Do you feel safe because of police protection? Read this...

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I just found this on the Drudge Report, and it made me sick in my spirit. I wonder how widespread this is in cities around the nation?

http://www.latimes.com/news/front/20000210/t000013218.html

-- Elaine Seavey (Gods1sheep@aol.com), February 10, 2000

Answers

I can tell you from personal experience that it happens more frequently than most people suspect.

Responsible law enforcement officers are really our only hope of ferreting out such corruption. Unfortunately, whistle blowers in such organizations literally put their careers and families on the line (and often their lives) to report such unethical behavior.

"Look Sarge, I've got 10 witnesses that say it's a bunch of baloney. Who ya gonna believe, the ten of us or that delusional rookie?"

-- Arnie Rimmer (Arnie_Rimmer@usa.net), February 10, 2000.


Lapel button from the 1960s: "Warning! Your local police are armed and dangerous."

-- A (A@AisA.com), February 10, 2000.

Court of Appeals, Seventh Circuit held, "...there is no Constitutional right to be protected by the state against being murdered by criminals or madmen. It is monstrous if the state fails to protect its residents... but it does not violate... the Constitution." Later court decisions concurred: the police have no duty to protect you.

Sorry to bust you bubbles

It is not the function of the government to keep the citizen from falling into error; it is the function of the citizen to keep the government from falling into error."- U.S. Supreme Court -339 U.S. 382, 447

-- AWDragon (awdragon@yahoo.com), February 10, 2000.


When I was a little girl (many years back) my father hired many policeman to work in the machine shop which was many of those working to keep the WWII war machine going. He new most of them on the force in our city. He always told me that if I really needed help to "Never call a policeman" but go to the nearest house and ask for help. He always wanted there to be someone else there if police were called. My father was an alcoholic..never got cited for DWI but always got brought home in police car. Guess they didn't want to offend the boss. Seems like things don't change much over the years. Only met one office that I could really find respect for and have had occaision (sad, but true) to deal with many. Years back a call was made for family domestic violence going on nearby. Officer let the guy go less than a mile away and he had a restraining order against him. Needless to say he was back doing the same old thing in minutes. Turned out the officer had a restraining order against him too - for doing the same thing. Pretty sad!

-- Old Gramma (gotitincalif@webtv.net), February 10, 2000.

I'm sure there are a few good ones out there, just never met any yet.

-- Dan G (thepcguru@hotmail.com), February 10, 2000.


--I tend to want to respect them as a group, but it's really hard to do. I have some that I have counted as friends and aquaintances over the years, but as for "calling for help", etc, only once in my life, no choice because of the circumstances. I've had friends robbed by them, I saw what I'm believing to this day to have been a murder by stomping to death, heard a lot more hither and yon. It's sad, and it's not getting better with the "us against them" mentality on both sides.

Now my theory, if the cops want a LOT more respect, is a nationwide one day universal strike. The political bosses run police departments. That's were the orders come from. Cops need to say ENOUGH -no more illegal orders and busting people for illegal "laws".

There are too many blatantly illegal and unconstitutional laws "on the books" and "being enforced", laws which violate the spirit and the intention of the Constitution. The "drug war" is an obvious and by far the largest example. Stop the illegal prohibition and criminalization, get rid of the insane profits involved, and over 50% of the crime will disappear. That's a good start, then work your way down the list, these political crimes are wrong, just wrong. Second amendment states-boiled down-NO LAWS, free citizens may own and BEAR arms, which in the letter and spirit, means currently available arms, not some "formula". Cops need to STOP taking and following "illegal orders" PERIOD. And they need to POLICE themselves, not this blue code of silence stuff. They are trusted, fine, let's see basis for trust beyond what's happening now. "Here-go to this address, break in, tear the place apart, do what you want, just get those perps". No oversite, no checking if it's even the correct address, shoot first, and don't worry about the questions later. It's not right.

As to these corrupt LA cops, guess what? EVERY MAJOR metro area has the same deal.

Who watches the watchers? The answer is hardly anyone, it's worth too much to look the other way.

When the police can rob, murder, intimidate-commit any crime they want, and it's covered up by the other cops, then that's a classic definition and example of a police state, no matter how many flags are sewn on shoulders.

No easy answer except to look back into history and see what was done then in similar situations.

-- zog (zzoggy@yahoo.com), February 10, 2000.


Zog,

I read your post with interest. Very cogent, as I've come to expect from you! I found myself thinking back on days working with some of those folks.

I've had the privilege of knowing some very, very good cops who were also very decent human beings. They were cops and quite serious about those duties, but deliciously-missing was the them-against-us attitude, the attitude that civilians are second-class something.

Indeed, the most effective cops I've known have been the low-key ones. Maybe not the most spectacular, but the most effective. And the one with the least propensity to use violence.

What will change it? I think it's gonna get much worse before any better. Why? For well over a decade now we have had the fed. gov't. equipping, training (often by military instructors) and indoctrinating state and local police. Also, local dept's are getting very addicted to their share of confiscated property -- far, far too addicted in my mind.

If I could change one thing right now, it would be to totally reform, if not kill, those confiscation laws immediately.

It will not change until we see a whole series of LA's. Until somebody like Dan Blather's kids are permanently maimed during what was not televised that happened in Seattle.

Right now, the military polls as one of the most respected institutions in this country. If times really get rough, and they are used, openly, as they were covertly in Seattle, that respect will change too -- and that will be a tragedy.

Make no mistake, I pray that what I outlined in the above two paragraphs does not happen. But, my question really is whether it will happen simultaneously, or whether it will be provoked (as in Seattle but on a far larger scale).

I was just trying to think of a police captain or chief I've known or know who would even dream of trying to confront and address the very significant loss of respect that continues to poison civilian attitude towards cops. I could only come up with one possible -- and he's retired.

-- Redeye in Ohio (cannot@work.com), February 11, 2000.


Concerning Police vis a' vis the Military: These days the Military has more to do with the equiping and outfitting of the local Sheriff and Police Department than most average Americans even know. In the Clinton "Slash and Burn" of cost-cutting and downsizing, there has been, over the past eight years, an enourmous leap in the amount of stuff being disposed of through D.R.M.O. (Defense Re-utilization Marketing Office)

The DRMO (from my own witnessing, having gone 'shopping' there on occasion) Has the ability to allow various units/police departments/sheriff's offices to, for no cash changing hands mind you, "re-utilize" old military equipment. This includes up to but not excepting weapons, vehicals, tactical gear, and uniforms. Many times did my pardner and I go down to the DRMO office for a 'shopping' trip for our unit. The order of preference, once having signed in was Active Army, Reserves/Nat'l Guard, then local and county Offices. Preference meaning over who has the 'dominant claim' on said equipment up for grabs. (In other words, if there was a pallet of Kevlar Vests with a National Guard Claim Tag on it, then the only one that could claim a higher need was the Active Army unit.) Despite this, and due to an overcomplex set of rules put in place, very few Active Army Units actually took the time and trouble to 'shop' at the DRMO. The Majority of equipment seemed to be funneled towards that law-enforcement branches.

Take for example the Cadillac-Gage V-150 Armored Car that that Small Florida? Georgia? town got through the .Mil. That made a splash on the Alex Jones website a few weeks/month or two ago. (I think a thread was even started here I Believe.) What does a small southern town need with a combat-ready armored vehical? As far as I knew, the drug dealers generally don't arm themselves with LAWs rockets. Take it from me, I saw it with my own two eyes. If you dont believe it youself, goto and check this link:

http://www.drms.dla.mil/index.html

It may surprise you what kind of stuff is available out there, for free, from the .mil.

-- Billy Boy (Rakkasan101st@Aol.com), February 11, 2000.

--it started a long time ago. the police in the last town I lived in (late 60's) mich(suburb of dee-troit) had a Saracen armored car, and belt fed machine guns mounted on the copter doors.

This paramilitarization of the police is most ominous, the worst part is there's no lack of applicants for the "jobs". Tends to sorta remind one of various despotic regimes in the twentieth century, and what eventually happened to anyone who spoke out against abuses by the "rulers". It's another example of incrementalism.

Tell ya another one that REALLY gets me going is that total nazi show "cops". Talk about desensitizing the population, psyops supreme! The few episodes I forced myself to watch were full of abuses, and this was with the camera turned on! Yes, society needs some police, but I think a serious review of exisiting "laws", with maybe a moratorium on new ones, for a few years is seriously in order right now. "They" are basically turning everyone into a criminal, eventually every citizen will be guilty of "something", then, the society is controlled completely. This is the goal I see the "rulers" striving for, with the willing participation of the various police forces.

Used to date a lady cop-that was a serious eye opener for me. She basically hated about 90% of her fellow cops, said the corruption was so widespread that the average "civvie" really wouldn't believe it. Only a few years into the force, though, and she had that "us versus them" mindset so ingrained that the relationship was doomed-an apt phrase here, hehehhee. I mean stories about cops being used as hitmen, gang enforcers, organized burglary gangs, extensive robberies of cash and drugs, etc. Scary stuff. Basically, in a nutshell, being able to commit and get away with crimes is considered a "perk" of the job, it's carved in stone. A cop would have to be so blatantly stupid in order to get "busted" by internal affairs as to be a joke. This latest LAPD scandal is probably a spec of lint on the tip of an iceberg nationwide.

Me, personally, am polite, mind my own business, but I am assuming that with any interaction with any guntoting agent from any force that I am liable to be killed for any reason at any time, that's my unfortunate "bottom line" outlook I'm forced to adopt. It could be for a vague reason or no reason at all. If needed, evidence will be planted, of that I'm sure. Don't trust rural bubba ganstas, don't trust urban gang members, and don't trust the cop "gangs" either, they are all gangs, and the people who are decent there shouldn't associate with them, they should quit and get other jobs-this is my opinion-I feel it's too late to turn it around now, eventually somethings got to give. With technology advances, going by past events of the past decade, it looks to me that within 5 years we'll be in a completely controlled police state, absolutely no different from stalins russia, nazi germany, or todays china. None.

-on a lighter note,I want one of those cadillac gages myself! heheheh register it as a "tractor" drag around trees with it. hehehehhee

-- zog (zzoggy@yahoo.com), February 11, 2000.


Zog,

I just don't wanna be in the same county when you decide a 50 or a 20 mm is a whole lot faster than a chainsaw!

Sure would make topping the thing out a whole lot faster, though. Hmmm...

Yeah, and no worries about which way the tree's gonna fall from a couple of hundred yards back. Hmmm...

-- Redeye in Ohio (cannot@work.com), February 11, 2000.



From: Y2K, ` la Carte by Dancr (pic), near Monterey, California

Interestingly, when trying to go to Elaine's link the LA Times site offered me a cookie that "will persist until Wed Dec 31 16:00:01 1969"!

Here's another thread from last year, on a similar topic: Cops and Civilians.

-- Dancr (addy.available@my.webpageq), February 12, 2000.


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