The reason you don't hear about cops who don't do a good job getting weeded out is because it isn't newsworthy when the system is working, in reality it happens all the time, you're just on the lookout for what you want to hear. That's called confirmation bias. I don't know how your system works in Canada, but paid administrative leave for police officers is not used as a punishment in the United States. Administrative leave is used to put officers on the sideline while they are being investigated for misconduct, they get punished based on the outcomes of the investigations. Also, admin leave isn't a vacation, the cop is under investigation so they have to basically be available at all times while the investigation is happening. I agree with what you're saying otherwise about cops protecting each other and there not being much to protect the average person from the police should they become a target for the wrong person. But you're kind of making your point for me when you're talking about how the good cops never get mentioned but the bad ones do. Think about how many cops they are yet how relatively few incidents there are despite that there are thousands of police working every hour of every day. They kind of have to back each other up, it's only natural to expect that's going to carry over when the spotlight gets shown on them. That's an unfortunate side-effect of them having to depend on each other to effectively and safely do their job, and while the enforcers of the law should be held to a higher standard, at the end of the day they are only human. I guarantee you'd do the same thing for some people that you're complaining that some cops do for one another.
Our Policing coordinator in uni couldn't tell us enough that you had to look after yourself and anyone in your team would throw you under the bus as soon as they could if it meant saving their own ass.
This is a street in my neighborhood: See the arrow? Only colored-light tree on the whole street. You think his neighbors hate him? Street lighting is serious business in the suburbs. Here's my boobs: Spoiler My boob contribution to the thread I meant. Sooo sorry if that was confusing.
That makes for a stress-free work environment. Isn't trust the basic touchstone of teamwork? In a field where you need a body of work as evidence for promotion, working in an environment where's you have : No trust Fierce rank competition Everyone trained to kill ...umm, recipe for disaster, anybody? Let's hope their belief for the law will trump their contempt for each other.
In any profession people throw almost everyone under the bus. I don't care where you work, you are you're own ally.
Spoilered for boobs: Spoilered for cops (and puppies): Spoiler If you really want to raise awareness of out-of-control cops, consider a contribution to the Kickstarter campaign for Puppycide at http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1850434439/puppycide-a-documentary. Kill a bunch of poor minorities? Yawn. Kill a dog? I'll burn down City Hall.
"Never trust a co-worker" is something every 16 year old should be told. There are far too many people out there willing to full-on tank a fellow employee's job if it made them look just slightly better for a moment to the employer. It's such snake tactics. And like you said, any profession.
I'm starting to get into that Christmas feeling myself: Holy shitballs, it's Griswold's house. I cannot fathom living next door to that. No doubt half those things sing like a Disney village. There's a limit, goddammit.
Somehow I managed to dodge two random breath test stations on Saturday night and drove through a third with four people in the backseat of my ute and come away without any fines or demerits. Talk about kissed on the dick by lady luck.
For a few years when I was young I did some really stupid things. Several of these stupid things ended up with me being involved with police officers. Situations where I was being a complete and utter dumb fuck and deserved little to no respect from anyone forced to having to deal with my ass and during each of these times the responding officers were nothing but professional and overly polite. These incidents took place over a variety of towns / counties / states and never afterward could I have complained about the way I was treated by the officers in anyway. I did get pulled over with a black friend once when we were doing nothing wrong though. We were apparently pulled over for buying drugs at the last corner stop light and also speeding through the intersection at the same time. I got slammed into the hood of a cruiser, roughed around, and all around treated like shit. They tore apart the car, dumped the ashtrays into the seats, and screamed at us for a good fifteen to twenty minutes absolutely convinced that we had drugs and were fucked up only to end up letting us drive off after it was clear we were doing nothing but driving home stone cold sober and clean. It was a really shitty deal and honestly I couldn't pin it on anything other than driving while black in the wrong neighborhood.
The day before yesterday, we had a large white man come sit at the bar for hours. We got to talking about football...Notre Dame.... Leprechauns... His love of leprechauns. And the tattoos on his body of leprechauns. And the Criton leprechaun tattooed on his calf. Yes, friends, he got a tat of a ficticious and badly done news report on his calf that was probably just a crack head who got ahold of the wrong stuff.
I think it's part of the "dealing with the dregs of society at their worst day in and out" jadedness that really comes off as shitty in most average interactions. Condescending and shitty while ready to ramp up the situation if you don't kowtow to their will at a moments notice. It's one of those things where biting your tongue and taking the hit to your pride will avoid giving a cop an accuse to charge you with something. Your results may vary. My cop buddy's department stresses diffusing all situations instead of the hardline shit that probably causes more problems than it solves (I think the book series Verbal Judo is required reading). I lived in a small ish town in the middle of suburbia where it was not rural enough to be a good ol boys type of town. The cops really didn't have much to do but fuck with people. Where they'd use your lack of full knowledge of your rights and fear of some sort (any sort) of criminal charges to strong arm you into car/personal searches. Basically using their badge to bend you to there will over nothing.
I think Japan has the right idea when it comes to their police. They are instructed to care for their community and protect every individual: citizen safety is numer one, no matter their personality. I've seen footage of a drunk blowing cigarette smoke right in a Japanese cop's face and the cop laughs it off and shrugs. They're this way because they have a different approach to drunk/belligerent people: treat them like a small, lost child rather than a threat. Most Japanese cops have never even unholsteted their sidearms.
It's at the Republican convention. They're on a hippie whomping excursion. What else are they gonna wear?
Can you imagine how awesome it would feel to wear all that robocop shit? No matter your politics, slugging hippies with a billy club and tazing them has GOT to feel good on some level. While being impervious to everything except an IED or being hit by a bus.