I know where you're going with that analogy, and it doesn't apply. You will not find ANYWHERE, AT ANY TIME, that I said 'I hate cops'...or anything even remotely related to it... PERIOD. No IFs ANDs or BUTs..

I've worked with good cops, I have friends that are good cops, and I've interacted with a bunch of asshole cops in the process too... My previous job(s) had me working with them on a daily basis. MOST are good guys, and would probably be on 'our' side if shit went south...

My issue isn't with the good guys, it's with the corrupt, power tripping, assholes.

When Sally gets my burger wrong, I go and ask for another one (or suck it up and eat it anyway). When Bob shoots a restrained teenager in the chest, at point blank range, while saying 'I ain't got time for this shit'. Or Sally plants some weed on someone then arrests them... Well, you tell me which one is more important.... which one is permanent.

Absolutely not... I understand your point, and I consider it each time I read these stories.

The concern arises when there seems to be a growing trend of McDonalds employees beating, shooting and treating shabbily innocent customers.

If McDonalds starts to have a problem with this kind of customer service, I'd quit shopping there.

Can't do that with the local LE agaency that may have only a single bad apple with 320 complaints against him, but somehow the review board ALWAYS comes back with a ruling of "officer acted according to his training, dismissed" ...

I have friends in LE and they are ashamed when an internal investigation comes back with an obviously biased ruling.

But anyway, I do see your point and it is why I try to get the point across that I am not anti LE. I consider abusing a position of trust to be the most heinous of crimes, and there are so many instances of the bad apples going unpunished.
Sometimes it is a mistake, other times it is a case of a bad apple with an abusive nature.

You ripped me a new one after one of my rants about a year ago I think... and I've never forgotten it. I take some time to consider both sides as much as I am able, and I appreciate hearing your opinion. You have definitely had an influence on my thinking about this- but my concern about the growing divide between LE and non-LE is still alive and kicking.

PS: I don't eat at McDonalds. I look for a one-off hole-in-the-wall kind of greasy spoon joint. Easier to get a hoppy IPA after their burger. And I hope we'll get to tip one back someday.

First of all that was not to you. Secondly planting drugs on someone is in the movies. I am sure it has happened BUT I am sure it is so very rare it's not worth talking about. Shooting a restrained inmate is so very very far and few between. I know of one case and she was going for her tazer but grabbed the .40 instead.

I don't know if I should apologize for that "ripping" or say your welcome lol either way I am sorry if I was a dick. I hope you know where I am coming from. I just don't see where it's that huge of a thing where we need 10 pages of rants on something like this.

If you take the number of LEO and take the"bad apples"out you may have to hire less than Tacoma pd force with in the whole US.

So as not to clutter the thread with OT stuff, I'm sending you a PM.

If we're looking for corrupt judicial system examples, this thread was a failure from the start.

People still aren't reading the attached case file either. Thats a damn shame.

Are you done sensationalizing this incident? You haven't spent very much time near the area in question have you?

It's all good, so thanks.

I am not sure why a few bad apples are somehow teflon dons when it comes to IA investigations...
If there was a single case of a teflon don in a small town way over there in TN or FL or somewhere else that I am not likely to ever go - I'd still be OUTraged if an innocent person in that town was abused by someone in a position of trust and they got away with it.

Some of us have lower sensitivity thresholds than others... and quite honestly I have been wrong many times. I am still learning and trying to make the right choices as I do.

Trust me, I don't think our jails are filled with Andy Dufresnes from "The Shawshank Redemption."

I almost got shot by 4 cops who were doing a bunch of things wrong. And they were rude to ME, not me to them.
An experience like that can skew a man's viewpoint pretty quick and pretty hard.

If I have gone too far (or am still swung too far) please pardon these words because they come from a man who deeply cares about this topic, not because I am full of hatred. I am not.
I look to the Bill of Rights and how I am confident that the Founding Fathers intended them to be interpreted.
Times have changed since 1791, but damn it, some of us will keep kicking and screaming and fighting for the old style liberty as long as we breathe.

I read it..

GD it Dan! Stop trying to confuse us with facts!

(J/k... I have alluded to the facts of the case in my rants... and I agree that it is simply not the case being presented by the OP and subject.)

Are you implying that, in some areas, the constitution applies just a little bit less? That random stops based on BS are OK because it gets bad people off the streets?

How about high crime urban areas? Stop/frisk everyone?

saving this for later use

he obviously never has. he's probably never seen a saguaro cactus with his own eyes.

as for technoweiner's question: i have family in arizona. they travel down in the high drug and human trafficking corridor a few times a year. they always get pulled over and searched. the whole process takes only 10 minutes, tops, because they're not throwing a shit fit like some people will, making their interaction much longer and more painful.

You're wanting to use a black & white form of judgement for a situation thats has plenty of gray. It is an unfortunate circumstance of people being unique and society not following the same form of behavior person to persoon that it happens ...... BUT, when a situation arises when black and white doesn't work, unfortunately we have to rely on boots on the ground to make judgement calls using as much training and expertise as possible.

It is far from a perfect system, but it is the system we have at the moment.

It is amusing though that when a cop reacts in black and white and the decision is ruled incorrect later, those who make that determination are using gray area judgement to do so, and opponents of the cop's actions will lean on the black and white reactive nature of the actions as the problem.

I realize you want to focus on the judciary aspect of this issue but it starts with the judgement call made by the officer. We have to look at the source of the issue in this situation; there are much better examples of judical system failures than this one as this one is actually spot on dead right regardless of how you spin it.

Mr Rekshun, Hugh G Rekshun, sir, the important question is :


Did you tap your toes and snap your fingers as you enjoyed the Gordon Lightfoot song?

DON'T YOU BULLSHIT ME! YOU DID THE HAND THANG!

ah-hoy, ah-hoy, ah-hoy..........GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHD!