I am sorry for that but a few bad apples have done that to you. It is time that the thin blue wall come down and they stand up and turn in those in the ranks that commit crime, abuse their badge and take advantage of of their status. It is time they remember that they are just citizen too, one of us that we grant special legal power to in order to keep us all safe. They are no better or worse than us, they ARE US
I admit at this point I don't trust them half as much as I use to.
Why? I blame the cops and the government for this. Because of the laws they are now enforcing on us passed by our government that ignores the Constitution, the courts that uphold unconstitutional laws, and the cops that abuse their position for their own gain either through crime or pay off, or just the way they act like they are above the citizens and better than us. Because I have seen the news and watched them abuse folks that were in custody and no longer a threat to anyone.
Is this every cop? HELL NO. There are only a very few bad cops and I truly believe that. The problem is that they do enough damage to put us all at risk and boy do they get the news time now. I think the spotlight is good if it fixes things, but I admit it puts some at risk too. Sorry about that but we need to have this openness so we can fix the problem and growth is painful, but needed.
We need to work on this for all of our safety. As things stand the danger is just getting worse and worse.
Think of where this goes if we don't fix it
- folks don't trust the cop so won't help them
- Folk won't give them tips
- Criminals know they have nothing to lose if they fight back since cops ignore their rights
- Violent reactions to cops become the norm. why would a thug give up if he know he will be cuffed and beaten possibly killed if he gives up. . may as well fight and try to get away.
- Bystanders will not only not lend the cops a hand (lawful gun owners or others) but may be injured/killed in the ensuing fire fight
- Lather, rinse, repeat the spiral out of control. . . .
I think it is critical that we change the attitude that Cops are somehow above the citizens.
- They should not get special treatment on what guns they can buy
- They should not get military gear. They are not the Army they are peace officers
- Every town does not need an armored tank and a SWAT team
- They need to be transparent in their actions and investigations.
- They need to stop acting like it is them against us and covering up when one of them breaks the law.
- Those that break the law need to be held accountable and it needs to be visible that they are
- Every cop on the beat should have a body cam so everyone can see an unbiased video of what happened. This protects the citizen and the cops
We need to rebuild the trust - to do this we need to go back to the cop being part of the community not above it or outside it as a special protected class.
Then we can start to heal the rift.
1 comment:
I don't even think it's the truly bad ones that cause the biggest part of the problem. Those are few and far between. I think most rational people realize that the odds of actually having interaction with a truly "bad" cop is pretty slim.
I think the trust problem stems from the entire change of attitude of the cops over the past 20 or 30 years.
The cop's credo has morphed from "To Protect and to Serve" to "make sure I get home safe at the end of the day".
Everyone wants to get home safe at the end of the day and only the freaks wants cops to be killed or injured, but there are some vocations where "getting home safe at the end of the day" is not the primary mission. Cops are one of those. I spent 21 years in the military...another vocation where safety is job 2 not job 1.
The entire attitude of the LEO community has become such that they place the lives and well-being of the people they are supposed to be "protecting and serving" into the category of afterthought. When their primary mission is to keep themselves and their co-workers safe, the safety of the general public takes a back burner.
That's why we see the rash of cops shooting family pets and it being written off as "standard procedure". That's why we see arrestees being brutalized for nothing more than questioning the grounds for their arrest.
That's why we see people gunned down for reacting as any normal, armed person would when their house is assaulted in the middle of the night with no warning.
This is not indicative of corruption so much as indicative of a climate and culture that places the safety and well being of its own members above the mission it is ostensibly supposed to be serving.
That's the root of the problem in my humble opinion and as long as the unofficial motto of the police is "get home safe is job 1", I won't trust them to have my interests at heart...or anywhere for that matter.
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