Not All Cops Are Trigger-Happy Rednecks

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Babale

New member
Every time some crazed bastard on the police force uses excessive force to make an arrest, and every time a police officer uses perfectly reasonable force to make an arrest but the arrestee has a better public relations guy, we get a thread where people talk about how much police officers suck. OK, so there are a-holes on the force. There are also a-holes in politics, law, medicine, the education system, and this message board. That doesn't mean that all cops are crazed maniacs who want to tazer little puppies and kittens while laughing madly and firing AKs into the air. And when somebody is waving a gun around a bunch of cops and yelling about killing them all, he deserves to get shot.

Overall, cops do us all a great service by making our lives safer. Of course, the thousands of arrests that go perfectly smoothly and put deadly criminals behind bars are never reported, but when a cop shoots a gundealer because he looked like he pulled out a gun, we're all morrally outraged.

Why can't we all recognize the great service 99.9% of cops do us, and realize that the other cops are the exception, not the norm?

Seriously... I bet if any of the "Cops are evil incarnations of Darth Vader elder evils" were being chaced by a knife-wielding maniac, they'd suddenly love to see a cop go a little trigger-happy.
 
Frankly, given the cop-worship that is the norm in this country it's refreshing to see that at least some people don't think the cops have the right to assault , rob or murder anyone they please.

Babale said:
Seriously... I bet if any of the "Cops are evil incarnations of Darth Vader elder evils" were being chaced by a knife-wielding maniac, they'd suddenly love to see a cop go a little trigger-happy.
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That rather depends on if they are going to shoot me or the maniac or both.
 
There's been an awful lot of stories lately about cops using tasers whenever they damn well please. I don't care that it's (usually) not deadly force. It's not acceptable, and needs to be brought to light whenever it happens.

That being said, I readily admit that many people are too happy to jump on the "all cops are bullies" bandwagon. I have several friends and family members who are cops that are good people who are just trying to serve and protect.
 
Babale said:
Overall, cops do us all a great service by making our lives safer. Of course, the thousands of arrests that go perfectly smoothly and put deadly criminals behind bars are never reported, but when a cop shoots a gundealer because he looked like he pulled out a gun, we're all morrally outraged.

Why can't we all recognize the great service 99.9% of cops do us, and realize that the other cops are the exception, not the norm?
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Fucking well said! I was at the G8 protests in London last year (not protesting, I used to work round that area) and I saw some mad anarchist slagging off a bunch of cops outside a bank. Anyway, he was saying shit like "All cops are pigs and pigs are only good for slaughter" and other really repugnant shit. The police were just standing there taking it, which I thought was admirable. Anyway, some of my best mates are cops and so I was really offended by this so I said to him "You do realise that if someone punched your lights out 'cos of what you're saying, they're the only people round here who'd give a shit, right?" People don't appreciate cops enough, IMO.
 
Der Trihs said:
Frankly, given the cop-worship that is the norm in this country it's refreshing to see that at least some people don't think the cops have the right to assault , rob or murder anyone they please.
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You have got to be kidding me!
Who on this board ever said cops have the right to "assault , rob or murder anyone they please"?
 
CWN said:
Who on this board ever said cops have the right to "assault , rob or murder anyone they please"?
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I said "in this country", not on this board. This board is pretty centrist; while America is nigh-fascist in its worship of cops and soldiers.
 
It would be helpful if the OP could link to the post of the person who claimed that "All Cops Are Trigger-Happy Rednecks", because I can't find it.
 
Babale said:
There are also a-holes in politics, law, medicine, the education system, and this message board.
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Yeah, except those a-holes aren't sanctioned by the state to carry weapons and use force.

Face it, humans become really crass and base entities when they get a taste of unadulterated power and possess a desire to utilize it. Which is something that cops will have with significantly greater frequency than most everyone else in civil society.

U.S. police forces, in my opinion/experience, seem to be trained to harness that unadulterated power as a valid source of their "civil calming" mandate. It's hating the way the cop is used, not the person in the cop uniform.
 
Yep. I hate actions, mostly. If a person does a particularly hateful action on a regular basis, I could probably start to hate the person too, but it's not a mutually inclusive scenario.
 
Babale said:
but when a cop shoots a gundealer because he looked like he pulled out a gun, we're all morrally outraged.
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Yeah, we should all just lay off, and let the cops shoot anyone they want, whenever they want, without us raising so much as a peep.That'd encourage high levels of professional responsibility on the force, for sure.
 
I am not against the police. I am afraid of the police. -Alfred Hitchcock

If they want my support they can try to be friendly.
 
I don't think all cops are like that, either. But it does seem to be depressingly common since the advent of Tasers. Like I've said before, I think they should have to tase themselves every time they use it. That would cut back on it, yet still leave them for use when necessary.

And Squink: what's with the strawman? The OP is only about not disparaging all cops because of the crappy ones.
 
I played softball for many years with cops. Most of them were very wise about how to elevate the police in the eyes of the people. They were not the cops that cause trouble for the department. As a matter of fact they were Detroit cops trying to do a good job in a racist ,corrupt department. They had a tough job .
 
Not all of them certainly, but more than enough to make it a serious concern. Certain jobs attract the kind of people who should least be doing that job, like pedophiles are vastly more represented in jobs dealing with children than any other industry. That doesn't mean every one who works with children is a pedophile, but there IS a higher chance of a daycare worker or scout leader being a pedophile than say electricians or lawyers. Same with cops, most of them might be good but there are more assholes and racists wearing badges than in the regular population, the difference is that they protect each other.
 
Cops that do their job properly ,wont wind up in videos. The states that are passing laws against filming cops while they are doing their duty, are trying to protect bad cops.
Most cops go through their whole careers without pulling their guns out. It is not as crazy as TV makes it appear. Most are just doing a job and getting paid.
My feeling is the cops should weed out the bad ones. They taint them all.
 
Big ups to the decent cops out there. They do a valuable job and should be commended.

But let's bring that 99.9% number down a bit.
 
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