so.
I also suspect that most of the “bad shoots” are the result of poor training and low entry standards.