COPS!

[Chemical]

I was rudely awoken this morning by 3 cops that busted in my shared house with a warrant to arrest my housemate (a back packer from France).

This made me think about the experiences I have had with cops in my life time of which there are 3:
1. NYC 2004 a police officer gave me a ticket for drinking in public (he had yelled "hey you in the green jacket" which I responded to by throwing my can of beer down and throwing my hands up. It wasn't until I saw his befuddled face till I realized he was referring to the now sprinting vandal artist also in a green jacket.) He ticketed me but in my drunken silliness I asked him for a cigarette and his number. I got both. (The ticket was later dropped).

2. Toronto 2013 I was walking home and a police officer forced me to accept a ride at 2am. That was kinda nice but as expected my grandpa flipped his trout at the site of me exiting a cruiser.

3. Australia 2014 after getting very drunk and lost. after a beach party I ran into a cop that bought me a coffee and had a dance with me before I sobered up enough to give him directions to drop me off the next town over (I walked the wrong way).

Have you had any run ins with cops? How do you feel about them.

I am not particularily fond. I see a lot of inappropriate use of excessive violence, power abuse etc. Some are ok as the ones I have met and even a good friend I adore is a cop in Florida.

[Fonzie]

Have a few family members as cops and friends. Generally I associate those that were picked on in primary school as future cops, so I usually don't give them much respect I suppose.

I'd actually enjoy to be one, if time pertained.

[Yerushalmi]

Interesting that three out of your four encounters with cops were positive experiences (I won't count what they did today as a positive or a negative experience, because I don't know if your housemate did something serious that easily justifies busting in in the middle of the night), yet you are not particularly fond of them merely because of their media image!

Just as with any subsection of society - computer programmers, scientists, potato chip manufacturers, you name it - there are going to be good people and bad people. But cops have two problems:
1. They are in a position, much like surgeons and politicians, where their decisions have far-reaching and serious effects. If a technical writer like me screws up, the worst that can happen is an instruction manual has a spelling mistake (and in the vast majority of cases it won't affect understanding). But if a cop screws up (or does something on purpose), people die.
2. Cops are in a position of legal authority, which means they face a great deal of resentment - both from the standpoint of the individual who hates getting a traffic ticket and from the standpoint of the many segments of society that hold an appreciation for anarchism.

I hold a great appreciation for cops - when they do their jobs. In America that was always the case, and I knew I could depend on my local police to be courteous yet firm, tough but fair. Here in Israel, the cops are made up of anybody who wanted to enter permanent army service but couldn't cut it, so they have a well-deserved reputation for laziness and incompetence. But that's still a far cry from seeing them as actively antagonistic. Just like there will always be evil/sadistic computer programmers, there will always be evil/sadistic cops. But in a modern, free society it's unheard of for them to be a significant percentage, no matter what impression you might get from the media.

[fire_of_avalon]

When I was 3 I ended up in the back of a cop car with a family member for a bulltrout reason. I was crying hysterical and the cop told me to shut up. About five minutes later I puked in his car.

[Værn]

There's one cop in particular who stops every time he sees me walking down the street to make sure I'm going to be online when his shift ends. It's hard to believe that such oppression could exist in my humble village.

Australia 2014

Chemical, you're drunk. Go home.

[Loony BoB]

Interesting that three out of your four encounters with cops were positive experiences (I won't count what they did today as a positive or a negative experience, because I don't know if your housemate did something serious that easily justifies busting in in the middle of the night), yet you are not particularly fond of them merely because of their media image!

This was my first thought as well. xD Not sure about the media image thing but yeah, weird that you wouldn't be fond of them when they've been pretty great to you. Did you call the cop's number, Ash?

My experiences with the police have always been fine. We had a cop going door to door questioning people as part of the reaction to a nearby homicide (a shooting in Edinburgh is kind of unheard of), he was really nice, we chatted about NZ, Suits, Game of Thrones and cats while he surveyed us and then was off on his way to our neighbours. Very sociable, A+++++, would reccomend for chats at the pub.

[Chemical]

Interesting that three out of your four encounters with cops were positive experiences (I won't count what they did today as a positive or a negative experience, because I don't know if your housemate did something serious that easily justifies busting in in the middle of the night), yet you are not particularly fond of them merely because of their media image!

This was my first thought as well. xD Not sure about the media image thing but yeah, weird that you wouldn't be fond of them when they've been pretty great to you. Did you call the cop's number, Ash?

Those are my direct interactions, I have witnessed indirect not so nice. And frankly being forced to take a ride was not a positive experience. I dont like being told what to do first of all, second of all because there was no reason to take me into custody that police officer had no right in making me accept a ride by threatening to give me a ticket for disturbing the peace. (I was walking alone, home, not bothering anyone after the bar and not even drunk as I did 2 drinks and parted). That event actually really pissed me off. It was just a blatant abuse of power and I dont care if that officer believed he was doing the right thing. I said no, I should not have been forced.

And no its not a media image thing, at least not entirely. Its really an opinion formulated from a variety of different sources and discussions. Some books especially took a role in shaping my world views.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freakonomics
http://www.amazon.ca/Rise-Warrior-Co...ation-Americas
for example.

[Yerushalmi]

Those are my direct interactions, I have witnessed indirect not so nice. And frankly being forced to take a ride was not a positive experience. I dont like being told what to do first of all, second of all because there was no reason to take me into custody that police officer had no right in making me accept a ride by threatening to give me a ticket for disturbing the peace. (I was walking alone, home, not bothering anyone after the bar and not even drunk as I did 2 drinks and parted). That event actually really pissed me off. It was just a blatant abuse of power and I dont care if that officer believed he was doing the right thing. I said no, I should not have been forced.

Aha. That puts the story in a very different light than your original description - normally "forced me to accept a ride" is meant a little bit more tongue-in-cheek.

I don't think a ticket like that would stand in court, and that's definitely unacceptable behavior. I don't want to outright say "abuse of power" as it's likely the officer had benevolent motives (whether to keep you from doing anything or to keep anything from happening to you, depending on how deserted and/or dangerous the streets are in that area). But it's definitely wrong.

Power can get to people's heads. It's just a fact of life - we're human beings. If you have the ability to dictate, it takes somebody of strong will and moral fiber to avoid doing so particularly in cases where you're sure you're doing others a favor.

Anyway, do you know at all what your housemate supposedly did?

[Shoeberto]

I have an inherent distrust of police due to the rampant abuse of power I've witnessed in recent years.

I know there are good, decent officers working in the public interest in the system; unfortunately, due to the actions of others, those ones have to work to break through my distrust. I can't even see a police car drive by without going into high alert, wondering how the guy is going to try and smurf me over.

Funny story: I got pulled over for driving on the wrong side of the road once.

I was 8-9 years old, on my bike, and a cop pulled me over because I was on the wrong side of the street.

[escobert]

I've been arrested like 6 times. But not that I'm not running around doing as I please I don't run into them much anymore.

[Loony BoB]

But Ash, you avoided my important question. Very important.

[Rebellious Eagle]

I was out practicing driving with my dad and freaked out at a stop sign because I didn't know who had the right of way. I almost turned too late and a car narrowly missed hitting me. Of course there was a cop right there and he pulled me over to make sure I was okay. No ticket or anything though.

[Jinx]

I just love a man in uniform.

[Yerushalmi]

And no its not a media image thing, at least not entirely. Its really an opinion formulated from a variety of different sources and discussions. Some books especially took a role in shaping my world views.
Freakonomics - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
http://www.amazon.ca/Rise-Warrior-Co...ation-Americas
for example.

This wasn't in your original post so I'll address it now. Are not books a type of media?

[Madame Adequate]

I've not had many run-ins with the peelers myself, mostly because I'm way too much of a nerdy shut in to ever get into trouble. The couple of times I have been in potential trouble (i.e. being a drunk rowdy teenager) the cops just told us all to sod off home with more a rakish grin than a stern rebuke.

The on-duty cops I have met have generally been alright and friendly enough and I sure as hell want well-trained people out there tracking down rapists and killers and all that, so I'm not opposed to the principle of the police and I've not had any bad experiences personally, but the way things are set up encourages all kinds of horrible behavior on their part. Even things that should be benign like giving someone a ride home late at night gets turned into what sounds like a pretty scary experience, because the police just abuse their power and there's basically no oversight.