i think that cops, like all things and people, exist on a spectrum.

my uncle was a detective in the providence pd for like 30 years. he dealt with latin kings guys, hardcore drug dealers/murderers/rapists, had a gun placed to his head, etc. i think he actually caught one of the most wanted guys in the country at some point. he didnt **** with traffic laws or dime bags. i have nothing but respect for him and guys like him, i think that's a badass thing to do with your life and that those guys are an absolutely necessary part of society. this is one end of the spectrum: people that are directly fighting bad people.

i live in a fairly affluent town in coastal maine. no real crime. the local cops are notorious for harassing people about stupid things like the seatbelt law (i got pulled over and fined $70 for not wearing a seatbelt on my own quiet, country road), parking outside the school looking to catch people going 5mph over, etc. however, the mostly old and annoying people that live in my town want this kind of thing, so i'm relatively cool with it (well - i actually hate it, but i understand that i don't reflect the desires of the community). guys like this sit closer to the middle of the spectrum - they're just doing their job - some are pricks, some are not.

then you've got guys that are just *******s about it - they won't hurt you directly, but they'll go out of their way to make you miserable/accept bribes/etc. i'd file the guys that follow u for 20 minutes and pull u over for nothing under this category - they're abusing their power, but not to the extent of physically harming u. they're closer to the other end of the spectrum (the 'bad' end), but they're not all the way there.

on the far end of the spectrum you've got cops that get off on their power and abuse it. they walk around with a gun, a badge, and little regard for rule of law - people are going to get hurt. unfortunately for the rest of the spectrum, these guys (and the guys that are overzealous about the enforcement of drug laws, who'd prolly fall into the last category) are responsible for the negative attitude towards cops in general. unfortunately for society at large, these guys also benefit from the special treatment that is generally afforded all cops (and is in a lot of cases justified, just in my opinion) and don't have to answer for their crimes as they should.

So you're saying that. as long as you're not being detained, the average citizen can say "lol, u suck, *******" and not expect "contempt of cop" punishments to be forthcoming?

Whether you are being detained or not should not make a difference as to what you are "allowed" to say.

JFC its $70 for a seatbelt ticket?

I agree with most of what you're saying. I have no issue enforcing traffic law, my issue was with the general cowardice of some guys I worked with. An example, we had a guy who was quite the POS who lived in our county.

He was president of an outlaw motorcycle club in another state and we would get called for Domestic Disturbance and it would always snowball into very dangerous situations, and we'd have one or two guys who would hear someone being dispatched to that residence and would immediately get involved in long, involved traffic stops, so I'd have to roll from halfway across the county to go back someone up, or take the call myself because of these two pricks.

Well, I can't speak for every cop in the world but yea, I've been called an ******* before and not arrested someone.

No one is saying you're not allowed to say anything regardless of detention status, but you and I both know this comes to a guy being arrested for a legit offense, being a prick about it, then telling all his friends later "Yea, ******* cop arrested me for contempt of cop LDO" which is why I would like to exclude detained individuals from this hypothetical.

ya $70, really ridiculous. that and the guy telling me "you should know better at your age" = #cmonson

but yeah, i think my post and the point you just made basically illustrate the fact that, at the end of the day, cops are people. some people are awesome, some suck. the attitudes towards LEOs happen to be very amplified because they represent authority and the long arm of the law, so people often interact w them in a context where they're gonna be pissed regardless of who the cop is as a person.

Fair enough. My point is that while we all have a 1st Amendment right to speak our minds, and while you say you would be "cool" with it (which I have no reason to doubt, you seem like a nice enough guy) the fact is the overwhelming majority of LE officers in America today would not react so benignly and would almost certainly punish anyone who spoke to them like that.

police shot and killed an unarmed teen in the Bronx last week....again

nothing will happen to the ****ers that do this, either

Link?

http://gothamist.com/2012/02/03/cop_...-old_in_hi.php

Article is missing tons of info necessary to make an informed decision.

Someone who was unarmed was shot and killed. That's all you need to know.

Then you're completely unreasonable, out of the line of thinking of the majority of the US public, out of touch with SCOTUS, and having an intelligent debate on use of force is utterly pointless.

lol jfc

LirvA, if I kick in your door at 2AM, do you shoot or ask if I have a gun or wait for me to shoot at you first?
You shoot.

I can pretty much tell you from that article how this went down. Drug deal (BOO) cops chasing drug dealer on foot. Guy gets in, locks himself in bathroom. Cops know from experience drug dealers hide guns on their persons and in their living areas. Story states suspect was flushing drugs.

Here's my guess, and I'm not defending these guys but I'm not calling for their crucifixion either (yet).

Guys flushing weed down the toilet, probably had some stashed in his waistband, if he's like the dealers I've encountered. So he's standing there, at the end of a footchase, cop pointing a gun at him, he freaks out, lunges for his waistband to get the 1/2 oz or whatever out of his waistband, cop sees him lift his shirt and go for his waistband and shoots him.

Right/Wrong of my hypothetical is up for discussion. Stating there is NEVER a justifiable reason to shoot an unarmed person is LOL ******ed and I will not even dignify it with an argument.

Isn't that what you just did?

Also, even in the situation you described the cops are complete scum. Chasing after a guy for having a harmless plant on him, breaking into his own home, and then gunning him down on his bathroom floor is absolutely despicable.

No, I was falling back on my experience to recreate a likely reasonable recreation of the facts of the case. I was trolling champstark at the end.

+1 no one should be killed over weed.

If someone breaks into my house and I shoot and kill them, I'm going to be seriously ****ed unless there is solid proof that my life was in danger. That would necessitate seeing a weapon about to be used on me iyam. Therefor, if I kill someone but I didn't see any weapon, there was no proof they were a threat to my life, I am put in prison. Why should police not be treated the same?

Well, unfortunately that's the law. I'm against it, we're all against it, and the fact that they were chasing him for weed will not hold any relevance in the investigation of these cops, since they were chasing him for a legally authorized reason.

So rather than pounding this dead hooker of "ZOMG EVIL DRUG LAWS!" for the 100,000,001 time, why not change the facts to a situation where under your moral compass the cops were justified in chasing for?

Don't you feel that might be just slightly more interesting?

Not to get off on this already beaten tangent again but no, you're not. If you are, move. Review your state statutes regarding burglary and use of force.

It's true though, the real culprit here is the drug laws. Once those laws are put into place, the cops can justifiably (under the law) do what they did. And that's completely and utterly wrong and needs to be changed.

if you think killing someone if there's a chance they might have a weapon on them is the correct decision, you probably deserve to be shot

Sure that's easy for you to say, you're not chasing some scary criminal into his house (hostile territory) in the middle of the night. I'm not saying the cop was in the right, but DblBarrel is right. There's not enough information from the article, and it is entirely possible that it was a justified shooting.

I'd say GOING for a weapon would make it a correct decision. Assuming my hypothetical, when do you shoot?