Been seeing alot of hate lately and after some 19 years of it, I don't get as worked up about it as I used to. I've spoken with former Black Panthers who think the insanity against the police has gotten out of hand. I guess I'll put down here a few clues, some of which are old and obvious enough to be cliche while others not so widely known.
1) Folks in bad neighborhoods want us (the Police) to make their neighborhoods safer by cleaning out the criminals. They are angry at us for not doing so yesterday. They want us to arrest the bad guys right up to the point when we actually do, then it becomes we are harassing them. How does this climate shift occur ? Those criminals we arrest, those bad guys we put in jail, THEY ARE SOMEBODY. They are somebody's brothers, sisters, sons, daughters, friends. They are uncles, aunts, fathers, mothers. Regardless of what godawful thing they have done, somebody will always be there to condemn us for arresting them. Now with social media widely available, it's quite easy to manipulate the facts and present a sad tale of how the police arrested their [insert relationship] who was doing nothing wrong.
2) Which brings us to point number two. If it comes to the point where somebody is arrested and taken to jail, THERE IS EVIDENCE THEY COMMITTED A CRIME. The judicial and law enforcement branches have dozens of checks and balances built into the system. The primary one for police are the elements of a crime. Think of laws as recipes. You need certain ingredients, or elements, to make what you are baking. Remove one ingredient and you can't bake your muffins. It really is that simple. Now add a tablespoon of Fourth Amendment. If all the elements for the crime are present and not just assumed, the police must also be able to prove the person they arrested is the person that did it. Remove an element, remove proof of guilt, and an arrest can't be made.
I'm not saying false arrests aren't made. I'm not saying mistaken identity doesn't happen. I'm not saying there aren't corrupt cops out there blurring the lines, but there are checks and balances to weed that out to.
3) And on to three. Nobody hates a bad cop more than I do. Nobody. Not even their victims. A person is falsely or mistakenly arrested (and there is a big difference between the two) they have several legal channels to set things right. They have a lawyer to destroy the case against their client. They have a civil process to punish the officer and his/her department monetarily for either corruption or incompetence along with attorneys and higher law enforcement agencies to assist them in doing so. They have Internal Affairs complaints to yank that officer by his shirt collar and take steps to make sure it never happens again. But even after the case is dismissed, even after the government has cut the victim a hefty check, the fallout will always hinder me, the cop trying to get the job done the right way. I'm the one who faces the hate from all the people the victim has told. I'm the one who can't investigate a crime because nobody talks to me. Heck, I've questioned victims of crimes who called 911 then asked why I was harassing them. I offer rides home to people walking in the middle of the night or in inclement weather and had them refuse or ask to be dropped off outside of their neighborhood so "people don't see them getting out of a police car". If I were in any way considered the good guy, the protector, the man in the white hat, this would not happen. But thanks to the bad apples, the whole bushel is viewed as rotten.
On a side note, and because of this, there is no Wall of Silence. Cops do not keep quiet when an officer goes astray. I've burned a few myself. Bad cops keep me from doing my job efficiently. Bad cops put my safety in danger. I won't have it and neither will most other cops.
4) When a bad cop is doing something wrong, a million other cops are out there doing it right. While those retards driving the jail van were allowing Freddie Gray to die, a million other cops in this nation were protecting and serving. Yet I am at fault and deserve scorn because police, not the whole department but six individuals, in another city did something the wrong way. Really ? I don't judge you on the basis of what somebody else has done, afford me the same courtesy.
5) Please, for your own sake, stop lying and stop believing the lies.I don't understand why alot of YouTubers need to make lies when there's more than enough real misconduct out there to document. You want the world to see corruption and misconduct, get it and show it. You don't need to edit videos to make a this cop look guilty, just show an unedited video of what that cop over there did. It's all just a FOIA away. But some folks realize number 4 is true and fear that common sense will break out, so they doctor, they edit, and add a false click-bait title. I'm amazed when I look at an obviously doctored video, or a video with a false title, and see in the comments how many folks take it as true.Wake up folks, THIS WAS THE FALLACY THAT RUINED THE CREDIBILITY OF BLACK LIVES MATTER. I had such hopes that organization would become a bridge between law enforcement and the community. Hopes that maybe the officer involved shooting rate would go down as an understanding and trust developed. Instead they attacked incidents where the officers acted properly when faced with a deadly force incident. At the last time, which was a bit ago (at least a year) I'll admit, there were 127 shooting incidents by officers and 11 of them were questionable in some way. That is 11 too many in my book but split second decisions are sometimes wrong. BLM could have focused on those 11 and still be at the head of the fight for justice. Instead they attacked the 116 saying, in a nut shell, the police were wrong for defending their lives (not to mention they made it a race issue even when the officer was black). Even the black people in this area lost trust in BLM. Other organizations wonder why they have no credibility. I direct them toward the BLM mistake and encourage them not to do the same.
6) Nothing said here will change your mind. I've seen folks condemn a good arrest and praise a bad one. I've responded to calls, and I HAVE to respond, its my job, where the complainant had a black man in their neighborhood that did not live there and expect me to arrest him, then shout insults about how ineffective the police are when I didn't. We are hated by both sides of the coin folks. Nothing I say or do will change that. Excuse me if I ignore your insults and sarcastic remarks. Its not me that has to change, its you.
1) Folks in bad neighborhoods want us (the Police) to make their neighborhoods safer by cleaning out the criminals. They are angry at us for not doing so yesterday. They want us to arrest the bad guys right up to the point when we actually do, then it becomes we are harassing them. How does this climate shift occur ? Those criminals we arrest, those bad guys we put in jail, THEY ARE SOMEBODY. They are somebody's brothers, sisters, sons, daughters, friends. They are uncles, aunts, fathers, mothers. Regardless of what godawful thing they have done, somebody will always be there to condemn us for arresting them. Now with social media widely available, it's quite easy to manipulate the facts and present a sad tale of how the police arrested their [insert relationship] who was doing nothing wrong.
2) Which brings us to point number two. If it comes to the point where somebody is arrested and taken to jail, THERE IS EVIDENCE THEY COMMITTED A CRIME. The judicial and law enforcement branches have dozens of checks and balances built into the system. The primary one for police are the elements of a crime. Think of laws as recipes. You need certain ingredients, or elements, to make what you are baking. Remove one ingredient and you can't bake your muffins. It really is that simple. Now add a tablespoon of Fourth Amendment. If all the elements for the crime are present and not just assumed, the police must also be able to prove the person they arrested is the person that did it. Remove an element, remove proof of guilt, and an arrest can't be made.
I'm not saying false arrests aren't made. I'm not saying mistaken identity doesn't happen. I'm not saying there aren't corrupt cops out there blurring the lines, but there are checks and balances to weed that out to.
3) And on to three. Nobody hates a bad cop more than I do. Nobody. Not even their victims. A person is falsely or mistakenly arrested (and there is a big difference between the two) they have several legal channels to set things right. They have a lawyer to destroy the case against their client. They have a civil process to punish the officer and his/her department monetarily for either corruption or incompetence along with attorneys and higher law enforcement agencies to assist them in doing so. They have Internal Affairs complaints to yank that officer by his shirt collar and take steps to make sure it never happens again. But even after the case is dismissed, even after the government has cut the victim a hefty check, the fallout will always hinder me, the cop trying to get the job done the right way. I'm the one who faces the hate from all the people the victim has told. I'm the one who can't investigate a crime because nobody talks to me. Heck, I've questioned victims of crimes who called 911 then asked why I was harassing them. I offer rides home to people walking in the middle of the night or in inclement weather and had them refuse or ask to be dropped off outside of their neighborhood so "people don't see them getting out of a police car". If I were in any way considered the good guy, the protector, the man in the white hat, this would not happen. But thanks to the bad apples, the whole bushel is viewed as rotten.
On a side note, and because of this, there is no Wall of Silence. Cops do not keep quiet when an officer goes astray. I've burned a few myself. Bad cops keep me from doing my job efficiently. Bad cops put my safety in danger. I won't have it and neither will most other cops.
4) When a bad cop is doing something wrong, a million other cops are out there doing it right. While those retards driving the jail van were allowing Freddie Gray to die, a million other cops in this nation were protecting and serving. Yet I am at fault and deserve scorn because police, not the whole department but six individuals, in another city did something the wrong way. Really ? I don't judge you on the basis of what somebody else has done, afford me the same courtesy.
5) Please, for your own sake, stop lying and stop believing the lies.I don't understand why alot of YouTubers need to make lies when there's more than enough real misconduct out there to document. You want the world to see corruption and misconduct, get it and show it. You don't need to edit videos to make a this cop look guilty, just show an unedited video of what that cop over there did. It's all just a FOIA away. But some folks realize number 4 is true and fear that common sense will break out, so they doctor, they edit, and add a false click-bait title. I'm amazed when I look at an obviously doctored video, or a video with a false title, and see in the comments how many folks take it as true.Wake up folks, THIS WAS THE FALLACY THAT RUINED THE CREDIBILITY OF BLACK LIVES MATTER. I had such hopes that organization would become a bridge between law enforcement and the community. Hopes that maybe the officer involved shooting rate would go down as an understanding and trust developed. Instead they attacked incidents where the officers acted properly when faced with a deadly force incident. At the last time, which was a bit ago (at least a year) I'll admit, there were 127 shooting incidents by officers and 11 of them were questionable in some way. That is 11 too many in my book but split second decisions are sometimes wrong. BLM could have focused on those 11 and still be at the head of the fight for justice. Instead they attacked the 116 saying, in a nut shell, the police were wrong for defending their lives (not to mention they made it a race issue even when the officer was black). Even the black people in this area lost trust in BLM. Other organizations wonder why they have no credibility. I direct them toward the BLM mistake and encourage them not to do the same.
6) Nothing said here will change your mind. I've seen folks condemn a good arrest and praise a bad one. I've responded to calls, and I HAVE to respond, its my job, where the complainant had a black man in their neighborhood that did not live there and expect me to arrest him, then shout insults about how ineffective the police are when I didn't. We are hated by both sides of the coin folks. Nothing I say or do will change that. Excuse me if I ignore your insults and sarcastic remarks. Its not me that has to change, its you.
