njlauren
Posts: 1577
Joined: 10/1/2011
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I am not someone who the cops would know from a hole in the wall, I am not someone who either gets in trouble with the law or who has much to do with cops, for whatever reasons. Speaking for myself, I think those who think cops are a bunch of corrupt fascists out to bust heads either are looking at a time now many years ago in the past (for example, the cops under the first mayor daley in chicago with the police riot in '68, or the Philadelphia cops under rizzo who were so corrrupt the Reagan Justice department, not exactly cop unfriendly, nailed them and forced a major shakeup.
The reasons the cops have the thin blue line is because to many of them, they see that as the difference between staying alive or not (I am not justifying, there is none in that), they really see the world as US versus them. So when a cop goes bad, many of them see it as a duty to cover up for the cop or not say anything, in part because 'he is one of us', in part for the same reason the Catholic Church has spent so much time trying to cover up the priest abuse scandal, for the fear it would hurt their group....(problem with cover ups is, when the shit hits the fan, it is much, much worse PR). And unfortunately the few bad apples do tain the pile, and it is why cops themselves should be rooting out the bad apples, should not cover, the same way the church should be weeding out those who abused kids and worse those who covered up and continue to cover up for kids, show they are serious. IAD does what it can, but they often have to rely on fellow cops telling the truth, which runs into the thin blue line. The PBA is another problem, not unlike other unions, they have the mentality that any member is sancrosanct and they will go out of there way to try and keep a cop on, even after being found guilty of major offenses...when they should be ready to throw the book at them, for making it harder on others.
Cops are also human, and they unfortunately share the biases other people do. Put it this way, even in this day and age, in NYC GLBT people who have been attacked, despite all the laws and so forth, still run into cops when they are victims of crimes look the other way, often won't report the crime. A couple of years ago there was a domestic violence incident involving two lesbian women, when the cops responded they basicallly laughed at it being two women, and walked away...and one of the women later killed the other one with a blunt object..not only did the case not make the papers, the cops involved weren't even reprimanded. When things like this happen, word gets out, and it makes their job harder. Something like this happened at the OWS, some jackass lieutenent was caught pepper spraying some young woman who hadn't done anything, guy did a number on her..at first he claimed she resisted arrest, assaulted him, but there were other witnesses and video that showed him basically doing it for no reason (in all fairness, one of the witnesses was another cop)....based on who the cop was, some gavone from Staten Island in his 50's, I would bet pretty good money he did it because politically he didn't like the protestors. Worse? The cop lost 10 vacation days for what he did, real big penalty, don't you think? (and before someone gives me a hard time for judging the cop for being Italian in background, so am I, and I know the type well..think the jerks you see on Jersey Shore and think of their parents..)
In all fairness to the cops, they also face a difficult situation. For example, even though cops in NYC discharge their weapons less then almost any other major police force,and levels have dropped significantly from past decades, so called "minority leaders' yell about cops excess use of guns, this against the backdrop where in many of these communities innocent people are being gunned down in increasing numbers by their own people, but they scream about the cops.....and yes, in many crime ravenged communities, when shit goes down they won't talk to the cops, they have this 'code of silence', not exactly helped by scumbag celebrities and rappers and the like who reinforce it, and then they complain about how bad it is in their neighborhood, so it isn't exactly one sided. Even now that the police force in NYC is a lot more diverse, lot of black and hispanic cops for example, the wall remains. Plus cops see a lot of things you can't even imagine, having lived in a marginal area for a while, you see things routinely as a cop most people would rather not.
There is valid criticism to be had of the cops, that their leaders especially need to expect the ultimate in professionalism, that there needs to be zero tolerance for corruption or as happened in NYC recently, an openly racist cop who has been bragging about 'taking down N*****', including bragging about busting them when innocent, finally had a downfall when he went to far and IAD investigated and found e-mails where he bragged about his activities, which he called ethnic cleansing....meanwhile, other cops knew about this scum, knew for years, but said nothing, so there is very valid criticism to be had (the PBA should tell this mutant "you are on your own", but I doubt it). As the military learned after Abu Graib, trying to clean up the mess when troops go bad is a lot more difficult then zero tolerance and internal policing, Abu Graib probably directly increased casualties of US troops for the anger it caused.
For those who knee jerk criticize cops or distrust them, in doing so you are making it worse. Most cops are there to do a job and want to do it, and when people distrust them, automatically blame them, or see them as an occupying force, they also should look around at the violence and crime in their communities and put two and two together, that the cops are all they have, that the local crips member or crack dealer or mugger isn't going to give themselves or their kid a break, that if they decide to take an automatic weapon and spray a street cause they think some other mutant dissed him, he will, and if he kills kids and innocent people, well, they are just mushrooms...
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RE: Oakland Police "We too are the 99%" - 
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