Rick Morel wrote:

SNIP

First to clear the air, I'm a cop.

Second I agree with what's been written about the Venice, FL water
(wanna' be) cop. It's the few like that that give us a bad name. You
know, like "all teenagers are (insert whatever bad thing you want)".

Yep, its the small percentage bad cops that screw
it up for the vast majority of professional LEO's
who are trying to do a good job. That's why the
departments should go after them and make examples
out of them.

snip a bunch of stuff

As far as Tasers being "torture weaponry", that's a bunch of bull. We
have to get Tasered as part of the certification to use one. Yes
Virginia, we have to go through a course and get Tasered to be able to
carry/use one - they don't just hand us one and say go shoot somebody.

In Austin, the police recruits have to be tasered,
and shot in the face with MACE. Not fun, but they
all go through it before they get a badge.

snip

Yes there are cops who should be living in jail instead of bringing
people there. They are rare and they will be found out and dealt with.
All departments have an IA, Internal Affairs, division and those guys
are very vigilant. If you're wronged, report it. It may seem nothing
is being done, but it is. In some cases there's not enough solid
evidence but you can bet that officer will be watched and evidence
will mount up over time if he's dirty.

Thanks for presenting the other side of the story.


Rick

It does seem to me that our society is in an
unfortunate trend of becoming more polarized and
more militant. Our "war on drugs" which started
about 26 years ago is responsible for a lot of it,
but there are other factors at work as well.

Don W.