Time fore us all to remember they're not cops, they're Peace Officers and in fact public servants. If you have a beef remain calm and polite and save the beef for court. Doing concert security for the Grateful Dead & thrJefferson Airplane along with the Haight St. Fair for twenty +years I've dealt with many officers and they come in all stripes. The worst thing you can do is scare one, so relax and try to deamp the situation.....
You must keep in mind how they're chosen. They're peace officers. A peace officer course is two dedicated semesters of learning how to shit on the constitution and use a baton, and exactly how to spot different types of drugs and drug users. You see the cadets chatting outside class at the start of the year, and they're normal kids. Then they get their fake gun and feel kind of awkward, but by the end, they have the cop pose down, and practice intimidation techniques on everyone who's not a cadet who has class in their building. Their director is a paranoid retired LEO type... he mutters schizophrenic things about me as I walk past, usually something about a "disgrace", and maybe something about shoes, I suspect that's most of what it's about, but have not heard that particular word. He also tries to intimidate me, doing things like turning on the spot to face me as I have to walk around him.
Police are indeed civilians not Military, but if they step too far over the line that's exactly who they'll be facing and they'll learn the diff....
Hey, I'd like to tell you guys about how much fun I had oppressing the masses today. Had a call waiting when I got into the precinct this morning, so I head over to Drachmann up in Central Filth. There's two uniforms there, with a dead girl in a dumpster. 18-20 year old Jane Doe, stabbed 10 times in the stomach and tossed into the fucking garbage. This woman's (child's, really) mode of dress indicates prostitution, though this isn't a certainty (and nobody in vice knows her), so she's equally likely to be a student from the university. It'll take a few days to find out who she is, we'll probably never find whomever it was that killed her, and if and when we DO find out who she is, I have to contact her parents. So, yeah. What a hilarious day of being a filthy fucking fascist I had. It's like a jackboot party up in this bitch.
So, after starting your shift like that, how much overtime did you steal on a last-minute arrest of someone with drugs? If cops think they're jaded about people, well..... the people are a bit jaded, too. It's pretty hard to accept help from people who spend billions (of your own money) shooting minorities and arresting people for having chemicals. It's pretty awkward pretending like you don't hate them just because their job requires that they do something nice, while they'd rather be feeling cool with their hand by their gun during a bloody traffic stop, when everyone knows it's not about how fast you went, but how easy it was to profile you and what kind of cigarettes are in your ashtray.
I've seen frightened officers go off and start major riots and/or really terrorize individuals. On the other hand I've spent hours counciling officers who traumatized by scenes like you described. It's a tough job with inhuman working conditions. An officer often goes from traumatic scenes on down the way carrying all that emotion to some citizen with an atitude cause the old lady didn't put out or some such and boom the officer unloads his traumatic emotions! It can also happen the other way. I've said for years that officers need shorter work shifts and breaks between incidents as needed to cool down.......enough maybe too much said..................
So I guess we can assume Man Yellow is a cop. Well it's very simple Yellow, people don't like you because you are not there to help despite what you think, you are there to squeeze money out of us. For most people we will only encounter the police when it's to fine us. House got broken into? You show up an hour later and never catch the guy. Or in your own case, you will never find the murderer. But you WILL be there to fine us for going 30 in a 25, you will be there to put us in a cage for possessing a plant that grows in the dirt. The simple fact is most people will never even need the services you offer. Most people will never be the victim of a serious crime, all you are is a pain in the ass fining us when no real crime has been committed. But the city makes a fortune off these fines, they will never stop this game of making criminals out of innocent people. The fact is you work for us. We the people are your boss, yet you seem to feel it's the other way around. Cops are only cops in the US because either A. They were the bully in school or B. They were picked on by a bully, so either way they want to be in charge now. But hey I am extra jaded because my family has many fire fighters in it so I have a bit of that old rivalry in me. Now that is a job to respect. Those are the guys who will really be there when you need them. Why does someone want to be a fire fighter? Not so they can be in charge but so they can help save your life.
You've got that right! Firefighters are true heros. If you're caught in a reaj dire emergency on the street look for a fire alarm box. You'll get a big red truck with big guys with axes. That will intimidate any mugger and there's usually a EMT aboard or following. Also I've had friends say to me, "I'm Irish. Mom said 'Son, it's a priest or an officer you'll be me lad." lol
Notice how ManYellow is out numbered here. This will be the same when the country retaliates. Your tail will be between your legs when our bullets start flying.
Yeah, I'm terrified. That's what the national guard is for. Me, I'm basically a glorified janitor. People decide to kill other people, I try to clean up the mess, and hopefully catch whomever did it. That's basically it.
Just your average middle-aged homicide detective. Oh, yeah, I'm getting rich on this paycheck. No, really. I'm a real 1%er. Truth? We maybe close 60% of our cases in a good year. Life isn't like NCIS. Nope. It's not my department. And frankly, not only do I not give a shit what you smoke, I think pot should be legalized. Not "decriminalized", legalized. So fuckers will stop killing each other over the shit.
None. Would you ask a proctologist to operate on your throat? You get the police you put up with, just like anything else. I've been on the job for 20 years, and I've never once pulled my pistol. Our city has a pretty good track record when it comes to violence, except for the bastards in SWAT, who can't be trusted with anything, let alone an armored fucking car. There's a funny story in that.
Dunno. What I DO know is we need about another 10 detectives, minimum. Homicide isn't so bad, but the poor bastards in property crimes get NO sleep. As far as trauma goes, you get used to awful shit after a while (if people couldn't, there wouldn't be a sane coroner in the country).
Well it's like you say about SWAT. The guys who should NOT NOT NOT have positions of power with the ability to use force, ARE ARE ARE the ones who want it. If you think drugs should be legal and prohibition is what causes violence, I know where I'd put you..... drug interdiction. Probably not the job you'd choose. People who gravitate towards violent powerful jobs are those who need to be kept away from those jobs. But once you get a violent small-dicked supervisor, like joe arpaio, well.... you bring in a whole culture of it, and you turn everyone against law enforcement. One bad cop ruins the credibility of a force. And sadly, one pot arrest makes for a bad cop....
