what turned america's cops ugly?

[donsu]

http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0339/bain.php

Black = Terrorist = Thug: The New Racial Profile?
Three Days in NYC Jails


http://dallasobserver.com/issues/2003-09-25/news.html/1/index.html

A Texas Welcome
Two UTA students make a wrong turn, end up jailed in Arlington

[efhmc]

1. I absolutely hate reading stories like these as they really show the hate

and racism that is so prevalent in today's America. To give the other white, lady side of the story, biased in a different direction. When I started out to the ranch one evening, it was still light and I set my cruise control at 70. By the time I went through the last town and headed on the road to the ranch, it had grown dark. Suddenly, there were lights and a police car behind me. I pulled over and started getting out my license and insurance. The officer never even looked at anything and became totally uninterested once he saw that I was a niddle aged white woman. He actually stopped about 6 feet from the car. He told me I had a light out over my license plate and that I was going 72 and since the sun was down the speed limit was now 65. He told me to slow it down, get the light fixed and watch out for deer. Goodnight and that was that. I know that in this case I was lucky to be who I am and I am certainly not complaining and I did what the officer said. However, I wonder what would have happen if my skin, race, nationality, or gender had been different.

[Karenina]

2. You might not have had much fun.

:shrug:

[efhmc]

4. I'm sure you are right. I was telling my friend this story and he said it

was about drugs. That the police find more of the runners in regular type sedans now. Maybe he was just worried about my safety. But it was obvious he was no longer interested in me once he "saw" me.

[DealsGapRider]

14. Oh for Christ's sake...

...enough with the America-is-irredeemably-racist crap. You know that's not true. This is one of the most tolerant nations on the planet. Following 9/11 there were perhaps a couple dozen serious incidents of hate crimes in a nation of almost 300 miliion people, a testament to the tolerance and understanding of the American people. People of every walk of life have gone out of their way to make Muslims and Arabs feel welcome, and the number of people who are truly hateful and intolerant is exceedingly low.

Do you see people engaging in wholesale ethnic violence in the US like they do in the Balkans? Are there massive outbreaks of religious strife like there are in Kashmir? No.

[efhmc]

15. So in order for there to be racism in America, we would need to be

practising ethnic cleansing. I don't know where you live but it must be a much nicer place than rural Texas.

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

35. If you look at the number of minorities in prison versus whites

when plea bargains and other sentencing factors are included..there isn't a whole lot of difference.

TO imprison HUGE sectors of the black community (particularly black males) when alternately practicing leniency for whites convicted of similar offenses (drugs, juvenile offenders) really isn't that far apart from the practices in some nations.

It is telling that we are one of the few CIVILIZED FIRST WORLD NATIONS that has a) the death penalty b) practices solitary confinement and not even for major transgressions.

But further..your anaolgy of the US against a less than first world community is really a false analogy..if you are going to compare our practices...then compare them to another FIRST WORLD country such as France, Germany, or the like.

[HFishbine]

19. Maybe he backed off

when he saw your Bush/Cheney bumper sticker ;)

[efhmc]

24. My daughter says that her Texas Democrats bumper sticker is

what got her a ticket once. (Of course speeding is what got her stopped in the first place.) I don't even like parking next to those b/c sticker cars. That can be a problem here unless you like looking really, really hard for a parking place.

[im4edwards]

3. drugs. makes their professional lives too risky

.

[Character Assassin]

5. Sigh. It was me. I admit it.

We were just too good looking, and I felt I was the only one who would act.

[htuttle]

6. The Drug War militarized many police departments

Add to that the the ugly business about being able to confiscate bascially anyone's property and sell it for their own department's profit (aka civil forfeiture), and a bunch of targeted federal grants (aka, they can have millions if they spend it on surveillance and military-type equipment, but not one dime for community policing), and what you got is what you see today.

[FlaGranny]

7. There have always

been ugly cops. Most cops go to the job because they really want to serve and protect. A few just want to exercise power and intimidate. It has always been like that. It probably is not as bad as it once was. It also is more widely reported now when cops cross the line.

When you look into human nature, it is easy to say where dictators get their "enforcers." They are always waiting in the background in every country, even here, ready to step in to push folks around.

[Ernesto]

10. Face it, being a cop is a shit job

Most are loosers that have no skills other than the ability to pass a drug test. They get free training & middle class compensation...... All they have to do is work shit hours, get into very dangerous situations and project their "tough guy in charge" (kinda like the chimp) image. Then they get to go home and try to act like they are normal human beings. Is it any wonder that cops sometimes take out their frustrations on their "clients"?

[Character Assassin]

12. You need to reconsider that....

Most are loosers that have no skills.

They, unlike someone else I might name, at least have to spell correctly.

[Ernesto]

13. Your name

fits like a glove amigo!

[Character Assassin]

17. I haven't attacked your character, hombre

But I know cops, and the statement 'most of them are losers' is, quite flatly, ignorant.

[rman]

32. it's just that you don't assasinate -every- character

it's still a fitting name

[0rganism]

23. Hardly! It's the ultimate blue-collar job!

These guys do take some risks, but they have great perks, solid pensions, a powerful union, a fraternal order, and the state-endorsed ability to bust your ass because you looked at them funny. Additionally, many of them are college grads with job-related degrees, and high school graduation was mandatory last time I checked.

You can get pissed at the cops all you like, but please don't "misunderestimate" their power or intelligence.

[Ernesto]

26. I would never "misunderestimate"

their power, that is a given...... However, as a retired union apprenticeship instructor, I have seen countless young men flunk out of our training programs. The inside advice was & remains: Kid, if you don't get your act together, you are going to end up as a cop or a prison guard. Fact is that many of our "rejects" have become cops or prison guards..... Please, I'm actually defending these guys. They do have a shitty job. Most people would not tolerate what they put up with. And WE need them..... My comment was/is that it should be no surprise that cops occasionaly take their frustrations out on their "clients".... I am not "pissed" @ cops... I AM PISSED @ the GOP!

[FlaGranny]

30. Must disagree.

Have a very, very "sharp" neice who has worked her way up to lieutenant. A good cop, extremely intelligent, and fair to a fault. There are many like her. Her only desire was to serve and protect. She achieved her goals. She has saved a few lives and arrested some crooks. She makes life safer for all of us and risks her life doing so.

Edit: Serving the public as volunteers is also common in her immediate family.

[Enraged American]

8. the pigs have always been ugly

from the days when they allowed lynchings to happen to Rodney King.

[Character Assassin]

9. I hear they're much better in Pyongyang

the pigs have always been ugly

The pigs? That is precious.

[mlawson]

20. I can count on one hand the number of polite ones

I have ever dealt with. And I am white, male, and obviously no threat to them.

[0rganism]

21. How many hands would it take to count the impolite ones?

If you said three or less, it's likely because you're white and don't appear to pose a threat, IMHO.

It's not just the cops. I could count on one hand the polite DMV workers I've encountered. They're people doing a rather distasteful bureaucratic job for the state, and I don't really expect them to be polite. If they're efficient and honest in processing my forms, it's all I can ask.

On the way to protest a fundraising appearance of Bush The Elder, I inquired of a riot cop in body armor who happened to be crossing the street with me, "Do you like what you're about to do?"

He shrugged and told me, "It's a job."

As people were pepper sprayed at close range after being handcuffed and led to the arrest buses, I saw that the anger of the crowd had been redirected from opposition to Bush and his policies to the behavior of the police in crushing dissent. Yet their orders come from someone else far away, off the front lines, and it would border on the whimsically deranged to think they'd be polite while carrying those orders out.

[Prisoner_Number_Six]

11. Cops stopped being good guys when they

started hiding their faces with black masks when they kicked in your door. I never have understood why they needed to conceal their identities while doing "cop stuff"! Makes no sense.

[Tansy_Gold]

16. I have generally defended MOST law enforcement personnel.

I have known a lot of cops who were honest, hard-working, supremely dedicated individuals who would have put their lives on the line without thinking.

I've also known some assholes who used their badges to shield a lot of nastiness.

But there are other elements sometimes at work.

Police from my community used to routinely patrol short stretches of the nearby interstate for speeders. Only these small strips were within the town's legit jurisdiction. It was SOP for officers to sit in the median night after night after night, doing nothing but catching speeders because the town's budget required the funds. Officers were told their paychecks depended on whether or not they brought in a quota of fines each month. And because the town's finances were so strapped, there were insufficient officers to patrol in the business and residential areas. An emergency call might take 45 minutes response time, if the only officer on duty was parked along the interstate. Don't think the burglars and drug dealers didn't know about it.

Late-night traffic stops have become routine. Midnight a couple weeks ago, hubby and I were on the way home from visiting friends. We had not been drinking at all. Driving down the road, half mile from our house, not a soul in sight except the police car heading for the same intersection where we were to turn. Hubby pulls over, stops at 4-way stop sign. Cop car is still several hundred yards from intersection (to our right) and he has a stop, too. Hubby waits to maek sure cop is either going to stop or is sufficiently distant from intersection (he was both), then pulls into intersection, turns left. Cop comes to intersection, stops, proceeds straight, now following us. Follows us for half a mile before putting on flashers. Tickets hubby for failing to stop. Bogus. 100% bogus. $100 fine. But we have no choice. No witnesses other than us.

i would have chalked this up to bad luck until I mentioned it to a friend from our community. She reported similar instance happened to her when returning from a late-night meeting less than a month ago. In her case it was speeding -- except she wasn't. No witnesses, no proof. Another fine into the town's coffers.

Another acquaintance reported her teen-aged daughter had been stopped and given a verbal warning about a burned-out turn signal light; the very next night, the woman's husband was stopped and ticketed -- no warning, and there was no record of the previous stop -- for the same burned-out turn signal light WHILE HE WAS ON HIS WAY TO THE STORE TO GET A REPLACEMENT BULB. The husband fought this one on the basis that no written warning had been given and he explained to the cop that he was going to get the bulb. The cop's response was that no one goes out to get a turn signal bulb at ten o'clock at night. The husband said yes you do if you're a truck driver who's been on the road for a week and just got home. Supposedly the cop later told the guy his wife could've got the bulb during the day, to which the truck driver husband merely said, "Would yours?" Supposedly he noticed that cops followed him frequently after that.

And all of this on the heels of huge scandal that one of our local finest (a former detective) is under indictment for stealing items from the site of a recent suicide -- stole the dead person's car, camper, and other property.

IMHO, cops are just like other folks -- there's good 'uns and there's bad 'uns. And if the profession attracts a certain type, well, then that has to be considered too.

[0rganism]

18. When were they beautiful?

Look, America isn't the shining beacon of tolerance and hope that we somehow get the idea it is in the child indoctrination centers known as Elementary Schools.

You can go back as far as you like in the 20th century to find instances of police viciousness, from when the cops worked hand-in-hand with Pinkerton mercenaries to break unions for the industrialists, to when they loosed attack dogs and firehoses on civil rights marchers in '60s Alabama, to the brutality of the insane drug wars, to the current methods of supression of dissent.

And the 20th century is really the time when we can look for and criticize any lack of consistency among the established police forces around the country. "Frontier" America of the 19th century was notoriously chaotic, and the slave states had their own ways of enforcing the "peculiar institution" for its adherents. Federal marshalls, bounty hunters, vigilantes: where was the beauty?

I can't agree with your premise; the police get a lot of flak these days, but at least there is some overriding notion that they are accountable to the same book of laws they purport to enforce. There are actually some very strict standards, and deviance therefrom is not widely condoned. I'd contend that for all their shortcomings, the police these days are as decent as they've ever been, and probably moreso overall.

[Mr.Green93]

22. what turned america's cops ugly?

When they stopped being Peace officers and became Law enforcement officers.

[efhmc]

25. Welcome and thank you for the thoughtful first post.

[Kamika]

27. i think it was the criminals

I dont think anyone has a right to comment unless you're a cop..


edit: I love cops :loveya:

[Ernesto]

28. I know you are wrong

Cops work for us. They are not holy cows. They screw up just like everybody. The difference is: when they screw up, chances are it has very bad effects for innocent people. People pay their wages. Cops must be accountable to the people.

[sham]

29. sigh. it's ALWAYS about 9/11, isn't it?

from the second article:
In these post-September 11 times, young foreign men aren't allowed innocent mistakes...

On September 6, Lachko and his roommate, fellow Russian student Boris Avdeev, wandered on their bicycles into the employee parking lot of the Arlington police station looking for someone to give them directions. Rather than giving them answers, police locked them in handcuffs, held them for questioning by an agent from the Department of Homeland Security and charged them with criminal trespassing...

"I heard the male officer say into his radio that we are Pakistanis," Lachko says. "We said, 'No, no, no. We are not Pakistanis. We're Russians.'"

There have always been good, honorable cops and bad cops. The problem is that Bush*co has created an environment that encourages the bad ones and fosters this kind of xenophobia. Another rotten legacy of the chimp.

[rman]

31. the law was changed because of 9-11

more powers where given to law enforcement and it is being abused, now more then ever. You do know about the Patroit Act and the retraction of the 4th amendment?

So yes, much of it has to do with 9-11. It did change the world, mostly because of how the WH responded to it.

[sham]

36. "It did change the world, mostly because of how the WH responded to it."

yeah, that's exactly what I said. thanks for the rehash, though. :eyes:

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

33. Community based policing versus paramilitary based policing

Community based policing favors public participation within the agency and a fundamental accountability of police to the communities where they serve.

Paramilitary based policing favors ORDER over law. Although this answer is a bit simplistic and one could write a novel..it is telling that even in communities such as Los Angeles where public outcry was PRO community based policing, Bratton (a paramilitary style leader) was placed in situ.

[grasswire]

37. well...........

....to make a long story short, in the late 1980s politicians started cooperating with people who make money off prison building. A whole "get tough" march began, and the prison-industrial complex needed the impetus of a frightened public.

And so they peddled fear to America's families.

And then billions of dollars were spent to militarize the local law enforcement.

In 1992 the Department of Justice and the Department of Defense signed a memo of cooperation to encourage technology transfer from defense contractors to civilian applications. I have a press package from a conference titled "Law Enforcement and Technology in the 21st Century." Such tools as the super-sticky foam, the immobilizing lasers and other crowd control measures were being developed via federal tax dollars poured into defense contractors.

There was a term for the public in the literature. We are called "urban hostiles."

I think it's fair to say that this mindset of police has been distinctly developed by those who profit by selling goods and services.

[donsu]

38. thank you grasswire for giving us the answer

you have spelled it out. and the cops all over america are looking at the same training programs provided by - you guessed it - the bushgang.

and we paid for it. we paid for their gestapo tactics.

[HEyHEY]

34. TURNED??? They always been like that