[RainMaker]

Originally Posted by molson

Good post. People really just resent authority, and EXPLODE over any opportunity for bring it down a notch. If gives them the moral authority to defy authority, which is like some kind of drug. The national outrage over this one cop's poor attitude is going to embolden countless others to exhibit asshattery in the weeks to come.

Maybe if those Oakland cops had pulled their guns a little sooner they'd be alive today. Next time they will (perhaps when they pull over a black man who may or may not want them dead), they'll make a split second error, and the cycle will continue.

Police officers are human, nobody can ever really grasp that. And when they make mistakes (which is going to be fairly common, when there's almost 3/4 of a million of them in the united states), the first assumptions are always about racism, conspiracies, power trips. That gives a "high" to accuse them of such things. Everybody wants to be a martyr. If gives their lives meaning to feel abused by authority.

Cops should of course be held to higher standard, but again, there's close to 750,000 and the resources don't exactly allow them to be recruited from elite military programs and Ivy League Universities (though there are some from those places). It's impossible to find 750,000 perfect Americans for the role. Occasionally one will be VERY bad, even criminal, and very often, they're going to make mistakes.

MANY times, they'll make mistakes that show they're not cut out to be officers, and they're gone. It's a high stress job with high turnover and little security until you've proven yourself. It's EXTREMELY difficult to find the "perfect 750,000". Some like Rainmaker seem to think that without finding that perfect number, officer murders is just what's going "to happen". I promise you though, that if cities and police chiefs across the country could find that perfect 750,000 and send them out there every day, they would.

If it makes you feel like a big shot to feel like you're being held down by the man because you don't like the way an officer handled a traffic stop, that's your right I guess. But it might help to remember that 30 minutes earlier, that cop might have been dealing with a domestic violence situation, a traffic fatality, or a dead baby. A tiny bit of politeness and appreciation and understanding goes a LONG way.

And some people like to feel submissive to authority for one reason or another. They enjoy having less intelligent people dictate their lives and run their power trips on them.

My problem isn't that they can't bring in 750,000 competent officers, it's that they don't police themselves. When a cop breaks the rules or the law, he should be disciplined. This rarely happens in police departments. It's why you end up with cops that have hundreds of brutality complaints and no consequences. It's why they feel they are above the law.

Cops should be held to the highest standards of our society. They are in a position that leaves citizens vulnerable and can't be allowed to take advantage of that. Internal reviews should be the toughest out of any job in this country, but instead are the worst.