They are too aggressive!

[occupied]

Basically anywhere where there are a lot of poor/working-class people. If the police pull you over you are probably not going to get a lot of common courtesy.

Back a few years ago when so many people lost their jobs circumstances demanded that I buy a cheap beater for transportation. I have never been pulled over so much and treated like a scumbag as when I had that ugly but reliable piece of shit.

People who drive a presentable vehicle and obey the traffic laws usually are never hassled for "acting suspicious" so they are usually dubious about tales of cops being intrusive dicks. But if you drive something kind of old and beat up and obey the traffic laws just as studiously I can tell you from experience that you are going to be subject to more stops on suspicion and have to endure a provocative fishing expedition.

Funny that you never state why you were pulled over.

It's not funny, I had to drive a lot of miles through throughout Alabama to work. As best as I remember I was pulled over 6 times in two years, searched twice, treated like a scumbag nearly every time and received zero citations. Once they said "there have been a lot burglaries in the area and we need to check your car" as if that justified 45 minutes on the side of road while they went through my car with a fine-toothed comb. All my papers were in order, I committed no moving violation, all my lights were working and still they decided to rake me over the coals, **** asshole cops like that.

 

[BULLDOG]

Not all American cops are too aggressive. And American cops are far less aggressive than cops in other countries. I'm sure many have heard horror stories of Mexican police. Even if you cooperate, it might not matter as there are so many corrupt ones. German and Italian police are pretty aggressive and it would be a very bad idea not to cooperate with them.

In this country, there is recourse and it's good that people are video crazy and increase the chances of police conduct is caught on camera.

There are no doubt some police in this country who are corrupt and don't follow rules. Most follow the rules and if those rules seem to aggressive, blame those at the top.

Cops have gotten pretty aggressive with property and money seizure after they were given power to confiscate money and property from suspected drug dealers. Of course, now they take money from average citizens and don't need to charge them, let alone prove that they are guilty of any crime.

It's not the cops who came up with this shit. It's government and once they give themselves power, they keep taking more and more.

There will always be corrupt cops no matter what we do, but it's always been hard fighting the system and always will be till things change. For now, people will continue to fear the local, state and federal governments because the corruption goes all the way to the top.

The left especially is blaming all cops for the actions of a few, yet they are the first ones to bash critics of radical Islamists because of the countless Muslim terrorists? Funny how the rules change depending on who is doing the criticizing.

I take objection to your claim of 'take money from average citizens' since there has already been a thread pertaining to this and only had two instances of this occurring.

One was a 'restaurant owner' traveling to a different State with $18K in cash to purchase restaurant equipment. I find this hard to believe since major purchases that one is going to deduct require a receipt as well as a 'cashed' financial instrument to claim as a deduction.

The other was a business owner who had $12K stuffed in his glove box claiming it was a deposit from his business. No bank bag, no deposit slip, and the area where was stopped wasn't between his business and his bank.

Both I find very hard to believe.

You might want to Google Tenaha Texas police seizures The seizures were mostly from non whites, but all races were included to some extent. It was so bad till a class action law suit was filed.



Between 2006 and 2008, Tenaha Police Department used state forfeiture regulations to seize property from nearly 200 motorists. In about 50 of the cases, suspects were charged with drug possession. But in 147 incidents, police seized cash, jewelry, cell phones and automobiles even though no contraband was found and the motorist was not charged with any crime. [9] Many of these were African-American or Latino drivers.[3][10] At least 150 motorists had property seized by Tenaha police department, totaling more than $3 million USD.[3]
Examples of seizures from non-whites included:

1. A mixed-race family of four traveling through Tenaha were pulled over by police for a moving violation. Officers found no contraband but seized $6,037 after a search. The police and the district attorney threatened to take the two children away from the parents and place them in Child Protective Services if they refused to hand over the cash. Tenaha police eventually returned the family's money without an apology. The parents are now plaintiffs in a federal class action lawsuit.[9]
2. Linda Dorman, a great-grandmother from Akron, Ohio had $4,000 in cash taken from her by local authorities when she was stopped while driving through town after visiting Houston in April 2007. Court records make no mention that anything illegal was found in her van. Dorman still hopes for the return of what she calls her life savings.[11]
3. Javier Flores and William Parsons were traveling through Tenaha on July 22, 2008 when they were stopped by police for speeding. Both men were arrested, and $8,400 was seized, after a police dog allegedly detected drugs in the vehicle although no contraband was found. The pair were then threatened with money laundering charges unless they forfeited the money. Both men were then released from custody without charge.[12]
4. Two men had $50,000 seized even though court records show there was no evidence to indicate the cash was related in any way to criminal enterprise or that the men were engaged in any illegal activity.[12]

The town used the proceeds from the seizures to build a new police station and personally reward high-revenue generating officers. Other purchases included a $524 popcorn machine and $195 for candy. Donations to Little League teams and local chambers of commerce were also made using seized funds.[3] Texas law states that forfeited money can only be used for official purposes by district attorney offices, and for law-enforcement purposes by police departments. Lynda Russell, Tenaha's district attorney, has denied any impropriety.[13] However, the US Attorney for the Eastern District of Texas re-prosecuted drug offenders after officials in Tenaha and Shelby county gave known traffickers lenient sentences in exchange for cash forfeitures. In 2008, Shelby county was investigated by the Department of Justice's civil rights division over an allegation made by its former auditor that seized funds had been used for campaign materials in local elections.[5]
Tenaha Texas - Wikipedia the free encyclopedia

 

[BULLDOG]

Near Houston. That's where 3 cops got off for shooting a one armed, one legged man in a wheelchair who was armed with a ball point pen. All the cops were all in fear for their lives.

Post the link.

Lots more available, but you'll have to look them up yourself
How a Texas Cop Who Killed a Double Amputee Holding a Ballpoint Pen Got Away With It Alternet

 

[Harry Dresden]

a Cop can be diplomatic as well as tough if he has to be.....many Cops are forgetting about the diplomatic part....

A few months ago, a North Las Vegas Police car gets a hit off the license plate reader. The car is a stolen vehicle. The cops attempt to pull over the vehicle. The guy driving takes off, a pursuit begins, the guy drives to his mamas house. He exits the vehicle and fires a handgun at the cops hitting one three times. Both cops fire back killing the guy. The family says the cops should have been more diplomatic.

for you to say that in that situation says you are pretty ******* stupid....if you dont know what i meant you must be a dumbass...

 

[George Costanza]

They have to be as the criminals are just as aggressive. Do you want them to allow a looter to loot and burn your house down?

Sorry but policing is no place for pussies and cowards like you.

You miss the point. Of course police have to be just as aggressive as the criminals they pursue, but there is one important difference between the police and criminals. Police are (suppposed to be) professionals, which means they do their jobs without injecting their own, personal feelings into it.

We have all seen videos of the end of pursuits where the police drag the driver out of the car and beat the hell out of him when he is not resisting in any way, once the chase ends. Not good. Not professional.

Police are not supposed to act aggressively toward people they are contacting unless those people are being PHYSICALLY aggressive toward the police. Merely mouthing off does not give officers the right to thump ass.

The whole problem with these shootings/killings of unarmed suspects stems from a basic personality trait of almost all police officers. They are authoritarian bullies who get off on pushing other people around, both verbally and physically. Most of them bring these traits with them to the job and the tendency in this regard gets honed over time as they enjoy the fruits of the power that is bestowed upon them.

Unless and until police departments find some way to blunt the force of the personalities of their officers, I am afraid this kind of stuff is just going to continue.

 

[HereWeGoAgain]

Near Houston. That's where 3 cops got off for shooting a one armed, one legged man in a wheelchair who was armed with a ball point pen. All the cops were all in fear for their lives.

Post the link.

It happened.

 

[whitehall]

You almost gotta laugh. Remember when Bill Clinton's A.G. authorized Federal law enforcement to use freaking tanks and poison gas against American citizens and ended up incinerating 80 men women and children? Remember when a FBI sniper pulled the trigger on a woman holding an 18 month child in her arms and was indicted for manslaughter and Clinton's "justice dept." managed to dismiss the case? Nobody on the left thought that the federal cops were too aggressive back then. Watch out low information lefties. You think you lost big time in the last election? This phony outrage against Police Officers will bite you in the ass worse than that.

Ruby Ridge Nuts?

They deserved to die?

 

[ABikerSailor]

You know.............I've been pulled over a time or two, and I can tell you that your appearance has quite a bit to do with it.

Once, I was pulled over driving a Subaru, and was wearing nice clothes. All I got from the policeman was a warning and told to drive safe.

Another time, I was pulled over riding a motorcycle and dressed out in jeans, t-shirt, chaps and a motorcycle jacket. Cop gave me the hairy eyeball the whole time he was checking me out and was less than polite to me.

If you're white and dressed like a businessman, you get a lot more leeway than you do if you've not shaved for a week and are dressed in leather on a motorcycle.

I can only imagine what minorities get treated like.

 

[DGS49]

With the obvious caveat that there are Bad Cops out there, who have to be identified and dealt with...

It is sometimes said that any politician's first priority in office is to GET RE-ELECTED; everything else is secondary.

In an analogous way, it is every cop's first priority on the job to LIVE LONG ENOUGH TO COLLECT HIS RETIREMENT. For this reason, cops will not tolerate abuse of any kind, because the tolerance of abuse in even minor instances invariably leads to escalating levels of abuse. First it's verbal, then it is physical, then it is lethal. It has to be stopped immediately, forcibly.

Some people say or imply that the police' response to abuse should be "proportionate." While this may be true in a neighborhood dispute between "civilians," it is decidedly not the appropriate principle for police. Response will and must be DISPROPORTIONATE. If you hit a police officer with an aluminum pop can, he will club you with a stick. If you slap him, he will knock you out. If you shoot a weapon in his direction he will try to kill you. DIS-proportionate. Because the cop wants to live to collect his retirement checks.

Let's say someone approaches a police officer at night with an object that could be a firearm. The policeman assesses the situation and concludes there is a 50% chance that it is a loaded firearm, and that the holder of it intends to shoot it. If the policeman does not respond with lethal force, then he will surely die before retirement. Maybe not that day, but eventually. What if it's only a 10% chance that this is a lethal threat?

Same thing.

If you make you living for 20-30 years in situations where you are dealing with criminals, some of whom are homicidal, then in order to keep the odds in your favor (of living to retire), then you have to be somewhat paranoid about this type of threat, and respond in a way that eliminates the thread, definitively, immediately. If you have the ability to respond effectively without deadly force, then fine, you can do that. But if it is "take the risk of being killed," why would he do that? Ever? It makes no sense.

 

[Andylusion]

I'm not the only one who has been pulled over by a cop who was clearly trying to antagonize me.

Holy crap Bulldog. Where do you live? I'll take that off my vacation list.

Basically anywhere where there are a lot of poor/working-class people. If the police pull you over you are probably not going to get a lot of common courtesy.

Back a few years ago when so many people lost their jobs circumstances demanded that I buy a cheap beater for transportation. I have never been pulled over so much and treated like a scumbag as when I had that ugly but reliable piece of shit.

People who drive a presentable vehicle and obey the traffic laws usually are never hassled for "acting suspicious" so they are usually dubious about tales of cops being intrusive dicks. But if you drive something kind of old and beat up and obey the traffic laws just as studiously I can tell you from experience that you are going to be subject to more stops on suspicion and have to endure a provocative fishing expedition.

I don't think it has to do with being poor. I think that is a correlation, not a causation.

I think the causation, is high crime areas, police tend to be less friendly, because high crime areas, the people are less friendly. Police are viewed as the enemy in high crime areas.... logically because the people are criminals. If they were not, then it wouldn't be a high crime area.

At the same time, high crime areas, tend to be poor... because they have high levels of crime. Criminals are rarely rich. And rich people, don't want to live in a high crime area, and since they are rich, they have the money to leave.

So, I don't think it has anything at all to do with being poor. I don't think the police are thinking to themselves "Hmm I wager that person has a net worth under $10K. I should be a jerk now..."

That's a ridiculous assumption.

 

[Andylusion]

You know.............I've been pulled over a time or two, and I can tell you that your appearance has quite a bit to do with it.

Once, I was pulled over driving a Subaru, and was wearing nice clothes. All I got from the policeman was a warning and told to drive safe.

Another time, I was pulled over riding a motorcycle and dressed out in jeans, t-shirt, chaps and a motorcycle jacket. Cop gave me the hairy eyeball the whole time he was checking me out and was less than polite to me.

If you're white and dressed like a businessman, you get a lot more leeway than you do if you've not shaved for a week and are dressed in leather on a motorcycle.

I can only imagine what minorities get treated like.

No it's the exact same thing to minorities. In fact, it's the same WITH minorities.

If you are Mexican, dressed in a suit, dressed to the nines

You will be just fine, and treated very politely by police.

If you are a Mexican skin head, barely dressed, covered with tattoos...

Yeah... uh... not so much. That's how that works people. How you choose to present yourself, does effect how you are treated.... and... should.

Moreover, the same is true WITH minorities as well.

Daniel Espinosa Jewelry, is a very high end, expensive Jewelry store, which is planning on opening up shop in New York City soon.

If you walk in, and you look like a million buck, that Mexican sales staff, is going to flock all over you, to get the commission. If you walk in looking like Five Guys Burgers and Fries is a stretch for your budget, that Mexican staff is going to ignore you completely, until you demand service.

I've seen this myself. One difference is, I accepted the way I was treated, because I understood that I didn't look like I had money to buy anything. I simply asked for service, and pulled out several $100 bills, and placed them on the table. Once the staff grasped I had money, they were more than eager to please.

You are judged on how you look. This has been true throughout all human history, and will continue to be true until the end of Human existence. Why people are shocked by this, I'll never understand.