M-Rex,
I had a long drawn out response to your posts. I realized, however, that you are one of "them" and you will never change your position becasue of that. My words would have been a waste. Take that for what ever you want, good, bad, or indifferent. I will leave it with my last few paragraphs which you and a whole lot of others should read.
For the appologists on here, perception is reality for those who perceive it. In other words, if the majority of society has come to perceive the police as corrupt JBTs, then the police are in fact corrupt JBTs, whether they are or not in your perception. A lot of people, I believe a majority, have had a change of heart about law enforcement in general. Whether you believe this is fair or justified is not relevant. It remains that it is our reality. This change was brought about by various actions of law enforcement to which we reacted with a negative perception of law enforcement officers to one degree or another. The mere fact that so many people feel this way should be a clue that not all is rosy in your profession. The degree to which this negative perception has grown varies from simple distrust, which is very widespread IMO, to full blown "hate cops wouldn't call 911 to save them if they were all dying". I don't think the latter is widespread and admittedly to go that far there are probably other issues at work as well like mental illness. Like I said though, go ask any number of people the simple question "do you trust cops?" and the answer will most often be "no". We are not "cop haters". We are simply responding to our perception of what we see.
I realize most of what I have written is lost on the apologists. You who are apologists won't like this and will likely respond with the usual barage of attacks. Oh well. FWIW I recognize that law enforcement is both a necessary and difficult function in our society. I really wish things would improve. As I have said on numerous occasions before, the onus is on the police to improve society's pereption of them. We, the general public, will not simply wake up one day and forget what we have seen, heard, and experienced. It's going to take a lot of hard work and positive community relations. You can scream "cop hater" till you are blue in the face and it won't change a thing.
For those who really care about what could be done to improve things, which is probably not many, I'll list my opinions again about what law enforcement can do to fix this rift between "them and us". For starters get ahold of your unions. When someone commits a crime, like assaulting an AP reporter, it is not a labor relation issue. It's a criminal issue. Criminals should not be in law enforcement. Sending the union talking heads out in front of the cameras to defend them makes you all look bad. When you defend the indefensible you yourself become indefensible. Your unions political positions on things like gun control also hurt you badly. We stood united to fight for your 50 state CCW rights, where are your union leaders in our time of need? DO use your unions to stop your being used as political pawns and revenue generators. Do the right thing. I know, it really is harder than it looks. In this instance here several federal LEO's watched a NOPD officer assault a reporter with zero justifcation. An arrest should have been made on the spot. In another thread officers driving recklessly were only stopped after numerous 911 calls. How many patrol cars were passed that simply looked at the spectacle of lights and looked the other way?
The list goes on, but you get the drift. Give us a reason to change our perception and we will. We really want to. Until then things will only get worse. One day it will devolve in to something horrific I'm afraid, and that will truly be a bad day for our country.
I.C.
