Burnedout:
If they have a lot of white cops in Austin-probably true-then fear plays a big role in those numbers. Also, the crime rate in black communities is significantly higher than in white communities because of the heavy prevalence of drugs. Ditto for Hispanics. Poverty, drugs and a terrible education system are major causes, but some of the blame must be placed on those in the community who choose violence.
I'm in favor of funding Head Start very early, something Bush opposes. I'm in favor of job preferences for blacks and Hispanics and women to address years of intolerance and bigotry. Bush opposes preferences. I'm in favor WIC, something Bush opposes. But I'm not in favor of people attacking police officers, or anyone else for that matter.
By the way, it isn't just the guys in the ghetto who are dissing the cops. Soccer moms will lash out a stream of profanity at a traffic cop for giving them a ticket and not think twice. One of my neighbors didn't stop at the stop sign right outside our development. (She has the BMW model that came without brakes.) The cops sit there at least once a week to catch all the people who run the stop sign, including her. (she almost hit me one day while I was on my bike) Anyway, I heard her tell my wife how she was screaming at the cop that "he should have better things to do." Well, it's that kind of thing that makes cops lives miserable and leads to the high rates of suicide, alchoholism and spousal abuse they have. The pressure is intense. My father didn't handle it properly. He smoked two packs a day and on his off days was often drunk. The combination killed him at an early age.
As usual, there are at least two sides or more to every story.
By the way, I'm not laughing when people call cops pigs. Not that you would.
-Robert