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Location: When you take flak it means you are on target
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It seems to me the police consider everyone who isn't an active duty cop to be the "enemy." I'm generally very pro police, but I always notice a separation, like the rest of us are not quite acceptable and need watching.
In cities like Baltimore it seems the common person sees the police as an occupying force. As the jack booted storm trooping enemy.
Now we see para-military forces and vehicles on our streets time and again, as people become more and more disaffected and the gap between the populace and police, and authority increases.
Many, if not most people fear the police. Many police are seen as nothing but highway robbers with a license to steal money from people for minor traffic infractions. Go a few miles too fast it costs you hundreds of dollars. Park ten minutes too long and it costs you more than a nice dinner out with the family - all to fill the pockets of government. Don't pay and the government sends police henchmen to enforce and extract their money or incarceraste you.
And when a law abiding person NEEDS the police they are nowhere to be found or arrive too late to help. Or 911 doesn't answer, or they are told by ignorant leaders to "stand down" and fail to protect those they are sworn to protect. LA, Ferguson, Baltimore. In Las Vegas the police no longer even respond to traffic accidents! It's a wonder they show up for homicides, unless they caused it.
Then the police say, "well it isn't our job to protect individuals, our job is to apprehend criminals." And the courts uphold that idiocy. So people are left to fend for themselves. But god forbid a citizen defend themselves, then the police see THEM as the criminal not the victim.
Where does it end and how do we, the law abiding public, get the rank and file cops to understand we are not their enemy?
It seems to me the police consider everyone who isn't an active duty cop to be the "enemy." I'm generally very pro police, but I always notice a separation, like the rest of us are not quite acceptable and need watching.
In cities like Baltimore it seems the common person sees the police as an occupying force. As the jack booted storm trooping enemy.
Now we see para-military forces and vehicles on our streets time and again, as people become more and more disaffected and the gap between the populace and police, and authority increases.
Many, if not most people fear the police. Many police are seen as nothing but highway robbers with a license to steal money from people for minor traffic infractions. Go a few miles too fast it costs you hundreds of dollars. Park ten minutes too long and it costs you more than a nice dinner out with the family - all to fill the pockets of government. Don't pay and the government sends police henchmen to enforce and extract their money or incarceraste you.
And when a law abiding person NEEDS the police they are nowhere to be found or arrive too late to help. Or 911 doesn't answer, or they are told by ignorant leaders to "stand down" and fail to protect those they are sworn to protect. LA, Ferguson, Baltimore. In Las Vegas the police no longer even respond to traffic accidents! It's a wonder they show up for homicides, unless they caused it.
Then the police say, "well it isn't our job to protect individuals, our job is to apprehend criminals." And the courts uphold that idiocy. So people are left to fend for themselves. But god forbid a citizen defend themselves, then the police see THEM as the criminal not the victim.
Where does it end and how do we, the law abiding public, get the rank and file cops to understand we are not their enemy?
I don't see police as the enemy nor am I fearful of them.
But then again, I'm not a criminal. Maybe that's my problem.
I think there is no single answer to the question. Big city police are different from mid city police are different from small city police, and they are all different from county sheriff's deputies.
For every city that's diverse, there is another that has little diversity. For every city that has a lot of poverty, there's another that's doing all right. Every cause for police activity can have an opposite.
That said, I believe most cops see themselves as public servants and act accordingly. I also think most cops are reluctant to use violence, but if they must, it is used to the least degree necessary.
Well op... for someone who says they are pro police you certainly seem to have a chip on your shoulder.
I am a public servant... emphasis servant ... last time I checked I work for the people in my community... many of whom struggle to pay taxes ...in my day I do not purposefully look to screw anyone over... they do that pretty well all by themselves...
I don't see police as the enemy nor am I fearful of them.
But then again, I'm not a criminal. Maybe that's my problem.
Im not a criminal either. But cops in the nearby city? They are a serious danger to me and my family. The cops in my city? They're pretty awesome. If I was a different color? Hard to say. They get a different experience with some of the cops, and not others. Policing is local. I hope you dont find this out in your life.
Your problem isn't that you aren't a criminal, your problem is that you don't understand the concept that policing is local.
Unfortunately, this is one of those issues that many in society try to pass off as simplistic and devoid of nuance. Some people have a vested interest in getting others to dumb down the manner by which they consider such situations, and a vested interest in getting others to join them in reacting based on that dumbed down conception of the situation instead of in the full light of reality. The reality begins with the realization that people are not quite as autonomous as many of them wish to think. We are affected by the existence and actions of others and we affect the existence and actions of others. Operational autonomy would require isolation. Absent that, any individual's ideal is effectively unattainable unless it is fully responsive to the full spectrum of the effect of others. Police have to live in that reality. They don't have the luxury that some others may have to allow themselves to dream (not "think" - rather: "dream") of a state where magic maintains effective autonomy between each person. Their responsibility is to ensure that the effect people have on each other and on society itself are within prescribed parameters. Transgression doesn't have a magical red glow around it. It looks just like honor and integrity until it is manifest. Respecting for duly allocated authority - authority duly allocated for the public good - respect for it means respecting the challenge inherent in the responsibility it is attempting to fulfill and the challenge inherent in the cloaked nature of transgression prior to manifestation. That doesn't mean authority cannot be corrupted - nothing significant in life is black and white like that. And this is the greyist of grey situations - where some people are willing to become violators to make a moral point, and others may be looking to exploit appearances of being part of that effort to engage in mayhem of their own, etc. - and so we should expect even the most upstanding and competent police to conduct themselves in a manner that reflects the superlative level of complexity in the situation they face on the streets.
I can't imagine a more stressful job. You're not only expected to protect the population, but also resented by the very population you're expected to protect. When an officer pulls someone over for speeding, or even something like a tail light being out, they have no idea that person isn't going to pull a gun. When things go wrong, it's damned if you do and damned if you don't.
Since the Supreme Court has ruled that the police have no obligation to protect the public and have held that position for over 30 years that shirt is total bull feces.
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