Fascinating Article On What It's Like To Be A Cop In Philadelphia

[ShawnD1]

No its not.
His point is that a cop should be able to attack you because someone at the DMV was rude to you and does not make the news.

Actually what the guy said is that you should expect to get popped in the mouth IF YOU DO NOT COOPERATE.

That seems fair. A police officer might be a dick, but they don't randomly hit people. If you spit at one, you might get punched. Try spitting on a garbage man or construction worker and see what happens. $5 says the construction worker will beat the shit out of you worse than the cop would.

 

[Vette73]

Actually what the guy said is that you should expect to get popped in the mouth IF YOU DO NOT COOPERATE.

That seems fair. A police officer might be a dick, but they don't randomly hit people. If you spit at one, you might get punched. Try spitting on a garbage man or construction worker and see what happens. $5 says the construction worker will beat the shit out of you worse than the cop would.

No its not. He started off with that a cop has a bad day etc...
and no that is not fair. I do not have the cooperate with the police in this country for good reason.

And if a cop hits someone for spitting on them they also deserve jail time. If they spit you arrest and book them, period.

 

[ShawnD1]

No its not. He started off with that a cop has a bad day etc...
and no that is not fair. I do not have the cooperate with the police in this country for good reason.

I guess you're right. I can't see how everyone refusing to talk to the police could go wrong.
The police see a guy on the street who vaguely matches the description of a murder suspect so they try to talk to him. He just keeps walking, doesn't stop, doesn't say anything to the police. He's perfectly within his right to not cooperate at all and the police should not be able to stop him since they didn't actually see him do anything wrong and he just kinda looks like the guy they're after (because they're looking for a guy based on a pencil sketch). Rather than stop him and ask him a few questions, they should just let him go. Normal people and criminals should both do this. When the police try to talk to you, completely stonewall them. Don't give a name, don't say anything, don't answer any of their questions, be as non-cooperative as possible. It's your right as an American to not give the police any power at all to question people or try to track down leads or names or anything like that. Who needs detectives. We'll let the Free Market solve crimes.
:thumbsup:

And if a cop hits someone for spitting on them they also deserve jail time. If they spit you arrest and book them, period.

The police officer is charging you with assault because you spit on him (yes it is against the law to spit on people). He has agreed to drop the charges if you drop your charges.

Your move, creep

 

[mcmilljb]

You are talking out of your ass. Not one of you seems to be aware of the underlying problem.

The jails are full to their legal capacity. Deciding who to incarcerate, then, become triage of a sort. Putting the mother of three in jail for "merely" kicking an officer in the face takes a place in jail better occupied by a more violent and habitual criminal who sells drugs and is armed and will use that weapon eventually.

Plus, her three kids then go into an already criminally overburdened social welfare system.

It sucks, but the judge did the best he could UNDER THE CIRCUMSTANCES.

I disagree. The person bolded would be shot dead and questions asked later so his jail cell is free for a deadbeat mom while her kids go some where better. Druggie moms are not better than our social welfare system. If she's willing to kick a cop in the face while on drugs, why would she hesitate to kick a child in the face? If kids aren't enough to get her off drugs, let her sit in a prison cell cold turkey for a while.

I think what you really want is to have better drug laws so we can get these non violent pot heads out of jail and replace them with violent and dangerous people. I would much rather have treatment facilities to get people off drugs than waste money having people sit in jail all day. The cost to have someone sit in jail with no rehab is more costly than treating someone and helping them return to society, both in costs of money and human capital.

 

[ShawnD1]

I disagree. The person bolded would be shot dead and questions asked later so his jail cell is free for a deadbeat mom while her kids go some where better.

I remember having an idea like this. I think the plan was to put a hard 1% limit on prison population. Once the 1% limit is reached, people with the longest sentences are executed to make room for new prisoners. There would also need to be a minimum time spent in jail before execution, just to make sure they could be retried or evidence doubled checked or whatever.

 

[Vette73]

I guess you're right. I can't see how everyone refusing to talk to the police could go wrong.
The police see a guy on the street who vaguely matches the description of a murder suspect so they try to talk to him. He just keeps walking, doesn't stop, doesn't say anything to the police. He's perfectly within his right to not cooperate at all and the police should not be able to stop him since they didn't actually see him do anything wrong and he just kinda looks like the guy they're after (because they're looking for a guy based on a pencil sketch). Rather than stop him and ask him a few questions, they should just let him go. Normal people and criminals should both do this. When the police try to talk to you, completely stonewall them. Don't give a name, don't say anything, don't answer any of their questions, be as non-cooperative as possible. It's your right as an American to not give the police any power at all to question people or try to track down leads or names or anything like that. Who needs detectives. We'll let the Free Market solve crimes.
:thumbsup:



The police officer is charging you with assault because you spit on him (yes it is against the law to spit on people). He has agreed to drop the charges if you drop your charges.

Your move, creep

Yea but I am sure the DA be pissed that someone goes free or the judge toses out other stuff that is even worse then me spitting. :hmm:

If you want to be a cop then uphold the law, don't think YOU are the law.
My granfather was a cop so i've seen what a bad apple can do to all the good ones. Instead of defending the bad ones, remove them and restore a lot more faith and respect to the police that derserve it.

 

[Perknose]

The problem with the city isn’t the Police Department. And it’s not the higher ups in the department. I feel like I’m well trained, well supplied, well paid. There is an abundance of overtime. It’s the judges. They just let people out.

The bolded is why I'm not even sure this guy is a Philly cop. If he is, then he knows damn well that the judges hands are tied because the prisons are FULL to capacity and have been for quite some time.

There is no money to build more, no funds to incarcerate more. So the judges are FORCED to practice a kind of triage, only reserving jail space for the MOST violent while giving suspended sentences to many who should otherwise be in jail. The judges are NOT to blame.

If he is a cop and does know this, then he's just a goddamned liar.

As for Philly cops being well-trained and well supplied, that's BULLSHIT on both counts. I know, I spent 14 years as a PI based in Philadelphia.

Very few Philly cops that I met and had to work with know much about the basic pertaining laws at all! I was initially shocked to be on a scene and find this to be the case, but it's true. Way too many are incredibly ill-informed, even about basic stuff. Some will admit it, others will belligerently hold to their wrong legal interpretations, and you'd better not challenge them. I learned not to. The old street dictum is, "The law is what the cop on the scene says it is."

I'm not an advocate of open carry but I really had to laugh while listening to this recording of a stop in Philly because that officer is exactly how I remember many to be in his arrogance and ignorance.

Listen, it'll blow your mind:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z-vUYeJXSrA&feature=related

As for well-equipped? Also bullshit. On into the beginning of this century (2001) many officers were typing up their reports on MANUAL typewriters. There were almost no computers in many precinct station houses at all -- certainly none for the rank and file.

And many of the station houses themselves were appalling dilapidated shit houses lacking any amenities or even good paint!

Plus, I can't tell you how many times different officers would complain bitterly to me about the repair state of their cruisers. Shocking but true.

As for well-led? Also basically not true. The police union and the entrenched level of police bureaucracy has seen to that. Even when a good and dynamic Commissioner has come in, there is only so much he could do before the entrenched culture and bureaucracy fought back, and basically always won.

Here's something NO ONE BUT A FEW INSIDERS and myself knows. Philly has always been in desperate need of active, uniformed officers, yet there are 500 of them working desk jobs they were never trained for and are unsuited to hold in the central Data Processing department.

You have never seen this in the papers and no one seems to know. They guys arrogantly LORD it over the civilian hires who do what actual work gets done. By any rational means, they should be on the street doing real police work, but they probably never will be.

Well led my fucking ass.

So there you have it, the multiple reason I think that anonymous article is full of lying crap.

 

[Exterous]

And? It still does not give him the right to attack someone. I can flip him the bird and tell call him a asshole and be in my rights to do so.

My argument was about the person potentially being a criminal - not about the legitimacy of an attack. With such a vague statement it is hard to tell what he is referring to. Maybe the person flipped him the bird, called him and asshole and then threatened his wife or kids. But he could just be talking about someone calling an officer an asshole. You don't know the circumstances and neither do I

 

[Vette73]

^^

Well this piece is from 2010 so not sure if that changed anything. From what I have read it should not as the jails were full then as well as now.

 

[Perknose]

^^

Well this piece is from 2010 so not sure if that changed anything. From what I have read it should not as the jails were full then as well as now.

The jails are still full, even beyond legal limits. This is an ongoing problem which hasn't begun to be addressed and won't be going away for years, if not decades and decades. Sad but true.

The prisons are also hell holes like you wouldn't believe, too.

 

[Axon]

My only beef with cops is that, even when you're being compliant and didn't do anything (or your offense was entirely minor, like rolling through a yellow light), they treat you like complete crap and are entirely condescending. Bottom line is they take the impotent rage against real crooks out on guys like me who really aren't doing anything.

 

[Nik]

Way to miss the point.

You do realize that you were just criticizing people for having opinions on something for which they were not present...yet that's exactly what the judge did in this case?

Does state, county, or municipal law state that the minimum sentence for assault is an apology?