Your thoughts about Police Officers

[spacemaverick]

This topic is one where I am just curious about the opinions of people in general regarding the police and what you think of them as a whole.  Pegasus has a good cross section of cultures so opinions will probably be varied.  Some topics I would like to present for opinion would be:

1.  Do you perceive in your geographical area the difference between the police of yesteryear and the police of today as far as their attitude about the general public?  (This can be evidenced by their actions)

2.  Have our police became too militarized?

3.  What do you think the reason might be for this militarization?

4.  Police officers receive initial training through academies before they are moved to the streets and then receive more training in the field under a trainer.  Can they be trained on how to deal with people or does that aspect come from their personality?

5.  What are your perceptions of police operations where you live?

I am not working on a Master's degree for anything but I am just curious about everyone's perception of their law enforcement officers in their area.  I have filled both slots as a police officer and corrections officer with a career of 20 years.  Attended 3 academies and received numerous classes in a myriad of police subjects.  I have seen different styles of operation from various departments by interacting with those departments and officers.  I must say it was most interesting to me.  I was saddened by the dark side of humanity that I saw all those years.  I also saw some bad officers during that time.  I would appreciate your candid remarks about what you think.

[VillageIdiot]

1.  Do you perceive in your geographical area the difference between the police of yesteryear and the police of today as far as their attitude about the general public?  (This can be evidenced by their actions) - We are all the enemy to them.

2.  Have our police became too militarized? - Yes.

3.  What do you think the reason might be for this militarization? - The bad guys are heavily armed.

4.  Police officers receive initial training through academies before they are moved to the streets and then receive more training in the field under a trainer.  Can they be trained on how to deal with people or does that aspect come from their personality? - A person must have an innate sense of how to deal with other people. This is learned very young (socialization). Some things can be taught, but the foundation must be there.

5.  What are your perceptions of police operations where you live? - They've been very professional with me.

[spacemaverick]

Nice to meet you, Rod, one of the best you are, Im sure!

Cool link! Thanks!

Cheers!
Dave

Gave it my all and it was an adventure indeed.

[petrus4]

Although I am not American as such, I consider the following song to accurately deliver the overall emotional background and intention of this post; although as usual, I will also speak at length about specifics.



In my opinion, police have legitimate uses; although such are extremely limited.

a}  Investigations of violent physical crimes, up to and including murder.  I will include sexual crimes here, although I do feel great regret over the degree to which contemporary police (or at least politicians) have attempted to use child pornography as a justification for the introduction of fascist law.

b}  Investigations of theft which result in direct, provable, material loss to the owner of the stolen good(s).

c}  Intervention in gatherings or assemblies, only to the degree that direct, visible, deliberate physical harm has been inflicted against an individual by another.

Outside of those three criteria above, I regard all police authority and activity as illegitimate.  The War on Drugs has no legitimacy, and has never had any; and the Drug Enforcement Agency are nothing more than armed thugs.  It was endorsed by the usual fundamentalist Christians who would decide everyone else's morality for them, but it was never consented to by drug users themselves.

I also believe that giving military ordnance to police officers is both morally indefensible and completely inappropriate; and further, that in practical terms, the equipping of police in this manner, can ultimately have only one practical use. 

Counter-revolutionary.

I believe that the American federal government to some extent has conscious knowledge of the fact that it is corrupt, and that according to Jefferson's instructions, it is currently overdue for being violently overthrown.  I consider the Department of Homeland Security to be absolutely nothing other than a counter-revolutionary agency.  It can have no other conceivable purpose; although the traitor Janet Napolitano has chosen to use the polite euphemism, "domestic terrorism."

I further believe that there has been no major terrorist incident since at least 1999, that was not either directly or indirectly committed by either the American or English intelligence communities.  Although unrelated Islamic violence is quite real, the War on Terror par se is a complete fraud.

I do not believe that any of these incidents have been committed by Islamic terrorists.  I further do not believe that there is any major Islamic terrorist organisation, that is not either directly or indirectly sponsored and equipped by the American intelligence community, particularly the Central Intelligence Agency.

As a direct consequence of these beliefs, I have no interest in the hypothetical ability of the police to, "keep me safe," and on the basis of direct personal experience, also have precisely zero confidence in such.  Al Capone was dead right when he said that anyone who would rely on police protection is a fool and a coward, both.

The current goal of the American government, is the same as it has been for some time.  To achieve what said government has itself specifically referred to as, "full spectrum dominance," over literally every aspect of human life, anywhere that said human life exists.  As Orwell observed, the ultimate objective of this regime is also nothing whatsoever other than total, pure power, solely for its' own sake.  The potential end result, is a form of tyranny which, in terms of both severity and scope, is the most catastrophic that humanity will ever experience; and if it is permitted to become entrenched, will also likely be perpetually irremovable.

In order to achieve this level of dominance and control, it is necessary to cause humanity to become total and perpetual cowards.  The only justification that is ever successfully offered for tyranny, is the appeal to cowardice; ever-increasing levels of comfort, convenience, and most of all, safety.  Thus, the basis of said tyranny will be two-fold:-

a}  The encouragement of total indolence within the public, so that as a result of becoming entirely dependent on mechanical labour, they lose the very ability to survive without said technology.  This will lead to disgusting and barely recognisable displays, of increasing levels of infantilism, as time goes on.  Search on Google for someone who has written an account of their life without a mobile phone, and take particular note of the degree of rage and hostility which is directed by phone owners, to the phoneless individual.

b}  The encouragement and cultivation of varying levels of perpetual fear and anxiety within said public, which will be synergistically reinforced by the technologically induced infantilism mentioned above.  This is why we have had a steady parade of threats or other popular figures, for individuals to direct fear, hatred, and other negative emotions towards.  The first of these most recent figures was Osama bin Laden, but more recent scapegoats have been Bradley Manning, Julian Assange, and Edward Snowden, and Al Baghdadi.  All of these individuals serve to capably fill the role of Emmanuel Goldstein; the fact that the latter three are not terrorists as such, simply adds plausible deniability.

You may wonder why I have made this apparent digression from the main topic of the police.  My reason for doing so, is simply to observe that there is a campaign of infantilisation and fascist superimposition currently being waged against humanity, (the source of said campaign is America, but America is by no means its' only target) and as such, the police are among the American government's primary means of continuing that assault.

It can therefore be said in conclusion, that the legitimate roles of the police, are primarily used as a deceptive means of justifying their illegitimate ones; and as for which, legitimate or illegitimate, has been given more scope, the difference is as ten to one.

As for militarization of police...Alex Jones cringes and poops in his pants when he sees an ATC full of swat members, but perhaps with the level of disregard for human rights to live safely, hate, greed, and racism in today's criminal, an ATC may not even be enough.

Ah, yes.  The Cathedral.  There can never been a rationalisation made for Huxleyite technocractic subjugation, without an appeal to the Cathedral.

I reject the United Nations' concept of "human rights."  I do so because, while I know that the intention of said concept is genuinely utopian in theory, I remain aware that it will achieve an equally dystopian result in practice.  It must be said that I do not reject the idea that people be treated in the manner which the U.N. generally advocates; my rejection is specifically directed towards the United Nations' appointment of itself as the sole arbiter of said behaviour.

I will only accept the documentation of a minimal standard of decent human behaviour, as long as the recommendations held within said documentation, have the power of adoption or rejection of them, held by a vast plurality of decentralised institutions or nation states, and never by a single, global institution, as the U.N. desires to be.

I do not believe, as a final point, that the police need additional powers to deal with the supposed, "increased levels of hate and racism," within contemporary criminals.  It is, in fact, the level of the rest of the public's infantilism that has increased.  Crime is currently at its' lowest level in recorded history in most parts of the world; and that is precisely why we have become so much more sensitive to it.

I am exceptionally tired of civil rights, to be brutally honest; to the point where I actually find the theoretical exchange of racist epithets between multiple parties, to be genuinely less offensive to my ears than the politically correct objections of a contemporary Social Justice Warrior.  I consider SJWs to be an infinitely more serious threat to the wellbeing of humanity than the racism or discrimination, which they claim to want to end.  As it has been said, socialism is very often no more than fascism with feelings.

[Fruitbat]

They seem like a good idea, but don't actually work as advertised in practice...

FB!

[Littleenki]

Much of what you say is 100% correct Petrus, there are bad departments and poor decisions made every day in law enforcement...but as a whole, if you look closer from the human relations standpoint, the majority of police are not even close to the evil ne'er do wells you lay out in your reply.

So, on thread, how are the police in your area specifically? Mine are damn good, and have my total respect and admiration for the way they handle situations daily, often some situations I am myself directly involved in.

Now, the political douchebags who force police departments to emulate army platoons or navy seal teams, those folks ar typically elitist, but here in my region I havent seen much of that...where do you live ole chap?

Le

[Littleenki]

They seem like a good idea, but don't actually work as advertised in practice...

FB!

Ive heard horror stories from friends in the UK Steve, any specifics from your area?

Le

[Amaterasu]

I really don't know any police - though I have briefly met some here.  Seems like nice enough.  But when I see "police" on YouToob and other reports on the web, battering, bursting in, full "battle" gear...  I keep wondering who these People are who choose this behavior.  Who are They?  Why are They choosing to behave in this fashion?  Is it merely money?  It is indoctrination?  Is it mind control?  Who the F are They?

But I can say...  I do not like Them.  I think They - for whatever reason - are choosing very poor behavior, "orders" or no.  The WORST excuse for choosing poor behavior is "Just following orders."

[petrus4]

Much of what you say is 100% correct Petrus, there are bad departments and poor decisions made every day in law enforcement...but as a whole, if you look closer from the human relations standpoint, the majority of police are not even close to the evil ne'er do wells you lay out in your reply.

Yes, I know.  They're nearly all basically good guys; and once we've acknowledged that, the only other thing we need to do in order to rectify our cognitive dissonance regarding some of what they do, is to throw them the Nuremberg defense for good measure, and then call it a day.

I will develop more sympathy for the police, when and only when they start to realise on a truly large scale basis, that as an institution, they are the holders of the real balance of power within Western civilisation.  This has become even more true since the American police have started being given military ordnance.  What might happen if a sufficient number of them revolted, hypothetically?  How would the governmental and corporate psychopaths who give them their orders, respond?  What would have happened if the police at Zucotti Park had refused to arrest the protestors, as one high profile example?  Would Bloomberg have fired them, and hired an entirely new force that were more willing to follow orders?

"I was only following orders," is never a legitimate defense; and it needs to stop being regarded as one.  Virtue is no longer a concept which is permitted a robust definition; Nietzsche and Bentham have unseated Kant, and it was largely the gay movement, with Gandhi and Martin Luther King as field marshals, who served as their army.

The irony here, is that consequentalism itself can be used to determine why certain moral categorical imperatives are, in fact, necessary.  When anyone who is accused of participating in an attrocity, cites his own lack of authority as an excuse, we are immediately shown in exceptionally stark terms, why the refusal to follow certain orders is vital, regardless of the consequences to the individual refusing.

A related irony; self-sacrifice is no longer a genuinely tolerable concept, in our society, except perhaps among the military.  We claim that we have no absolutes on the one hand, but we then quite happily turn around and cite Rand's rejection of "Comtean altruism," as a consistent element of desirable ethics.  If Nietzsche was correct, and there are no absolutes, then why is any idea any better than any other?  Why do any of us consider murder wrong?  Why does the Universal Declaration of Human Rights exist at all?

So we see the contradiction.  Western atheistic universalism wants to have everything its' own way.  It's funny how virtually all forms of collectivist thinking are advocated and defended, except those which might actually lead to the preservation of the species.

So, on thread, how are the police in your area specifically?

I do not have much contact with the police, where I am currently living.  As a town, Nimbin is granted an unusually high degree of de facto exemption regarding drug law.  Although enforcement does periodically occur, it is sporadic and highly inconsistent.  Within this area, the police are not particularly well liked, (since they primarily represent the enforcement of laws which most of us do not feel that we are willing parties to) and are generally considered worthy of avoidance.

Mine are damn good, and have my total respect and admiration for the way they handle situations daily, often some situations I am myself directly involved in.

I do not tend to revere either the police or the military for what they do, primarily because once the behaviour of said groups is subjected to critical analysis, it quickly becomes clear that said reverence is not justified. 

If the police manage to prevent the murder rate within a particular area from reaching unacceptable levels, then it can be said that they are fulfilling their task; to exactly the same degree that it can be said that the rubbish collector is fulfilling his, if the recycle bins are emptied when they are supposed to be.  If I am not expected to place my hand on my heart and cry to the accompaniment of an anthem, when I discover that my residence's communal toilets have been cleaned, then I see no reason to do the same for adherents of any other occupation. 

Again, uncritical reverence of the police or military should not be a social imperative; and within our society, it largely is.  This is one taboo, the violation of which I consider urgent.  I am more likely to regard it as an act of moral wrongdoing, if I do revere or glamourise these groups, rather than if I do not.  Apart from anything else, an excessively positive emotional bias towards either group, is demonstrably socially and politically harmful.

Now, the political douchebags who force police departments to emulate army platoons or navy seal teams, those folks ar typically elitist, but here in my region I havent seen much of that...where do you live ole chap?

As I've mentioned before; Nimbin.  I live in an area with some of the most beautiful rainforest on the planet, and whenever there has been a confrontaton between the loggers and the locals, the police have unfailingly served as the loggers' accomplices.

Aside from this, however, I do not think exclusively in terms of my own local area.  The behaviour of the police in some areas around Nimbin, is but a single example of a larger global trend, which I have observed accelerating in America and other countries.

Quod erat demonstrandum.  I am not, at this point, going to express further undue vitriol towards the police as a group.  I am simply going to state that I hope the reasons for my perspective, have been made adequately clear.

[ArMaP]

1.  Do you perceive in your geographical area the difference between the police of yesteryear and the police of today as far as their attitude about the general public?  (This can be evidenced by their actions)

Yes, but probably not as most people are expecting.

That's because I knew the police as it was during the fascist regime that ruled Portugal for 48 years (I was 11 years old when the Carnation Revolution happened).

During the fascist regime most people joined the police (we have three different police forces) because it gave them an opportunity of getting a better life, like all civil servants had, and, for those that liked it, power over other people.

The police, at the time, was feared, as it was relatively common for some people to make any complaint about anyone and that person would get arrested while they investigated the complain. That happened with my father, someone (that he didn't want to know who was) told the police that he was reading forbidden books (it was true) and he was arrested at work and passed the night in jail, but as they couldn't find anything against him (a friend had hidden the book he had in a pocket of his coat when he saw the police enter the store where they worked) they released him.

After the revolution, many police officers that were known to support the regime and that were known as being part of those that liked to persecute and torture people were quickly removed (some were accused of several crimes, but most were members of the political police) and the police forces were reorganized to allow the influx of new members.

Some years latter the difference was noticed, instead of the typical fat, ignorant policemen that came from small villages in rural areas we started to see young men that had, at least, secondary education. This trend remains today.

2.  Have our police became too militarized?

In Portugal we have three police forces:
- Polícia Judiciária - PJ - (Judiciaty Police) - the police responsible for investigations and coordination with prosecuting authorities. They don't have uniforms;
- Polícia de Segurança Pública - PSP - (Public Safety Police) - the police that do "street work". If we call the police this is the police that will answer (in towns);
- Guarda Nacional Republicana - GNR - (National Republican Guard) - a paramilitary police force, created after the Republican Revolution of 1910, based on an existing paramilitary force. Most police officers sent to international missions (like in the Kosovo or East Timor) are from this paramilitary force. They have military equipment (9 mm pistols instead of the .22 calibre pistols used by PSP and G3 rifles, for example) and are the only police force present everywhere, from small villages to towns.

These 3 types of police have existed since 1910 and nobody has ever talked about changing it, even if the last reorganisation of security forces in Portugal mixed a little the work of the PSP and GNR, so we do not have a militarisation of our police.

3.  What do you think the reason might be for this militarization?

See above.

4.  Police officers receive initial training through academies before they are moved to the streets and then receive more training in the field under a trainer.  Can they be trained on how to deal with people or does that aspect come from their personality?

I think they can (and, at least in Portugal, do get some training in that area, as it's noticeable) and they should, but how they act and react will always be a personal thing, they are humans, after all.

5.  What are your perceptions of police operations where you live?

I think they are effective and act in a natural way, not abusing their power (which is not that big after all). All the cases where I had (indirect) contact with the police they were polite and acted as humans, not as machines following orders. They looked like people doing their job with professionalism but with the idea of helping the people and the society they are part of.

[Littleenki]

ArMaP's reply is a breath of fresh air..truth from an observer in the location he is speaking of. Portugal is a place Id love to visit someday, and it sounds like it is a place of people of reason and self control.

Petrus, enjoy this song which I feel better describes your own two posts above than the one you chose....


Cheers!
Le

[robomont]

gold for petrus.

[Littleenki]

gold for petrus.

wouldve never guessed

[Littleenki]

Sounds like youve had some seriously messed up problems with them, Robo, hence my comment, as I figured you might have had.
Also, saying on a forum that you have a hundred "tomato" plants may not be the best choice of words either...LOL!

I guess it all boils down to demographics and failed leadership at various positions along the way.

I dont feel SM baited anyone, and he asked some seriously direct questions out of his personal interest as a retired policeman himself.

How did they download your phone, that sounds pretty sneaky for sure...likely N ess Ay.

Hopefully theyre done bothering you, wishing you well with that.

People who run red lights arent just breaking the law, theyre also disregarding the safety and right to civility of everyone who stops when it is appropriate and possible to do so. I say revoke their license for a year..to heck with a ticket..but the money grabbers do love to grab the dough from our pockets any way they can.

Most people in jail for drugs made a concerted decision to either go to far for the drugs, or like bringing it out of the house to party, or selling it knowingly when they know damn well that is illegal. Why throw gas on a fire, like most potheads, driving around all day smoking up in their cars like cops will never notice..when it is easier to just recreationally use them in places one knows are secure?

Why not pack bags and head to Colorado if a buzz is so important?

Its all about choices and self control when someone ends up in jail...and yes, sometimes a person gets railroaded into being arrested by a crooked cop or two, but still..choices are important here.

Choices and boundaries are key in avoiding the folks who wish to control nd subjugate us.....all choices made by themselves, with noone but themselves to blame in most instances...I agree it is a sad state of affairs, but it isnt going to change overnight...hopefully that golden age is right around the corner...we could all use it about now.

Cheers, mate
Le

[robomont]

le i usually respect your opinion but your a boiling frog right now.
yes an app was placed on my fone on a very back road at 10:45 +- at night.the apps on my phone show time they are activated.the time was exactly activated when the cop pulled up beside me.he somehow plugged it in through the sms.
the camuras are not for stop light runners,they are for warrants,facial recognition ,tags,insurance,the phone tracker ,triangulater is as an extra layer to layover the other surveillence,of all people le,you should know this.im really disappointed you dont know this..you really should do your research.but then the only reason i know this is because its currently being done to me.thats why i cant say more as i intend to sue them in the next month or so.im going for the big bucks if my problems go to trial.
they committed a class a to capture a class c.very criminal behavior.