Now I really think you're bordering on paranoia and delusion.
This is the fantasy you would like to portray. That these kinds of things are an oddity, so far removed from reality, as to not be worthy of fear of possibility.
What you are failing completely to understand is that this kind of behavior projects a pattern instantly recognized socially. I myself have had run ins with good cops, and run ins with bad cops.
I used to ride a 1988 CBR600F at 16 years old. I was law abiding for the most part. Yes, I was a testosterone laden junky,
but, in every event I was stopped by some cop, he was an offensive authoritarian ass pulling me over for
no reason whatsoever. 45mph in a 50 zone, just soaking up the rays and feeling the breeze through my partially opened visor? *wooo* pulled over.
On the flip side, and were you attentive, you would have seen my prior post in which I expressed gratitude to a cop who ironed out an abusive father when I was around 12 years old. To me, that cop is remembered in the most positive way a person could possibly be remembered.
Your motion to paint me as "anti-leo" is summarily dismissed on the basis of irrationality and complete lack of any form of substantiation.
Thanks!
Thousands of those you served with wear the badge. Guess they're a bunch of bootleg thugs waiting to shoot someone too.
Here is where the dividing line makes its presence.
You see "SgtScott", I don't have the delusion that all in law enforcement should be treated like innocent angels with the worlds hardest job.
No more than I would insist that all soldiers, sailors, marines, and airmen are saints incapable of wrongdoing. In the military, the "thin blue line" simply doesn't exist in the quantity and breadth that it does in law enforcement.
As to those who served with me, if it was in the same conflicts or during wartime operations, then yeah bud, it may very well be that the ability to cope with stress and situations mirroring combat ops may induce instinctual response in certain individuals, resulting in a gross overreaction and severe hypervigilance resulting in abuse of police powers. This is not every servicemember, but it represents a significant portion of them.
In fact, looking directly at Harless, I see a serious overreaction and perhaps instinctual response to situations wherein the sheer aggressiveness of the response is not warranted. He cannot cope on a varying scale. He goes from "it's all good", to "Kill the mother****er" in a matter of microseconds. I wonder if this could be a pattern emerging from his Marine background, perhaps compounded with the perceived risk of his LEO service?
The strikingly awkward realization is that Officers in general seem to want to absolve all wrongdoing on behalf of another officer, while veterans and servicemembers in general hold themselves to a much higher standard. When one of us "F up", there is no blue wall (OD Green wall?) protecting us. We are individually accountable. We are individually responsible. We are collectively policed.
"Integrity" is defined within the military as "doing the right thing, even when no-one is around". This is pounded into your head in basic, hangs from your dogtags, is nestled between your cards in your wallet, and often drilled by command. You walk down the halls and it literally hangs in picture frames in your units common areas.
Abu Ghraib? Yup. Happened.
Notice nobody came to absolve them by talking about how "dangerous" their job was, or how it was "an accident".
Retaliatory murder?
Notice that individuals of the unit have been charged and are now spending time in federal "pound me in the butt" prison.
Maybe if there was a Leavenworth for LEO?
Perhaps a UCMJ for law enforcement?
In either case, the differences are so striking as to the comparison of LEO to servicemember. You cannot even begin to compare the two. While both are voluntary roles, notice servicemembers have a mechanism for being held accountable for their egregious, unlawful actions.
If you kill a civilian in Iraq while on patrol, in a manner that does not coincide with your ROE, even
if they were physically threatening, you may find a freshly made bunk in Leavenworth waiting for you.
If you kill a civilian in Oakland, who you already have handcuffed and sitting on the ground, you might get fired.
It is both humorous, and insulting, to suggest that LEO serves in such a dangerous role as to be worthy of admonishment and praise for any and all activities, and, that by virtue of the wildly played up "dangerousness" of their role, that they should be absolved from a great deal of their wrongdoing.
It is shameful, it is obviously underhanded, and it is offensive to the general public.
If you cannot understand this, that is your own shortcoming.
If you seriously think the LE profession has gotten worse since the 70s/80s you have been living in a cave.
You seriously think its gotten better?
One cannot even begin to calculate the amount of unobserved debauchery that law enforcement engaged in prior to the information age. Prior to camera-phones and high capacity digital voice recorders, LEO could scarcely do any wrong.
Their pen was golden, and their citations pages themselves from the book of life.
Stopped on I-5 between Bakersfield and the grapevine by a shady officer at 2am in the morning? He could plant and create any sort of situation he wants and there isn't CRAP you could do about it. Nowadays at the very minimum, they have to be wary of being recorded.
Keeps them a bit honest.
Even with the foreknowledge that they may be watched, look at the regular occurance of officer idiocy every single month.
Can one imagine what it was like prior to the likelihood of them knowing they are subject to being recorded and/or watched?
You seriously think I'm going to give 100% weight to one attorney (on an internet forum whom I don't know) serving in one jurisdiction? You think his experiences in one city/county are going to be identical to ADAs and defense attorneys around the country? I know plenty of attorneys, both in prosecution and defense. You do realize that defense attorneys represent those that will always say they're innocent and give completely different stories than what actually occured? Ever hear the expression that 20% of the criminals commit 80% of the crime? There's some truth to it, but I guess we're to give their testimony (the criminal) more weight than the officers who continually have to arrest them while they're breaking into YOUR house or YOUR car or hurting somone in YOUR family.
I never implied you should have 100% weight applied solely to user. However, if you, as an officer, sit here and in a laughable manner attempt to dictate to me that his experience is
not the norm, from your seat as a LEO, I have to laugh in your face.
Of course its not the norm,
for you!
Your position in and of itself makes you lean heavily one way, and that is towards the preferential belief of the prosecution, and the complete lack of wrongdoing by your fellow officers.
Also, you sit here and talk about criminals breaking into homes, robbing people, or injuring others, but you are incapable of separating the act of openly carrying a firearm, or engaging in ones civil rights because of your perverted and unfounded view on the BoR. You immediately assume wrongdoing on behalf of the criminal, and complete absolution and trust in those you serve with.
This is disasterous. It is literally what perpetuates the "
us vs. them" mentality in todays society.
Obviously you and Citizen are part of the same anti-LEO club. I'm not surprised the two of you came into a "Question for LEO" thread to give your ridiculous statements on how "corrupt" LEOs are around the country just waiting to abuse your rights.
Rights can be exercised. They can't really be "abused". When you apply your own rationality to the scope of a right, then you have your own perception of what is reasonable. This may or may not jive with the perception of others, but while you are at it, you are too ignorant to realize the distinction between what you perceive to be "reasonable" does not matter within the scope of rights. This is why we codify our inalienable rights. It is literally why they are put down on parchment. Otherwise, we could literally just write one sentence to reach the same determination you and some of your fellow LEOs have already come to.
If you could, you and your kind would remove the BoR and replace it with: "Citizens may conduct themselves in a manner considered appropriate and/or reasonable by elected officials, and duly appointed and/or elected law enforcement officers."
Your own little pipe dream yes?
If a homosexual transgender clown in drag hailing from the Westboro Baptist Church wants to visit graves of dead soldiers, have at it. As long as they aren't physically damaging anything, who cares? In fact, many of the very soldiers they are denegrating are probably laughing hysterically at the sheer hypocrisy, if there is indeed some form of afterlife or second existence.
Thank God I have run across very few of your type in my lifetime. I can also thank God there's an "ignore" list for these forums. You've officially been the first person I've ever decided to add to it on the many forums I've been on. Congratulations.
When you are articulately and constructively criticized, place the opposition on ignore.
That way you win!
