Just a shout out to the heroes over at the NYPD. They are truly one of the best forces in the country.
Likewise to the LAPD. While they get a lot of guff, they have a tough city to patrol. Kudos to you, brothers.
That is all.
The following articles were authored by admin
There is a saying “A police officer’s job is always viewed as to what degree of wrong it is done”. An entire department can do the job 100% well with no complaints or problems but a police officer on the other side of the US messes up and all the police officers are viewed with suspicion and, sometimes, contempt even though 99.9% of them had nothing to do with it. And yet, if a police officer looks sideways at a citizen that fits all the factors of suspicious behavior (even if 99.9% of the time someone with those factors are involved in criminal behavior) it’s called “Profiling” and is “bad”.
People who have little knowledge how the job is really done or what occurs during the job feel very free to criticize or out right bash on police officers who may have done nothing wrong…yet still the shots are taken. I’ve personally seen where officers involved in a shooting were hammered by the public even though the suspect had a gun and pointed it at the officers. People were sure that if the officer’s just hadn’t shot him then he wouldn’t have shot at them and he could have been talked down.
People complain about the DUI laws but may not have had a friend scraped off the front of an SUV driven by a drunk…or had someone personally thank them for getting a drunk off the street. DUI laws have helped and anyone who thinks free taxi’s would solve the problem have never worked a New Years Eve when there are free taxi’s and still the drunks get in their cars and drive. The US drunk driving laws are very tame and lenient compared to most other countries. Try Germany….they have a much more strict policy on DUI’s…and less DUI problems.
As to drug laws…I personally have met some people stoned enough to attack me and a fellow police officer. Perhaps he was one of the few who become aggressive on pot…it was strange (and yes, marijuana was the only drug in his system). To me the biggest problem with legalized marijuana is, if it’s allowed to be smoked in public, the second hand smoke from pot can get a “non-smoker” stoned…unlike the fumes from alcohol. And if you’re suggesting the legalization of other “harder” drugs…that I would argue hard against.
As to speeding and other traffic laws…they are the easiest not to get in trouble with. Just follow the rules of the road! And yet, people violate those rules and then get upset when they are given a ticket. Pull a kid out from under a car that was going too fast and couldn’t stop in time and then tell me speed laws are no good. Yes, we could have tougher responses to various other violations..but often the problem is not with the police officer’s but is with the Justice system (i.e.-the courts and prosecutors) and yet it is the police who get blamed. If you don’t like the laws work on getting them changed…don’t blame the police for doing their job and enforcing them.
I think the biggest problem for Cops is that, after a certain point, they get tired of being the scapegoat for societies problems and being told how they should be doing their jobs. They get thrown into a world (yes, by choice) where they see things on a regular basis that they pray their children will never see so they often develop a wall so it all doesn’t “get to” them. After a while they can start to buy into the “Us and Them” feeling…not really good and bad, but “cops and those who don’t understand cops or the job” and they start to feel unappreciated and isolated. If they don’t activily fight that feeling then it can become pervasive and then it grows. The best solution I found is to get out of the car and talk to people (if you can). Most people are hard working people trying to make it in the world. Unfortunately it’s not the good one’s cops deal with most of the time.
Just a few of my random thoughts….