I know I’m going to offend the Blue Line Worshippers here but would someone explain to me why these thieves with badges deserve any protection when they’re KNOWINGLY committing armed robbery every time they carry out an illegal seizure?
Cops are like black people. That is, there are good ones and bad ones. And if you judge all black people by the actious of some, you are not only being racist but, more important, you are engaging in Identity Politics (IP). In fact, all racism, secism, and the other isms are, at the end of the day, IP.
I believe there are a LOT of bad cops. I remember that when I’m dealing with one. But I also know that there are a lot of good ones. And frankly, I think becoming “bad” is actually one of the risks of taking the job. Power corrupts, and all that...
In the case of the APD I can say that * every single APD cop “ who performed one of these seizures is an armed robber.
Every last one of them, bar none, is an unprosecuted felon.
The only possible good cops on the APD are the ones who never performed one of these illegal seizure/robberies.
And that’s going to be a very, very short list.
There are places where the culture embraces malfeasance in office as one of the benefits of ‘public service’. In Louisiana , for example, men wanted to become police or sheriff’s officers in order to use their badge to make money. This was implicitly encouraged by paying ridiculously low salaries and older cops telling younger ones to ‘get out there and make some money’ in response to complaints about wages. Malfeasance as a way of life may be less common yhan in the past but there are enough documented cases that shows the mentality is still around. The state police operating west of Lake Charles frequently stopped expensive autos on I-12 for no real reason (’Sir your car was wobbling. That could indicate narcotics hidden in special compartments. We are going to take your car for a through examination at the police garage.) There followed some kangaroo court hearing with a magistrate in which ‘sufficient cause’ was found to seize the vehicle. The costs of fighting this process was so high most individuals just signed the agreement to have their car taken and were not charged with any ‘violations’. To their credit 48 Hours did a long segment on this including trolling for a cop stop by driving high end Mercedes with out of state plates along the interstate. Sure enough the cops pulled John Quinones over for the ubiquitous ‘your car was wobbling’ excuse. A 48 hours camera crew was trailing Quinones car and suddenly it wasn’t some hand held camera but a full camera crew present while Quinones questioned to increasingly belligerent state police office about his specific justification for the stop and why he wanted to search a vehicle whose operators had done nothing remotely chargeable. the 48 Hours crusade went further ambushing cops who had bought seized vehicles for a small amount of money and the complaisant magistrates who also seemed to have very fine rides compliments of the seizure program. The publicity and light shown on this scam ended it and some state police resigned to go to work for local parish sheriff’s offices. But the mentality remains ingrained. Public office for private gain and ‘respect my authority’ even if I am an obvious pile of excrement continues to be alive and well here and other places.
Well stated, but I might have said “Cops are like people”.
This sounds reasonable except that all the cops took an oath to uphold the law.
Do you think the good cops know which are the bad cops?
If so, why aren't the good cops standing up to the bad cops?
The good cops know the bad cops give them a PR black eye, yet the bad cops stay on the force.
This article is a good example of this. The good cops know vehicle seizure is illegal, but the seizures continued.