(PA) Don't like cops, till they need 'em

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Drizzt

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Don't like cops, till they need 'em

Anarchist-run Wooden Shoe Books (508 S. 5th) has been a place where one could buy pro-Mumia Abu Jamal shirts and other anti-police merchandise.

But when the store was held up on the afternoon of Oct. 7 by a man who claimed he had a gun, guess who was called to help?

According to the Philadelphia Police Department's report, an assailant flashed a bulge in his belt to a female clerk and demanded the store's money. She gave him about $200 in cash, and $40 worth of SEPTA tokens.

When we asked about the irony of an anti-police organization calling the cops when it's robbed, James Generic, a member of the volunteer collective that operates the not-for-profit bookstore, said, "It was the individual who was staffing when the storefront was robbed who called the police, since she was extremely shaken up and it was not the organization's decision... though we will support her in any way we can."

It's unlikely the store will press charges or pursue any further police action about the robbery.

http://www.philly.com/mld/dailynews/living/12888905.htm

where's the lmao smiley when you need it? Is James Generic a real name?
 
As long as there are idiots who think it is OK to rob or hurt others, cops will be needed.

An anarchist commune might not call them "cops", but someone will have to step into the role.
 
An anarchist commune might not call them "cops", but someone will have to step into the role.
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I believe it was the shaken up clerk's job to end that confrontation in a manner that was acceptable for the anarchist store. Since she was obviously unwilling to confront the robber, she had to call someone who would. I'm sure not all the people in that organization would dial 911, some might dial 9mm. In which case the cops aren't really needed since they can always drop the robber off at the jail/hospital/morgue themselves. :)
 
i hate that place. i had several run ins with the volunteers there. they are immature and live in a fantasy world were no one commits crime. its kind of a shame the robber didnt wreck some merchandise while he was at it. that place has the most hateful literature when it comes to cops and america.
 
I'm no expert, but don't police basically, in theory, exist to get the suspect in front of a magistrate?

In theory you could do that yourself, so they could do fine without the police.
 
As long as there are idiots who think it is OK to rob or hurt others and people will not stand up to them, cops will be needed.
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edited to correctness. The problem is that people are anti-cop but dont want to do the job themselves. As long as there are badguys, people will need to stand up to them. If you arent ready to do that, then you need cops to do it for you.

Getting rid of cops isnt the answer, the answer is to put a "cop" in every man's heart and a gun every man's pocket. But the collectivist sissies that make up the typical Mumia fan club are even more horrified by that thought. They seem to think that banishing cops and disarming people like me will make the world a happy place of flowers and sunshine. But it just isnt so.

Personally, I think we need cops, but we need a lot less of them. They need to leave the traffic infraction sillyness and the WoD BS behind and focus entirely on property crime and violent crime. IMO, obviously. Most of society honestly isnt ready for this and still expects police to be there with toilet paper when their bum gets dirty. I hate it, but making progress against this attitude is difficult.
 
I figure that I'll get some bashing for this, but here goes!

I spent 31 years of my life as a LEO. The pay was merely "okay", but it could have/should have been better for the services that I rendered. Believe it or not, I actually SAVED several lives, and even arrested bad guys BEFORE they victimized someone in numerous incidents! One of my pet peeves was having to investigate the AFTERMATH of a crime, instead of being THERE when it was taking place.
I realized that I couldn't be "everywhere all of the time", and that caused me to believe that the investigative aspect of police work was JUST as necessary as "being there" when a crime took place, so that the bad guy might be captured before he carried out ANOTHER crime.

I saw blood and guts, was shot at numerous times, was often called upon to work super-long hours without a break....and everything that I did was subject to close scrutiny by my superiors, the court system, the news media, the politicians and the public.

Talk about a "white knuckle ride"! I often wondered about the adrenal system, especially with how it worked under "normal" conditions and suddenly forced into "emergency" pumping.....then, back to "normal". Very few days consisted of 100% "normal" adrenal gland operation, for it was more "routine" to be on a roller coaster....going from calm to emergency operations, back to calm, then to emergency status again. Often, the adrenal system was at full-tilt for several hours! It's a wonder that my nervous system didn't go crazy after all of those years!

You don't think that you NEED the police? FINE!
Become a "repeat victim", then! If you don't report a crime to the police, how are you going to take care of it on your own? By resorting to deadly force every time? That is stooping to the level of the idiots who are members of violent gangs!

Oh, I could go on and on, but I'll use these last few lines to explain that I speak for the majority of the men and women in law enforcement. We weren't "drafted" to "protect and serve", for we CHOSE the profession. We all have our various reasons for becoming LEO's, and....YES, every so often there are some "bad apples" that get hired.
The ROTTEN ones usually either quit or get indicted! This country remains relatively "civil" due to the laws of the land AND the enforcers of those laws. If all of the police would suddenly quit performing their duties, our wonderful nation would be in total anarchy and confusion. Even with the recent "desertion" of police officers that we all saw in New Orleans, there were STILL some officers who performed their duties under extremely stressful, extremely difficult conditions.

Take some time to get to KNOW some of your local police officers! They're not "robots", nor are they "JBT's"! They're out there doing a job that YOU might not WANT to do, or not CAPABLE of doing.
They want YOU to be "civil" and adhere to the laws of the land, so that their job might be a bit easier. They don't LIKE to write tickets for speeding, but....it has been PROVEN that verbal warnings for traffic violations only cause the violator to feel as if they "got away" with something.....and feel as if they might get another verbal warning the NEXT time.

When I was 17 years old, I got a traffic ticket from an LAPD officer. Instead of whining about it, I paid the fine and blamed only myself for what I had done. Seven years later, at age 24, that SAME officer was my PARTNER! I told him about that incident, and he had a good laugh....but then asked me if I had LEARNED anything from what took place.
I had to admit that it DID, indeed, make me a better driver....especially when the police were around! That officer was an OUTSTANDING person, and one of my heroes after working with him for awhile!

Sorry for the rant, but if any of you got to know me better, you'd realize that I'm pretty much like YOU.....unless you're a bad guy!
 
Oldtimer-

Well said. Your service is under appreciated by most and just like gun owners the media distorts the bad few until the public feels they represent the majority too often. Glad you made it to retirement and thanks.
CT
 
we need a lot less of them. They need to leave the traffic infraction sillyness and the WoD BS behind and focus entirely on property crime and violent crime.
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Well, having spent a bit of time in some of the world's other big cities with little or no "traffic infraction silliness" -- I have to say that I much prefer driving in areas where there is some traffic regulation. As for the WoD, that's been debated ad neaseum around here ...

As far as the so-called "anarchists" go ... most of 'em I've encountered are a bunch of poseurs, who, if they had to live on their own without any structured society around 'em, would starve to death or die of exposure within days ...

Cops rarely stop people from being robbed or hurt
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. Um ... I'm gonna have to politely disagree with this one. Ever spent any time in areas where there is no law enforcement around?
 
I think it's easier to dislike the police...as a group...when you see members of that profession abusing their police power.

The NO police beating up the old guy is a good example. Even more, I'd say the police reaction once they realized they were being videotaped shows they knew they were doing wrong and wanted to get in the face of the news guy and put him down on the hood of a car. In fact, if you listen to what the policeman said, he was already using an "I'm under stress" defense.

We need police but we need good police. I think it ought to be harder to become a police officer and that standards for qualification (smarts...not just shooting straight) ought to be one of the major points. Also, if we are going to make it a tougher job to get, I think we should pay them better. But let them know that their actions will continue to get examined. Cops will often look the other way if they see one of their own exceeding their authority. They shouldn't.

Nice liberal movie from the 1970's expressed it best.

"When policemen break the Law, there is no law....only a fight for survival."--Tom Laughton in the movie "Billy Jack"
 
He flashed a buldge in his pant's at a female clerk and got 200 buck's?

We sure it wasn't a big buldge and he was a male hooker?
 
Most people who ideologically are anti-cops are not against police or law-enforcement in principle, but only against the coercively-funded government-controlled goons and government restrictions on security providers and self-defense.

But as long as they have already paid for those goons and are denied access to free-market private security agency, what's wrong with trying to get some return on their money?

People who beleive that "everybody should be his own cop" have missed the discovery of the division of labor few hundred thousand years ago. Everybody should know how to apply a band-aid bun nobody is expected to be his own surgeon.
Likewise, providing security would be most effectively done by talented and trained professionals working in private firms that are directly responcible to the customers (individual businesses or insurance companies, etc.)

miko
 
No, I didnt miss the concept of "division of labor" But you are fooling yourself if you think a cop can be your personal bodyguard. There are certain things only professional cops can do and things only you can do.

Cops are great for the purposes of:
-tracking down fugitives who have already done bad stuff
-solving already committed crimes
-being a clearinghouse for information about badguys, evidence, and stolen property.

Increasingly, police are MISUSED and isntead focus on revenue generation and enforcement of morality codes. This decreases their effectiveness in the above areas because it makes the public less trusting and also misallocates resources away from the central mission of the police.

As a result, police rarely recover stolen property and in many areas rarely solve serious crimes like murder either. Many citizens only encounter police when cops harass them in some manner or when citizens complain about a crime and are ignored. Which further worsens the situation.

And oldtimer, you lived in California, where speeding laws are actually fair, and are built around deterring bad driving. In FL, they have none of the CA type laws regarding traffic surveys. For example, there is a bridge here in tampa where most people go 70mph- they set the speed limit to 65 and at the end of the bridge put a 45 mph sign in the bushes, with cops waiting in said bushes. They also routinly erect 25-35 mph zones on highways near schools just so they can get people for "speeding in a school zone." Until recently they made wide use of bogus construction sites. They also use all sorts of speed-measuring devices outlawed in other states like stopwatching, airplane traps. The whole purpose is to trick people into breaking the law so they can get 150 dollar fines from them. It is a multibillion dollar industry here. Now do you see why I resent it? There is a big difference between monitoring traffic for safety and tricking people into technical violatins of the law.
 
Don't know the exact quote, but "When values are sufficient, laws are unnecessary. When values are insufficient, laws are irrelevant."

Current society seems to have a values deficit IMO. Cops ceratinly have their place and value-add, and I prefer to live with them than without them. This is not to say that some cops are abusive, but I believe most to be good folks who do the right thing (officers.com not withstanding).

The basic problem I have with the anarchists (and socially myopic bliss-ninnies in general) is that they project their values on society at large. This is the height of nievete and arrogance though, because ya'know, like the rest of us are, like stupid, ya know, 'cause we don't see the obvious, ya know, like them, y know, like- .

There will always be those who more or less behave, and there will also be a smaller porton of those who don't. Regardless of how you decide to deal with those who don't, there will be a need for those to, like, ya know, deal with them, regardless, there will always be a need for peacekeepers. If not the cops, who?

and "Cheers" to you, Oldtimer, & thanks
 
It really pisses me off, the false dichotomy that many LEOs on this board promote.

Newsflash:
YOU CAN BE AGAINST THINGS POLICE DO WITHOUT BEING COMPLETELY OPPOSED TO THE IDEA OF POLICE.

Setting up devious speed traps has nothing to do with preserving order, preventing crime or even preventing accidents.

The war on drugs has nothing to do with public safety and everything to do with confiscating property and cash.

Life Liberty and Property. The police should be defending them, not endangering them. I dont see an epidemic of property crime or violent crime around here. What I see is an epidemic of police with too much time on their hands and too many hands in other people's pockets. Just because the taking is small or politically correct doesnt mean it is any less a theft.
 
The war on drugs has nothing to do with public safety
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While many aspects of the war on drugs may have little to do with public safety, your statement conveniently ignores the fact that a significant offshoot of drug use is associated criminal activity, which does in fact need to be fought.

I dont see an epidemic of property crime or violent crime around here. What I see is an epidemic of police with too much time on their hands and too many hands in other people's pockets. Just because the taking is small or politically correct doesnt mean it is any less a theft.
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While that may be somewhat true in your area, this statement does not hold true in many other parts of this country. As for asset forfeiture (not that I agree with the concept), were it not for that, many local law enforcement agencies would go without operating funds, equipment and other assets (due to our incredibly screwed up taxation and gov't funding procedures).

Setting up devious speed traps has nothing to do with preserving order, preventing crime or even preventing accidents
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Just out of curiosity, what do you propose as a deterrent to dangerous driving?
 
The roads:
In CA, the emphasis was on stopping street racing, drunk driving and reckless driving. They also ticketed a lot for people who illegally used the HOV lanes. Cops were praised for being effective, but their action was entirely directed at behavior.

In FL (and indeed all of the south it seems) the laws and police procedures are structured to make it very easy to entrap motorists, make it very hard to fight tickets and make it as profitable as possible for cops to issue lots of tickets. Local LEOs get put through a lot of grief if they dont write tickets. Every government employee around here knows that most of their salary is paid for by speeding tickets, so it doesnt take much encouragement to bring the cops into line, especially if they want to experience any sort of advancement.

As a result, I found CA roads to be overall much faster in terms of driving pace, but far, far safer. People didnt focus on the speedometer or constantly look for speed traps- they knew that the only thing that would get them pulled over was driving like a twit, so people drove carefully.

The war on drugs:
Just like with prohibition, the harm comes from the criminalization of the activity of drug trafficing and dealing. When alcohol was illegal, there was widespread corruption, murdering and villany assocaited with booze. When drugs were subjected to that same treatment, the same ills followed quickly after.

We currently treat alcohol addiction as a medical, social and psychological problem. Curing it is difficult, but it can be done and the addicts can live normal lives without jail time. I only ask that the same reasonable approach be taken towards all substance abuse problems. The 19th and early 20th centuries are replete with evidence that non-criminalization of addictive substances (heroin, cocaine, opium) can work.
 
Not to start on the WoD, but I believe maryjane and hard drugs are two entirely different things. While pot has mild side affects, cocaine, meth, etc cause people to turn into criminals. How many times has someone been robbed for money to buy marijuana? hard drugs? Two different things, imo.

Disclaimer: I have never done drugs, nor do I want to.
 
"Hard drugs" really applies to meth (and its relatives), heroin (and its relatives) and nicotine. People get hooked on these drugs very easily and it their next fix soon becomes the highest priority in their life. With cigs this isnt a big deal, but with expensive drugs like heroin this can be a pain in the ass, I imagine.

Everything else falls into a controllable use category. Besides a few degenerate exceptions, most habitual users of the following drugs dont experience significant negative side effects unless they get arrested. Keep in mind that I am not saying you should get drunk or stoned and operate a forklift, but having a beer or doing a tab of acid once in a while wont end your life:
-alcohol
-caffeine
-marijuana
-cocaine
-lsd, ecstasy and the other hallucinogens

Again, I dont approve of these drugs personally, but I have known enough users over the years to realize that the chemicals themselves arent the causers of harm. Meth and heroin are the bad ones.
 
Likewise, if these drugs were legal, then prices wouldn't be artificially inflated due to illegal trafficing. And quality could be controlled by the FDA.

As for law enforcement, I have had enough negative encounters with them that I am far more skeptical of them than I used to be. For example, I don't agree with giving them automatic rifles so that they can enforce laws on the civilian population prohibiting them from owning automatic rifles. There is a certain irony to that and I don't like it. I don't think cops should be relied on nearly as much to babysit and tell people what is right and wrong so much as pursue the violent criminals. I think people should be expected to defend themselves more and should be given more leniency to do this.
 
Until recently they made wide use of bogus construction sites. They also use all sorts of speed-measuring devices outlawed in other states like stopwatching, airplane traps.
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Im not sure where stopwatching and thje use of airplanes (also stopwatching, by the way) is outlawed, but it sure isnt in Oklahoma. To be honest, using a stopwatch correctly is just as accurate as using the radar, just not as fast. The plane patrols are also quite useful, as you can do intensive enforcemnt in problem areas using dozens of black and whites. Both very good tools.

As for the WoD, I will break the normal mold for cops. I wish weed was legalized. I hate messing with it, it really isnt worth my time, except for trafficking. I say legalize it, tax it, and treat it like alcohol. Do it at home, or at a abr, etc, just not in public, and dont drive. Same fines and penalties. Anyhting harder that weed, Im against 100%.
 
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