“Cops are thugs with badges.” What are your thoughts?

[Kingofkings1992]

Agree.

Disagree.

Other. See my comment.

[nightdrot]

Vote No - and emphatically so.

No joke, when I was no more than 5 years old, I can remember my mother telling my younger brother and me, "If you kids get thrown in jail you can expect to stay there because I won't be bailing you out. Because if you are in jail it means that you deserve to be. When a police officer tells you to do something you say, 'Yes, sir" and you do it!"

To be sure, beyond wondering how I would end up as the first second grader incarcerated on Riker's Island, speaking at just a personal level, I have no sympathy for this notion that someone is a delicate little snowflake who deserves to have his feelings given a higher regard than the rule of law. It is utterly alien to everything I was raised with.

The police have a risky job, their lives are on the line at every stop, and they have no way of knowing who you are or what you are doing. They deserve deference and if they go outside the bounds, you have redress for that in a court of law.

The current popular attitude toward law enforcement is an outgrowth of a sniveling, self-absorbed and self-pitying culture that too easily takes for granted the difficult task of maintaining a stable social order. "The policeman was mean to me!" Good grief.

Do the police get unfairly treated? Absolutely. It is the sign of a self-satisfied and sanctimonious age that too easily takes for granted its safety and those who assure it.

In 1977, after nearly two decades of a culture that had taken to calling the police, "pigs" and that thought the criminal was a victim of society rather than a victimizer, Gallup took a poll. It showed that 72% of all women - and 92% of African-American women - of all classes and incomes and all the rest, did not feel safe walking in their neighborhoods at night.

Americans, as was said of the French kings, "Forget nothing and learn nothing." Suffice to say, we are about to repeat, and indeed if the latest crime statistics are any indication we already are repeating, history.

[Rangers]

Cops are the biggest heroes in America, putting their lives on the line every single day and confronting violent people who everyone else runs away from. They are the least corrupt people in the world, you can count the amount of bad cops on one hand and you can visit any one of them because they're all in prison as they're held strongly accountable upon any presence of misconduct. People who are anti police fall into at least one of the following categories: They're ignorant of the risk officers take and the fact that they save millions of lives every year in this country while standing in front of murderers, going into burning buildings, stopping drunk drivers from killing people or themselves, stop domestic abusers, and stop human trafficking operations. They are criminals themselves and dislike police because they don't follow the law and don't like the fact that cops stop them. They're brainwashed by BLM propaganda and terrorists like Shaun King who routinely thrust blatant lies and spread ignorance all over social media while tech companies censor factual reports as well as bodycam footage, or cutting up the bodycam footage while using the algorithm to push the full, unedited footage as far back into the search results as possible to ensure that only the most determined to seek the truth will find it (which almost never includes people who are anti police to begin with because their agenda will be confirmed long before they see the footage) and the dumbest idea, right up there with abolishing the police is making body cameras illegal for police, which is an official demand on the BLM website and we all know why, bodycam footage unequivocally proves that BLM is lying to you about what actually happened.
Cops do all of this while facing record levels of hate, death threats, doxxing, violence committed against them (pro tip to ignorant people who cry police brutality after every shooting, the number of unjustified shootings by police since 2000 is in the single digits, virtually all those shot were shot because they were actively trying to murder the officers and they were forced to defend themselves, so if you want to live, drop the gun when you're ordered to rather than raise it and shoot at police because you WILL lose that gunfight).

[Abtraction]

lmao, most cops just give traffic tickets or are glorified hall monitors from high-school, meanwhile violating your constitutional rights, enforce unconstitutional laws, and violate their oath to the constitution. Then when a cops screws-up they lie and in most cases are not held accountable. When a citizen tries to hold them accountable they retaliate.
I do think a lot of cops are starting to wake-up and stand-behind their oath, that's great. But many are just enforcer pawns of the system and when push comes to shove they become cowards.

[Jaylaaa2000]

Yeah this is true in a way. It was created by people who decided to give them the authority of do as I say or die.

Then when they do wrong the rest of the department covers up their wrong doing, and if other cops does not help cover up the dirty cops crimes they are bullied by their bosses until they quit the force.

So the dirty cops have no fear of punishment

[susie22]

SOME cops are thugs with badges. I know a few cops who are genuinely good people and good Police officers, and then there are the Derek Chauvins of the world that gives all cops a bad reputation. Like any profession, there are both good and bad doing the job.

[MCheetah]

Not all of them, but many of them are just bullies with badges. What's that one video of the five foot tall, early 20 something police chick trying to arrest a teenage boy "illegally" riding his bike on the boardwalk just to "look tough" in front of everyone? And he just shrugs her off with no effort, and it's a harmless black teenage boy not even giving her any trouble. And she had to be "saved" by some White Knight bicycle cop in tight-shorts? I gotta pull that up...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gH70DZKMHuQ

Here's another one:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=auSt1cVKgjg

[MCheetah]

Also, I forgot to add this. I am very much NOT Black Lives Matter and I can't stand them. I think the majority of cops are just trying to do their best. But a large number of them, like 20%-25%, really are just jerks.

[DeltaCharlieEcho]

There’s a difference between cops and police officers. People usually just lump them all into the same group but they aren’t the same mentalities. Cop used to refer to officers that didn’t go by the book and had a tenancy to be dirty or at least not be working I’m good faith. The main difference today is that the police are supposed to be a reactive role, they respond to situations as needed. To a police officer, a boring day with nothing to go do is a good day. Cops tend to be proactive and looking for trouble as the old saying goes ‘when you go looking for trouble, you usually find it.’

[exitseven]

I used to sell equipment to first responders and I probably knew more than a thousand cops. 99% of them were good cops that wanted to serve their communities. I never knew anyone that ever wanted to shoot anyone. I knew a few killed in the line of duty.

[Kingofkings1992]

No I agree. I was quoting someone else

[exitseven]

thanks

[Drumlin2001]

The vast majority are good people doing a difficult job. The majority of people they deal with have broken the law and rather than take responsibility for it they cause problems.
Sure, it's easy to film 30 seconds of an interaction and make it look bad, with no context, but it's a small % of interactions that go that way

[JackBlackHeartAttack]

Every single cop in my town is a very kind and understanding officer. I live in small town Kansas so I know the entire police force. I've not had a bad experience with them in my 18 years of living. Even in the bigger city they're still nice. I'm not saying all cops are nice because there are bound to be some bad ones but there are bad people in every other group aswell

[ZackBan]

The lesser of the two evils.

Thugs without badges are far more dangerous and would be even worse if it wasn't for the thugs that do wear badges

Not to mention the thousands of good cops you're accusing of being bad just for dowing a job

[DaisyJones]

No, thugs are thugs. Thugs stupidly resist arrest, and then everyone whines when they get shot.

[goaded]

You have to specify which country's police.

They all have to be thugs at times, when circumstances call for it, but that's their job. Mostly, they should be ensuring an environment where crimes aren't committed in the first place.

[kkirk4442]

It depends on the officer. Some police are very good, others are very bad. Probably the biggest problem with police, is that too often, the bad acts of some, are covered up by others.

[jshm2]

You mean "bad cops, are thugs with badges".

But, you can always smile at people and say "right, you phone the military police instead when you have problems, eh?"

[DaisyM23]

In some cases yes, but I do think there are good police officers who help communities

[Pete671]

Takes a thug to deal with a thug sometimes,,,

[Anonymous]

Only a sith deals in absolutes.

[Sabretooth]

the majority is.

[JesseJayNeak]

Only the bad apples