Whether in the USA or Haditha, I’m going to go with the guys who put their lives on the line for us first

Ah, but the cops posting here have been explicit about the fact that they absolutely do not put their lives on the line for us. They work for the police department, not you and me, and they are far more concerned with their own safety than with yours or mine. They’ll let you die rather than put themselves or their fellow officers in harms way.

If I was active duty military I’d be offended by your comparison. Our good soldiers, airmen, marines and sailors go into harms way voluntarily. Our cops avoid harms way if at all possible. Better you dead than them is their creed. My daughter has enlisted in the US Navy and one of her good friends is now assigned to recruiting. He told me a true story about a selfless act of true bravery. Remember how when I asked the cop what he’d do if ordered into harms way and he said that he’d tell his superior to stuff it. Compare that to the Navy Seal whose superior officer yelled “grenade”. He said “roger that” and dove onto the grenade, sacrificing himself for others. I have no doubt he would have done the same for any American, not just his buddies in combat. I can’t say the same for cops.

Cops want to be held in the same esteem as the military. They’re just willing to make the same sacrifices. Firefighters rush into burning buildings. Cops will wait till all the shooting stops. I get the feeling that Chief Wiggums isn’t too far from the truth.

rokemronnie on April 25, 2009 at 7:18 AM

Having been in court charged with crimes that I was guilty of and some I was not. I can tell you that Cops will, and more than you might think possible, lie to enhance the chances of a conviction.

And not just on the stand. Filing false police reports is SOP. If you or I made similarly false statements on a legal document we’d be indicted.

My family and I were at a large public event and we sat down on public property. We weren’t sure if it was allowed there or not and we agreed that we’d move if asked by the police to move. Which is exactly what happened. At the time I was recovering from surgery for a broken knee, using a cane, and I was a bit gimpy and slow so I was moving a little slower than the rest of the family. While I was walking away I said to the cop, “What ordinance are we violating, officer?”, explicitly acknowledging his authority. His response? “Because I told you.” Instead of being polite, as I was, he was immediately an asshole. So I said, “this isn’t Nazi Germany” and walked away. He was clearly an asshole cop and I had no desire to be near him and wanted to catch up to my family. As I walked away he called me back and started yelling something about disorderly conduct. I said, “I asked you a question, that’s hardly disorderly.” The next thing that happened is I got slammed against a cop car with four cops assaulting me, twisting my arms and yanking on them even though I was trying to cooperate with them getting the cuffs on and telling them that I was trying to cooperate. One of the first three cops to assault me was a woman and I guess the fourth cop didn’t think she was pounding on me enough so he shoved her out of the way to get at me. The police report was mostly fabricated.

I wanted to go to trial but that would have meant owing my lawyer friend who was handling it pro bono something like a $3000 favor so I plead nolo to failure to obey a police order, even though I actually obeyed.

The truth is they don’t care if you obey the order or not. Even if you obey, if the cop thinks you disrespected them, they’ll pop you just to show you who’s the boss. Then they’ll lie on the police report and follow that up with more lies if it goes to trial.

rokemronnie on April 25, 2009 at 7:45 AM

It means “screw me, old man”.

rokemronnie on April 25, 2009 at 4:30 AM

WOW I just realized you have a Blogspot also. You must be one bad ass lawyer.

coldshot

You must have been looking at someone else’s blog. I’m no lawyer, I’m an artisan and writer.

rokemronnie on April 25, 2009 at 7:50 AM

Also, you do know a lot of ex military join law enforcement, right?

Sure. They’re probably a good chunk of the 20% of cops who actually serve the public. That figure, btw, isn’t mine, it’s Jack Dunphy’s a LAPD cop who writes for the National Review.

I have tried to stay away from the name calling, unlike yourself, but you are just a petty little moron who lashes out at police because of some perceived grievance from your past.

I’ve been called an idiot and garbage by your fellow officers. Somehow I think that calling someone garbage is worse than saying that they are incipient fascists. You don’t like cops being called fascist or authoritarian? Well, like Bob Marley said, if the shoe fit let dem wear it.

Your daughter joined the Navy? She has my respect.

She shares many of my values an beliefs about authoritarians.

You? Someone who screams for officer’s to die for him yet has done nothing to deserve such a sacrifice?

I never screamed for anyone to die for me. I just think that the safety of civilians and the public is a higher priority than the safety of cops. You and your fellow law exploitation officers have made it exceedingly clear that you despise non-cops and think that cops’ lives are more valuable than those of civilians.

I tell you what I would tell any moron: Stuff it.

Do us a big favor since the last thing we need are police officers with your attitude. Please swallow your service pistol and we’ll all be safer. Cops like you who despise civilians are a danger to society.

rokemronnie on April 25, 2009 at 4:19 PM

What’s a more serious problem for society, police officers getting killed in the line of duty, or police officers planting drugs to cover up their murder of a 92 year old woman in a botched raid? (Google Kathryn Johnston).

From Radley Balko:

Just a couple of weeks of police misconduct:

# Police captain fired after stealing from department fund for another fired police officer. Injustice in Seattle asks, will there be a fund for him, too?

# The director of Omaha’s crime scene investigation unit has been charged with felony evidence tampering. I first wrote about this case last December. It includes a false confession from a mentally handicapped man after a police interrogator said that unless he admitted to the murder, he’d do “do my level best to hang your ass from the highest tree.”

# Miami-Dade cop steals money and drugs from arrestees. Internal affairs tries in vain for three years to get him off the force. Doesn’t happen until he actually shoots and nearly kills a man.

#Video of Rogue Philly Narcotics Unit in Action
Monday, April 6th, 2009

A couple of weeks ago, I posted about a rogue narcotics unit within the Philadelphia police department that was terrorizing grocery stores owned by immigrants. All of the raided store owners told a similar story: The unit raided under the pretense that the stores were selling small plastic bags commonly used by drug dealers to package narcotics. The cops then disconnected the stores’ security cameras. Once the cameras were disconnected, they then looted the stores of snack food, cigarettes, and cash. According to store owners, the official police reports often underreported the amount of cashed seized from the stores.

# Chicago will pay out $288,000 in damages resulting from a 2006 drug raid on a bar on the southwest side of the city. Drug charges against two bar patrons were dropped after surveillance video showed officers had lied in their police report about what happened after the raid began.

# A Phoenix couple has settled with the town of Gilbert, Arizona for $185,000 after an officer tossed a flashbang grenade through a window during a raid on their home. The grenade landed on a bed, caught the bed on fire, and burned the couple’s home to the ground.

# The ACLU is suing over a series of raids in Riverside, California in which police targeted black-owned barbershops. Though they were drug raids, the actions were couched as “health inspections,” obviating the need for a search warrant. I’ve seen quite of few of these stories, lately–where police conduct drug raids under the guise of a regulatory inspection to get around the need for a search warrant. It’s troubling.

# Philly cop takes journalism student through black neighborhood. J-student reports that during the ride-along, the cop refers to residents as “animals,” and the crimes he polices as “typical nigger shit.” He then adds, “People hate us here. They spit at us.” I wonder why.

# Two Baltimore cops face federal indictment for beating a teen while the kid was shackled, then covering it up with the aid of their sergeant. Incredibly, one of the cops has been suspended with pay since 2004, even though he was convicted of assault in 2005.

# Phoenix police raid the home of a blogger who had set up a police watch website. They also have been raiding the homes of police officers suspected of giving the guy tips about officer misconduct, including one officer who was blackballed in the department for going public about mishandling of evidence in the city’s crime lab.

# According to those who have viewed it, a dash camera video into a fatal police shooting in Fort Wayne, Indiana last year shows the shooting to be unprovoked. But Fort Wayne’s mayor refuses to make the video available to the public, stating he’s keeping the video under wraps out of respect for the victim’s family. The officer in question has been cleared of any wrongdoing.

# Federal lawsuit claims police planted a gun after shooting an unarmed 16-year-old kid eight times, killing him. The gun police claim to have found on the scene had no fingerprints (though the police chief said otherwise in public statements), and was shown to have been in police possession at the time of the burglary (it had been seized after a burglary). According to the lawsuit, the police then filed a separate report 10 days later that swapped in a new gun. You can see security stills from the chase here. At least one video expert claims they show no gun. Doesn’t look like it to me, either.

# The city of Santa Fe has settled with a man beaten by police officers in 2006. The settlement came after the man was able to get a court to force the city to turn over a dash cam video of the beating–a video the city tried to claim didn’t exist. The man was initially charged with felonies for assaulting the police officers. A jury acquitted him in 20 minutes. The two officers who beat him are still on the force.

#Video of Erie Cop Mocking Homicide Victim Appears on YouTube. Erie PD Launches Investigation. . . To Find Out Who Posted It

#Allen County, Indiana cops seize $26,000 from a motorist. No drugs. No criminal charges. They just took his money. The article says, “First, the driver said it was to buy a car, according to the police report. Then, he said it came from working at various jobs.” Uh, couldn’t both be true?

rokemronnie on April 25, 2009 at 4:59 PM

Correction:

The actual Marley lyric is “if the cap fit let them wear it”.

rokemronnie on April 25, 2009 at 5:09 PM

Conservative,

I don’t think government unions should be illegal, but it should be illegal for them to make any sort of political contributions. Public employee unions making contributions to the politicians who negotiate with them is an obvious opportunity for corruption.

Look at Andy Stern who runs SEIU. When Gov. Blogo of Illinois was playing eBay with Obama’s senate seat, Stern had material knowledge that Blogo was corrupt and solicited a bribe and all he did was tell the gov that he’d run it up the pole and see what his members wanted to do. He apparently felt no great civic need to inform law enforcement of his knowledge of the gov’s corruption.

rokemronnie on April 25, 2009 at 7:08 PM

I just think it is odd that, if your daughter shares the same hatred of authority that you do, she went and joined something where she is going to be told what to do constantly.

She loves her country. In any case I don’t hate authority, I hate abuse of authority. In any case she did pretty well on her tests and will likely go to Officer Candidate School which means that in addition to being told what to do, she’ll be telling others what to do.

First of all, I dont despise non cops. I despise a petty little seamstress who whines about people he has never even met.

You call me a girl and then say that I’m petty and whining. Boy, that’s mature. What are you going to do next, call me a poopiehead? In any case, I’m no seamstress or tailor. I can barely sew a hem. While I’m an artisan and craftsman, I do machine embroidery, not general sewing. Most seamstresses and tailors have considerable skills and I respect their abilities. They can do plenty of things you can’t, so you should respect them as well.

No one gets paid enough to die. Your daughter joined the military. Is she paid to die?

If it comes to that, yes. She’ll be wearing a target.

If she was told to strap herself to a rocket to be fired at the Taliban, would she do it? Of course not. She is paid to do dangerous work, not intentionally get herself killed.

While our military will not order people on suicide missions, we have a free country because for 232 years Americans have willingly laid down their lives for their country. While it’s considered above and beyond the call of duty, it’s still part of military culture. While our police departments are increasingly militarized, that is one aspect of military culture that I doubt will be embraced by local police departments. You’ve made it clear that if you have a choice of risking your life to save my kid or punching out and going home, you’ll let my kid die.

You’ve made it clear that you won’t risk your life to save a civilian (while I’m pretty sure that you would do so to save a fellow officer – cops lives are worth more to you than civilians).

You dont like what I have to say so you tell me to kill myself? Nice.

Tell me please, what does “stuff it” mean? Also, have I personally insulted you as you have done to me? Have I called you a moron or questioned your manhood?

The vast majority of news stories about police are when someone is injured by the police or when a cop is corrupt. Why?

Because a significant number of police officers are corrupt.

A fact of life for embroiderers is that thread breaks. It’s normal. How do I know that? Because embroidery machines have thread break sensors.

A fact of life is that a significant number of cops are corrupt. How do I know that? Because police departments have internal affairs bureaus. Are the corrupt cops a minority of LEOs? Probably, but police corruption and abuse are a fact of life.

How do you feel about IABs? Ever call them the “rat squad” or hear a fellow law exploitation officer use that term?

When normal civilians see a list of cop corruption like I posted, they are appalled. You, however, dismiss it.

I won’t apologize for not kissing your cop ass. Get over it.

rokemronnie on April 25, 2009 at 10:09 PM