Are all cops corrupt?

I was just reading an article by William Grigg regarding a case where a mentally ill homeless man was beaten to death by 6 cops while dozens of bystanders looked on in horror. When the internal affairs officer in charge of the investigation of the officers was forced to retire because he wanted the DA to press criminal charges. All of the cops were returned to duty, but the IA officer lost his job and pension. \ \ Last week I read an article about a veteran of the Iraq war who heard people breaking into his house so he put his wife and baby in the closet and grabbed a gun. It was a "no knock" raid by cops who had the wrong house, and they shot him a dozen times. He was still alive, but the cops wouldn''t let the paramedics in to help him, and he died 45 minutes later. The cops had the wrong house, and no drugs were found.\ \ There are stories virtually every day about abuses by the police, and they are never fired or prosecuted, when it is obvious that they abused their power. Are there any honest cops left?

• Are all cops corrupt? YES.\ \ Are there any honest cops left? NO. And what do you mean "left?" They''ve looooong been corrupt.

• What a horrible story. I just watched the details on NBC Nightly News. That man was murdered.

• You can get out of jury duty by saying you think that all cops lie all the time, assuming a criminal case.

• Are all cops corrupt?\ \ Do all gays have AIDS?\ \ You get it now, OP?

• It''s statistically improbable.

• I would never trust a cop.

• I don't know if most are. I can tell you honestly I have had very few dealings (I would say under 10) with cops in my life. I was once (in 30 years of driving) pulled over for speeding for 48 in a 40 mph zone, the day of my dads funeral (I was instructed to do that and they would increase patrols by the house), when I was gay-bashed and interviewed by a cop at the hospital, when I moved to a new city and had to have a cop to the VIN check at the police station, and probably another couple of little things here and there and I have to say that the police officer in every instance could not have possibly been more nasty, hate-filled, arrogant, pompous and damn near violent towards me - I don't trust them, wouldn't even consider them on my side or helpful in any way and will avoid them at all costs. Oh yea - once when during an event we had a customer threaten to burn the place down and was found roaming around the building - we called the police, he came and said "it's a brick building - what the fuck are you worried about" and left.

  what happened to officer friendly who used to visit grammar schools?

• I wouldn''t say they''re all corrupt. But the system seems thoroughly corrupt. And it takes a real hero to stand up to it. Sadly, given the examples you provide and others, there aren''t that many cops who can withstand it.

• agreed with R1 and R6. I don''t trust cops.

• In LA, they''re corrupt.\ \ In DC, they''re incompetent and corrupt. \ \ Not all are corrupt of course, but a good number of them have issues with responsible use of power. Criminals shouldn''t get much sympathy but it''s extremely disconcerting the people you entrust with so much authority and firepower, abuse that trust.

• Statistically, no, they can''t ALL be corrupt. It just seems that way.\ \ I''ve had mostly good encounters with the police, and one who was an asshole, but I don''t know that he was corrupt.

• I occasionally do criminal defense. While I don''t think every cop is corrupt, necessarily, I do believe that 95% of them believe that it is OK to fudge the truth when testifying. I''ve seen it too many times. It''s probably why there are so many Mormons in law enforcement - they wholeheartedly believe it''s OK to lie if they''re serving what they perceive as a greater good. \ \ Prosecutors are far more corrupt, from the perspective of willing to lie and cheat their way through anything. And I think they instruct the police how to act and this is where it starts.

• [quote]Are there any honest cops left?\ \ "Left?"\ \ That implies they were there to begin with. People who want to bully other people apply to be cops. \ \ Recipe for attracting the worst. Then they get in the job and it doesn''t exactly improve. Because even as awful as they are, they deal with worse trash than they are and assholes ALL DAY, and it only makes them more frustrated and trigger happy.

• I have a brother who is a cop and he recently stole about $40,000.00 from me. So while I can''t say how honest [italic]all[/italic] cops are, I can confidently state that my brother is a lying, thieving scumbag.

• I can only imagine how much cash and drugs they pocket before they submit them as evidence when they do drug raids/bust. \ \ 30k cash on average per year sound about right?

• R12, speaking of Mormons, I had a friend who worked for the Dept. of Defense in intelligence and she said she was surrounded by them. It scares me that people with a very particular view of the world are analyzing data and writing briefing memos that may influence policy. And they also get promoted to senior positions.\ \ My friend said there are many Mormons who join international related government work because of the language skills they pick up during their missions.

• OP, link to picture of the beaten homeless man. If you didn''t know it was a human being you couldn''t tell from the picture. Mercifully he died. The chief of police is defending the six cops that did this. Corrupt?

  http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2019225/Kelly-Thomas-Police-beat-taser-gentle-mentally-ill-homeless-man-death.html

• Cops were never not corrupt to begin with, and I say this as the son of a retired State Trooper.\ \ There is a real reason why most people fear the police, especially minorities, and for good reason. They don''t have the best of track records.\ \ I''ve come across some nice cops, my dad included. But you can be both nice and corrupt. I''m sure my dad took some kickbacks along the way. I think it''s one of the "fringe benefits" of getting into that career.

• My partner is a cop and a good guy. He tells everyone that 90% of being a good cop is communication and even people he''s arrested have said they he "treats them right."%0D\ %0D

• Absolutely sickening to hear that poor man screaming "Dad! Dad! Dad!" in that video. It really takes six of those assholes to take down one guy? The poor father; how heartbreaking. Thugs with badges.

• There are absolutely decent cops, but they are often pushed around and elbowed out by the corrupt ones.

• "I can tell you honestly I have had very few dealings (I would say under 10) with cops in my life... I don''t trust them, wouldn''t even consider them on my side or helpful in any way and will avoid them at all costs."%0D\ %0D\ %0D\ Anyone see the lack of logic here? You''ve had "few" dealings with cops yet you feel safe making generalizations about them! %0D\ %0D\ %0D\ "There is a real reason why most people fear the police"%0D\ %0D\ %0D\ Law-abiding citizens generally don''t fear the police.%0D\ %0D\ %0D\ "Prosecutors are far more corrupt, from the perspective of willing to lie and cheat their way through anything"%0D\ %0D\ %0D\ You know lots of people think defense attorneys are evil and corrupt, right?

• R18 if your dad took kickbacks he was a dirty, corrupt cop. Don''t kid yourself. \ \ R22, R7 isn''t generalizing- he''s had some dealing with pigs, and they have been negative. That fits with the general theme. Let me guess, you-or a family member- is a pig. \ \ The Stasi has nothing on these lowlifes. At least in Russia they knew the cops were corrupt. In the US we are bombarded with propaganda (aka TV shows) that show cops as noble, self-sacrificing saints, when the truth is that 99% of them are nothing but criminals with badges. We would be safer if they let the criminals out of jail, and put the cops behind bars. \ \ Don''t even get me started on how corrupt DAs and prosecutors are. Judges are almost as bad. \ \ No wonder our government is so fucked up- it attracts scum, lowlifes and sociopaths, at every level.

• "isn''t generalizing- he''s had some dealing with pigs, and they have been negative"%0D\ %0D\ %0D\ %0D\ I''ve had some dealings with gays and they have been negative - does that give me the right to say all gays are corrupt? %0D\ %0D\ %0D\ "when the truth is that 99% of them are nothing but criminals with badges."%0D\ %0D\ %0D\ No evidence to prove this. Seriously, I love how you pulled that 99% "statistic" out of your ass%0D\ %0D\ %0D\ "Don''t even get me started on how corrupt DAs and prosecutors are"%0D\ %0D\ %0D\ But of course all defense attorneys are saintly souls, right?%0D\ %0D\ %0D\ "No wonder our government is so fucked up"%0D\ %0D\ %0D\ We''re the ones who elect politicians - maybe our government sucks because of people like you who vote for right-wing politicians who share your "government is evil" beliefs.

• well R22 that may be true, however they hold all of the power - and of my few dealings, I''ve never ever had a positive one - and the situations were skewed towards minor giving them absolutely no reason to be so off the chain nasty - leading me to conclude if ever I am in a more serious situation I would avoid having to deal with them.

• I think part of the problem is the profession tends to attract psychos who have short fuses and rage issues. And little to no education. And a license to carry a gun.

  Not a recipe for success.

• Cops are the dregs of society. People act like they do a lot to keep the streets safe, but in a lot of cases they''re the ones committing crimes. Also, I''ve never once heard of anyone who was genuinely helped by a police officer. You report a crime and it''s rare that there is ever any resolution. They also get off on flexing their authority over others. In many cases, they''re either tiny dicked losers or people who were sexually abused when they were younger. Their entire adult lives are wrapped around teaching the world a lesson...they need fucking therapy, not a gun and authority.\ \ My mom dated a cop and he was eventually fired for abusing his vehicle privileges.

• R24, ten, or twenty, or a hundred gays can''t legally kill or beat them. A fucking pig can, and his buddies will stand up for him. \ \ Yes, the 99% stat isn''t a scientific measurement, but it reflects the reality of pig/mundane interaction. Look at how many people have posted negative pig interactions. You seem to be the only idiot defending their criminal behavior. Like I said, you are either a pig, or a close family member is a pig. \ \ Defense attorneys don''t have the power to illegally suppress evidence, or coach a pig to lie, or manufacture evidence. DAs do this all the time. They are worse than cops.\ \ Voting for right wing pols? Are you retarded? Rethuglicans are "law and order" types, and give pigs a free ride. \ \ Admit it- you suck some pig off every Thursday and can''t believe that he''s nothing more than a common criminal with a badge.

  R23

• The Southern Sheriff corrupted by Religion and Money has been around a while in the USA. Think Porky''s 1980.

• Definitely not. No one has ever paid police for information.

  Rebekah Brooks & James Murdoch

• Have had dealings with good and bad ones. The worst ones were not evil so much as incredibly cynical and uncaring -- especially callous toward rape victims.

• The NYPD has been recruiting ANYONE willing to be a cop. Our building super became a cop. This is a guy who invented the greased palm.\ \ The "Dirty 30" is an uptown precinct that, although cleaner than it was 15 years ago, is still crime-central.

• They are universally appalling towards rape victims. I''ve witnessed them interview women who have been raped and been horrified. There opinion fundamentally is ''asking for it, wanted it really'' etc.

• The father of the homeless man in r17''s link is a retired cop. He''s working to put the six involved and the watch commander in prison.\ \ Only last night did the city council vote to suspend the cops involved, but the City Manager is the former police chief who hired many of the six, including the one eyed cop who was retired from the LAPD after being wounded.

• Over the years I''ve had to deal with cops on several different occasions here in NYC. I won''t go into the stories. They are like some of the others here. But its been enough to form some very firm opinions. \ \ And while I understand these opinions overall are based on simple anecdotal evidence, regardless, it is my sincere belief that most of them are the fucking scum of the earth. Violent, dumb, lazy, racist, homophobic, angry sociopaths. \ \ Fear them.

• [quote]They are universally appalling towards rape victims. \ \ I was living in France back in the 70s (yes, I''m an eldergay) and remember a police scandal in Corbeil, a suburb of Paris. Someone called the police to report a woman being raped. The police laughed at the caller and said it would all be over by the time they could get there. They never came.

• FULLERTON, Calif. August 3, 2011 (AP) In the nearly two decades since his son descended into madness, Ron Thomas has worried every day that the schizophrenic 37-year-old would die of exposure or illness on the streets. He never imagined the end would come in a violent confrontation with police. The death last month was the end of a trajectory that began when Kelly Thomas was in his early 20s and started showing the first signs of what would later be diagnosed as schizophrenia: he shuttled between addresses, preferred to sleep on the floor and stopped showering. In treatment, Thomas did well and was able to hold down a job %E2%80%94 but when he stopped taking his pills, he disappeared onto the streets. He racked up an array of charges, from public urination to assault with a deadly weapon, and alarmed his parents with his bizarre behavior. "My daughter and I have talked for years that we'd get the call that something had happened to him, whether it was from organ failure because he's not drinking enough fluids or the elements or maybe gang activity," said his father, Ron Thomas. Last month, he was sitting on a bench at the Fullerton Transportation Center, a hub for buses and commuter trains where homeless people congregate, when six police officers arrived to investigate reports of a man burglarizing cars nearby. Police said he ran when they tried to search his backpack and that he resisted arrest. The incident was captured by a bystander with a cell phone, and bus surveillance tape released Monday showed agitated witnesses describing how officers beat Thomas and used a stun gun on him repeatedly as he cried out for his father. On the cell phone video, a man can be heard screaming over a fast, clicking sound that those on the tape identify as a stun gun being deployed. Thomas was taken off life support five days after the July 5 altercation. His father said Wednesday he was stunned when he learned police officers caused his son's severe head and neck injuries. "When I arrived at the hospital to see him, I honestly thought that gang bangers had got a hold of him like the cowards sometimes do and just beat him with a baseball bat in the face," he said. "Immediately my thoughts were to get with Fullerton police ... and I didn't learn until a certain amount of hours later the truth. That put me in absolute shock." A police spokesman, Sgt. Andrew Goodrich, said the case was an isolated incident. "We have a good department full of good individuals," he said. "We've made more than half-a-million law enforcement contacts over the past 4.5 years ... This is the only instance of this kind that's happened." Goodrich said officers receive training on how to deal with the mentally ill and the homeless. But an attorney representing the department, Michael D. Schwartz, said that "public perception of officers' trying to control a combative, resistive suspect rarely conform to those officers' training, experiences, and what those officers were experiencing at the time or reality." The revelations have caused growing outrage in this quiet college town. More than 70 people spoke at the City Council meeting Wednesday, and a city councilwoman called for the resignation of the police chief. Thomas' father and others were planning a protest outside the police station this weekend, the second in as many weeks. "My son needs a voice," he said. "Now, the people have become Kelly's voice and, yeah, I'm leading the charge."

  http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=14225227

• There are several websites that make DAILY compilations of the news stories of cops abusing their power. Everything from tazing handicapped people, shooting unarmed people, stalking, stealing evidence, lying on the stand, rape, drunk driving, etc etc. There is very little overlap between sites. \ \ There are so MANY stories of pigs being pigs.

• My ex just retired with 20 years in, and she was/is the sweetest person to ever put on a uniform. She was the type who always gave people the benefit of the doubt, and she was even kind to drug dealers and bums.\ \ \ Maybe we should have more gay cops.

• My dental hygienist was married to a cop. He was a big guy, but very sad. He mostly endured his job and handled the criminals on both sides of the badge by defining his job as catching and cuffing the law breakers -- he didn''t at all invest in his own power or in the power of policing. He just left it to the courts.

• Other than being stopped a few times for traffic violations, I have had no first hand experience with cops. Only one was unpleasant and that was an asshole police sergeant who threaten to arrest me because I wrote my signature on the tix too fast and it didn''t look like the one on my license. So for the most part I have not had unpleasant encounters, but one was enough to convince me that a power mad cop can and will do whatever he wants.

• I just found this thread because I logged on to see if anyone was talking about this mentally ill, homeless victim. I swear to god, this story has really affected me; I couldn''t sleep at all. I can''t imagine what that poor man was experiencing, what he was thinking. When the audio recorded him calling out for his father, I lost it. I moved from a city where the mentally ill (alleged)perps were routinely killed. I am glad to see there is a lot of outrage.

• Not enough outrage, r42. Not nearly enough.

• I wouldn't say they're ALL corrupt, but just like any other clan of people there are always a few that let them down. I used to have a roommate that was a rookie cop. She would boast about how there's no victims in poorer neighbourhoods and they all deserve what they get. She laughed about her team/squad falsifying witness reports on occasion for police benefit. The weirdest story is when was she was getting turned on talking about this guy who had a nasty car accident, how his head had been smeared for about 20 meters along the road. Brains and all. She loved it. Sick bitch. My friend and I who she was recounting this to are looking at each other like is this for real?!? Oh, nothing to do with her being a cop, but I was having a party once, and she walked into the midst of it with her bagpipes and started playing them. WTF? Also, too many times I came home and there were cop parties happening at my own home that I didn't know were planned. Not cool for the paranoid young stoner I was, haha. I never trusted her and loved hearing stories about why I shouldn't. She will make headlines one day I'm sure, and I will be all too willing to share stories that were straight from her mouth.

• No, they are not. They see awful things, things you and I can''t imagine.%0D\ %0D\ If you see a cop standing on the street, thank him/her for being there. It means a lot to them. Most people ignore them and they feel hated. It''s really not the case.

• My experiences with cops have been mostly positive, even in stressful situations. I''m glad to have them out there, protecting me.

• How do you think the cops feel that worked on the Casey Anthony case, O J Simpson, Robert Blake, she''s to pretty for prison, Jenna Six....all the guilty cases we never hear about but they are let go? They are like everyone else, the rage builds up and mob mentality takes over.

• r47 Consider the people, most of them poor minorities, who are NOT guilty but are railroaded into prison by the corruption of the cops and prosecutors.

• r10-you are an idiot. "Criminals shouldn''t get much sympathy". Really? Who exactly is a "criminal?

• R49 - People who commit crimes are criminals, duh. You''re just fishing for some kind of profiling. You''re the idiot.

• R50, maybe in terms in pure technicality you''re correct, but by following that train of thought you realize you''re lumping rapists and murderers in with people who get busted for marijuana, right? Do you really think they''re all of the same class and deserve to be treated equally?

• All pigs suck shit and it makes me LMFAO when there are news reports about them dying violently.%0D

• [quote]by following that train of thought you realize you''re lumping rapists and murderers in with people who get busted for marijuana\ \ Oh geez, another stoner wanting to bitch about the injustice of it all. Look, no one cares. Just keep it under wraps, and you''ll be fine.

• Uh, I almost never smoke. I really don''t even like weed very much. It was just a fucking example.

• Thank you for calling all the "criminals don''t deserve respect". Lots of people commit some sort of crime and they very much still deserve respect. Judge people based on what they actually did and under what circumstances.

• [quote]Lots of people commit some sort of crime and they very much still deserve respect. Judge people based on what they actually did and under what circumstances.\ \ I''ve never committed a crime, so fuck you.

• All people are corrupt, how then could the police not be corrupt? The ability to lie is the defining characteristic of our specie. Deceit and malevelence are our trademark. Cops just do it a little bit better than the average crook.

• Well I guess that settles the whole issue. Thank you for that well thought out and intellectually stimulating response R56 / R53. \ \ I''d ask if you''re making a distinction right now between having actually NEVER committed a technical crime and having never been caught / convicted, which you probably aren''t, but it''s clear you''re not up for any sort of reasonable discourse here.

• I wholeheartedly agree with R26 and R27.

• The only difference between cops and criminals is a badge.%0D\ %0D\ If you get a decent cop, he/she is the exceptiion, not the rule. You know how they say more often than not if someone is murdered, it''s by somebody they know? I wonder if the real truth is, when somebody is murdered it''s just easier for the cops to pin it on the nearest person. They seem to have nothing but contempt for everyone except the rich/powerful. (And I''m sure they have contempt for them, but they know just enough to hide it).

• [quote]I''d ask if you''re making a distinction right now between having actually NEVER committed a technical crime and having never been caught / convicted, which you probably aren''t, but it''s clear you''re not up for any sort of reasonable discourse here.\ \ I have never committed a crime. There''s no "technicality" involved. You take the side of criminals against law enforcement. I don''t. I find that most of the anti-police sentiment comes from criminals and their friends.

• Are you for real with this crap R61?\ \ If you are gay and had sex in a red state prior to 2003 there is a decent chance you were breaking a sodomy law before they were finally declared illegal.\ \ Just a simple example which I hope illustrates my point.\ \ \ The world isn''t black and white, you seem very sheltered and close-minded.

• R62, go hang out with your criminal druggie friends. See how it works out for ya. Better watch out who you try to burgle or rob, though. More people than you think are armed these days, and the law is very much on their side.

• Trolldar R63 and the whole board lights up on almost all the "pro-cop" posts. \ \ Basically, one idiot cop is defending his badged criminal cohorts. \ \ Why don''t you go arrest someone for " driving while black" and go away.

• I can''t speak for all cops, but my nephew was a cop for DuPage County (outside of Chicago). He worked there 6 yrs. 4 of them while he was going to law school part time. He said that he had never seen or heard of such a large group of sociopaths drawn to an occupation.

• We''ve been robbed! Quick, somebody call the pigs!

  R64

• Not surprised at all R64. Frankly it is sad. The guy defending cops sounds exactly like a stereotype of an dumb and angry cop.\ \ I certainly don''t think all cops are evil sociopaths, but it is a profession that obviously doesn''t attract the best and the brightest given a lot of power and frequently having to deal with a lot of shit. The result is inevitable.

• My nephew told me about an inmate in the county jail. He was in an isolation cell because he was a drug addict and they knew he would be going thru withdrawal. He didn%E2%80%99t tell me what the guy had done to get arrested, but he did say the guy was high on the cop%E2%80%99s shit list. Arround 2am the cop that made the rounds to check on the inmates in the isolation cells found that the guy had torn up his tee shirt and hung himself with it. The coroner found that the guy had been pretty much been beaten near to death and then hung to finish him off.%0D\ %0D\ %0D\ The cops on duty on the isolation wing were all put on paid leave while it was investigated. 10 days later the Internal Affairs cops who investigated it said that their official finding was that he had done it all to himself because he was suicidal because he was going through drug withdrawal.

  How do you punch yourself in the kidneys hard enough to damage them?

• [quote]My nephew told me about an inmate in the county jail.\ \ How did your nephew know about this? Is he a jailbird, too?

• R69, sorry I should have added to my post at R68 that I was also R65

• DL is on meth. 140 posts, all of them doubled up?\ \ Put the pipe down webbie!!!

• The details of the recent Danziger Bridge trial in New Orleans are absolutely chilling, and the cops who were convicted will likely spend life in federal prison for their crimes and cover-up.\ \ But what''s freaky about it to me was that their first instinct was to stage this elaborate, months-long cover-up, and that all their supervisors and the investigators went along with it without question. Falsifying evidence and faking a cover-up was obviously second nature to them, and while the New Orleans police are notoriously corrupt, I can''t believe that it''s not a trait that runs through any American big-city police department.

• Yes, yes and yes! All cops are filth, much worse than the filth they arrest. Murdering thugs.

• Only mental cases make a career of police work. It''s the perfect hiding place for those with real mental problems. \ \ Even the Highway Patrol seems to attract these sickos.

• [quote]Law-abiding citizens generally don''t fear the police.\ \ I''ve never committed a crime in my life and I still fear and don''t trust cops and there are plenty of examples in this thread why that''s the case.

• The Internet has made it hard for cops to get away with their shit, so they just pass laws that make recording them illegal. Doesn't that smack of fascism?

• Only the corrupt ones!

• Almost as bad as cops are their defenders. Officer Friendly's coloring books and a trip outside to the playground to see the siren really made a fan for life, huh? Fuck the police.

• Denver cops are the worst. The city's paid millions to settle cases or defend cases where they beat and/or killed people.

• I think some non-corrupt people are drawn to law enforcement, but they are quickly corrupted or forced out. It's not a system that can tolerate honest cops because they're too likely to rat out the bad ones.

• I've worked with cops from the prosecutorial side. A lot of them if I might be so bold are idiots.

• I think some non-corrupt people are drawn to government work, but they are quickly corrupted or forced out. It's not a system that can tolerate honest politicians because they're too likely to rat out the bad ones. There, I fixed it.

• I grew up watching The Rookies and Starsky & Hutch. They were all good guys who always did the right thing and took in teen runaways and acted as surrogate fathers to them. Didn't have a dad so I developed a real crush on most of them. I think especially Willie Gillis on The Rookies. I'm much older now and stories in the news just make me sad.

• I think some are genuinely decent people but it's a job that does attract power hungry thugs who want the authority to use a gun to scare and threaten people. They need to start doing better at psychologically testing them prior to hiring. I've known a few who used their position to bully and harass people outside their jobs. One friend dated a cop and when she broke up with him he started stalking her and threatening a new bf and running background checks on him, etc. Really creepy.

• Cops have to deal with the worst people in a society...or good people on their worst day. I am grateful for what they do and the times they have helped me. I can see that there are bad cops, but mostly I've met OK ones.

• Thanks for that, R85. There is so much exaggeration on this thread about bad cops. It's surprising from gay men who have horrible assumptions made about them everyday.

• Uh no, R85, they don't get that excuse. Cops rarely do anything but write tickets and stress people out at car accidents. If there are good cops, they aren't really good b/c they are covering up for or at least turning the other way from all of the bad ones.

• All of them aren't monsters but many of them are just as bad as the people they arrest. Being a cop pays next to nothing and it's a crappy job...you must know it's a draw for bullies and guys who want to wear a uniform and get easy pussy. Everyone knows you have to say yes sir and no sir, simply because you don't want to be falsely arrested or cracked over the head with a club. If you are black, you don't have a chance.

• Because of the cash crunch..fewer cops. The fewer cops the better. Nothing good about living in a police state. I have never known a cop to do the right thing, never in my entire life.

• But that's not true R89, there are A RECORD number of cops and cop hires. Combine these yokels with all of their new paramilitary gear and the fact that 90% of them are on steroids. Seriously, have you seen how giant these meatheads are these days and you've got a piss poor representation of humanity. And all of the people who say "But you'll call them when you need them." Yes. Because I have no other fucking choice.

• There is an excessive amount of police officers in the US. The number of sworn peace officers has more than tripled in the past twenty years to over 1.2 million while the population has only grown by about 24% Perhaps in REALLY poor cities the numbers have decreased but not as a whole. Our cops look like Darth Fucking Vadar now. Everything's black and futuristic and designed to intimate.

• I can only go by my city. We're only 180,000 people, 500 sworn officers. So divide 500 by 3 shifts and it's 166 on any given shift. So 166 for 180,000 people is 1:1084, if you count the 500 person force in total, it goes down to 1:360

  LuciferTheLightBringer

• In my city, our police force was down 40% at one time...from attrition and the wars in the Mid-east (which had the National Guard and Reserve guys getting called up). Things are a bit more normal now. I think there are bad cops...but I also think it has become fashionable to hate cops in general. You've got a generation that grew up on the rap vision of police. The bad things some cops have done have been videotaped and replayed over and over. Where are the repeat viewings of a cop being decent?

• I don't think it matters if they are or not when the ones who ARE corrupt get away with so many crimes. If there are any cops who are not corrupt, you never hear a peep out of them about it.

• Read about the Adrian Schoolcraft investigation in New York City if you want a spine-chilling, up close look at corrupt cops. It will make your hair stand on end. You'll never trust another cop.

• I am black and male. I hate police. Hate them. I've never had an altercation but I am well aware that the police are not my friends and can just as easily shoot me dead and get off than they can help me. I obey the law (duh) and completely avoid them at all costs.

• I'm a clean cut white male, and I bet you I'm ten times more scared of cops than you are, R96. If granny (or a pregnant lady, or a child) catches a cop on an off day then they have a good chance ending up dead or in jail if they dare stand up for their rights. The horror stories of innocent people destroyed or killed because they dared disagree would fill a library. I know- it's one of my research topics.

• Corruption isn't the only problem. That brotherhood code where you don't turn against one of your own is what makes most male dominated professions untrustworthy when it comes to outsiders.

• You can't ever disagree with them because they don't mind killing you and calling their buddies to help them out. I saw one cop take a pregnant woman and throw her down on the pavement without even a second thought and that was a white woman, if she had been black he would have killed her, even though she had actually done nothing wrong.

• Read the new Vanity Fair. It has an article about a cold case..."so cold it was blue" from years ago which 2 detectives re-opened. They discovered that the main suspect was a well-respected policewoman and that it was basically covered up years ago. And evidence disappeared which would have incriminated her further. The dead woman's father even told the cops at the time of the murder that the police woman (the victim's husband's ex-girlfriend) was the main suspect. And she was working in the same precinct as the detectives who busted her. Good article.

• I read that, R100. It is from a year or so back. Chilling how she could get her boss and co-workers to lie, and how none of them were charged after the truth came out.

• "That brotherhood code where you don't turn against one of your own..." That's b.s. Cops are emotionally immature and conduct themselves like 7th graders playing cops 'n robbers. They hold petty grudges and turn on each other all the time.

• Yes! People need to wake up and pay attention.

  http%3A//www.youtube.com/watch%3Fv%3Dy0aaxFemzvI

• I believe that there are a few good cops who go into law enforcement for the right reasons. But the institutions themselves are corrupt and a few good people do not have the power to effect real change. Once they're in the system, they either adapt or, as in OP's example of the internal affairs cop, get kicked out. Police organizations look for the kinds of people who are corrupt and easy to control because they make the best cops for the institution iteself. They don't really care about doing what's right for the greater good or the public. I had jury duty a few months ago and was thisclose to being picked. But during voire dire, I had to tell them that I hate cops, don't trust them and why I feel that way (some cops railroaded my brother). I was dismissed from the jury, even though I told the judge I could be impartial. Even in the courtroom, they want juries who fear the badge.

• R22, your statement, "law-abiding citizens don't fear the police," is what is wrong with this country and why law enforcement agencies are able to get away with murder. Literally. Even law-abiding citizens should fear the police, not necessarily individuals but as an organization. And you should fear them for the power they have and what they do with it. And then you should take that fear and channel it into an effort to strengthen the checks and balances of your local police force. I don't like cops. I think you have to have a certain mentality to flourish in that environment and that mentality isn't very respectable, in my opinion. But not all cops are bad, as I said in an earlier post. I strongly believe that corruption is so engrained in the institutions themselves that individuals cannot fix it. This may seem a little extreme but it makes sense to me. I equate police forces with the Nazi party. You could have introduced a few good people into the party but there's no way they could have brought it down. Not without an organized, concerted effort. And I'm sure the Nazis would have taken care of any person who resisted the party's goals. Police forces do the same thing. Look what happened to the IA cop in OP's example.

  R104

• D. Hammett: All towns are the same, run by the cops, the crooks and the big rich. Know a major mobster, has 3 sons became cops, 2 detectives. Nothing scarier than a licensed killer with backup and access to cars, prisons, and courts. And in Abner Louima's case, a plunger. Working class right wing and their old money masters, my dear sheep.

• R106 if you REALLY want your blood to boil, check out some of the articles in the archive I'm linking. Cops are subhuman thugs with badges.

  http%3A//www.lewrockwell.com/grigg/grigg-arch.html

  OP

• Regina Tasca is a "rogue cop" – and God bless her for it.  Tasca is in the middle of disciplinary hearings that may result in her termination from the Bogota, New Jersey Police Department. She stands accused of "bizarre and outlandish" behavior in two incidents a year ago during which she revealed herself to be "A danger to other police officers."  Her first supposed offense – which wasn't mentioned until after the second – was a failure to assist another officer who was "attacked" by a drunken woman who was roughly half his weight and barely five feet tall. Her second was was to intervene when a police officer from another jurisdiction viciously assaulted an emotionally troubled young man who was not suspected of a crime.

  http%3A//lewrockwell.com/grigg/grigg-w256.html

  OP

• The question seemed harmless, as did the questioner, Sgt. Tim Soronen of the Demopolis, Alabama police department. Diane Avera, the 45-year-old grandmother from Meridian, Mississippi to whom that question was posed, couldn’t see any harm in answering it candidly. "I came over to buy some Sudafed for our scuba diving trip this weekend, since we can’t buy it in Meridian anymore," Mrs. Avera explained.  Soronen asked Avera if she knew it was against the law to cross the state line to buy Sudafed.  "No, sir, I did not know," the startled woman replied. "I need you to step out of the car," Soronen demanded. "For what? I swear I didn’t know. What did I do?" Avera asked in alarm. "You came to Demopolis to buy some Sudafed," came the curt response. "Step to the back of the truck." Before the sun set on July 29, 2010, Diane Avera was in the Marengo County Jail, where she would remain for forty days. At one point she was shackled to a restraint chair for 17 hours. During that time she was denied water or access to a bathroom. She also developed edema in her feet. Edema-related blood clots have been identified as the cause of death for several of the inmates who have perished while chained to the "Devil’s Chair." Using the threat of kidnapping Avera’s grandchildren, Soronen extorted from the terrified woman a confession that she had knowingly purchased Sudafed for the purpose of manufacturing crystal methamphetamine. After more than a month in a government cage, Avera was released from jail on $51,000 bail. Marengo County DA Greg Griggers offered Mrs. Avera his standard plea bargain: Five years of probation if she agreed not to defend herself in court. If she turned down that deal, however, Griggers promised, "I will send you to prison." If Avera had been a meth dealer, she almost certainly would have accepted Griggers’ offer. As an innocent woman whose unwitting violation of an obscure technical statute had injured nobody, Avera contested the charge. 

  OP

• Otto Zehm, a mentally handicapped, 36-year-old unemployed janitor, was beaten to death in a Spokane convenience store in March 2006. "All I wanted was a Snickers bar," pleaded the battered and bloody man before he was gagged by his assailant. On November 4, Karl Thompson, the man convicted of killing Zehm, was taken to jail. Several dozen members of Thompson’s gang were gathered outside the courtroom – most of them proudly wearing the colors – to "show their honor" by offering the murderer a public salute. Thompson – whose hands weren’t cuffed, in violation of long-established rules – smiled and returned the gesture. Zehm’s still-grieving mother and several other relatives stood just a few feet away. The gang in question is the Spokane Police Department, which even now refuses to acknowledge that Thompson – who was a nominee to become Chief at the time he murdered Zehm – ever did anything wrong when he clubbed, tased, and suffocated a terrified, innocent man who did nothing to provoke the attack, and who put up no violent resistance to the assault. Zehm had done custodial work at Fairchild Air Force Base and was well-known, and equally well-liked, by many people in his neighborhood, some of whom were aware that he had been diagnosed with schizophrenia. He was in the daily habit of visiting a convenience store called Zip Trip to purchase junk food – usually Pepsi and a candy bar.

  OP

• I fucking hate that the cops are going from 0-60 in 5 seconds the past few years. No conversation, no nothing - just a threat "Do you want me to take you in?" that comes up WAY TOO QUICKLY. Drunk with power.

• When select people hold all the power as cops do, there is no downside to being dishonest and self serving. You need to give serious thought to the working of a persons brain that decides to make a career of living off the mistakes of other people. In my opinion, no cop should be allowed to "serve" for more than 3 years. And, police service should count the same as serving in the military so those who want their police service to continue on after their 3 year, they can go Army/AirForce/Navy and serve 17 more years for a 20 year retirement. No one should be allowed to be a policeman for 20 or more years.

• More simply put, NO ONE WHO WANTS TO BE A POLICEMAN SHOULD BE ALLOWED TO BE A POLICEMAN. THE VERY NATURE OF POLICE WORK ATTRACTS ONLY THE WRONG THINKING PEOPLE.

• I agree, R113. And while we're at it, may I add that only hot guys who look even hotter in a uniform be allowed to be a cop.

• Even if every cop in the United States was completely corrupt, I'd respect them more than Libertarians.

• R115, that's because you're too ignorant to understand that cops are just reflections of government power, something only socialists seem to adore. Normal people realize that government is the enemy, not the fountain of all things good.

• My Uncle used to drive around saying..."Stop signs, goddamn stop signs...I don't need somebody to tell me when to stop"... and them he'd sail through the intersection. He hated cops too.

• Did some idiot really say this? "law-abiding citizens don't fear the police,"...what a naive fool!

• Yeah- look at how cops have treated gays for decades, then look at their gay defenders. How such cognitive dissonance doesn't produce insanity (and if you look at their political and economic beliefs, it's an arguable point) is beyond reckoning.

• Could have been a good thread were it not for the Lew Rockwell freak. I dislike cops, but not so much I'd side with some crackpot like Lew Rockwell.

• [quote]Normal people realize that government is the enemy, not the fountain of all things good. So do us all a favor, move to Somalia, and let those of us with functioning brains discuss the proper role of policing and government in our lives.

• "Government is evil; if you're defending government you must be a socialist." I mean, really. You're too brain-damaged to be having a political discussion about, well, anything.

• R122, who's more damaged- The person that believes everything that is said but refuses to give it any credence because someone he personally dislikes says it (aka R120), the person that believes government propaganda about Africa and the middle east (aka R121) or the person that says that cops are merely a reflection of the laws they enforce, the lawmakers that pass them, the big companies that make money off certain laws and the media that is always calling for even more laws. Please trolldar me- I'm the OP, and posted 90% of the horror stories (and there are thousands more) that this man has documented. The police are becoming even more corrupt, more violent, more willing to violate civil liberties, more willing to lie, cheat steal and kill. Unless we stop it now, our future looks like it will be a police state soon. "A corrupt society has many laws"---- Tacitus

  OP

• [quote]I occasionally do criminal defense Thanks but pretending to be Perry Mason while watching reruns of the show isn't exactly what we are looking for

• Ultimately the difference between socialists and libertarians (and in reality, those are the only two poles in the system) is this- Socialists believe in the perfectibility of man, the notion that if the right laws were passed and enforced by the right people under the right educational and controlled economic conditions then everybody would be happy and carefree.  Libertarians realize that man is never perfect, and that laws must be designed to account for the self-interested nature of the men that pass and enforce them- and the nature of those who live under those laws, that education and income and desire and aptitude will always vary in everyone, and that not everyone will be happy and free from harm in every interaction. And how boring would that be anyway.  The problem arises from the fact that the laws and regulations and safety nets and bailouts that socialists love create numerous unintended consequences that require more rules, more regulations, etc. Their blind devotion to this ideal society leaves them unable to see the damage their beliefs create.  The laws that control education have resulted in a system where many (especially minority) youth don't graduate, and most of those that do graduate don't have a decent education. The banking system has been designed to transfer wealth and power from the lower and middle classes to the uberwealthy (the .01%) and the regulatory system is under their control (Madoff, Corzine, Summers- remember them?) and they get the first new money that gets printed; the military, big business and big oil are all aligned to control the middle east via violence; the health care laws are written by the big insurance, pharma and medical lobbies...the list of corruption- petty, grand and treasonous- could fill this entire site.  See Europe circa 2012. 

• Capitalists have been gripped by 'systemic fear' making them worry not about the day-to-day movements of growth, employment, and profit, but about 'losing their grip'. An interesting recent article by the Real-World Economics Review on the Asymptotes of Power focuses on the fact that the capitalists are forced to realize that their system may not be eternal, and that it may not survive in its current form. The authors fear that, peering into the future, the '1%' realize that in order to maintain (or further increase) their distributional power (their net profit share of national income - which hovers at record highs) they will have to unleash even greater doses of social 'violence' on the lower classes. The high level of force already being applied makes them increasingly fearful of the backlash they are about to receive (think Europe to a lesser extent) and nowhere is this relationship between the wealthy capitalists and social upheaval more evident than in the incredible correlation between the Top 10% share of wealth and the percent of the labor force in prison. In order to have reached the peak level of power it currently enjoys, the ruling class has had to inflict growing threats, sabotage and pain on the underlying population. (see chart at link) During the 1930s and 1940s, this level proved to be the asymptote of capitalist power: it triggered a systemic crisis, the complete reordering of the U.S. political economy, and a sharp decline in capitalist power, as indicated by the large drop in inequality. As we can see, since the 1940s this ratio has been tightly and positively correlated with the distributional power of the ruling class: the greater the power indicated by the income share of the top 10 per cent of the population, the larger the dose of violence proxied by the correctional population. Presently, the number of ‘corrected’ adults is equivalent to nearly 5 per cent of the U.S. labour force. This is the largest proportion in the world, as well as in the history of the United States.

• So, the Attorney General of the USA is above the law... ----- After earlier none other than Obama stepped up and invoked an executive privilege, hoping the next step would be avoided, Darrell Issa just called the president and the AG's bluff: HOUSE PANEL VOTES TO HOLD ERIC HOLDER IN CONTEMPT - BBG But wait, there's more: HOLDER CALLS CONTEMPT VOTE `EXTRAORDINARY' AND UNNECESSARY HOLDER CALLS CONTEMPT VOTE `ELECTION-YEAR TACTIC' ... And now to give some illegal immigrant voters pseudo-amnesty. So aside from this soaring acrimony between Republicans and Democrats, the "Fiscal cliff" issue will be promptly resolved. Promise. From Bloomberg: A U.S. House committee brushed aside President Barack Obama’s claim of executive privilege and held Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt of Congress for failing to turn over documents related to a law enforcement effort to track guns to Mexican drug cartels.   In a party-line vote, the Republican majority on the House Oversight and Government Reform panel voted to approve the first contempt citation for a Cabinet member in 14 years. Republicans said Holder failed to comply with a subpoena for documents in the Fast and Furious gun operation, which allowed illegally purchased firearms from the U.S. to wind up in Mexico.   The 23-17 committee vote marks an escalation in a standoff that began last year between Republican lawmakers and the Obama administration. The full House would have to approve the measure before it could refer the case to the U.S. attorney in Washington to determine whether prosecution is warranted for failing to comply with a congressional subpoena.   The House panel is seeking documents describing internal Justice Department discussions about a February 2011 letter to lawmakers that Holder later said mistakenly contained incorrect information.   The Justice Department says it already has provided more than 7,600 pages of documents in the case.   This is the first time Obama has invoked executive privilege, according to the White House.   Executive Privilege   Executive privilege is a principle that says the executive branch can’t be forced by the legislative branch to disclose confidential communications when they would harm operations.   Documents responsive to the House panel’s subpoena relate to “sensitive law enforcement activities, including ongoing criminal investigations and prosecutions,” said Deputy Attorney General James Cole in a letter today to Republican Representative Darrell Issa of California, the chairman of the House panel.   Guns in Fast and Furious ended up “lost” and will turn up at crime scenes on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border for years, Holder told lawmakers last year.   Two of about 2,000 guns that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives allowed to be carried away were found at the scene of the December 2010 murder of U.S. Border Patrol agent Brian Terry in Arizona, according to a congressional report.   Holder has said he didn’t learn of the tactics in the operation until after it was the subject of news reports. Since then, he has banned the use of similar law enforcement methods.   Holder last year told a Senate hearing that he regretted a Feb. 4, 2011 letter the Justice Department sent lawmakers that indicated the ATF hadn’t “knowingly allowed” the tactics in the law enforcement operation to be employed. Information in the letter turn out to be inaccurate, he said.

• In Mexico, YES. I have had many friends who were arrested for a minor charge, taken to jail and had to pay their way out. This happened in Acapulco and also in Puerto Vallarto. You could not pay me to go into Mexico. I spent a week in Mazatlan one time and it was the week from hell. I was SO happy to be on American soil again when I got home.

  Manuela de Burgos-Espinoza

• UK rightwing in power plans to privatize police. UK cops pretty corrupt, viz. cell phone scandal. US cops pretty corrupt. But, 3rd World cops, license to steal and murder. Yes, NYC too, but slightly restrained. Depends. Kerik, wow. Safir, pretty bad. Lots of mob children in police now.

• Yes, all cops are corrupt. Working for the mafia makes you corrupt.

• Who Watches The Watchmen? If you record them committing a crime, they can steal your property and throw you in jail. Thugs. ------ The ACLU has sued the District of Columbia and two police officers for allegedly seizing the cellphone of a man who photographed a police officer allegedly mistreating a citizen, and for then stealing his memory card. The suit, filed in federal court (.pdf) in Washington, D.C., alleges that the police officer violated Earl Staley, Jr.’s First Amendment and Fourth Amendment rights by improperly searching and seizing his property while he was exercising his right to photograph the police performing their duty. The incident occurred July 20 when Staley, on his way to a bus stop with a friend, pulled out his phone to record police after he saw an officer hit a man on a motorbike. Two police officers then allegedly punched the man on the ground as he bled. Staley pulled out his phone to take photos when police also allegedly began “chest bumping” bystanders who would not leave the scene. Officer James O’Bannon seized Staley’s smartphone from his hand when he saw Staley take a photo of another officer and told Staley that he had broken the law in photographing the officer, according to the complaint. O’Bannon told Staley he was seizing the phone as evidence and threatened to arrest Staley if he didn’t leave the scene. When Staley was later given back his phone by police, his memory card was missing. The police have still not returned the card, which Staley says contained several years’ worth of personal data, including family photos, passwords, financial account data and music files. “That memory card had a lot of my life on it,” Staley said in a statement. “I can never replace those photos of my daughter’s first years. The police had no right to steal it. They’re supposed to enforce the law, not break it.” The incident occurred a day after the D.C.’s Metropolitan Police Department issued a General Order informing officers that the public has a First Amendment right to photograph or record police officers performing their duties in public. That’s also the legal opinion of the U.S. Justice Department. Per the D.C. order, police cannot “[i]n any way threaten, intimidate or otherwise discourage an individual from recording members’ enforcement activities,” and prohibits officers from seizing cameras unless an “official with supervisory authority” is present at the scene. “Officers must learn that people have a right to photograph them in public places, and that trying to cover up police misconduct is worse than the initial misconduct,” said Arthur B. Spitzer, Legal Director of the ACLU’s D.C. chapter, said in a statement. “The officer’s actions here will have consequences.”

  http%3A//www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/09/man-sues-police-over-phone/

• It's part of human nature that absolute power corrupts. Every. Single. Human. is subject to this; anyone who denies it is dangerous and delusional. The problem with cops as a profession is that the oversight committees and boards are always designed to give the cop the benefit of the doubt in disputed cases and the victim the burden of guilt. The result is that the abuse by the cop must be extreme and perfectly documented for the victim to prevail. That's rare. Most people modify their behavior when they believe they are likely to be held accountable for criminal acts. People who laugh at the potential for consequences feel free to follow their very human instincts to wield that power regardless of the cost to others. If you want fair and just law enforcement, don't waste time demonizing the individual cop. He is only following human nature. Go after the review boards and oversight committees and mayors and city councils that write the laws and ordinances under which they operate. Insist on fair rules and competent reviews of police actions. Only when this is the norm will you not need to fear individual cops. Just like you, a cop with unlimited power will abuse it. Knowing there are likely no consequences to their actions, they do what humans do.

• All cops are just thugs with badges.

• .

• Idiot Libertarian troll talking to himself. Again.

• Why bump the thread, R135? BTW, cops are thugs with badges.

• Yes. They are corrupt, and generally too stupid to see how they are destroying our basic civil liberties. See the link.

  http%3A//www.huffingtonpost.com/radley-balko/the-terrorfighting-boondo_b_2257954.html%3Futm_hp_ref%3Dthe-agitator

• I'm from a small town and went to school with a kid who's stepdad was a cop.He'd come to school and brag about his dad smoking confiscated pot and roughing up the "niggers" this kid was also a Klan wanna be who had pictures he'd drawn of black people bleeding and hanging from trees and a multitude of weapons he'd made himself,All out in the open in the garage where his mom and dad could have easily seen it and yes he wanted to be a cop just like dear old dad.

• Society does not need any cops! People will live in peace with each other if there were no cops. That's the truth.

• You're sorta wrong, R139, but not as wrong as the cop worshipping masses. We will always have violence and crime. Given a choice- cops or no cops- I would choose none. We would definitely be more peaceful. The article at the link might help you see why you're more right than wrong.

  http%3A//mises.org/daily/4101

• Yes. Didn't you see Serpico.

• I former work colleague was married to a narcotics detective. The guy was a total burnout. He was doing a lot of the drugs which were confiscated and taking a lot of the drug money. I was floored when she brought the husband to some work function. He was completely disgusting looking, she looked like a super model! This women was self sufficient, in fact she had left her job to start her own business. For some reason she stood by her loser husband. This woman couldn't have children, so that wasn't why she stayed, she also made more money than he did. No one could figure out the relationship. We were all baffled what this smart attractive accomplished woman saw in this loser. Years down the line, another work collegue told me he'd bumped into her in Manhattan, she was still with her druggie husband. At that point he was on some sort of 'disability. Your tax dollars at work!

• Three of the cops involved are facing felony charges that have been filed against them. The mother of the homeless man has received 1 Million Dollars as a partial settlement aside from the wrongful death suit that is pending. These cops will face justice and largely because of the public outcry. This is still America and civil servants are held to the same laws as the rest of us.

• "This is still America and civil servants are held to the same laws as the rest of us." R143, that's the kind of delusion that keeps you from seeing how corrupt our government is. Cops, and government officials, get away with murder, robbery and rape all the time.

• I feel like a LARGE majority of cops are both corrupt, and racist.

• R145 You left out soulless, sociopathic and scary. If we still had freedoms under the (dead) constitution, we would be better off, but the average person worships the government, good or bad.

• Here is a thread (deleted by the webbie) about how cops gunned down an 83 year old woman. Wonder why she deleted it?

  http%3A//www.datalounge.com/cgi-bin/iowa/ajax.html%23page%3ApostReply%2C11983331%2Cundefined

• Growing up, I had the ultimate respect for them. After I became an adult, it vanished.

  Run%21%20The%20POPO%21

• Prosecutors, Judges, and cops are all corrupt in L.A. So are defense attorneys. The whole system there is chillingly fixed. If you hire the "right" law firm, i.e. Lavely and Singer, you can bury someone just on the basis of having that law firm. Whole LAPD units are bought off by hollywood Law Firms and judges and prosecutors are on the take. It sounds nutty but it's true. It would take a great hero to expose it. The level of cowardice and blind ambition of the legal community allow savage injustices to continue year after year. For the right price you can destroy anyone in L.A. Two recent cases had lawyers fighting back and being jailed and made out to look "mentally incompetent" in response. Google Richard Fine and Ronald Gottshalk for a small sample.

• R147- Something very wrong with the webbie. He or she has deleted so many posts and threads. It doesn't make sense. A story is unfolding about a psychopath named Tig Notaro, and her assorted frauds and crimes . The webbie will come out looking like a creep and a coward for bowing to meaningless and bogus cease and desist letters. Shame shame shame on the cowardly idiot that is the DL webmaster.

  this%20will%20get%20deleted%20too

• How can the thread be deleted if it's all there to read, R147?

• No. We are NOT all corrupt.

  Victor Willis

• I don't trust cops. I'm an educated white person, and I don't fear them -- I just don't trust them. I think that too many are corrupt, dishonest and violent, even sociopathic.

• They are just like all other humans. Most of them are corrupt to some extent.

• The 2009 arrest of then-University of Florida baseball player Stephen Locke Jr. on a DUI charge was a grand slam — at least based on the police report. Locke was weaving through traffic, it said. He was going 10 mph below the speed limit. His breath smelled like alcohol, and his speech was slurred. He used his SUV for balance after he was pulled over. But those details in the arrest report did not match reality as seen through the dashboard camera of Gainesville Police Officer Daniel Surrency. “There is no corroborating evidence, specifically meaning that none of that is on the video,” State Attorney Bill Cervone said at the time. “On the videotape, the defendant does not appear to do anything such as stumble or sway.” Within two months, Cervone dropped the charges. Locke was a high-profile case, but his was not an isolated incident. He was just one of hundreds of people arrested each year by the Gainesville Police Department and Alachua County Sheriff's Office whose charges later are dropped because of insufficient evidence. A review by The Sun shows the top reason cases are dismissed for ASO, and the second- or third-most-cited reason for GPD, is because prosecutors determine they do not have enough evidence to get a conviction. In 2011, ASO made 4,972 arrests and dropped a total of 510 cases for insufficient evidence and related reasons. Over the same period, GPD made 10,845 arrests and dropped 917 cases for the same reasons. Those in the legal system can disagree about whether the statistics indicate shoddy or overzealous police work, flawed lawyering or just a complex process functioning as it should by weeding out weak or bad arrests. What is clear, however, is that these dismissed cases come at a considerable price to taxpayers and those arrested. For defendants, there is the loss of liberty compounded by the costs of posting bond and arranging legal counsel. There also can be damaging impacts such as having an undeserved arrest record, and ramifications — such as possibly losing a job — because of it. “We currently live in a world where an arrest destroys somebody's life,” said Craig DeThomasis, a Gainesville criminal defense attorney. “There is no such thing as turning back the hands of time and undoing a bad arrest. The concept of expungement almost isn't worth anyone's time anymore because, within 24 hours of arrest, the public database is accessed a thousand times by private databases, and it's out there forever.” For taxpayers, the costs include salaries for police officers, investigators, corrections officers, prosecutors, defense attorneys and all of the ancillary staffers who make the judicial system run. And as is the case with Locke, such dismissals can result in costly lawsuits. Locke, who was dropped from the UF baseball team because of the arrest, is now suing the city of Gainesville, Surrency and Officer Joey Devore for damages of more than $75,000. Neither Surrency nor Devore work for GPD anymore. About 43 percent of arrests made by GPD and ASO are dropped, data from 2008-11 show. It is difficult to put that number into context because Florida's state attorneys do not have a uniform system for tracking the reasons cases are dropped, making it impossible to compare the circuits.

  http%3A//www.gainesville.com/article/20121216/ARTICLES/121219734/1002/news%3Ftemplate%3Dprintart

• Why I hate cops- (well at least one big reason) As a kid 20 years ago I worked for the government in my home county, and 2-3 times a week the boss (a friend of mom's) would tell me to take a late lunch (while the girls went to Chik-fil-a) and then after they got back, she would tell them we were taking lunch and then going to the other branch office to do paperwork. While they were gone we would review all the transactions ( I had a head for numbers, and patterns) and if everything was cool we left as soon as they got back and either hit the sleaziest bar (even the two girls who weren't Fundies wouldn't come in there) and play pool and talk shit, or meet the deputy mayor or some other official and talk politics over martinis. She would tell me stories about how the vice mayor embezzled money, or how the sheriffs son smoked weed all the time in the basement, or how two cute deputies were lovers and stole cocaine from the lab. Even though there were "scandals" (and one of the deputies did resign for using "excessive force" on a teenage boy, off duty...aka rape, but since he had a badge...) the guy still claimed disability and now is in his early 50s and hasn't worked a day since, but still gets (as of 15 years ago) $4000+ a month, and I've seen him repairing roofs, etc. He even came to my mom's house one day asking if she needed help on her roof, and when she asked if he was xxxxxx he said no and left. I got paid for 40 hours, and rarely worked more than 25. Plus benefits.

• Denver Police Officer Eric Sellers once choked an innocent pedestrian into unconsciousness while two other officers refused to intervene. This was an act of summary “street justice” imposed as a penalty for “contempt of cop”: The victim, a volunteer fire fighter named Jared Lunn, had been assaulted at a nearby club and had told Sellers that he wanted to press charges. When Sellers dismissively told Lunn to go home, the 21-year-old disgustedly muttered “Way to `protect and serve.’” Such impudence on the part of a Mundane simply can’t be tolerated. A few weeks later, Sellers attacked a young man named John Crespin because the officer thought the kid acted “nosy.” Without cause or warrant, Sellers pulled up into the driveway of Sellers’ home and ordered him out of his car. When Crespin complied, his shoulder brushed lightly against the officer’s arm – an incidental contact that left Sellers feeling defiled. So the officer seized the young man in a chokehold and spit a stream of obscenities in his face. After handcuffing Crespin, Sellers used his police baton to lift the young man a couple of feet from the ground, then dropped him face-first into the driveway. He then brutally beat him into a bloody, lumpy mess before charging him with “felony menacing.” In March 2008, a disabled Iraq veteran named James Moore was nearly beaten to death on the sidewalk outside his apartment by a thugscrum of Denver officers. After being hog-tied, choked, and pummeled, Moore briefly flat-lined while he was being treated by EMTs. The lead assailant was Officer Shawn Miller. Two days earlier, Miller and his partner severely beat a pedestrian named Jason Graber, leaving him with a broken knee and a permanent disability. Graber, alarmed over Miller’s reckless driving, had gesture for the officer to slow down. That prompted Miller to stop and treat the uppity Mundane to a dose of law and order. During a November 2010 incident in a secure apartment building, Miller cursed at, browbeat, threatened, battered, and abducted a disabled woman named Doreen Salazar because of her perceived tardiness in buzzing him and his partner into the residential area. Security camera video shows Miller snarling at the small, middle-aged woman, pushing her, and cornering her near an elevator. He then slammed her face-first into the elevator door, handcuffed her, and held her in his patrol car for about ten minutes – a sadistic act that served no purpose other than to terrorize an uppity Mundane who had failed to respect Miller’s supposed authority.

• Neither Sellers nor Miller, nor dozens of other Denver cops who routinely commit violent crimes against the innocent, has ever been punished. John Copeland isn’t as fortunate. Two weeks ago, the elderly man – who is hard of hearing – used his cane to defend himself from what he thought was an attack in a parking lot. The assailant was a volunteer police officer. A few days later, several police later materialized and dragged Copeland out of bed in the middle of the night. He has been jailed on suspicion of felony assault – not because of the severity of his supposed offense, but because of the identity of the supposed victim. A few weeks ago, Denver’s Police Union – which, in the face of fierce competition, has distinguished itself as one of the most corrupt, arrogant, and petulant in the country – erected a billboard to protest what it considers improper changes in the city’s all-but-nonexistent police disciplinary system. “Gangs or Cops – Which Would You Rather Have On Your Streets?” asks the billboard, as if the question dealt with a significant material distinction.

  http%3A//www.lewrockwell.com/blog/lewrw/archives/130090.html%23more-130090

• R120- [quote]Could have been a good thread were it not for the Lew Rockwell freak.I dislike cops, but not so much I'd side with some crackpot like Lew Rockwell. How sad. When someone is so tied to their partisan ideals that they cannot accept anything from someone who disagrees with them even slightly (I'm sure that the anti war, anti big banks, anti corporate welfare, pro civil liberties, pro gay rights of Ron Paul have slipped by you) it just shows how ignorant and easily mislead the sheeple really are. You make me sad.

• Lew Rockwell is a kook and anyone who believes in absolutes is no better.

• R160- I'm sorry that your inadequate education left you too ignorant to craft a coherent response. I feel sorry for you. If you will try to educate your ignorant dumbass on economics then maybe you will understand how the world works.

• 97% of cops are corrupt The rest retire rather than sell their souls.

• [quote]I'm sorry that your inadequate education left you too ignorant to craft a coherent response. I feel sorry for you. Right back at you, dear. [quote]If you will try to educate your ignorant dumbass on economics then maybe you will understand how the world works. ROFL.... Coming from you, dear, with your determined ignorance of economics, history, and politics, that's a compliment. How's that hyperinflation coming? And gold climbing to ten times its current value? And that utter collapse of the economy and the default of the US government? We've been waiting for years now for your predictions to come true.

• Last reported US inflation rate: November 2012: 1.8% Libertarians have been, and always will be, fucking morons.

• I pretty much think they all are. What's rarely discussed is that they count on plea bargains and they are way too buddy buddy with prosecutors and judges. They make bad arrests and expect a plea or else. If you want to take your case to trial they will do anything to convince you otherwise. Anything. If you go to trial and win they can be sued or if they drop the charges they can be sued so they will frame you rather than just drop obviously false charges. I've been there .It was a nightmare and a horrible revelation. Then, when you sue the judge works for the city too and will do everything in their power to get rid of civil rights cases.

  been%20there%20and%20beat%207%20charges%20by%20sheer%20chutzpah%20and%20innocenc

• R165- But libertarians are crazy!

• Those two views are not mutually exclusive, R166. You are, in fact, loony, and some cops are, in fact, corrupt.

• Got another thread closed with your spamming, I see. You never learn, do you?

• R167- Your inability to understand why corrupt cops are at the heart of libertarianism just shows how limited you are.

• Corrupt cops are just a manifestation of corrupt government. The people that refuse to understand the logic of liberty, and how it relates to private businesses, the drug wars, the attacks in Iraq, the mega banks, the military industrial complex, the erosion of civil liberties... Well, that just shows how effective the government schools have been in dumbing down the populace.

• My friend in high school dated the police chief's son. Damn, the things I learned about our local police force, which was always notoriously corrupt. The chief was eventually fired after a house-cleaning due to corrupt practices being exposed. But my friend's boyfriend would get free drugs from his dad that were found in raids. He got a lot of drug money, too. Everyone was on the take.

• Your inability to understand why corrupt cops are at the heart of WHAT libertarianism OPPOSES just shows how limited you are. Changing tenses, and sentence structure is a bitch.

  R169

• R171- Extrapolate that to EVERY government agency. The FDA. The SEC. The EPA. The IRS. The DEA. Once you realize that all of those agencies are populated by people just like your friend's dad, and multiply the corruption by the level of power...you will understand why libertarians hate the government and are right.

• Yeah.

  Luke%20Dunphy

• Guns are to protect us from a despotic government. Our government is despotic. Ergo, we will soon need those guns. Anyone who disagrees just needs to read "They Thought They Were Free", a history of Germany from the late 30s through WW2. When the president can kill any citizen, with no court oversight, and no repercussion, then you live in a dictatorship. Obama's NDAA (just like Bu$h) gives him that power, and he has already used it.

• Oh boy - I think the department in my city is fairly good. I don't see much egregious behavior from them and when there is such behavior it's dealt with and prosecuted. Now, we've had some stupid cops. Quite a number of years back a black cop got shot to death by two white cops. The black cop was off duty and instead of having his badge out he pulled a gun gangster style on them. Not good. I also worked for a couple years for the state Attorney General's office. A lot of the prosecutors were probably off their rocker but having assisted in many cases I can also say there are some dumb ass people in the general public. But here's a cheery thought. Autonomous vehicles are coming faster than you think. When a preponderance of cars are of this type, there's no more need for traffic enforcement. Then at some point the U.S. will get it's head out of it's ass and legalize all drugs and move the money into rehab programs instead of prisons. So then you don't need the drug interdiction cops. All you'll need is a small force to deal with the rapes, robberies, and property crimes.

  LuciferTheLightBringer

• [quote]Once you realize that all of those agencies are populated by people just like your friend's dad, and multiply the corruption by the level of power...you will understand why libertarians hate the government and are right. Of course, once you realize that this extrapolation is total bullshit, you will understand why libertarians are lunatics, disconnected from reality. [quote]Ergo, we will soon need those guns. R175 provides precisely the example I need. Q.E.D.

• R170, I agree. I can see these relationships just be simply following the money and using powers of deduction. I do not check out conspiracy or political sites either (or listen to radio shows). If you want to chat with people about it, or merely comment on how money changes hands on a larger scale, people are ready with a thought - stopping insult of some kind. It's too terrifying and rage inducing to see what's really going on, so this dumbing down that you mention is implemented or at least helped along by the oppressed, from one person to another.

• It's sickening, R178 Look at how "liberals" that railed against Bush2 for the drone attacks on civilians will defend Obama for doing the same thing.

• [quote]Look at how "liberals" that railed against Bush2 for the drone attacks on civilians will defend Obama for doing the same thing. I'm looking in vain for those "liberals." Maybe you can point some out to us, R179.

• Yes, but in a way, I think that's how the system is set up. Cops have to depend on each other 100 per cent in life or death situations so loyalty is paramount. Unfortunately, this also means that they stick by each other when they do bad things. Hence the endemic corruption and covering up for each other.

• I have heard so many accounts of people being stalked by a cop after a romantic burn. About a decade ago, twelve police officers in my town were dismissed for corruption. They were doing the drugs that they confiscated.

• A story about my great-uncle (in Scotland) He was a policeman during WWII - never a great detective, he was always a constable, and what would probably now be called a "Tank"... During a strike, he was standing in a police line. and his (English) Inspector yelled at him about keeping the "civilians" in line My uncle's voice - deep and resonant - came back "Am a polis, ya stupid cunt. Am a civilian tae" Translation: I am a miner who was on the Jarrow March after serving in the trenches from 1914. I am now a policeman - you are an imbecile beyond words. Those are my family and friends = fuck you.

  And he played the organ like no-one else...

• R183, But was he a ginge?

• R180 Here is one article. When was the last time you saw protests of Obama's mass murders in the middle east?

  http%3A//www.salon.com/2012/06/04/obama_again_bombs_mourners/

• How about the "liberal" Joel Klein, who excoriated Bush for war crimes, defending Obama. SCARBOROUGH: "What we're doing with drones is remarkable: the fact that over the past eight years during the Bush years - when a lot of people brought up some legitimate questions about international law - my God, those lines have been completely eradicated by a drone policy that says: if you're between 17 and 30, and within a half-mile of a suspect, we can blow you up, and that's exactly what's happening . . . . They are focused on killing the bad guys, but it is indiscriminate as to other people who are around them at the same time . . . . it is something that will cause us problems in the coming years" . . . . KLEIN: "I completely disagree with you. . . . It has been remarkably successful" -- SCARBOROUGH: "at killing people" -- KLEIN: "At decimating bad people, taking out a lot of bad people - and saving Americans lives as well, because our troops don't have to do this . . . You don't need pilots any more because you do it with a joystick in California." SCARBOROUGH: "This is offensive to me, though. Because you do it with a joystick in California - and it seems so antiseptic - it seems so clean - and yet you have 4-year-old girls being blown to bits because we have a policy that now says: 'you know what? Instead of trying to go in and take the risk and get the terrorists out of hiding in a Karachi suburb, we're just going to blow up everyone around them.' "This is what bothers me. . . . We don't detain people any more: we kill them, and we kill everyone around them. . . . I hate to sound like a Code Pink guy here. I'm telling you this quote 'collateral damage' - it seems so clean with a joystick from California - this is going to cause the US problems in the future." KLEIN: "If it is misused, and there is a really major possibility of abuse if you have the wrong people running the government. But: the bottom line in the end is - whose 4-year-old get killed? What we're doing is limiting the possibility that 4-year-olds here will get killed by indiscriminate acts of terror."

  http%3A//www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/oct/23/klein-drones-morning-joe

• [quote]Here is one article. ROFL.... That article *contradicts* what you wrote in R179, dear. Quoting: [quote]In opposition to Obama’s drone policy — and harshly critical of him — were the ACLU’s Director of National Security Project, Hina Shamsi (who said: “There is no national security policy that poses a graver threat to human rights law and civil liberties than” Obama’s kill lists), and The Nation‘s Jeremy Scahill (who caused substantial controversy by denouncing Obama’s drone strikes as “murder). And the article itself was written by the very liberal Glenn Greenwald. In short, you found some prominent liberals vigorously *opposing* Obama's drone policy, not supporting it. Thank you for making my point for me and for revealing yourself as an utter fool.

• [quote]How about the "liberal" Joel Klein, who excoriated Bush for war crimes, defending Obama. Dear heart, Joe (not Joel) Klein is hardly a "liberal." He supported the Iraq War before he was against it and while he did indeed protest against the crimes at Abu Ghraib, he has never protested the use of drones by any President, as far as I know. Once again, you're coming up empty. Quoting "Joke Line," as he is known on liberal blogs is hardly evidence of, well, anything, other than that you're a fool.