Why does everyone HATE the police?

i think n.w.a., or perhaps yoda said it best: "fear leads to anger. anger leads to hate." part of the job of being a cop *seems* to be to instill control through intimidation. that's a hallmark of an abusive personal relationship, maybe that's the "key" i'm looking for in the next paragraph.

all of the dealings i've had with the police have been negative, and none of them were for crimes committed- not even speeding. if you examine the entire system, i'm sure there is some fatal flaw that will show itself eventually. then maybe you'll understand.

most cops are probably decent people? ...when off-duty. i think there almost has to be something about the job itself that is corrupt, and the people that can resist whatever that is and remain good cops (that i've never met, but i've heard of them) hey, that's worth applause.

i think maybe you're asking the sort of question where there's a negative answer and a positive answer, but unless you can "get" the negative answer to begin with, there's not much point in asking the question. kind of like foofie and his "why do people criticize the government?" stance.

the positive answer is that things can always change. over time, they have changed, and i don't think so far it's been for the best. i certainly don't think the new powers under the patriot act are going to make things any better. you will also find that generally speaking, people do hate being abused.

Maybe some police officers are not great people. So what? I don't care. I'd rather have a power hungry police officer who does his/her job than a nice police officer who doesn't. The fact remains that in the situations that I stated, the police were in the right, but people were still opposing them! If they were wrong, sure, criticise the police, but they weren't.

Personal experience leads to emotion, which leads to bias. I too have met some not so nice police officers. But let's face it - I meet not so nice people everyday, in every possible profession! It's just that the police have power that people draw attention to these not so nice people. Perhaps you would like to give examples to prove me wrong. Don't worry, I don't know who you are, and neither do I care - you can spill the beans.

that would be a major difference between you and me.



exactly. i admit to truncating context in that quote, but you put my position so well in your own words (even if you clearly meant something else.) as i alluded to (respectfully intended) in the fourth paragraph, i feel this is going to be a kind of pointless debate.

you're far too intelligent and too enjoyable in other threads for us to get into a meaningless argument over things we probably both feel strongly about, besides there really isn't much more i can say about it from my own perspective, other than to launch into long tirades about abuses of power that don't apply to all police.

besides, none of that would actually answer what you asked! i've tried to give you an answer that is respectful to you and fair to those in question, and even help you understand another point of view, but i've already done my best. i don't think i can be clearer.

i'm quite open to the possibility that someone else can answer better. i thought about letting them go ahead, but i thought i'd have a go, so i did.

Please refrain from half quoting me. It is as bad as misquoting me. You did not get the full sentence.

Oh! You admit to truncating content in that quote, but not the first one!

Anyway, you have partially redeemed yourself by your next set of words (the flattery helped).



As are you.

I agree, although there are points which are based on fact which can be debated, for example, whether the police officer acted in the best way possible. On further analysis, it is my belief that perhaps chasing was not the best way forward (I am keeping in line with my UNDERLYING philosophy, ie, my signiture). But if you do not want to debate, I am fine with that.

Just one little thing: you use correct and fluent English and use correct punctuation BUT you never seem to use capitals. If you are going to write in the correct way, you may as well take it the full way. It becomes subconscious after a while.

Around here we have a saying : the more police around, the less you feel safe.

How come?

i wondered if you were going to nitpick about that. i certainly don't mind, it's a fair point. basically, what i was thinking was "close enough" mentioning the second one, but yeah and i've done it a few other times, but i only do it when i either feel a real need to be a smartass, or like in this case, where i assume you won't mind. you seem to mind at least a little, and now it's been discussed to the point where if i use that in the future, it almost won't be funny cheers.

Methinks that you paint with too broad a brush. I may be in the minority, but I don't hate the police. They have their job to do. There are, like in every profession, some great people, and some duds. I think that it takes a special person to put his ass on the line every day.

The original question of this thread: why does everyone hate the police?

The answer: People don't hate police, they fear them. They fear them b/c police are essentially a legalized gang which rarely suffers repercussions for their actions.

I've met good cops in my time. I've met far, far more bad cops. I don't know whether it is from seeing the underside of humanity all day, or what, but many of them have no respect whatsoever for the law or for civil rights. I honestly believe that many cops are bullies, the bullies from high school who wanted to continue to be able to push people around.

The line between law enforcement and military troops have also blurred. Today's cops look more like soldiers then they do cops. Many of them have their faces covered or don't display badges.

I think that the prevalence of automobile patrols have destroyed any relationship between the citizens of the community, and the cops who patrol it. Other then 'negative encounters,' how often do you interact with the cops in your community? Do you know their names? I don't. There's no effort of integration inot the community. There are no positive experiences; even the best experiences with cops occur when you've been wronged in some way, and they help out. Without better interaction between members of the community and the cops, there's no possibility of any sort of effective enforcement.

As I said earlier, many cops are complete jerks; some are total bastards. Here's an example of a kid who was harrassed for no reason, happened to catch the thing on tape, and then the officers involved were fired for harassing him. Now, other members of the police force are harrassing the kid and staking out his house. B/c that's how the operate; they make it clear that if you mess with them, they will mess right back with you, and they have the force of law behind them.

I said to Ticomaya on one of these threads earlier: being right doesn't unbeat your ass. And if a cop decides to assault you, you can't even fight back. That's why people hate/fear cops; they can beat the **** out of you and you aren't legally allowed to fight back. Anyone who pretends that the DA's office and the police don't watch each other's back is full of it.

Account of suspects harassment, complete with transcript:

http://www.thenewspaper.com/news/19/1961.asp

Accounts of police staking out his home:

http://www.thenewspaper.com/news/19/1988.asp

Here's the St Louis 'cop talk' message board, where his name, home address and various death threats are bandied about amongst the law enforcement officers:

http://www.thenewspaper.com/news/19/1967.asp

The videotape from the cops' camera? Oh, that's 'mysteriously missing.'

Motherf*ckers

Cycloptichorn

I dont hate the police, I liked some of their music.

I, personally, have not been treated bad by any cop, ever. I have witnessed bad cop behavior, a number of times. Cycloptichorn is essentially correct. A police officer has to go to egregious extremes to get in deep trouble. They develop an "Us against them" mental outlook that can make them turn on us without good cause. Phillip Wylie once wrote that there are never any psychological profiles of cops published, because they mirror the criminals' profiles. On balance, I think the majority of them do not want to be bad cops.

I think the police, who have a very difficult job, mostly perform very well.

The police car chase thing must stop. The police seem to regularly chase drivers who committed very minor offenses (e.g., traffic related) at very high speeds. In a high percentage of such chases, the chased, the police, or innocent people are killed or maimed. This is not to mention property damage.

When I go to work, I have coffee, talk with friends and sit down in front of a computer most of day fielding various tasks from the idiot not remembering their password that day to severe trouble shooting multiple server issues in between my other duties. I have to converse with people as part of my job, but I have the luxury of being able to not worry about any of them attempting to kill me.

A cop goes to work, has coffee, talks with friends and settles down behind the wheel of his car where his job is stop criminals. That ranges from writing traffic tickets to high speed pursuits with dangerous people that have no respect for anything or anyone. At any time they may pull over someone that puts a bullet in their head for no reason other then they are a cop that had the audacity to pull them over.

A rather stressful job that requires them to interact with worse of the worse humanity has to offer. Crack whores, dealers, robbers, murderers. When you interact with people like that day in and day out you start to have a short fuse with idiots that want to play lawyer with them. They want to do their jobs, get a paycheck and go home. Safe.

They place their lives on the line protecting those of us not brave enough to do the same job.

Are some people not cut out to be cops? Yep.

Are all cops the same? Nope.

I personally know 3 NY state troopers. All great people. I know one guy that was a complete dick in high school who is now a corrections officer. Still a complete dick, but the job fits him very well.

I don't hate cops and I avoid giving them a hard time when I interact with them. I assure my kids that cops are the "good guys" and they should never be afraid of talking to them if they are ever in trouble.

Phoenix,
Yes, I was broad, but I didn't mean it quite as literally as you suggested. Perhaps a better title would have been "Why do many people dislike the police?", but that wouldn't have been as strong, would it?

You bring up a good point: police have to have the courage to stand up to the scum of society every day. They risk getting shot, stabbed or otherwise generally attack, and have to put up with the abusive crap that people say to them.

The rest of you should take note of this.

Cycloptichorn,
I think you bring up a good point of the fact that people fear the police.

I'm not sure whether your analogy is a fair one. One could easily make up similar analogies to any group in society. Doctors are just people who like having the power to cause other people pain. Rich people are all stuck up snobs. On the other hand, gangs are just groups of people who have to stick together to survive (partially true, but there's more to it than that).

I think that although the career of a police officer might attract some unpleasant people, the fact is that every job has unpleasant people, it's just that the police have more power to be unpleasant. So perhaps it's not a case of "most police officers are bullies", but more a case of "some police officers are bullies, and the ones that are make themselves widely known as bullies".

I'd like to remind you that I live in a civilised, developed country. I'm talking about the police of my country, not the police of Burma.

I think that's a fair point you raise, but I also think that impersonalisation occurs proportionally to the size of the community. I've never lived in a small town, but I get the impression that the police are a lot more tied in to the community.

I KNOW, there are cases of police being jerks, but THERE ARE CASES OF EVERYONE BEING JERKS. Doctors, lawyers, builders, carpenters, members of the church. But that doesn't mean we can rationalize about the character of the average police! Just as much as you can say "Most policemen are bastards" (or something along those lines), I can just as easily say "Most priests are child rapists". You get my drift? (Pardon the slang.)

Edgar,
I think that the findings of one person cannot be used as fact.

When I started writing this post, there were two less posts than there are now. I'm struggling to keep up with you guys.

Advocate,
I agree with you, but the shooting, for example, was justified.

McGentrix,
Thank you for the post, I totally agree with you.

I think the classroom mentality plays a large role here. You get told off, and even though you did something wrong, you begin to hate the teacher, and blame him/her for getting you punished.

Edgar,
I think that the findings of one person cannot be used as fact.


To which one person are you referring?

The person who said that police profiles aren't published because they are similar to criminal profiles.

I used him as an example. I have seen and heard similar comments my whole life, from other sources.

Most cops are hard working, caring, and strong in mind, body and will.
I have a detective as my "friend with benefits."
Police are people who have chosen to put themselves in harm's way, at times in extraordinary circumstances.

They should be commended....and cared for tenderly.

Yes, but the priests aren't granted the power in society to wreck your life and career through charging you with crimes (many of which are quite subjective), detaining you, and holding you. Priests aren't allowed to assault you without you having the power to fight back. Priests don't work in collusion with those who charge the crimes (the DA) and therefore aren't protected in the same way as cops.

I'm sure there are good cops out there; like I said, I've met a few. But there are also bad ones. And that's why, like most other instances in life, you have to watch the watchers.

Cycloptichorn