I can only judge the police on a person by person basis when they act independently.

Myself, I respect the police, and I obey and cooperate with them as required.
I've never done anything to necessitate any negative behaviour from them, so from experience, I have only good things to say about them. Though, I must admit, I've encountered some that were amazingly nice, and also some that were absolutely on a power trip.

BUT I know of three scenarios which Make them less than desirable.

1). The term Police should be synonymous with Peace (Peace officer). They are a team created to keep people safe. They uphold laws. Laws are meant to keep people safe.
But when they are used for other things, like aggressively engaging groups of protestors, they often behave against the people they have sworn to protect in insite more violent behaviours just so they can create arrests.

2). Police are given quotas. This is inherently corrupt. It's only purpose is to extort monies from the public and creates tensions between them and the people they are supposed to be helping.
It serves no purpose and forces even the good police to commit crimes against the people just so they can keep their jobs. These quotas are often passed down from ranking officers or higher up in the system.
This includes everything from Stop-and-frisk policies, to Speeding-infractions, to Roadside-vehicle-searches. It gives police a legal excuse to badger, bully, extort and abuse the people.

3). There are police not cut out for the job, and we've seen this in video time and again. The officer labelled as the "Hot Head". They over react, insight conflict, and use their position to create problems where none exist.
I can only attest to this example from what I see in the news. Being from Canada, we have different laws than the US, and I see this abuse most often in news from the US.
This type of officer either joined the system so they could be above the law, or has been tarnished and gone bitter along the way. They need to be weeded out and removed from duty.

All this being siad, the Police is an exclusive club. They are a close knit group of members which stand up and support each other. This could be a good thing. they need to rely on each other, especially in times of life or death.
Unfortunately, they also stand up for each other in times where they shouldn't. They protect the wrong doers in the system, cover up irregularities and just basically lie to cover up those officers breaking the law.
It's a system of "not covering up, means you can't trust others to come to your aid."

So, yes, we need the police. We like the police.
But if they don't rethink the way they operate, they only increase the gap between helping ind hindering the people. On the current course, they are forcing a large wedge between themselves and the people that are paying their pay check to keep them safe.
If you can't trust the police, they are no longer the police -- just thugs.

The good police need to stand up against the police that are abusing the system and making their job harder on a daily basis. Fix the system, fix the interaction, and then it will fix the work environment police work in.

But you yourself have said that everyone is suspect and considered armed and dangerous until proven otherwise...so who is this 'everyone else'?
Small town cops also can be much more difficult to get along with, as they develop the 'us VS them' mentality faster and to a greater severity, being more isolated. That's why they think it's OK to do things like swab pepper spray into the eyes of helpless, immobilized, peaceful protestors.
It sounds like a better idea would be for cops to have to walk in the shoes of a 'suspect' a few times a year...as in having SWAT or other police (not the force that particular cop is part of) called on them and have them and their families treated like the violent armed suspect they treat everyone else as...then perhaps you and they might see the error of your ways (once they've been visited on you and yours, I doubt you would support the violence and angry escalations).

@lantern53

When you have a country were it is acceptable for SWAT teams equipped with more weapons and body armor than an average soldier in your national military to kick down doors and throw flashbangs into people's homes on the "suspicion" that a small amount of drugs may be in the house, or to intimidate peaceful protestors by raising their weapons towards them, when it is acceptable for the NY city police department to conduct secret surveillance on anyone within three states who happens to be a Muslim in the name of counter-terrorism activities, when it is acceptable to taze people simply because they don't provide identification upon demand, when it is acceptable for the police to go to the wrong house to serve a warrant and shoot the dog that happens to live there then I think it is only natural that people are going to hate on the police. The police in the US (particularly the LAPD) have earned the hate they receive ten times over in my opinion for a lot of the reasons he states in this video.

Like he said, the problem is that you are telling a group of people that they are there to enforce the law. Which isn't a problem until it dawns on some of them that they occupy a position that allows them to actually act above the law and get away with it.

Every cop should have to have a camera attached to their uniform that is recording at all times while they are on duty and that video should be available for a civilian oversight committee to review. The committee should have the ability to punish or fire officers who overstep their authority or misbehave on the job. And the videos should be public record so we can see both the good cops and the bad.

Except, as in given that the female's two advances to screen left and the already close proximity to the protestors with scant room to retreat and the outcome of arrest would indicate she may have ill advisedly added battery of her own to any verbal assault, hence....

As to excusing their, meaning the protestor's behavior, given possible battery...interpret as you will.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2565697/House-fit-tyrant-Protestors-storm-sprawling-luxury-estate-Ukraines-fugitive-president-private-zoo-golf
-course-half-size-Monaco.html


Protesters have now seized the presidential palace. FUCK YEAH!

Heroes in the Ukraine today, may the rest of the world follow suit accordingly when the time is ripe.

The lack of solidarity among the protestors always troubles me in these incidents. You know there are niggers in the world. Bring weapons. When they try to steal one of your people kill your way through the darkness and take them back.

What this video should have depicted is Barton Moss painted black with fascist blood.

The controlling group of men who made the decisions on Vietnam thru to Iraq, with all the bombing, drug running, kidnapping, sponsoring of death squads, torture and mass slaughter of civilians (not to mention spraying toxins on poor ghettos at home, shooting student protestors etc etc.) are in the same league. Start with the 'terror bombing' of Hiroshima and Nagasaki if you like (Curtis LeMay's words not mine). The Bush family were in from the start.

If you take this as a 'Regime', then the numbers are right up there and, as stated, operating from a dramatically more comfortable position. The historical villains mentioned all had backgrounds that any psychiatrist would ring alarm bells about and their societies were in tatters when they came to power.
But Dubya for example? Privileged draft dodging frat boy living in the most comfortable place and time in all of human history.. how many did he kill in a deceptive money grab? Oh yeah, they 'don't count dead babies'. Even the hawks are conceding its in the millions now, and that's just the last 10 years of near 70..

More like a chihuahua's impression of a "Code Pink" protestor...Clint would leave the bear to be 'n muzzle the hound!

"war protestor gets run over by car" sounds different than "student sitting in middle of street during rush hour and continually moving to stay in front of car gets run over by it"

A couple of things,
1) Police managing protestors, doing it right.
2) If there to cover the protest, cover the protest, don't antagonize the police. If you see the other camera working, they're getting in, getting their shot and then getting out.
3) If you've seen the video, it doesn't look good and people have a right to be angry. How TO police have been handling mental illness in people has been degrading for the past couple of years, they need to be retrained.
4) Let the investigation finish before we starting getting angry. Once we get the answers and facts, then let's react. Given all the videos looks like an officer lost his nerve and responded with a ridiculous amount of force. I hope he gets prosecuted and the system works in favour of justice.

I feel bad for the family of Sammy, I feel bad for the officer involved. It's a terrible thing that's happened to the city. What i can say is, let the investigation finish. Once we have answers then we can pursue the legal action that will probably be required.

The guy in this video was just being an agitator, shame on him for exploiting a protest to stick it to some cops.

> Red wedding, huh?

no big deal, they wear some furs at the wedding and some protestors throw red paint on them and call them animal-murderers and it really shocks everyone to see their nice garb ruined

I'm not really making an argument, just critiquing the one offered in the video. As Lucky points out, we're in agreement that it is ridiculous to compare territorial conquest by military force to immigration. My last statement about how the parrot protestors could respond is to point out the absurdity of that comparison (and to point out their ignorance in regards to the benefits of immigration). I also agree with Lucky's interpretation of the guy's message and with the message itself.

From a moral perspective, I don't believe that successfully taking something by force is self-justifying. On the other hand, the use of force at the level of geopolitics is often self-justifying, even if we find it morally repugnant as individuals.

I think Christopher would be quite pleased to have his name on protestors signs. He will not be forgotten easily by allies and enemies alike.

>> ^hpqp:

Being a cop/riot police agent in a country like that must be the suckiest thing ever. They are in the same shit as everyone else, probably agree with them for the most part, but risk losing their job (and everything that entails) if they do not act against the people they agree with. I wish they would just en masse join the protesters, now that would send a strong signal (wouldn't actually change much though, sadly).


Ohhhhh yes it would-once people begin to wake up after being fucked for centuries, they tend start renaissancing around making sure the bullshit happens differently next time!

>> ^Engels:

i don't think you have a grasp of the level of protest going on. Estimates have that 77 percent of the population support the protesters. This isn't a confusing WTO mess, with imported protesters with abstracted ideals on the line. The severity of the social cuts is so punitive that the force behind the protest won't cave to police enforcement as easily. That, and the Spanish populace won't tolerate the level of violence US law enforcement is used to doling out.


This because BY DESIGN, the people who run the show want a dick-less, purposeless, exhausted and discourage bunch of sheepies that are unable to bitch while being ass-fucked, IMLTHO