A Simple Poll - Do You Trust the San Antonio Police Department? (Detroit: crime, home)

[xsa210tx]

Originally Posted by Hedgehog_Mom

I said no as well. It's not a reflection on my personality or my lifestyle.

Sure, there are some great cops. There are some who are lazy, too. There are others who are bullies with badges.

If you are downtown overnight, you can watch them blowing through stop lights and speeding all night long. It stopped for a while after that one officer ran over another officer, but started up again soon afterwards.

I remember once when I was working in a gas station...the station a block away (within sight of the one I worked at) was robbed at gunpoint. We heard the call on the radio...me and the four officers who were hanging out in the store because we gave them free lottery tickets, cigarettes, etc. Nobody quit scratching their scratch-offs to respond. In fact, I think they were waiting a while to make sure the robber was gone.

I have called SAPD for assistance before and have been helped by a polite officer...once or twice. What sticks in my mind though are the times when I've needed assistance and instead I got a lecture by cops who instantly assumed that since I was the younger of the two parties involved, I must be the instigator.

When my identity was stolen, I made phone calls until I located the people who had done it. I had descriptions, license plate numbers, I had store security footage sent to me, etc...and I couldn't get a SAPD investigator to call me back, ever. I started calling the county sheriffs in all the little towns the people were using the forged checks, and finally found one who decided to go after them. I gave him all the names and numbers of people I'd talked to who could describe them, told him which stores had the footage, and he actually went out and got the bad guys and they went to jail. It would have been nice if SAPD had gotten off their rump roasts and taken the information I had though, and stopped it all sooner.

Now, the Bexar county deputies are a different story...I don't think there are any good ones. I've never met one without an attitude. They never even pretend to do anything.

Great insight!

[rd2007]

I don't (and not surprisingly at all, neither does a majority so far), but it's only because I along with the rest of the non-trusters are all a bunch of criminals.
The logic that only criminals don't trust the police left absurdity on the side of the road many miles back thataway...

[TrapperL]

I didn't vote as the question was about trust. I have no respect or confidence in SAPD and I closed a 90,000 sq ft business in the downtown area because of incompetence on the part of SAPD. The business was the target weekly and sometimes several times a week at being burglarized. Not a fake burglary or a false alarm, real burglaries. I was being charged by the morons downtown for them to respond to any calls at the location. For this charge, I could drive from Seaworld area to downtown and beat the police by 30 minutes at least. The last straw was a night I had taken a customer to the Spurs game. I got a call from the alarm folks that there was a burglary in progress- we had microphones in the building. I got there and the perps had just left. I waited for SAPD to show. An hour later I called again to see when they were going to show up. I was told they were busy. About 10 minutes later I went out to my truck to get my briefcase and the truck had been broken into. I called SAPD and was told to wait. I'd still be waiting because they never showed up. SAPD is a joke. All they care about is their reports. I had a burglary and the perps stole a small safe. It had the company checkbook and accounts receivable ledgers in it. Weeks later I had a customer say that he knew where my company checkbook was- in one of his renters apartments. I called SAPD and was told there was nothing they could do about it. I got a couple of my guys and we went and got my checkbook. Like I say, they are fabulous historians....at best. But as far as a police force, what a joke. But you certainly don't have to take my word for it. Just drive on the expressways here. It's a free for all. I've sat at traffic lights only to see some dimwit run it in front of an SAPD car. The police did nothing. There is hardly any control at all on the streets of SA concerning drivers with no clue where they were going when they left.

[rd2007]

Absolutely believable (unfortunately) TrapperL.

I'm sure you did something to deserve all lthat, though.

[Soviet]

Did you reopen the business in another location, TrapperL?

[LindaGrace]

I don't really trust any city's police department, so my vote isn't necessarily a reflection on SAPD, but on police in general.

[RodLu]

Originally Posted by LindaGrace

I don't really trust any city's police department, so my vote isn't necessarily a reflection on SAPD, but on police in general.

Ditto on everything; same here.......

[xsa210tx]

Originally Posted by L210

I'm not anti-authoritarian and would love to go into federal law enforcement someday. I'm not the type of person who thinks all cops are bad, but I have not had an overall positive experience with SAPD. In my line of work, I have had to call SAPD over a dozen times. I've also had to call them off the job.

Neighbor beaten up by her husband: SAPD took a couple of hours to come out and didn't do anything.

Several times mentally ill persons at a shelter threatened to kill themselves or other people: Ignored.

Several times I had to call the police because a child had bruises from obviously being beaten by the parent: Ignored.

One time I waited an hour literally 3 min. away from the downtown police station for the police to respond to terroristic threats. After they were done with pretty much ignoring the issue, they decided to take a tour of the fancy condos across the street when a security guard offered to show them around. I'm sure there was another call waiting for SAPD to show up while these guys were fooling around.

I had one officer tell me that he hits his son in the face all the time and it's only considered child abuse in Texas if the child dies or has to go to the hospital for his injuries. This is pretty much in line with news stories where the police were called out because a baby had bruises and the cop determined she was not in immediate danger. The mother ended up murdering the baby. I was not surprised at all.

A couple calls the police on me for delivering the Wall Street Journal and two police officers make sure they show up to my door to question me and didn't even apologize for the misunderstanding. Go figure.

Good post.

I definitely see your side of the issue with your post; police officers do so many jobs at once though. It's definitely not an easy job.

[xsa210tx]

If it were up to me, I'd require all (new hire) police officers to have a Bacherlor's Degree before getting hired and I would require drug/alcohol testing on a "regular basis" as well.

If security guards are subject to random drug/alcohol testing, why not them? I would also require mandatory "lie detector" tests for more lucrative and sensitive positions where one's authority could be used to corrupt.

The way I see it, there are good people in the police force and a few bad one's as well like any other profession.

However, I think their standards (all police forces around the country) should be set pretty high to ensure that we only have the highest caliber of quality individuals.

[L210]

I think a polygraph is required to get hired with SAPD, but polygraphs can be easily beaten or mistakenly failed. But that's another story. I do think SAPD would benefit from adopting the standards of some other large police departments in Texas. Many require at least an associates degree. I've seen officers trying to enforce laws that don't even exist.