silverbear;1807939 said:
CP, would YOU do what that driver did if a cop hauled you over??
No I wouldn't have done the same thing. As a woman I would have asked him to ask another officer to respond so there was a safer situation for both the cop and myself. I've never been confrontational with a cop. I've always did as they requested, but it didn't stop my cop from walking up to my car with one hand on a taser and the other on handcuffs and his first words being "I stopped you for a turn signal violation. Have you been to jail before?" And he was tapping the taser the whole time. And all because I put my turn signal on 60 feet before a turn and not 100 ft before a turn.
silverbear;1807939 said:
I hope you know it's quite unreasonable to disrespect ALL cops for the actions of a few... the one that hassled me was a detective for the Winchester Police Department, but I'm not gonna run around believing that all Winchester police officers are jagoffs... to the contrary, I have met more than a few of them as they responded to incidents over at the hotel, and fine them to be good guys... and when I had my accident, the sergeant who investigated it saved me the cost of a tow by helping me pull and cut out the damaged metal that was rubbing up against my tire, so I could drive it... he didn't have to do that, he was just a nice guy...
He also told the judge when I went before him for the failure to yield ticket that I was a "complete gentleman", told the judge that all I was worried about was if the other guy had gotten hurt... the judge went easy on me, and I strongly suspect it was because of that cop's input...
Maybe some cops don't DESERVE respect, but when they're hassling you, it's in your best interest to give it to 'em anyway... so I PRETEND respect, even when I'm not feeling particularly respectful; I'm quite sure that Winchester detective was shocked to learn I'd filed a complaint against him, with the way I followed his every instruction to the letter...
But then again, unlike that putz in the video, I'm not fool enough to stand there and argue with a drawn weapon...
It's not unreasonable to not respect police when all you have seen is what I've seen or what others have seen. In the past few years we've had a half dozen arrests by state and federal cops on local cops for anything from bribery, falsifying police reports, to multiple child molestations. Our former DA even committed suicide after getting caught in a child molestation sting. The officer in charge of the Juvenile detention center was molesting the kids there. The commander of the Police Explorers is currently on trial for child molestation/ rape of 2 or 3 girls.
And thats not just here. Other instances...
The DA in a previous place I lived was a known drug dealer and his wife was a kleptomaniac that was getting caught weekly and was never arrested. Several officers were in on it.
In that same place my husband had been walking down the street to the store to get cat food. A cop stopped, walked up, threw him to the ground and put a shotgun to his head. It was mistaken identity. Witnesses told the police that the cop was brutal to my husband, who had a neck brace on from a neck reconstruction, and had flung my husband to the ground for no apparent reason. Nothing was done about that cop.
When a boyfriend beat me up several years back, I known wife abusing cop was the cop that responded. I wanted him arrested for kicking me in the head, throwning me downstairs over the rail and trashing my home. That cop told that boyfriend (with a chuckle) "let the ol lady cool off and y'all can kiss and make up in the morning". The boyfriend eventually went to jail a few weeks later after I was able to get the cop on the case changed. Nothing was done about that cop either.
When I first got my Mustang, I was followed home every day from work by a rookie cop that was trying to get a ticket on me. Mind you, I had never gotten a ticket or had an accident in the 23 + yrs I had been driving. This went on for a few weeks. It took several short video's of him following me up to the house and sitting outside my house to get that stopped. And I was told by a supervisor about one officer... "He's young, he's a rookie, what can you do? Maybe he thought you were cute."
*** Now.. will I listen to them at a stop - Yes, but I won't get out of my car without their being witnesses. I won't pull over in a dark area. I will pull over in a populated area.
Will I respect them? NO. Not until they give me a reason to like them following the same laws they are enforcing on others.
Having a badge, gun, taser and cuffs doesn't give a license to a cop to be a jerk or abusive.
In this case... I think it's a wash. They were both wrong
