Andy, you were as "out of place" as I was.
As far as the amount of black cops vs white cops. This is just my opinion here and I know most won't agree. Blacks learn and experience the bad cops before most whites do. Before as in at an earlier age. Not all black folks and not all white folks.
According to a Washington Post article, since 2007 the DEA has seized $3.2 Billion in civil forfeitures. This is cash only, doesn't include property seized.
This all reminds me of the time I was pulled over in Texas doing 79 in a 75mph zone. I never carry cash so "I'm not suspicious." Literally separated from my friend and told to sit in the police car so that he could check to make sure our stories lined up. 11:30 pm just trying to get to my hotel to sleep at night worst experience ever, still not happy about it. Guess you can't be from out of state traveling on I-40 at 11pm.
45 minute traffic stops for people going 4 over isn't acceptable in my book.
Lots of anger, and rightfully so, but the question of what to do keeps coming up. I was once told you can carpet the world, or put on bunny slippers.
I do everything I can to minimize my contact with LEO's. I carry a minimum of cash at all times. When buying a car I pick the cash up as close to the seller as possible, and prefer to take the seller to the bank with me.
Being angry is simply an unproductive response that makes it more difficult to behave in the most advantageous way. Pick and choose your battles, but you're guaranteed to lose if you pick a fight with LEO's.
The reality is we all benefit from the same imperfect system we're complaining about. The constitution presents some good ideas, but so does the communist manifesto. So far this idea works well enough in practice that I haven't chosen to go anywhere else.
Some don't choose their battles with the LEO's.
In reply to yupididit:
not trying to taunt, Im actually asking because Im curious, and you have a different perspective than I do. What is your solution to the problem?
I know the problem is real. As a middle class white male from a middle class neighborhood, Ive seen both sides: Cops going out of their way to be great ambassadors of the LEO community to the rest of the populace, and dirty berkheads for whom abuse of their authority seems to be the only way they can get their flag up the pole. But, I think the dirty guys are by far the exception, not the rule.
Its just like a bad experience at a restaurant or with a service provider: Youre 10x more likely to tell someone about a bad experience than about a good one. Youre just waaaay less likely to end up in prison or shot when you disagree about customer service with the vacuum repair guy...
yupididit wrote: Some don't choose their battles with the LEO's.
Very true.
gearheadmb wrote: There is no law so petty the police won't kill you for breaking it, and people will cheer for them doing it.
Also QFT.
Because there's a human factor I don't think there is a real permanent solution. The bad and negative will always highlighted more than the good (Look at Porsche and Mercedes forums
) . But, I think people should be aware that LEO's are indeed human so every human fault is there. My problem is when people fail to acknowledge that there is a problem or that my experiences are my fault and not because of (insert baddie here). I've had friends and coworkers tell me that my experiences were not because of my race and all of them were white and grew up dislocated from such things and events. Some cops are indeed racist, some are power hungry, some are abusive, some are unstable. Those some are very few and far. But because the influence an Officer has on the community it gets highlighted as it should be. People in power need to be checked and watched or they'll run away with it.
One thing I'd like to see is more mental health support like we have in the military. Police seem to have an high rate of domestic violence compared to civilians much like military have a high rate of suicide. When you're in the position of policing and taking care of people it will have a huge impact on your character and mentality. Imagine having to deal with humans in a negative aspect for so many years. Then add that to your personal beliefs and prejudace. It's not a good combination. If I was raised in a "racist white" family then became a police officer in a community where most criminals were "black" I'm pretty sure my mentality towards them would become increasingly negative as the years go on. You can insert any race or characteristic between those quotation marks and it's all the same.
I can only speak on my racially driven encounters. I've never once been threatened or put in harm's way by police. Nor have they ever stolen my money. They've only stolen my time haha.
I grew up very poor and now I'm pretty well off. I've traveled to do many different places and interacted with many different types of people. Lucky for me I'm able to look at things from many angles and colors because of my experience in life.
There's a thread on another car forum called "the Muslim problem", it isn't going nearly as well as this thread here.
yupididit wrote: ...One thing I'd like to see is more mental health support like we have in the military...
Everything you said is valid, but the mental health support in the military is horrid. That's one of the reasons why suicide is killing more of us than combat.
It's a valid point, but I worry that it becomes routine. The questionnaires we always had after coming back from a deployment are clearly written by committee and you learn quickly to answer them is a specific way or risk giving up too much time after the briefing, when all you really want is to go the hell home. With a law enforcement mentality, the LEOs will quickly discover the patterns and answer whatever they are supposed to. What's worse is the genuinely evil folks will learn to manipulate that system like any other.
Even with most LEOs fairly straight and doing their job, they like the military are subject to the will of their superiors. Consider Virginia; I was stopped there for what was written as 80 in a 75. Becuase anything more would have been a jailable offense. Of course the next week my desk was covered with letters from lawyers offering to represent me. So in that state,the LEOs have been reduced to rainmakers for traffic specilising law firms. Safety has nothing to do with it, and Virginia will never change their draconian laws becuase those in power benefit too much from it.
Civil Forfeiture is a genie that is never going back on the bottle. Any lawmaker that stands against it obviously "is easy on crime" and can forget the support of any professional police of professional legal organization. No politician will stand with them because it is political suicide. So even if we had one moral politician in our midst (which does not exist, if they are actually politicians on purpose, they cannot enforce the will of their constituents, even if they wanted to).
So until someone with the fiscal means to mount a court case to bring the legality of this practice to the federal courts, this will keep happening. But the municipalities that actively engage in civil forfeiture certainly know how to avoid that, just keep preying on the poor, or at least the middle class. They don't have the means to fight, and they won't. The person who could unleash a team of lawyers that actually eat flesh will never get their assets taken because a local government knows better.
Basically, we are screwed. And this is just the precedence. There will be more laws enacted that allow government entities both locally and nationally to abuse a wide array of authority. Be that under the scrutiny of "it's not a law, it's a tax on not having this mandatory thing we are making you buy" to managing law by executive order. The vultures have cracked the code on how to help themselves to the public trust. Depending on who you want to attribute that quote to; but we are moving from an age of complacency to an age of apathy.
That age of apathy will lead us to dependence.
Very interesting read, glad this hasn't been 'patioed'
Being a middle aged white guy, I feel pretty lucky. Had a cops gun in my face once. Not fun at all.
In reply to yupididit:
I think you've hit on the major problem I see it. Mind you I'm a middle-class white guy who lives in a rural area but I married a wonderful woman from South America and spent a lot of time as a defense contractor traveling to all the best spots on the planet (yeah right.)
Not all LEO's are bad, in fact there's an impossibly small percentage of them that cause the issues which make national news. The problem is more of a cultural issue where LEO's close ranks in much the same way as you see with the military and the brothers in arms shtick.
The issue is that you cannot have that "brother-in-arms" mentality with a civilian law enforcement group because their mission is different than that of a military. LEOs exist to uphold the law and serve the community in accordance to the guidelines set down by a community. They're accountable to the community they serve, not solely to their chain of command. Use of force by LEOs should always be subject to extreme scrutiny as it is not their primary mission. Those found to be in violation of those practices should not be allowed to continue serving in that capacity, not protected because "you weren't there."
The military is solely accountable to their chain of command. While the military projects the image and influence of a country, in war time the people they are fighting are not granted the same protections as citizens of the US are. Determinations of if a situation warrants use of force are easier to justify because the use of force is sometimes the primary directive of a military unit. E36 M3ty thing to say but that's how war is conducted.
Recentish events have blurred the lines and roles of the LEO vs the soldier which is incredibly dangerous to our society.
I've relayed this story before but it bears repeating again.
I was attending physical therapy after surgery from an injury sustained while overseas that was left for far too long. One of the people I was in therapy with was wearing a hat with the symbol of the local community rugby team. Naturally, since I play when I have time I struck up a conversation asking if he played. At this point, I already knew he was there because he took a spill during training at the police academy.
His answer was no "Because I'm incapable of leaving what happened on the field there." That's pretty much when I ceased to have any interest in continuing the conversation and made mental note that I hoped to never have an interaction with him as a LEO. Unfortunately, that is one type of personality attracted to the benefits of becoming a LEO. That type needs to be weeded out early and with extreme prejudice.
Now that I'm sufficently off topic, the war on drugs is dumb and is what has lead to the concept of civil asset forefiture. The rules need to be revamped in a manner where your level justice isn't limited to the level you can afford. No charge should equate to no justification to seize property.
Also see United States v. Approximately 64,695 Pounds of Shark Fins. Sometimes it sucks that you have to let the bad guys go but if it's not illegal then there's no grey area. If you as a society deem it to be a problem there's a process and it needs to be respected, not avoided in some obscure end run.
There's lot of mental health support that we do not even think about using because oof the stigma. Now they're doing them without letting it sheet your career or clearance. Unless you're PRP, but that's nukes so it makes sense. We do know how to skirt by the questions without getting flagged haha.
I wouldn't want my child joining the military or law enforcement that's for sure.
In reply to The0retical:
In some of the recent events, it seems you're better off as an LEO killing a civilian than shooting one in a combat zone. Suspension with or without pay is nothing compared. I'm sure you already know that. But that's a huge area of debate that can be endless. I do agree with your post. Especially police force taking in battle damaged vets.
Batman would rather die before he kills the most horrible villain. Go figure.
Policemisconduct.net points out that one of the primary contributing factors to these scenarios is that fact that a LEO who steps down can't be fired. SO when they get into trouble, they step down and hire on with a new department. If they jump state lines, by the time the paperwork for their last job clears, they are already active duty on the new force.
Also, I would note, penalties for LEOs doing egregious things appear to be considerably less than what a civilian would get.
Johnboyjjb wrote: Also, I would note, penalties for LEOs doing egregious things appear to be considerably less than what a civilian would get.
But the LEO are punished more than if they were a congressman or senator.
To be fare, congressman barely qualify as human.
I got home from LAX about forty five minutes late recently as I got rolled up in a surprise DUI / Identification check point.
There were three staging areas for individuals the police decided to look at closer after the initial check and they were just popping and towing, popping and towing from those staging areas as fast as they could.
Me, a total middle class white guy complete with a “my kid is an honor roll student at blah, blah, blah”- sticker in my window pulls up with my window down and license, registration, and proof of insurance ready to go in my hand.
Not only didn’t they check me out, they actually seems a little annoyed that I was coming to a stop. The vib was like “come on man, you know you’re not the droid we’re looking for, move along – move along”.
That’s totally messed up…selection bias drives up arrest statistics for certain groups which results in those groups getting scrutinized even more.
Why is it so difficult to just play it straight and look at everybody equally???
Anyone just coming from LAX probably needs a drink
In reply to RX Reven':
At least it wasn't a surprise emissions checkpoint. God those were annoying.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/georgeleef/2017/04/06/judge-foils-highway-robbery-attempt-by-police/#f55163712680
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