Police brutality .... going a little too far there officer.

The bold text is complete and utter bullshit of the highest grade. Law enforcement does not exist to serve you, nor protect you. This is affirmed by the cases of Warren v. District of Columbia, Hartzler v. City of San Jose, Riss v. New York, DeShaney v. Winnebago County, Balistreri v. Pacifica Police Department, South v. Maryland, Bowers v. Devito, Westbrooks v. State, Davidson v. City of Westminister, Antique Arts Corp. v. City of Torrence, Ne Casek v. City of Los Angeles and Castle Rock v. Gonzales.

To add insult to injury, many states have enacted tatutes such as California's Government Code, Sections 821, 845, and 846 which state, in part: "Neither a public entity or a public employee [may be sued] for failure to provide adequate police protection or service, failure to prevent the commission of crimes and failure to apprehend criminals.''

If law enforcement doesn't want to be treated with hostility, then maybe they should stop abusing their power, follow the laws they are charged with enforcing, cease covering up wrongdoings by fellow officers, assigning "desk duty" or equivalents to paid vacation for those whose violations are unable to be covered up and otherwise uphold the integrity we expect from those with authority.

I have been helped my law enforcement a couple times, been given a jump when my car battery was dead, had one pull over and ask if I was alright when I was sitting on the side of the road talking on my cell phone while a third officer gave me a lift when he found me walking in the median of a road in an area that should have resulted in a fine.

However, to put it into perspective, I've also been wronged by law enforcement including; being written bogus tickets (outside of the jurisdiction of that particular agency), I've had several lie under oath which resulted in fines when I fought the bogus tickets. Another instance resulted in 3 charges against me when an officer lied under oath. Luckily, my lawyer was well known enough to get 2 of the 3 dropped just because he asked nicely while the third charge resulted in a 5 year probation period. I've also had my vehicle illegally searched by an overzealous cop looking for what he probably thought was an easy score for drugs.

Yeah Zero, I don't know where you live, but here in America you don't even have to succeed in assaulting a cop to get substantial jail time.

The thing is, in America, our supreme court has decided:

-The Police have no duty to protect individuals and are not responsible for injuries or deaths caused by their failure to follow procedure or while in dereliction of duty. (Warren Vs. DC)

So that gives you some idea of where I'm coming from. Lots of power, no real legal responsibility.

You completely missed the irony of my statment. Why would you serve and protect those who treat you with utter disrespect. You don't. You also mentioned if police didn't want to be treated with hostility they would fix themselves, but why don't you look at that statment historically. The police departments weren't always like that. Least to mention, many of them should be protected against civilian accusation. Do you have any police officers in your family? Or perhaps your close friends are police officers or have parents who are police officers? From the sounds of it and the many responses I've heard already, you don't.

How can I take the credibility of someone who has not experienced in the slightest what it is like to be on the other side. Have you ever sat down with an officer and just listened to what happened in his or her life? Probably not.

My great grandfather has told me amazing stories of what it was like to be an officer in depression era north american and what it was like post war. But the example that most terrifies me, is that of a close friends mother who was a white female police officer during the LA race riots. Try to image that for just a second, being a WHITE person during the race riots already made you a target, now you're also a female.

You can argue all you like against police brutality and aggression but one thing will always remain, as long as the public does not respect the law and respect officers, the officers will not respect the people. For ever action there is an equal or greater reaction. One of the great laws of physics.

TOJ...it's "For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction." The problem is that the police are obligated to respect the people by the constitution. We have rights to protect ourselves from overreaching or abusive authority.

[quote="theotherjacob"You completely missed the irony of my statment. Why would you serve and protect those who treat you with utter disrespect. You don't. You also mentioned if police didn't want to be treated with hostility they would fix themselves, but why don't you look at that statment historically. The police departments weren't always like that. Least to mention, many of them should be protected against civilian accusation. Do you have any police officers in your family? Or perhaps your close friends are police officers or have parents who are police officers? From the sounds of it and the many responses I've heard already, you don't.[/quote]

The last time I counted, there were 5 and I myself attempted to become a law enforcement officer for the Atlanta Police Department. I decided against it after the orientation where the rhetoric from the officers within the police force was incredibly hostile towards civil rights and the population.



Never make assumptions about those you don't know. I come from a family whose life has meant service to others ranging from law enforcement to military careers. We've known or worked besides people of all levels of law enforcement from simple deputies upwards to command staff.



Public opinion is a result of police abusing their authority in ways that I mentioned above. Until they have the integrity to fix themselves properly, the public will disrespect or obstruct them at all points. Respect has to be earned and law enforcement agencies that show a lack of integrity will never gain that respect.

The constitution strictly forbids of Police officers using more force than the situation calls it for, meaning if a girl gives them the middle finger then it is no reason to respond it by giving it 10X more back.

Just an example.

An officer doesn't need to be dressed up in a barney costume singing the " I love you, you love me, we are one big family", he just needs to enforce the laws that protects himself and the citizens, personal is out of the question.

I believe it is the other way around. There is little proof that the actions of the police started the public abuse towards officers, but at this moment in time, the actions do not help. If the police give everyone the benifit of the doubt we start to see a substantial rise in organized crime. That is why the police organized more efficiently.

No. The actions of the police force in america are a direct result of the society in which it serves. Look around you, look at all the other first world countries. None of them have police brutality on the scale of america. You don't turn on the tv every day and hear "Police in London England have killed 3 people". It just doesn't happen in other first world countries, not in canada, not in england, france, germany, china, japan, etc. The places that have this sort of thing are third world dictatorship countries hellbent on genocide and america.

Please explain to me how your society is perfect and that it is the police force at fault, or are you one of those people like the feminists in that other thread who won't take responsibility for the actions of you and your society.

In this case I have to strongly agree with you, Germany Police Department are way different than America's Police .. I remember being tackled by a Police Officer in Colorado just because I was with a friend of mine who carried a BB Gun which I didn't know, and then they screamed at me " We got you now motherucker!!!... Shut the fuck up you son of a bitch!!" ... I had bruises but they let me go afterwards and arrested my friend. Sure it was a pain, but it was reported by the cops he had a gun or something and Cops came strong on us, that is how situations need to be handled, not just shoot the suspect and not being able to ask questions.

However in Germany, they handle the situation a lot better and actually treat all people in a mature way and probably that is why they are heavily respected and lots of people comply, but the citizens of other countries and the police don't get along, and I understand the point that Police don't need to give respect to the citizens if they are not respected in return, so yeah , I believe citizens do have to pay Police respect and comply, then the Police will have a heart for the citizens and actually become local heroes and they will get treated with donuts and coffee everyday.

I can agree with everything said here. Where I find my issue with how things are done is that even if there is a police officer with a heart, who give everyone an opportunity, and handles his business professionally. People still make up lies to report to the police department about their actions, people still shoot at them for no reason and people still show that person no respect because that is how people view the profession.

Look at germany for example. When police talk to civilian they are always treated with respect. People in germany don't often give the finger to the police, they don't shout profane language at them. That is something distinctly north american and much more prevelent in america.

I admit in Kosovo, disrespectful citizens are punished, not because they offend the cops, but because they wanna shape up the citizen to become better for society. German Cops really try to keep their cool, but when a report involves a weapon then there are no warning, they already got the gun before you can even talk. Another case are their tactics, when looking for a suspect, they don't just look at the vehicle, rather they surround the vehicle and look to if the suspect is in there, if not, then they apologize, APOLOGIZE, and also explain the current situation. Not like the Cops that shot a vehicle that had a woman and her daughter in it and the best part it, it didn't even match the description nor did they see if the suspect was inside it.

I don't know how America Cops work now, it had been 7 years since I lived in Colorado, but I tell ya, I have been shitting bricks seeing Police brutality videos and how it violates the constitution.

You're trying to simply a very large and complex issue and it's misleading and generally insulting to other users and myself to frame it in such a way. First, China controls it's media and obviously wouldn't let anything negative such as police brutality be aired. This conclusion can be derived from the reality that foreign tourists and journalists face harassment from the police for filming or simply being in areas they are not allowed to. It is not a stretch to believe the Chinese Government would take measures to prevent their state controlled media to say anything negative about their own government.



Second countries such as Japan the police show integrity by apologizing for their wrongdoings while in America the police are never liable for their wrongdoings.

I won't speak for Canada or Germany as my associates there are asleep at this point in time. They would be more likely to be aware of the local goings on more than I would.

As for France and England, I can not say but, at the same time I must point out that you merely stated the above countries do not have police brutality issues without providing any proof. You're attempts to shift the burden of proof onto me as disingenuous as best.



Nice straw man you got there. It looks used though, marvelous touch up they did to make it look new though. Also nice generalization of feminists there. Where'd you get you degree in logical fallacy?

Mocking aside, I never said nor implied my society is perfect but, that didn't stop you from running off with your own interpretations rather than the literal words I wrote.

So to recap, you made broad generalizations about countries you obviously don't live in while trying to displace the burden of proof. So, you can amend this by posting the proof of your claim that China, Japan, England, France, Canada and Germany and all their various parish, provinces, districts or other equivalent jurisdictions do not have issues with police brutality. Once you've done that, we can begin to compare and contrasts the various countries so we can figure out the root cause.

You're acting as if in this modern world that anything can be controlled. Look what happened in Egypt or Libya, or most of those third world middle eastern countries where the dictor has complete control over the media and yet somehow we still found out about riots, they still got out information about what is happening and ask the world for help. You can't cut communication to the world anymore.

Does anyone in america apologize for what they do? Companies, banks and the government rob people of their money, make mistakes and throw out excuses rather than except blame, and they never apologize for anything. That is the society you live in, one where no one apologizes for their actions. That is the way the world percieves americans.

I never said the countries do not have police brutality issues, I said that they do not have the police brutality issues on the scale of america. There is very simple proof, it's called google. Do a google search, amount of police brutality my country, and you find almost all the results are american.

There is no generalization made, there is only an accusation of responsibility. Not all feminists are man haters. Not all police are physically abusive. Not all people buy cars from the commercials. But some do and who are responsible for those people? It's as justice jackson said after the second world war "Those who do nothing as just as guilty as those who commit the crimes". Where is the logical fallacy in that, it seems pretty obvious. An effect will always have a cause. Why does a profession like police officer attract psychotic individual who like to bully others, because that is the power given to them, who gave them that power? The people did. The police aren't to blame for their actions, the people are. Does cutting off a banch of a tree stop it from growing? No it does not. As long as the base remains, it will continue to grow.

No, you didn't imply that society was perfect, that was sarcasm. But what you did imply was that society has no responsibility for the mosters that it throws forth. That society is not to blame for the decisions it's made. If you elect a corrupt government democratically is it the governments fault for being corrupt? No, it is your fault for putting those people in power.

You are right about one thing, I have not lived in those countries. But all of my close friends have. Most recently, one lived in china for over a year and never said he heard a thing about police brutality. I have spent several weeks in england and japan, and never read anything in a paper or on tv about that. My ex from england never spoke of police brutality, and my co-workers who are from norway and germany never spoke of police brutality either. And currently living in canada, I have heard of the odd bit of brutality but it is so rare, that it barely makes the news.

You are as you accuse me, dumping responsibility for finding your proof for you by saying that I haven't lived in any of those countries. Have you lived in any of those countries I mentioned? I noticed you mentioned some of your friends or people you know, have they often spoke about police brutality on the level of america? Probably not because it doesn't happen.

Your faith in the internet is quite adorable. The internet is not some magical panacea that can cure the woes of society simply by existing. It's merely a tool that can be used and manipulated by those with control over it's infrastructure. An entire country can vanish from the internet with the wave of a single hand. On January 26 2011 Mubarak effectively took Egypt off the internet which disrupted the fiber optic corridor between Asia and Europe. The Egyptians were only able to by-pass this blackout by use of proxy's and 3rd party applications. Libya was started by the American government to secure access to the resource rich country.

Related Link.

Of course it'd be difficult for someone to maintain control when NATO is mucking about in your business.

Those other dictators who were deposed during the Arab spring didn't have nearly the level of sophistication as China. Just because others fail doesn't mean others can't succeed. It honestly doesn't take much to control the flow of information when you control the mediums. Egypt, Syria and Iran were able to manipulate/shut down their internet and cell phone networks so it's obviously not that difficult. Though that is oversimplifying the issue as the civilians in those countries also had wide access to firearms and support from foreign nations to assist in rebellions.





You trying to make a point or just railing against the U.S?



You're the one making those claims, not me. I won't be doing your leg work for you. Since you've failed twice to provide ANY information to back up your position, I must assume you can't find any and are merely bloviating.




You're simply fishing around for something to work with since your argument is struggling. I would appreciate it of you took my words as I intend them (literal) rather than concocting your own ideas of what I was implying.

I'll reiterate what I was saying; we went from a society that respected law enforcement to one that distrusts the very people we once respected. So I'll go ahead and link you to this study that was done on police brutality. In addition to that, we have incidents such as this or this among thousands upon thousands of abuses and corruption by law enforcement. So please, explain how internal payoffs, kickbacks, frame ups and ticket fixing's are "society's fault". If anything, I expect if we examine the regulations regarding Law enforcement behavior between the countries you listed and the United States, you'd find more accountability in those countries for police misconduct.



Anecdotal evidence is unreliable for various reasons. Stories are prone to contamination by beliefs, later experiences, feedback, selective attention to details, and so on. I live in a state with 40% gun ownership rate and yet, I've seen 3 guns in private ownership in my lifetime here. If I were to apply your logic here then it must be "guns are rare".



Those friends of mine actually work within their respective governments and would have access to the information that I wouldn't know how to locate.

Anyways, you've failed twice to provide information to back up your own claims. Need I remind you that burden of proof lies with those who make a claim rather than those who are skeptical or deny those claims? You made a claim about police brutality rates in several other countries being lower than the U.S based on anecdotal evidence from your own friends plus you only surmised that America's levels of police brutality are higher than those countries simply because we don't "respect" law enforcement.

That's two unsubstantiated claims on your end.

"semper necessitas probandi incumbit ei qui agit"

Thank you for proving my point in your own agrument. You claimed that because others were unsuccessful that some will be. To me, it seems as if you believe that humans are stupid and incapable of ever figuring anything out.



There's proof everywhere and the biggest bit of proof is TV. How I am supposed to link every possible news channel, but then again I understand you live in america, a country that controls what media is shown on tv and does not show channels from other countries.

Just do a simple search but apparently you are too lazy to type a few words into google. You don't even have to click on anything.

https://www.google.ca/#q=police+brutality+rates+by+country&hl=en&safe=off&tbo=d&ei=i3wdUaCRKOqz0QGRpIGwCg&start=0&sa=N&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_qf.&bvm=bv.42553238,d.cWE&fp=2b304979f2f46b00&biw=2025&bih=1166

Look at the results, flip to page 2 and look at the results. If there is such a huge epidemic in the world then where are all the other articles? I fail to see them.

I'm not railing against america, I'm asking question. I'm making comparisons. And if you claim that my FIRST HAND experience of being in other countries doesn't count as evidence then there is no such thing as proof ever.

Your links about libya as well and the CIA and whatever being about the government conspiracies, etc. Just proves my side of the argument even more. The american people elected these individuals into government, the american people are responsible for the actions of it's government. It's right there in the declaration of independence.

http://www.ushistory.org/declaration/document/

"That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government"


The government and the ones who allow the police to get away with that they do gained their power FROM THE CONSENT OF THE GOVERNED... the people.

And it is the people responsibility to deal with it. If the people didn't consent to this, it never would have happened. But the people allowed it to happen. Of course this is assuming that there is such thing as democracy.

Edit: Also to point a point on irony. You said that my anecdotal about my friends and my experience is not conclusive proof yet you just sat there and typed in for everyone to see that you have friends in other countries with their "proof" which you have failed to supply as well. That's like someone who signed his name and walked out on a math test calling the guy who failed the test stupid.

Not quite, more that simply because some succeed doesn't mean others will and that where others fail doesn't mean that others will do the same. Again, just because one government fails to accomplish something doesn't mean another one can't succeed in doing what the other failed to accomplish and so on so forth.



Not doing your job for you is not laziness. If anyone was lazy, it was you for thinking a Google search qualifies as evidence of anything besides your own incompetence. I shall reiterate once again, "semper necessitas probandi incumbit ei qui agit" which translates into "the necessity of proof always lies with the person who lays charges."



This doesn't even begin to qualify as a scholarly source. It merely promotes pages based upon a set criteria relating to the person who searched. Since you don't know what you're doing allow me to help you. When someone asks for proof or evidence to back up your position, you would search for news articles, studies or statistics from reputable scholarly sources to provide. Upon you providing this evidence, I would review it and post either my criticism or acknowledgement of the articles provided. If I am of a dissenting opinion of those articles I may provide ones of my own as a counter to yours.




I reiterate, Anecdotal evidence is unreliable for various reasons. Stories are prone to contamination by beliefs, later experiences, feedback, selective attention to details, and so on.



This is deviating from the discussion but, at least we somewhat agree here. Though we differ as you believe the population as a whole are at fault while I blame individuals. The reason I disagree here is, I did not vote for obama in 08 or in '12 as I voted for Ron Paul in both elections and I have pretty much opposed every action he's taken unless it was agreeable with my own morals and principles which are based upon libertarian ideology. An individual can not be held responsible for actions of others, actions which he is opposed and has actively tried to stop.

If I tried to stop someone from murdering another. Morally and legally speaking, I can't be held responsible for the persons death, as I did try to prevent it. This is of course, assuming I did more than just call the police and hide under my bed but, I digress.



ugh, I reiterate yet again, these individuals work for their respective governments. The evidence they would provide would in no way be anecdotal because the information would be published government statistics. In other words, I need the guy who speaks German to navigate a German website, to locate some studies that show statistics related to our discussion. Then on top of simply locating it, I would require his assistance in translating it and putting it into perspective for us foreigners. As for the other guy, he lives in Quebec and their website is in French which is another language I am not fluent in.

Having someone who can speak another language and navigate a government website in a language I am not fluent in is not comparable to your anecdotal evidence. Your inability to comprehend such basic concepts is growing quite tedious.

You still haven't proved your point. You have made a claim about your friends without providing any proof from your friends to support your claims, just like I have.

You have made one mistake though about your claims. Je suis facile en francais. And I am from quebec. There is one thing that should be known about anyone who works in the quebec government, and that is they should not be trusted, ever. The current government is a bunch of english hating nazi's. But that is a completely different discussion.

Anyway, as for my proof about the statistics for other countries with police brutality. I failed to find any statistics other than for america. But that flags something important. If it is so difficult to find statistics, either that means that there is a huge cover up, or that it is so uncommon that it doesn't warrent a statistics investigation. And being in canada and having gone to many of the protests, I have not seen much of this police brutality outside of people who deserve a couple thumps. There's nothing stopping me from logging on and posting videos or anything. It just doesn't seem that prevelent. So as I said with my journeys around the world, I haven't encountered anything like what happens in america.


Edit: And you know, I'm in complete agreement that individuals should be held accountable for their actions, but the people who allow these individuals to exist should also be punished. In over 90% of criminal cases and 100% of studies done on mass serial killers, all of these individuals come from broken homes, either with single parents or drunk parents. They are abused and that triggers erratic behaviour. I don't know why these horrible parents aren't held just as guilty for causing their kids to be like this. These kids obviously show signs of mental disability but behaviour can be shaped and changed, if the proper environment is established.

I make this comparison to the police profession. For some reason, this profession is attraction sociopaths that are hell-bent on destruction of society and instituting their own will with their protection. To me it seems only logical that the reason these people have gotten as far as they is because people don't do anything about it. Just like the nazi's that took over germany, the people who could have stopped it, said that it wasn't there problem.

You just love those broad generalizations don't you?



Absence of evidence is no evidence of absence. This is just a way for you to say "I couldn't find any evidence whatsoever to back up my own side which means I'm right".



I reiterate, Anecdotal evidence is unreliable for various reasons. Stories are prone to contamination by beliefs, later experiences, feedback, selective attention to details, and so on.

You're first hand experiences are such a small sample size that it can't even be considered as reliable evidence. There is a reason why eye witness accounts hold little credibility in real life legal proceedings.


Edit:

I want to avoid sounding like I just want confrontation but I find the numbers dubious and I would like a study or government statistics to prove this. I seriously doubt that it's that simple of broken homes, single parents or abusive parents = crime. It ignores or grossly oversimplifies socio-economic, psychologic, geographic and the various other correlates of crime.



First, society (those who are aware) doesn't tolerate corrupt agencies but, the government has no liability for a law enforcement officers actions. They along with a corrupt legal system and apathetic citizenship have essentially walled themselves in so that the only way to successfully sue any public official is if they consent to being sued. It's a result from the combination of Republican worship of law enforcement and the Democrat worship of state. Now the balance of power between the people and the state is out of whack but, at the same time people don't want to tear down the government for it's corruption because it's still filling their troughs with feed.

The comparison falls apart of the Nazi's comparison. In the years leading up to WW2, he promised many groups what they wanted. He promised higher prices for produce to the farmers to make up for their losses during the depression, he promised to build public works to get the massive numbers of unemployed back to work, etc. He conveniently used scapegoats such as Jews and communists to gather people to the side of the national socialist party. So by shrewd politicking, good timing and being a charismatic orator he was able to win the elections fairly.

It's a good guess that the majority of what people know about WW2 and the years leading up to it is flat wrong as the government school systems of those involved attempted to bury the truth to make themselves the hero's. We all know, history is written by the winners and nobody is going to make themselves the bad guy.

Here are some things toenlighten you.

I don't know what courts you go to but eye witness accounts are the biggest proof you have that someone did something. The most solid way to win a trial is to have an eye witness.



As for my proof about the crimal things that I stated, here's one link that shows that studies of crimanls shows that of the RAPISTS survayed 60% came from female headed homes. Nearly 75% of all young criminals come from homes without fathers.

http://www.divorcereform.org/crime.html

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1079510/Children-broken-homes-times-likely-suffer-mental-troubles-says-Government-study.html

According to the innocence project and the American Pyschological Association they are not reliable at all. Yet, our court systems seem to rely on this faulty method.




Doesn't quite say "90%, etc, etc" but, it's close enough.



The Daily Mail is well known within the U.K. to be an unreliable, unreputable tabloid.

I don't know. I linked the article because it seemed interesting. But in the video Freakanomics, there is a portion about legalized abortion and it's direct link to crime, in that children of unwanted homes are most likely to commit crime while those who have easy access to abortion show a noticable decrease in criminal activity within the state.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zk6gOeggViw

http://www.freakonomics.com/2005/05/15/abortion-and-crime-who-should-you-believe/