Hi, Treena, You are of course, correct. Police have a job that most wouldn't want to do - it's dangerous, and they often have to deal with the dregs of society on a regular basis. I disagree with your assessment of their pay - they really don't get paid all that poorly (think nurses, day-care workers and teachers) - but there's a reason that they receive good pay and benefits (see above).
Back when I was a lawyer (sorry to bring that up again), I got to know plenty of cops. Most were pretty good eggs. There were a few bad apples, and for the most part, the "good cops" didn't like the bad ones very much. It's much the same in any profession or career. Not all lawyers are blood-sucking pigs who would sell their grandmothers to make a buck, but again, the small minority makes everyone look bad. I guess the problem with police officers (the bad minority), is that they have so much power. They can arrest you and seize your property and all those sorts of things. If you give them a rough time, they can use physical force against you, and sometimes get away with it. "He was resisting lawful arrest, Your Honour, and I had to restrain him to prevent his escape. In the struggle, he banged his head against the sidewalk..." "As I was bringing him down to the cell area of the police station, down those really steep concrete stairs, he struggled, tripped, and fell about 12 feet to the bottom. That's how he got bruised". Police officers, by the very nature of their job, have enough knowledge of the Law, that they can, if they are dishonest, lie very convincingly: "Of course I read him his Rights to Counsel (Miranda Rights in the US), look, Your Honour, it's right here in my notes!" And, of course, since they're so used to testifying in court, and indeed are trained to give evidence in a coherent and convincing manner, an educated, well-spoken officer on the witness stand can make a nervous civilian's evidence (even if it's the truth) look foolish. Let me repeat: the vast majority of officers are honest, good people, who have a great sense of pride and civic duty. Truly, our society would be in even worse shape than it is without them. We ~need~ the police. How many times are the police the first to arrive at a horrific accident scene, pulling victims from wrecks? When we're robbed or otherwise the victims of criminal activity, who do we call and rely on for justice? Another unfortunate reality is that if an officer steps out of line (which we must admit does happen from time to time), we civilians notice them, and when it happens, the results can be most distasteful. Unfortunately, when one is the innocent victim of such actions, one tends to paint with a very wide brush... regards, frank Treena Harp wrote: > Um, Bob ... my husband's a cop, and most of my friends who aren't > journalists are cops. Most are NOT by nature authoritarian and just itching > to trample all over someone else's civil rights. Cops give people are hard > time because they are used to seeing the absolute worst in human nature -- > my husband is a detective, and he investigates the worst of everything, like > people who like to rape and beat up on little kids and babies, kids on drugs > who steal from and are willing to hurt or kill their own families because > they care about nothing and no one, men who beat their wives and girlfriends > until the whole house is covered in their blood -- murderers, theives, drug > dealers and everything else you can possibly imagine, and a few things you > probably can't. > > No, I don't agree taking anyone's film away and hassling them are right. > Yeah, there are a few cops out there who shouldn't be. Most are just very > hard-working, very under-paid people who are just trying to raise their own > families and survive like everybody else -- the difference is they go out > every day and face the apathy and hatred directed at them by people who > resent being inconvenienced by the laws they're sworn to enforce, and more > and more of them die every year doing it. They don't call it the thin blue > line for nothing. > -- "The optimist thinks this is the best of all possible worlds. The pessimist fears it is true." -J. Robert Oppenheimer - This message is from the Pentax-Discuss Mail List. To unsubscribe, go to http://www.pdml.net and follow the directions. Don't forget to visit the Pentax Users' Gallery at http://pug.komkon.org .
