MagiStream

sry

I disagree, Cassowary. The problem is that the media likes shocking stories. The "good guys" being "bad" makes for good headlines. The good guys being good guys makes for meh. Cop abuses power! will make front page headlines. Cops catch bank robber make page 3 because the bank robbery is shocking. Cop pulls over inebriated driver... psh, that's not news. Cops help mediate a domestic dispute- that's only news if someone got hurt, or maybe if children are involved.
In my experience, when the police DO go overboard, there is usually public outcry and the individuals involved are dealt with. Other times, when it seems they go overboard, when you're not seeing the story through the sensationalist media coverage, you see that they really were making the best choices in that moment.
I have found that the police are, by and large, trustworthy and upstanding citizens looking out for the well being of others. Most are not assholes on a power trip.
My brothers disagree with me, feeling that cops are jerks. My brothers also tend to be doing things, or hanging out in places that get them into trouble. I don't. So, my conclusion is that if you don't want the cops to be a jerk to you, don't break the law, and generally you're not going to run into any that really ARE &^%$#@!s.

Ordinarily I would have agreed with you, Hawke, but...

We just had an incident here in Jacksonville which defies any kind of logic or decency.

Some background: Jacksonville does not have a police department; they have sheriffs because the city and the county are one and the same. They are also infamous here in the south for their corruption (no one else short of New Orleans PD had a worse reputation nationally).

Yesterday a deputy shot and killed an unarmed man during a traffic stop...because he was "acting funny" and because when the officer ran the man's ID he had a rap sheet. The man in question was shot seven times at close range in rapid succession through the REAR window of the stopped vehicle. That would have meant the suspect wasn't even facing the officer at the time.

I don't want people like that protecting me, but they seem to be more and more common.

It's not just the "bad guys" making the news, it's what they're making the news for. Beating people until they die, shooting a person's dog when it posed no threat (lots of those stories), tasers...

There's plenty of hushing up being done too. For example, have any of you ever heard of this? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Balcerzak

Two women, Sandra Smith and Nicole Childress, discovered the victim, 14-year-old Konerak Sinthasomphone, after he had managed to escape from Dahmer's apartment, naked, bleeding from the rectum and under the influence of drugs. They called 911, Balcerzak and his partner Joseph Gabrish were dispatched. Though the Laotian immigrant had been in the country for ten years and spoke English fluently,[1] in his drugged and brain-injured state, Konerak was unable to communicate his situation to authorities. Dahmer found the boy with the police and convinced them that the boy was his 19-year-old lover (in fact Sinthasomphone was only 14). Smith and Childress were convinced that Sinthasomphone's life was in peril and tried to save the boy. However, Balcerzak and his partner chose to believe Dahmer and allowed him to keep Sinthasomphone. Dahmer later sexually abused, killed, and dismembered the boy.
Balcerzak and Gabrish were terminated from the Milwaukee Police Department[2] after their actions were widely publicized, including an audiotape of the officers making homophobic statements to their dispatcher and cracking jokes about having reunited the "lovers". The officers had never checked the boy's ID because they said he appeared to be 19 years old. The officers did not check Dahmer's identification; had they done so, they would have discovered that Dahmer was a sex offender previously convicted for molesting Sinthasomphone's older brother.[3]
Both officers later appealed their termination, won, and were reinstated.[4]

And let's not forget that the saying "a few bad apples" is followed by "spoils the bunch".

Part of it may be that there's more recording equipment around, so that it's easier to track cases of cop abuse, or it may be that levels of abuse are rising. Either way, we lose.

Here's another gem: http://www.wsbtv.com/news/news/dekalb-o ... kin/nNzDS/

...I come from a family that is heavily in law enforcement (assistant district attorney, state troopers, county sheriff, etc.) and I'd love to be able to come in here guns blazing about how the bad apples are the only ones that get attention in the news. While this is, for the most part, true, I know enough from my own personal experiences to not make me a happy camper with taking that stance.

Coming from the psychological field, we know, or at least think we know, that a certain personality type is drawn to the job. Does this make them automatically bad, no, but from personal experience as my degree has me around the criminal justice majors often, there is a certain number of them that are guaranteed to say some point, out of frustration or not, that they can't wait to give back what's been given to them in their lives. That's a very small percentage in my experience, but they're there.

We also have to consider what stress can do to people. This is not meant to excuse the behavior but being responsible for public safety is stressful! Something happens and a cop steps in? He handled it wrong and is an asshole. He doesn't step in? He's still an asshole like the ones cited in the Dahmer case (I'd touch on gallows humor and why it helps those who serve the public but that would digress from the point). If you (general you) are in someone's face constantly, telling them that they're not doing their thing correctly, they will eventually snap. Most handle it in a healthy way. Others take it out on their loved ones (which is why the divorce rate is so high for the profession) or at its worst, the general public such as the Dekalb officer is Cassowary's link.

What it basically comes down to for me is this, there's good and bad in every profession and being a part of society means that I'll likely see both in my lifetime (I have but that's not appropriate for this or any discussion on this board). I understand the fear (Gacy's dead, but get me within a mile of a clown and I'll scream bloody murder) but at the same time, you have to have faith that when you need it, you'll get the good ones as they do far, far outweigh the bad.

I'm not very good with words... and when it comes down to expressing myself, or opinions, I fumble, a lot. But here goes...

I will hold back any talk of religions, for it's a touchy topic... I will say this.

While I sit back sometimes, and watch all that goes on around me... I ponder, about each event that has taken place on this planet... wars, battles, riots, plagues, natural disasters, death, birth, the list could go on and on...

I learned something, something that's very hard to explain... something that a person with... a... more sensitive sense of awareness, (I mean an acute sense of goings on wider than their own) and deeper thinking, of bigger pictures, would be able to understand if they were to experience it for themselves... You know how the earth goes through cycles, naturally wobbling on its axis, and going around in a small circle of its own, while going around the sun in an even bigger circle of its own... it's the same... I think... for humans... although with awareness, it makes it harder on us to be naturally apart of it... (if you are following me this far, thank you)

As a human, it is easy to see how easily we fall on our knees, begging for forgiveness in a world full of hurt... in troubling times, we want to stand up for what we feel in our hearts is right... we give a name to our belief, and in doing so, branding ourselves.... In my eyes, all this hurting and pain leads to nowhere...

And yet... I look even deeper into that pain and suffering... and I actually see something...

Hope...

Hope that we, as a human race... can change this planet into something... beautiful...

I have many questions... some not so easy to form on my tongue as of yet... and then there are some that I feel may have already been answered... I just never paid attention.

I had been, and still could be, struggling with the feeling of worthlessness... not the woe-is-me feeling... but 'what can I be doing...' What should I be doing right now in my life?

Oddly... instead of getting a straight forward answer... in time, I learned how to have more patience... not only with things around me... but in myself.

While we struggle just to maintain a job, and to afford the bills, pay for our children's food and clothing... there are other things going on around us that seem to get brushed aside... things like taking a break from cleaning... walking outside with friends... laughing with our older and younger siblings, or children...

While we dance a crazy dance of life... we close our eyes when the dance gets too rough and fast...

In a way, we never learn how to see what's in front of us, and behind us, and above and below and everywhere in-between... we feel that it's too much for us to take in... it can be...

but we are intelligent creatures... we can adapt to the harshest environment, and even make something more of it. We can make even the humblest piece of metal, into something glorious...

I would like to say that we are like our own mythologies... Dragons, who are known to be habitually domineering... seeing something, and taking the chance to make it our own... sometimes, we look deeper at what we are dealing with, and take into account who or what else could also be apart of this thing we are trying to take...

And then... we sometimes blindingly dive in... without thought of other risks, or things...

But, also like Dragons, we can learn from something else, and make that apart of our personalities... like kindness, charity, inspiration...

So far, from what I have gathered over these past 20+ years... we haven't changed too much...

And maybe, for the human race... there is only so far we can mature and evolve...




But when it comes to change itself... It's closer to us than we realize....


The narrator is right... "war.... war never changes..."

At least when it comes down to what we are fighting for....

I have but one question... when we fight... why is it sometimes we ask, "what are we fighting for?"