To put it simply, a police officer's job is to solve other people's issues. Therein lies the problem. I'll use the analogy of working in a fast food restaurant; after dealing with customers every day for nine hours at a time, you grow a bit numb to it. You stop giving a shit about quality control and doing the best job you can for each customer. Your focus switches to getting the job done and getting the fuck out. The same holds true for police officers. After spending years on the force dealing with thousands of wife-beaters, junkies, drunks and maniacs, a cop simply stops caring. You become just another dumbass fucking citizen, much like the dumbass fucking customers who shamble into the same goddamn restaurant day after day. However, the cops' job is to deal with issues much larger than making a sandwich. When the guy at the restaurant fucks up because he just doesn't care, you get pickles on your sandwich when you asked for none. When a cop fucks up for the same reason, people go to jail. It's fucked up, but that's how it works. It's the same with any job you go to. Spend a long enough time there and you'll stop giving a shit. To an officer, I can only imagine that a busted pothead giving a heartfelt monologue on the injustice being dealt to him is not at all unlike the unruly middle-aged woman at Quizno's throwing a tantrum because she asked for extra tomatoes. In both situations, the worker doesn't care. His only concern is finishing his job and shutting the twat up. And this is why police injustices will never stop. Sure, some cops may join the force because they truly want to help people. But after years of dealing with society's worst, every face just becomes another whining customer. In before 'lol fuck teh police' edit: sorry for the goofy paragraph formatting, I wrote this at work and copy/pasted it.
I think this is just you and a select few others who have this issue. Cause the cops I know personally arn't like this and they have been doing the job for 5+ years and one has been doing it for 10 and is a homicide investigator.
ask yourself- how many order's does a fast food restaurant employee make a shift? now that u thought about that, ask yourself- how many people does a police officer bust each shift? big difference between those answers good try on the comparison, but that just not the right idea for y cops suck. cops are assholes because they are given way to much power. If they wanna fuck u over, they will always find a way, or "make" one in some cases. For example- it's ridiculous that if u get pulled over in a car, u have almost no chance of refusing a search. all the cop has to do is say he smells marijuana, or that he supposedly saw some "marijuana seeds".
Hmm, from my perspective if anything cops would care even LESS about minor marijuana smokers. Having dealt with so many more harsh crimes and faced with many more pressing issues you figure cops would just ignore the pot smokers who aren't causing any harm and try to go after the bigger fish.
This is just in cities though. In small towns the police officers are asses because they like having control over the situation.
I think your comparison of a cop to a fast food worker is like comparing apples to giraffes. I work in the emergency services field, and I have for more than five years. Each and every call is different, its not a simple matter of putting a sandwich together. No one call is exactly like the next one, or the previous one. Unless you have been in the shoes of someone in this field, you have absolutely no right comparing how they do their job to how you do yours. In my experience dealing with cops some can be assholes, while some can be compassionate and actually care. You're lumping every cop in the same group, yet, you hate when people call stoners lazy and dumb (presumably), when it's clear to you (us) that there are many varieties and types of people who encompass this group. I've dealt with thousands of junkies, drunks, addicts, people with genuine need and people who abuse the system. Each call you treat as a new experience and comprehend and adjust to the situation you are in. Can you say the same for a fast food worker? You need to make a cheeseburger, the next time you make it, it will be no different. You need to go on a ride along and experience it first hand before passing out judgment. Why do cops bust you when you have .0001g of marijuana on you? Simple, it's their job. An officers job is not to interpret the law, and adjust it as they see fit, nor is it deviate from policy. Their job is to enforce the law, simply put. Marijuana is illegal at present, it's a simple as that. Edit: Oh and if I fuck up, it doesn't necessarily mean that someone will die; likewise, if a cop fucks up, it doesn't mean the suspect(?) will be thrown in jail. Randomly throwing about the most extreme situations when in reality, it is rare, but brought to public attention due to the media spotlight is in my opinion disrespectful. Officers are trained extensively, but in the end, it comes down to personal judgment and opinion; this is simply human nature. If a particular cop doesn't like black people and hence, goes to that call with a negative outlook, most likely the call will not go quite as well as if it were say another "race". What it comes down to is personal opinion, cop or not, power is bestowed in their hands because they not only deal with the normal bs, but also the situations where an armed suspect is raining fire upon them, or maybe even you. In that situation, you would most likely want the assistance of the officer. I felt that the opposite side of the debate should be brought to the attention of people reading this thread. To conclude; does it suck to get busted for possession? Of course. Does it suck when a cop responds appropriately and removes a drug dealer from a situation where they were selling to children near a school? No. Edit 2: Oh, and I just thought of this, and it supports your argument to some degree. I have absolutely no compassion for those contemplating, or those who have attempted suicide. Why? I have met too many people who would give absolutely ANYTHING to still be alive today, and yet we have selfish people who think that life is simply a commodity. Again, it's all about perspective, until you have been in these shoes, you can not comprehend why I and many others in this field feel this way. It may seem morbid or hurtful to some, but experience speaks louder than hearsay and third party perspective.
The police got really fucked up when they went from "To Protect and Serve" to "To Maintain the Peace". I remember even when I was skeevey, there was a time that cops didn't give me the anxious fear they do now. Now evey time I see one I have to worry about how much I can take this guy yelling at me over nothing. Or if I'm gong to get beat over something. Or if he's going to try and fuck me just to fuck me. I have friends that are completely legal and don't like to approach police officers. Most of the ones I"ve seen, in Louisiana and otherwise, act like gangsters or high school jocks. Hell, even I have a personal story with them. Granted, this police force doesn't have the best reputation in the world already, but my dad was dragged out of his car and beaten for not bribing the officer correctly over a burned out license plate bulb that from what happened probably wasn't out in the first place. The car didn't have any license plate bulbs when we got it back, and despite both of them being gone the officers only ever tried to cite him for one. Said they tortured him for about three hours between smacking him around and tasering him. The stuff I've heard normally isn't that bad, but my dad is also kind of a hard ass. Was a marine for four years and then decided a rifle wasn't effective enough, so he went shoot cruise missles out of submarines for the navy. Dad didn't go to jail, but the cops didn't get in any trouble either. They tried to bring him up on all sorts of assault and resisting charges of course. It eventually just got too expensive to try and screw them, so we settled with everybody going back to their corners. Something more benign, I got pulled over by a sheriff one night for not stopping completely at a stop sign (arguable, but not even getting into that), and "driving too fast for the neighborhood" (I was going five over the limit..Less than most people. One thing you notice delivering pizza is people speed like fuck in their own neighborhoods). He ended up standing there yelling out of breath at me for literally ten minutes while I acted like a half-deaf idiot. Somehow, I think he might have been taking something out on me, that didn't have shit to do with the speed I was driving or whether or not I stopped at a stop sign. THAT is why cops suck. Can you imagine anybody that wasn't a cop pulling you over, coming up to your window, and screaming at you for ten minutes? Or what you would do in reaction? All I wanted to do the whole time was grab the fucker and drive off. Sigh.
The definition of police is to patrol and maintain the security of. Policemen are only human you have to remember, they're going to overreact, make mistakes, take things too far, ect. Some cops are just jerks, some really try to do their job. Until you've been in their shoes, you cannot judge them.
After spending years on the force dealing with thousands of wife-beaters, ..i think i would enjoy dealing with wife-beaters on a daily basis.. nothing like talking too a fellow after he just sent his ol-lady flying thru a window,,
Yea you make a lot of sense. Of course there are many other factors contributing, but they are there mainly to fulfill a specific task and meet a certain quota. All part of their job. Over time you realize they are the same as most of us who are employed; lazy and incompetent for the job. Within being a cop a lot of meaningless concepts like pride and loyalty play a big role as well. At the end they are all made to believe and are the biggest pawns for city officials who want to create a false image like they have the city's crime numbers under control. Same ol' bullshit....
yea fuck the police. i get pulled over all the fucking time and illegally searched. smells like weed in here, really officer? yep step out, placed in cuffs search and dont find shit. god i hate pigs.
Thanks for an insightful rebuttal. Two things first: 1)I wasn't passing out judgment. Its not a cop-exclusive thing. Its human nature to not care about those we dont know. It has a lot to do with the Monkeysphere. if you dont know what the Monkeysphere is, you can read about it here: http://www.cracked.com/article_14990_what-monkeysphere.html Its a comedy site, but the article is rather insightful. 2) i dont work at a fast food restaurant. There are a plethora of reasons why cops can be dicks, and a lot of them are the same reasons that everyday people are dicks. The point is, cops are only human, but have been assigned to a job that requires them to be robots. I never intended for my post to be a blanket statement for all cops, and if anyone interpreted that way... You shouldnt have. It would be assinine for me to try to accurately describe every person in ANY group. I was 'inspired' to write something since two nights ago, the cops showed up at my neighbor's house. Pete was drunk as fuck. He got into an argument with his wife, and she beat the ever-loving shit out of him with a croquet mallet. The cops talked to both of them, and because ol Pete was drunk, he was the wrong one. He is the friendliest man I know and he never layed a finger on that bitch. And yet, he stood there on the side of the road with blood pouring off his face, shouting at the officers 'Don't go, please!' as they drove away without so much as writing his woman a citation. Because they didnt give a fuck.
Haha, well that was pretty much my argument! Good cop, bad cop, mediocre cop, it all comes down to human nature. In their experience drunk people cause trouble, and therefore, Pete was trouble. It came down to personal experience for the responding cops. It's a mistake on their part to make assumptions or presumptions when the situation doesnt call for it. Cops like that don't "serve and protect", but instead pass judgement and belittle people in geniuine need. Like I said previously, their job isnt to adjust policy as they see fit, but rather to simply enforce it. Pete needed assistance and did not recieve it, therefore, the police did not do their job adequetly. I see your point, and I wholehartedly agree that cops like these need to be reprimanded. It's been said previously throught history in reference to soldiers, politicians or anybody who holds a position of power above somebody else; absolute power corrupts absolutely. Unfortunately for people like these cops, they wont realize their mistake until tragedy forces them to, and in that case, a simple slap on the wrist appears to be adequete in the eyes of their bosses.