Poll: Are Broad Generalizations of Police BS or Honest?

[ElPatron]

I completely disagree with many laws but I abide by them to retain my rights and accept that the police is just doing their job.

Even if some try to criminalize you even if you did nothing. I wish we had a Fifth Amendment.

To be fair, a slip-up with a teacher might involve a bad word. A slip-up for a cop might involve shooting someone. Now, a doctor or a soldier could also get someone killed, but they catch crap, too.

To tell you the truth police officers are either trained or under-trained with firearms.

If someone is trained, he won't draw it. If someone is undertrained, he will fear using it.

 

[teebeeohh]

while i don't have an issue with normal officers, they are usually nice people who do their job, it does bother that we have(at least where i live) specialized riot police who do nothing all but practice beating up people. It would also renew m trust in the police if the video surveillance wouldn't fail every time an officer is accused of misconduct and they would finally introduce something like the american badge number. Also: stop beating up the people protesting AGAINST the nazi parade, beat up the nazis

 

[Evil Smurf]

in Australia we love the police

 

[Baresark]

It depends on where you live I think. If you step outside the US, the attitude towards officers of the law tend to be different, though I'm quite sure there are places like the US. For instance, I knew a guy from Turkey who professed to me that all the police in Turkey are corrupt. They pull you over and try to fuck you so you have to bribe them. It's not that bad in the US, obviously, though I am sure that happens some places.

I am a professed cop hater myself, but when I think about it, it's actually the job that disgusts me. The issue I have with police is that by and large (in my small town and the surrounding small towns) they simply exist as revenue streams for the municipality, and that disgusts me. I despise how they look at everyone with distrust, as if we are all liars and thieves. I also despise how police are allowed to get away with crimes themselves with little nor no repercussions. As an example: in 2005-ish a police officer accidentally ran a stop sign, hit a car killing the 16 and 17 year old occupants (two sisters), and his name was with held from the media and he did not even lose his job. He simply got transferred to a different department. The upsetting thing is the special treatment. It sucks what happened to those girls, but accidents do happen. Don't forget about the cops attacking that kid in Philly, the charges against him dropped because someone was actually filming the event, unbeknownst to the officers. There was a video I saw of a cop pulling over an ambulance that was on it's way to the hospital with an injured person inside of it, lights on and everything.

A lot of that is media, so that is clearly part of the issue here (though most media sources participate in outright hero worship of police). In my experiences, there is a neighboring police department (Clinton Township) who are the most unbearable pricks. If you are driving late, they will pull you over, no matter what. I used to work with behaviorally disturbed kids and be driving home late at night, many times past midnight. I would get pulled over at least once a week. Just for driving late.

I have had a few positive experiences with cops though. I will not say they are all bad. Not all police or municipalities are bad. I was once driving in a town, I got pulled over, and when the cop asked if I knew why he pulled me over I said I did not know, to which he answered: "I thought you looked lost and was seeing if you needed help". He was very pleasant and definitely improved my overall opinion of police. There was another time I was driving a moving van from Phoenix AZ to Eastern PA and I accidentally drove through the EZ pass lane (or whatever it was called in whichever state I was in). So, I pulled over to wait for the people who I was caravaning with and a police officer pulled over with his lights on. I got my papers ready and he simply asked if I was alright. He wanted to make sure there was no problems with my or my vehicle. Very pleasant guy.

 

[Vault101]

I never understood why anyone would have a problem with the police (save for countries where they are corrupt)

Ive always seen them as good people trying to do the right thing, they uphld our laws..and while not perfect are laws are incredibly important, the absolut amount of shit they have to deal with day in, day out...

mabye its peopel natural inclination to be a rebal, to have the Idea they are going against some evil opressive systm....*shrug* I never had it..even in my teenage years

 

[Phasmal]

I can't say because I've never really been in contact with the police.

But I used to live next door to a policeman and he was a very nice bloke, but there was an ex-policeman up the road who was a tyrannical looney.

All the policemen I've met have been pretty nice. But they might not have been so nice if I was doing something illegal.

 

[WanderingFool]

I think its basically a combination of media stories which put the police in a bad light (cause you will never see a story of cops doing their job well in the news), and and other media thats main point seems to be to show the police as either corrupt of useless.

Though I know that if the police force was to be disbanded, for about an hour (probably less) all the people saying shit oabout the police will be begging for cops, especially while some mugger bets the crap out of them in their own home.

 

[CruisingForBiddies]

I have nothing but respect for the police, they make my life safer. And my cousin has recently become a police officer which has only strengthened my faith in them, he is a great dude with good morals... I like that he is out there protecting us.
Sure there are going to be bad or just lazy officers, but people like that are everywhere.

 

[Iman Shumpert]

cops are just people trying to do their jobs...

In Australia Cops are let go if they do not reach a certain revenue from fines.

 

[Westaway]

A lot of them seem like assholes, and at the end of the month give out ridiculous tickets. I like the idea of a cop, but so far most of my experiences have been negative.

 

[Hazy992]

IMO the police have waaay too much power and the fact that we keep hearing stories of them abusing it is more than a little unnerving. Are all the police like that? No of course not but it happens more often than it should. And the fact that whenever I hear a story of an officer abusing their power, more often not nothing happens to them (or that's the impression I get). It's no wonder so many people don't respect the police when this sort of thing goes on.

 

[Phisi]

I have had some good experiences with cops and some very crap one so far. I shall tell you the story because why not. My brother was carrying his girlfriend on the back of a motorbike from school (she was not wearing protective gear except for a helmet as they had gone to a year function), he had not had his license for one year so this was illegal and at the time was a three point offence plus a fine. He was involved in a collision with another vehicle when he passed it and it turned in front of him on his way home. He and his girlfriend were admitted to hospital for a 72kmph crash (this was information the police officer on the scene had given and jump and slide distances would show this as 34kmph) The police officer then took a few photos of the bike at the scene. Later some officers went to the hospital to interview him to be turned away by medical staff as he was suffering from two broken vertebrae with his girlfriend requiring skin grafts. When it came time for the interview the detective tried to stop my parents from being in the interview room until they proved that he was a minor and they were entitled to be in there. The police officer decided to press charges of negligent driving resulting in grievous bodily harm. Something that carries a 2 year prison sentence. At this point we hired a traffic investigator to examine the scene (it had only been a week or so) and he sided with our version of events that my brother had been in the center of the road at the time of the collision based evidence of a fuel stain left by the bike. During this time of scheduling interviews the cop professed to not wanting to look like an idiot in court and also continued with the case after we showed him our photos of the fuel stain which he had not taken any though a photo of the bike showed the end of it. It also turned out he had not interviewed a key witness who sided with us (though he had not seen the accident he did see my brother enter the road well behind he car, not speeding though his daughter did see the accident and she would later tell the court. He did not say this at the time as he didn't want to involve his daughter). life went on as the court date came closer with a offer from the cops that they would drop the grievous bodily harm charge if my brother would accept the negligent driving charge. We did not take the offer as my brother was not at fault and we had evidence to that affect and we didn't want him to have a criminal record. Our day in court happened only a couple of months ago, one and a half years after the accident. Needless to say the officer did look like an idiot leaving to confirm on the police computers that my brother was a P plater and not a learner even after the court computer said so and writing that he was riding a motorised bicycle in the statement of facts. The court found that our evidence showed that the driver of the other vehicle did indeed pull over to the side of the road making it her fault and not my brother's. Now here's the real kicker: My brother was found guilty of carrying a passenger without having his license fr a year which now is a one point offence and a $67 fine, something we never contested and would have taken at the time of the event and thus could not get our court fees back which accounted to $26,000 AUD. Also the police now could no longer charge the woman for a traffic offence because it had been over six months since the time of the incident and they did not have the evidence to do so and couldn't use our evidence for a conviction because of chain of custody so she got off mostly scot free except we did succeed in changing the insurers mind as to who was at fault

The police officer in this case assumed my brother was at fault at the start. Lied to us and tried to push baseless criminal charges on my brother, refusing to accept our evidence and charge the lady and incur us a huge expense. This is the power the police have so generalisations here I think are justified I feel. You never know whether a cop is going to try to screw you over or is reasonable. Nothings happens if they'r the latter but prepared for a shitstorm if they're the former.

 

[SlaveNumber23]

I believe that the majority of police officers seek justice and to make the world a safer place for people, rather than abuse the power it gives them. They are just doing their job and for the most part anyone suffering their wrath has done something wrong and deserves it. I abide by the law and I have never had a police officer be anything but friendly and helpful towards me, nor have I ever seen a police officer abusing their power. Given, there are definitely examples of officers who do abuse their power but as a generalization? No way, not even close, not where I live at least.

 

[Zeema]

i don't have a problem with Police. its more of the people that stop the policeman doing there duty and making crims show some respect.

so what if a criminal gets beat up?

 

[LilithSlave]

There's a lot of corruption among the police here in the United States. And misbehaving, law breaking policeman are not penalized enough.

I know a lot of people get defensive about the police because they have a family member in the police or something. And say things like "how would you feel if you wanted to help people and joined the police. Only to have people say all these nasty things about you because of it."

But the police have as negative of a reputation as they do for a reason. Many of the people saying things have not been just negatively talked about, but have had real world, unjust harm incurred upon them by police. And being a bulldog defender of the police helps no one. There are a lot of people who are loud, ignorant, assuming, police defending bulldogs out there that I'm tired of arguing with. And really, what they're doing is no better than defending a schoolyard bully.

And they need to be criticized more, not less. While there are good police-people, the fact of the matter is they've been abusing power for years, and they're not going to learn that what they're doing is wrong on their own. Someone has to wake them up and make them change their policies. And until then, we should be reminding them of this.

This is just one of many multiple thousands of cases of police cruelty and abuse of power. Even if you have family in the police force and feel hurt by all the of insults throw at the police. This sort of thing HAS to stop and is nowhere near gone.

 

[Frission]

It might be because my experience with policeman mostly stem from those who come from New York, but as a whole I don't trust the police. Even if you're perfectly innocent they can mess you up. They have also proven to be thugs when dealing with protesters, and I have had several bad experiences with the police, due to profiling.

As a whole the job isn't bad. There are probably a majority of good people in the profession. It's a dangerous job, since the rate of police death have increased over this year. Their policies however are despicable. It might be because of the location itself, but the average mentality seem to be that they are at war against civilians. They can be very abusive and condescending, so that the even the "average" citizen has cause to fear when a police comes in. The aggressive police tactics implemented by Kelly have turned the police into a para military force, instead of peace keepers.

I chose the third option, because it's stupid to say "all of the police are x", but don't be surprised if some people don't really like the police. Corruption and abuses have destroyed some trust in the police. It's not the policeman's fault, if someone gets shot for being stupid, but people do have a reason to dislike them, and this shouldn't be ignored. It's not just because some people feel like being " rebels".

 

[Robert Ewing]

Police have the power to ruin your entire life, and the life of your loved ones, and they are employed by the government, your ultimate authority figure. So it's completely understandable to be wary of them.

But that's generally not true for most countries. Only a select few police are corrupt enough to act out on that. A lot of police are very honourable, and respectable and want to see the world in a much better state. After all, that is their job, to police.

But with great power comes great responsibility, and police officers are people too. And may tend to abuse it.