This may run long, so bear with me.

Law Enforcement employees tend to come from two specific groups of people. The first group is going to consist of people who actually joined up to try to protect people and make things safer for them. They are idealists who may grow jaded over time; because realistically if your only input on what being a LEO is the internet and reality TV, you are not prepared for the type of mental assault you will endure day in and day out. I'm not talking about angry people, but stuff like drawing circles around little chunks of brains on the highway from a teenage girl that went through a windshield.

As an officer at any level (except maybe a small town), you are going to see the absolute worst side of humanity on a daily basis and you aren't on a tour of duty like the military. You don't get to 'rotate' home and put it behind you. This will wear on anybody who is not a sociopath, it will grind you down to a nub. You could see professional help for this, but I will go into that later.

The second type of person who goes into law enforcement is someone who likes authority, a sense of power over someone else, a bully. This person is in the job because it gives them power over others and the law will protect them because it is vaguely worded in SO many cases. This person will shrug off the effects that cripple the first type over time, because they feel in charge of every situation. After a while, if they don't tone it down, they will get caught. Thankfully the cell camera and the internet tends to be helping clean them out due to their own incapability to see they can't ALWAYS be in charge, but it will be a long road because this group is the BULK of the ones that join LE organizations.

Now why do these two groups tend to be the ones that you are going to run into on a consistent basis? The simple, hard answer is that we pay our front line LEO's very little compared to other services that risk their life or experience the mental grind. Your average patrol officer is going to pull a median salary of about 35k with comparable benefits to someone working in a office job. A firefighter is going to pull around 45k and scales up much quicker, not to mention their benefits are beyond good. EMT's make about the same as patrol officers, but their benefits are also very good and they don't have the same stressors. I know that ranges will vary and State LEO's are very well paid on average, but we are talking about the people you are going to encounter most often.

If you have to choose between a job where you are going to be considered a 'hero' or a job where everyone is going to be biased towards you being a 'villain, and the hero jobs pay better, which would you logically choose? Assuming of course that you are not sorted into one of the two groups I described, most are going to run away from serving in LE. In fact, this is why more of the 'bullies' tend towards LE and the 'idealists' don't. So you already have created a situation where the 'stormtrooper' mindset is going to prefer this job and haven't considered options to rectify it. The people you don't run into that much are going to be the people that took college and got pushed through the ranks quickly. If you didn't take college or just took an Associates Degree, you have to beat these people out. It is extremely hard to do that, even if you do your job much better than they did.

The final factor that runs into this is the mental issues I mentioned earlier. If you seek help from your employers for mental stress, they are going to handle it differently if you are a LEO. You are going to find out quickly that you are expendable. If you seek help and get classified as PTSD, you set a chain of events in motion that is inexorable. You will be rotated to a desk. You will see a Psychiatrist who will prescribe anti-depressant or anti-anxiety medication. This person will meet with you for around 15 minutes 3-4 times a week, ask you questions, and ask if the medication is helping. If you return to functional status in a month or two, you get put back on duty. If you don't, they put you on short term disability for up to one year. Your visits drop to once a week, then once a month. One year later, your employment is terminated. They hire a new recruit and start the cycle again about the same time that you start your short term disability. You get to try to salvage your career in anyway possible, hopefully you paid through the nose for long term disability, or you can try to find a smaller department that doesn't bother to dig too deep on background checks.

Other related fields like firefighters/emts comprehend PTSD and work with their people much harder. They have better benefits so you they can see outside therapists as much as needed. There is less stigma if you have a problem, because they understand. You go on the fritz as an LEO and you will overhear people who used to respect you call you weak or a pussy. Sadly this type of thing happens at all levels of LE, even as a State Trooper you are expendable.

In any case, the point to this essay is that the system is flawed and is going to drive out the good LEOs and save the bad ones to protect itself from litigation. Protect yourself at all times with video, be advised of the laws and loopholes in them that bad LEos will exploit, and don't force confrontation with a LEO if there is a loophole. If the man had stepped outside and talked calmly, the incident would not have escalated as it did. In this case he did not inform himself of the loopholes correctly and got tasered (which was improper, they didn't warn him correctly or anything), and the LEOs look like villains again.

Good morning.....So VoodooV, simply not a good person...

One might imagine that you've mistaken paranoid rage for a genuine concern for the people who must suffer the damaged, soon beyond-repair law-enforcement establishment in the U.S. While I can't vouch for many municipalities, I have dealt with law enforcement in multiple states since I was old enough to drive a car.
Texas has an inordinate amount of assholes in law enforcement, which has sullied or otherwise affected my opinion of peace officers (that term an oxi-moron for millions of people who have had to deal with profiling, unprovoked aggression, and general douche-baggery from the hind-brained, alpha-or-wannabe-alpha victims of abuse and racism who choose a career in "law enforcement".

We have several versions of cops here, Sheriffs, constables, state troopers, city police, game wardens, etc., all with their privilege and jurisdictions, all with varying levels of professionalism and personalities some of which are synonymous with their particular group.
I maintain, that In ALL of these branches of law enforcement due to corruption and abuse of power as the rule for over 50 years combined with the systematic granting of more and more powers to state over individual rights that the SYSTEM is inherently corrupt and anti-human rights. I have come to this conclusion in my dealings with them personally and by paying attention to the fucking world without blinders and outside of the insular framework of my own perception of how i would LIKE the world to be.

What is your personal experience in dealing with law enforcement robots? Where do you live? What is your station in life economically, socially. Are you Caucasian or a minority? All these questions beg an answer because I suppose that your exposure to the world outside of the comfort of your CONSTRUCT, is causing this consternation and judgement vomited-forth in your last comment, and I would hate to have some skewed opinion of you based on your reaction to mine on issues that have EVERYTHING to do with human rights, justice, blah blah blah, all the shit that's important to people like us, schmoes slaving for paper-tickets to buy more play-time in the world created while you were fast-fucking asleep.

Fix it instead of whining like a spoiled brat??
Well sir, when you live in a country with the majority of peeps fast-asleep with their heads up movie-stars and basketball-player's asses whose political system is a fucking joke and her government co-opted by corporate and security interests then civil disobedience or heaven-forbid, UNCIVIL should the situation necessitate is about the only reasonable, actionable, effective solution for me.
Malcolm X was right, rich, sociopathic white people suck donkey balls and run the whole fucking show.

Would you like to have a discussion on the state of the Prison system in the United States? Hand-in-hand with the men in blue are the men in brown who would, that the current model be expanded and improved upon....It's broken and you have an opinion,??

Please enlighten us all-

I definately wouldn't say that a taser is a "lazy cops" method. A taser prevents secondary targets from being affected (unlike pepper spray) and the cop in question definitely did not want to get into a wrestling match with the suspect while wearing a suit (where it would be unlikely that he would be able to control the situation). The suspect was warned and refused to back down.

As for cops in general being lazy, again I say no. I have two state police officers for friends and at lest with the Indiana state troopers the line is drawn when the possibility of injury to the officer would exceed the possibility of injury to the suspect from the taser. If its an old dude or someone who appears to have health issues they are obviously going to use more restraint than some young punk kid who will suffer some pain but will be back on his feet shortly.

7 more comments have been lost in the ether at this killed duplicate.

http://usnews.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/04/24/11371391-nj-state-troopers-suspended-over-alleged-high-speed-escort-for-luxury-sports-cars?lite

>> ^CrushBug:

I have no idea what was going on in this video. So, there were a bunch of sweet looking euro cars, right? I mean, it was nice to see, but I don't get why the guys recording were so fired up. Also, I don't understand the tags "busted" and "football players". Who was busted and which were the football players?
Upvote the WTF.

>> ^poolcleaner:

>> ^deathcow:
I unfortunately met a dude once who backed into my _parked_ and_unoccupied_ vehicle and still had the cajones to say it was my fault. He backed up without looking that there was somewhere for him to go. He told the police 'I beeped twice before backing up.' (I know, my unoccupied car should have heard the beeps and then moved itself.) My car was unusable afterwards.
It was a big commercial vehicle he hit me with. He wasn't carrying proper insurance and I think he lost his commercial drivers license over it. Thats when the fun started. He called me one day to say I had ruined his life and his business that day. And oh yeah, that he was coming over to rape my wife in front of me and then kill me.
This guy had a string of misdimeanors and a couple felonies by then. The Alaska State Troopers suggested I buy a pump shotgun and said, this guy has a history of assault, this guy has directly threatened you, if he steps on your property you do whatever you need.

Please continue your story.


I have a 12 ga shotgun now. I read a few Massad Ayoob books about firearm defense. I never heard from the psychotic guy again. I have seen him several times very up close in our local store in the years since, and though he doesn't recognize me anymore, I recognize him quite well. He looks physically ragged these days.

>> ^calvados:

>> ^deathcow:

This guy had a string of misdimeanors and a couple felonies by then. The Alaska State Troopers suggested I buy a pump shotgun and said, this guy has a history of assault, this guy has directly threatened you, if he steps on your property you do whatever you need.

So did you buy that shotty?


I bet he bought throwing knives and learned the skill. I bet deathcow can harpoon a baby seal with a pencil from 50 meters.

>> ^deathcow:


This guy had a string of misdimeanors and a couple felonies by then. The Alaska State Troopers suggested I buy a pump shotgun and said, this guy has a history of assault, this guy has directly threatened you, if he steps on your property you do whatever you need.


So did you buy that shotty?

>> ^deathcow:

I unfortunately met a dude once who backed into my _parked_ and_unoccupied_ vehicle and still had the cajones to say it was my fault. He backed up without looking that there was somewhere for him to go. He told the police 'I beeped twice before backing up.' (I know, my unoccupied car should have heard the beeps and then moved itself.) My car was unusable afterwards.
It was a big commercial vehicle he hit me with. He wasn't carrying proper insurance and I think he lost his commercial drivers license over it. Thats when the fun started. He called me one day to say I had ruined his life and his business that day. And oh yeah, that he was coming over to rape my wife in front of me and then kill me.
This guy had a string of misdimeanors and a couple felonies by then. The Alaska State Troopers suggested I buy a pump shotgun and said, this guy has a history of assault, this guy has directly threatened you, if he steps on your property you do whatever you need.


Please continue your story.

That reminds me of this time that I was driving a commercial vehicle. I had cajones those days...the type of cajones that would allow me to back into a parked, unoccupied vehicle and blame it on the owner.

Anywho I lost my commercial driver's license for it and I totally blame the guy. It was his stupid car's stupid fault. I want to rape his wife and kill him. I'm going over there tonight, I hope he doesn't have a pump shotgun and implicit direction by the State Troopers to fire at will.>> ^deathcow:

I unfortunately met a dude once who backed into my _parked_ and_unoccupied_ vehicle and still had the cajones to say it was my fault. He backed up without looking that there was somewhere for him to go. He told the police 'I beeped twice before backing up.' (I know, my unoccupied car should have heard the beeps and then moved itself.) My car was unusable afterwards.
It was a big commercial vehicle he hit me with. He wasn't carrying proper insurance and I think he lost his commercial drivers license over it. Thats when the fun started. He called me one day to say I had ruined his life and his business that day. And oh yeah, that he was coming over to rape my wife in front of me and then kill me.
This guy had a string of misdimeanors and a couple felonies by then. The Alaska State Troopers suggested I buy a pump shotgun and said, this guy has a history of assault, this guy has directly threatened you, if he steps on your property you do whatever you need.

>> ^wraith:

>> ^Sarzy:
>> ^deathcow:
This guy had a string of misdimeanors and a couple felonies by then. The Alaska State Troopers suggested I buy a pump shotgun and said, this guy has a history of assault, this guy has directly threatened you, if he steps on your property you do whatever you need.

That is quite possibly the most bad-ass advice ever given to anybody.

Or, the most terribly wrong advice ever given.
Suppose he was hammered when he called and later comes by to apologize, maybe because his wife, his mom, his priest or even his parole officer told him to, he steps on your lawn and you shoot him with your new shotgun.


Oh, I didn't say it was good advice -- just bad-ass advice, like something out of a Charles Bronson movie.

>> ^Sarzy:

>> ^deathcow:
This guy had a string of misdimeanors and a couple felonies by then. The Alaska State Troopers suggested I buy a pump shotgun and said, this guy has a history of assault, this guy has directly threatened you, if he steps on your property you do whatever you need.

That is quite possibly the most bad-ass advice ever given to anybody.


Or, the most terribly wrong advice ever given.

Suppose he was hammered when he called and later comes by to apologize, maybe because his wife, his mom, his priest or even his parole officer told him to, he steps on your lawn and you shoot him with your new shotgun.

>> ^deathcow:

This guy had a string of misdimeanors and a couple felonies by then. The Alaska State Troopers suggested I buy a pump shotgun and said, this guy has a history of assault, this guy has directly threatened you, if he steps on your property you do whatever you need.


That is quite possibly the most bad-ass advice ever given to anybody.

I unfortunately met a dude once who backed into my _parked_ and_unoccupied_ vehicle and still had the cajones to say it was my fault. He backed up without looking that there was somewhere for him to go. He told the police 'I beeped twice before backing up.' (I know, my unoccupied car should have heard the beeps and then moved itself.) My car was unusable afterwards.

It was a big commercial vehicle he hit me with. He wasn't carrying proper insurance and I think he lost his commercial drivers license over it. Thats when the fun started. He called me one day to say I had ruined his life and his business that day. And oh yeah, that he was coming over to rape my wife in front of me and then kill me.

This guy had a string of misdimeanors and a couple felonies by then. The Alaska State Troopers suggested I buy a pump shotgun and said, this guy has a history of assault, this guy has directly threatened you, if he steps on your property you do whatever you need.

>> ^longde:

Wasn't the cop watching the guy's hands?
That quick draw is raw.


From what it looks like to me the gun was probably in the drivers side door jam and the driver was probably leaned over.

Maybe this is why sometimes I see state troopers approach from the passenger side?