The only beef i ever had is that at a bar some guy was breaking car windows with a baseball bat and if they would of came with ten min of when i called 8 cars could have been saved should of said I think he has a gun might of gotten a better response

I say this to my partner all the time when we need backup and it's 30 minutes away. "never a damned PA around when you need em".

Sometimes 10 minutes is the drive time, and they aren't SUPPOSED to run "code" unless someone is in physical danger. Btw before you or anyone says it, if you see a cop hit the lights, go through a red light, then shut them off, report it, if it's legit, it'll be a ten second conversation, if he was just in a hurry before mcdonalds stopped serving breakfast, he'll get a "pee pee slap", pardon my french

I have also noticed this as well, and considering I have been looking at a possible career in law enforcement, I also take offence to it.
Especially the thing from AC, which had been brought up on the site, was kinda disgraceful.

Just so you know, I didn't forget to reply, I highly encourage anyone who feels the call to serve to look into a career in Law Enforcement, there really is nothing quite like actually saving someones life. You will see and be involved in things you just can't make up, a personal favorite moment was while tracking a group of smugglers, we stopped so one of us (I won't say who), had to make a "head call" that is, water some bushes, what we did not know is that the smugglers had hidden in the foliage in the area, that is until one of them, for reasons I won't go into detail about, suddenly began yelling.

Keep in mind the public does not like cops, as evidenced here, I think largely because our motives and training are poorly understood by people outside the profession, but its a very rewarding career. Also I really like your Icon.

I hate being scared of cops, but I am. After stuff I've witnessed... and I know not all cops are like that.. I really do, but there are too many powertripping assholes that become police officers so they can shove people around. (I could name one that's a resident on this site)
I saw a cop beat up a student when I first went to college. I saw a cop slam a high school kid's head into a police car at my school.. just because he made a comment about Rodney King after a different cop shoved another kid around. Then they yelled at all of us. I've had 5 cars worth of cops point their guns at us when we were just kids hanging out at the school. Sure we weren't supposed to be there after dark, but did they really have to do THAT? They coulda just told us to go home.

Then there was the time in Indiana... I have never been more scared in my life. These cops were harassing me and my friends.. My roommate  wrankstankly was driving at the time.. and sure, his tags were expired. But we had just gone into Indiana to get his friend and visit his mom. He had forgotten about his tags. The cops followed us for a while and then pulled us over. We expected that. But then when they came to the car they were yelling at us to not move.. and idk if they had guns out because I didn't look. They told me I had better keep my hands on the dash or else (I was front passenger). Then they made us get out of the car one at a time. They would interrogate us one at a time outside and say that one of us confessed to smuggling drugs and that we had done drugs earlier that morning. 100% false, btw. Then when we said we had no drugs, they said we were lying and that they were going to release a dog that would rip us apart if we had drugs. I told them I wanted to call a lawyer (I had legal access at that time) but he told me they would drag me off to jail. And that was scary enough because I was in a strange town in the middle of nowhere, and they were already acting crazy. They also kept asking us our destination, and we all said "Columbus, OH". But then they kept saying we lied. "How come your buddy over here said Cleveland?" "How come a minute ago you said Cincinnati".. crap like that. Then they'd yell at us about the consequences of lying.
Our friend had a pipe in the back of the car that was made out of a gourd and looked like a Japanese sake jug. It had never been used, and it was a present for one of our other roommates. The cops made him throw it out into a field of cows, and told us all again that we were going to jail if we didn't confess about the drugs that we didn't have. An hour later they got fed up with us and called a tow truck to take our car. (we lived in Ohio at the time) We told them we had no money, and they said it was too bad. Then they left us there with the tow truck driver. BTW there was a couple feet of snow outside and it was midnight. The tow truck driver took us to a seedy hotel where we pretty much bounced our accounts to stay at. We had to walk 5 miles in the snow the next day to find the dmv and get the car back. Someone there was nice and called us a taxi when we said what happened. We eventually made it home.

I have always been wary of cops since I was little, though. I'm actually black. My mom's cousin got killed by police officers because he had a "picture of a white woman" in his wallet, which was actually his sister. (We're very mixed bred in my family) My friend's uncle got hung with his penis chopped off by cops. I've always been wary, and I hate when I have to call upon the police because I never know if I'm gonna get one of the people that makes police look bad.

I'm sure I could tell you more stories (and more details about the ones I've told you) but this is getting way long. Let me know if you have any questions.

There's a lot I want to say to that, and I'm on my phone right now so im just going to address 2 things, first, clearly a lot of what was done there was wrong, but not all of it and not what a lot of people might expect and I'll clarify what is what later. 2. Something civilians almost never know, but traffic stops are the most deadly actions law enforcement agents take, from our perspective, anyone in a car could be a desperate criminal, they could be armed, and we are more likely to be killed approaching that car than raiding a crackhouse. Often the adrenaline keys up, and this is where police get most out of hand. I promise they were more scared of you when they came up to that car than you were of them, expired tags are frequently used to smuggle virtually anything you can imagine from place to place. None of this is any excuse for a lot of their behavior, but I'll elaborate later.

I will say that racism has no place in law enforcement, unfortunately, no matter what people want to say to the contrary, United States crime statistics tell a story which has lead many LEO's to make very wrong assumptions about a majority of people, based on a very small number of habitual offenders

I can imagine that being a high stress moment.. particularly at night. it's hard to judge the scene before your whiten "already fucked" distance. it's hard to see what the driver and passenger are doing.. among a bunch of other factors that make it suck.

I'm pretty sure they saw us laughing and singing with the radio for the 5 miles they followed us.

Did you have the cabin light on?

Who needs a cabin light when you have bright lights nearly blinding you from behind?
But, no, we didn't that I can remember.

I'm still curious to hear about your clarifications to that earlier reply of yours. Take your time, though.
Also, sorry if I come across as crass or anything.. I hope you understand where I'm coming from.

I do understand, trust me. The thing is that the bright lights don't illuminate the cabin all that well,'I'll be getting home in an hour or so and sitting down to really address you and a few others.

Alright, I'm going to deal with the easiest part of this first, what happened to your mothers cousin, and your friends uncle, are utterly unacceptable, and I sincerely hope that was some time ago, not that it makes it more allowable as a society, but I honestly was of the belief we'd weeded that out of this nation except for a few fringe groups of psychotics (Oh how I do love Neo Nazi's, its like beating up on special ed children except you never feel bad about it).

Next as to the police getting in altercations with students, I think I'd need a little more detail, in terms of when you say slam, do you mean they forced the kids head down on the car, or he literally beat his head against the vehicle? Honestly I recommend in the modern era, if you see something like that, record it, and report it, don't run to the media(at first), go to the superiors at the precint, this is the 21st century, and really NOBODY wants to see their department on the news anymore, they will reign the cowboys. On the other hand, depending on the situation, I've had to "toss" people on the hood before, the good thing about vehicles is that they provide pretty decent leverage to hold someone in place with your body, leaving the hands free to cuff and search. I know sometimes I'm not gentle with suspects, but at that point pretty much everything we do is designed specifically to keep us safe. Close up there is a lot of danger. As for the pointing of guns at the school, I don't know that I'd do that, but I don't know how many of you there were, what time it was, there is a thing called the 21 foot rule, its about as close as you want someone to get to you, because closer than 21 feet, they WILL reach you before you can draw and fire a weapon accurately, in practice it actually is more like 40 feet, and thats when you know this person is going to rush you at any second, so depending on the situation, we do go in guns drawn more frequently than most people would realize, it doesn't mean we want to shoot anyone. Trust me when I tell you, the first thing in every LEO's forebrain is that if we actually ever have to kill someone, its going to be a very, very big mess, and thats assuming we're 100% justified, things go downhill from "big mess" to "I'm fucked" rather rapidly with every question about my justification. Thing is if I go in, gun out, I can always put it away, and de-escalate the situation, I may not have time to meet force with force however.

As for your traffic stop, all vehicle stops contain a huge amount of risk for law enforcement, and the expired tags are actually a HUGE indicator of criminal activity a lot of(but not all)the time. You see, an expired tag doesn't come back "expired" when we run a license plate, it comes back "Not valid for highway use" which could mean anything, it could mean you forgot to re-register it last month, it could mean that you took the plate off a different vehicle 6 months ago that looks similar to the one you are driving (it will list the year make and model, and sometimes the color, of the last registered vehicle), and that you're a car theft ring, or smuggling narcotics. Basically they'll follow you closely and verify the plate several times (most agencies anyway), to make sure they aren't about to conduct a high risk stop on someone because they read a letter wrong, and they'll get backup rolling to assist. The bright lights they put on you are called "Take downs" and what they do is not so much illuminate what you are doing inside the vehicle, as make it very difficult for you to see the officers. Its possible they came up with their guns drawn, but I really don't know, as for keeping your hands on the dash, any cop or Agent will tell you that hands kill, we want to see those hands, all the time, forever, because we so very much want to go home at the end of the night.

This is more or less where things go downhill, for the cops, IMHO, If they're taking everyone out one at a time and telling you those guys admitted to things, thats also SOP for most police agencies, the rule of thumb is that if someone is a dope smuggler/dealer/user that they will lie, and the law allows us to lie as well to see how they react, however usually you don't really apply the thumbscrews on that one, using a narcotic sniffing dog as a threat is completely out of line, for one thing it maligns people against what are the most reliable and flexible tool we have to detect narcotics and many other things, and for another it is actually illegal coercion at that point, I may threaten to go get a sniffer dog if I really think there are drugs in the car, because its a HELL of a lot faster if they just admit they've got a load of dope in the back, but at that point I usually already know that they do, and I'm more than happy to call the canine, I never tell anyone its going to attack them, if our dogs bite, they can be put down.

They're interrogation technique is sloppy, basically if they couldn't "break" you, in this case because you weren't lying, they should have just called for a canine, there are usually some available, and then cut you lose when it didn't detect anything. What I really want to believe in this case, but sadly I don't, is that they had some kind of intelligence that a similar vehicle was going to be smuggling narcotics through that area.

Now, to give you some insight, and none of this defends them, a stop like this involves considerable radio chatter, all of which is recorded, so at that point, they've devoted resources and airtime, and the boss is usually listening, they are under pressure to actually come up with SOMETHING, but really I think they were reaching at this point. They really did HAVE to tow your car, I know that sounds like BS but its sort of like how sometimes you get the impression the cop doesn't really seem interested in writing you a ticket, like you get pulled over for doing 20 over the limit but you get a ticket for 11, its because that's a non criminal violation, but he already put out over the radio certain facts that necessitate him writing the ticket. If they had just released you and let you go, after an hour of basically being complete dipshits, they would have gotten their asses chewed.

Like I said, up to the point where they separated you all and tried to "break" your story, they were being heavy handed, but more or less doing good police work, once that failed, they should have called the dog or just let you go with a ticket, or towed the car and let you go. Honestly you should have called your lawyer, you probably had a decent 4th amendment case because this doesn't sound like Due Diligence at all.

Keep in mind Katty, and anyone else reading ALL the replies in this thread, that I'm not defending the police, though I am trying to give some window into why they do some of what they do. I'm not making any excuses for what they did after they questioned you guys, I've been through the exact same thing (there were 6 of us in a 2 door grand am driving from tucson to phoenix, and ALL my luggage in the trunk, I'd have pulled us over as smugglers too), but the cops cut us with a brake light ticket after they couldn't break us and the dog didn't hit, it took about 30 minutes total, and that's what they should have done for you as well.

The racist killer cops thing was something from a long time ago, but we still have to deal with their horrible behavior in that part of the country(Appalachia). I don't really even want to get into the super recent stuff.. it pisses me off so bad...

As far as the police altercations with students.. well, back when I was in school, only rich people had giant cellphones, and camcorders were all VHS. (Showing my age) When that kid got his head banged into the car, I'm serious as I can be.. They cuffed him, and he was getting in, and the one cop grabbed the back of his head and slammed his forehead into the doorway. Like.. you could tell it was deliberate.

The time when they pulled guns on us at the school, we were kinda all just laying in the grass lookin' at the stars. Then they just rushed up on us.

Back to the vehicle stop..
I know they have to pull people over for expired tags. Hell, it just happened to me and my mate 2 nights ago. (We were both scared at first, but then it was a really awesomely nice cop, so we were cool the rest of the time) I know we look suspicious.. 3 young people.. a minority and two white guys with long hair driving late at night through a random part of Indiana heading toward the ohio border with expired indiana tags. We were polite the whole time until they got nasty with us. I'm pretty sure the time they asked us if we had drugs and mentioned the dog would attack us, Wrank told them they could search the vehicle if they didn't believe us. I think it pissed them off, so that's why they started acting all crazy. It seemed like it was a newbie cop out with a veteran cop, and the veteran was showing off his power. I know they had to tow our car, but they offered us no assistance. We asked where we were and if they could help us find a place to go, they wouldn't answer us. It was so dirty, man.. Yes, they did their job by asking us about the drugs separately, but seriously... man, I swear.. And here's proof they were just effing with us.. they didn't even ask me or the other passenger for id or our names! I sure would have called my lawyer if I didn't think I was gonna get my head blown off.

Sorry that good officers like yourself have to deal with being mistaken for the powertripping bullies that are your coworkers.

Like I said, they started out pretty standard and then they went way off the map, I didn't ask if you let them search the vehicle because I already knew it'd be something like you said "go ahead, it's clean".

I'm going to get some sleep, I am curious btw, who the other furry officer is, if you could note me.

I wouldn't describe myself as a "cop hater" so I don't know how effectively I can respond, but let's try.

First, in your third paragraph, comparing cop-hating to racism is definitely a false equivalence and it erodes your argument. One could make the argument that it takes a certain kind of person to want to be a LEO in the first place, while a person cannot choose his or her race. Not saying it's a good argument, but neither is the racism angle.

Anyway, I think the problem drills down to this: the law enforcement profession obviously comes with power over others, and sometimes that power is unchecked and ripe for abuse and favoritism. It's not hard to find an abundance of stories in this vein in the papers - an officer abusing his position, cops that don't bring accountability to their fellow officers, police brutality, officers getting a slap on the wrist for a crime that would net anyone else jailtime, officers stealing drugs from crime scenes/evidence, a person's 4th amendment rights being violated, etc. A quick search turns up several recent ones:

Police pressure woman to not pursue harassment claim, arrest her when she records it
Cop's son and gang commit hate crime, police arrest victim and refuse him medical treatment
Officer accepts bribes from drug dealer in exchange for info and protection
Officer and PI steal drugs from evidence in order to sell them

Or just search "police brutality" on YouTube

Or we can take the all-too-common occurrence of police committing crimes. Sure, there are tons of crimes committed every day, but to see people that are tasked with upholding the law do it erodes confidence in the whole establishment. After seeing enough cases, people will begin to develop associations.

Not to mention that there are pretty idiotic things that police are forced to carry out (see: marijuana raids under "the war on drugs") and part of the contempt will be for the officers that are willing to carry it out.

Hope this helps.

Also yes, the people in that video are dicks. The rule was kind of dumb, but they shouldn't have taken it out on the officer for doing his job.

I wasn't comparing it to racism so much as prejudice. Which infind unacceptable of any group.

I've known agents/officers who have been targets of the media for alleged abuses and crimes, some of which I have even been present for, and I find very frequently the accounts differ. But this is another one I'm going to need to take some serious time on, and also I demand you come over Friday in the evening for cigars and coffee or something

Roger roger

You should drive and make Ikodo ride along in his fursuit. Those pics with the rangers and whatnot were adorable!!

I'm going to field this one in the morning because its 3 am and I want to watch those videos and really get a feel for what you're saying (though I think I have a good idea), I love that I'm actually getting responses, some ever from people I haven't met before.

I can link it.

You can do anything you want my dear

No bad experiences myself. But there's just a massive power issue that goes with "the badge."

"Do this, or I'll report you." Kind of black mail is what I'm afraid of.

I wonder about you and Pedro, but that's something for notes and not comments.

Well remember it swings both ways, there are a lot more good cops than bad cops, report bad behavior, there are a ton of good guys looking for work.

I got linked to this journal by  momma-vicky If you want opinions on police, my experience with police is just local to my city, mid sized, midwest, United States. This year alone there have been I think 7 or 8 race riots that have broken out, I'm talking massive mobs going against elderly and middle aged white people. The news hasn't reported any deaths, but a bunch of people got put in the ICU.

Local police response? They arrested two people, and gave them a misdemeanor charge and a 50 dollar ticket for pulling a man off of his Harley and nearly killing him.

And it's been going on like this for... fuck? Years here in Milwaukee? And yet the cops do nothing about it save for hushing it up. That's why I don't like most police officers. There are very few exceptions.

Actually THIS I know quite a bit more about than I can say, sorry. What I CAN say is that police only make arrests, the state, local, and FEDERAL prosecutors decide if they will or WILL NOT press charges AGAINST certain people due to a host of POLITICAL REASONS. Police also don't control the press, and its very unpopular right now to depict things like race riots. I can go on and on about this but frankly remember police answer to their higher ups and sometimes PR trumps Public Good( though it should not)

Well, all I know is the police refused to make arrests, those that did were white officers.The entire situation is just bull shit.

Amen to that sir. Sadly Wisconsin is also kinda like that.

Yeah well that's where I'm at.

I'm certainly not going to tell you to move, but given the political climate in Wisconsin right now, I don't see much changing, I know morale is pretty bad for a number of reasons for LEO's there, and they are almost as handcuffed as the people they arrest.

I am still thinking I should uproot and emigrate to Sweden.

I love cops, theyre here to keep the peace and thats all they can do buth theyre still human and some are bad and some are good, and some turn bad from years of having to deal with stressfull situations and people who wont listen to reason, besides you imagine what it would be like with out cops? lot more robberies and rapes and murders would probably happen if it werent for johnny law smacking guys with his nightstick, Now dont get me wrong, i know there are cops who commit crimes and the police sometimes tend to abuse theyre power but id rather kiss an officers boot for him to protect me then get robbed in my own home because there arent any cops.

Another person here via Momma-Vicky.

I won't go into personal stories, I'm sorry but I won't. But what does get me is that, in a lot of places (It's getting the most press in some US States right now) it's legal for police to record an incident with a dashboard camera with audio in a public place, but if a civilian does so obviously they get slammed with Wiretapping laws and other harsh charges. In a public place, and no expectation of privacy (Not always a legal concern in some States, I've found out. Some require that all parties approve the recording, but the Dashboard Recorder is still legal and admissible in court. Even if the other person is not approve of their being recorded.).

The infamous case of the guy caught speeding, and had a cop jump out of his unmarked car (Plainclothes, no ID, no call out of "Police!") waving a gun in the fellows face for far too long before IDing himself... Well, yes, the guy was speeding, he admits it himself and shows it on the camera, but got nailed with heavy, heavy charges because he had an obvious webcam on his helmet recording. (Honestly, it's one of the white "Ping-Pong" Webcams on a black helmet that can't be missed.).

I'm not hating on Dashboard Cameras, they're actually a damned good system for showing who is in the right or wrong in a lot of cases from both sides of the issue. As well, as you stated, those can be the most dangerous of times for an officer (And not just the people in the car, but also traffic next to the vehicles! More than one LEO in my hometown was killed by a drunk driver while doing a typical traffic stop and was hit on the way to/from the car they stopped. Nothing to do with the stop at all.). But if they're on for the officers, they should be on for the person being stopped as well.

Actually I'm a firm believer in dash cams, I think the "laws" that are being cited about recording the police don't in any way cover those incidents, I believe most or all of the charges against that motorcyclist have been dropped and the officer (and rightly so because I'd have SHOT him and gotten off), disciplined. Btw he was off duty, not plain clothes.

I get recorded a few times a month(though mostly it's tourists who think it's so neat seeing us out in the desert with our rifles), still and video, I don't mind, keeps me honest, but shoving a camera in a cops face while he's trying to work is dangerous and can get him, you, or third parties hurt.

If you think a cop is doing something questionable or he's getting way out of line, record it, trust me, they can't make those charges stick, but if he's going about his personal or private business, or just doing regular every day stuff, be considerate, an remember that bad guys can make bail and they watch YouTube also.

Can you arrest people and ect while off duty?

It varies by situation. Usually they better be committing a felony or present a serious threat to public safety.

Those charges have apparently stuck in some situations. :( And, even when they haven't, a number of police officers and power-tripping security guards are more than happy to insist that recording things in a public place is "Illegal", even after being outright informed by their superiors that it's completely legal and allowed. The laws were not designed with the idea that everyone and their dog might have a camera with sound and the ability to distribute it around the world with the click of a few buttons, and we're seeing the results. (Also, got to watch the editing on those pieces of footage. A cop putting the beat down on someone might be completely justifiable if said person pulled out a few weapons just a few moments before and legitimately threatened his life, but that part got cut from the footage. Of course, this has been an issue with the media for years now, as well.).

With you on the "Shoving a camera in someone's face", completely. Not just police, but any Emergency Personnel. I remember hearing about the EMTs being pushed away by paparazzi after the Princess Di crash.

Any occupation at all, really. I certainly wouldn't want someone shoving a camera in the face of one of the blasters in the mines back home when he's working on the detonation caps.

Some of my best friends are cops. That being said, the unions make it too damned hard to get rid of a bad cop. Bad cops aren't all that common, but they really tend to stand out, like any bad man with a gun and a sense of entitlement does. If hold-up men had as good a union, they'd be indistinguishable from bad cops.

If you are a real shitbag, and people report it, no union will save you.

That hasn't been my experience, ESPECIALLY in Philadelphia. Even committing blatant murder doesn't seem to hurt.

I've only met one guy who's a genuine good cop, and even then it took me a week to get to know him, and he was in service leave for that whole week. My absolute distrust in you police officers are mostly based on rumors and TV articles about idiots tasering people to death for the most frivolous of reasons, but there's no knowing that it wouldn't happen here in Australia. They're just as boorish here as UK or American cops.

Also, I can't rely on you cops at all, at least here anyway. There's always a delay, and there's no knowing if I'll get arrested for self-defense, because this is the same shithole where the cops are taught by the UK rules of "arrest anyone applying any degree of self-defense". Small wonder people die here just for being good samaritans, and just to push the insult even deeper, some even tell civvies to "not be idiots" about this thing, which pretty much translates to "you were never allowed to do our jobs from the beginning".

It's like a "know your place, maggot" kind of ultimatum that I'd sooner hide or die from.

Well, I did say I know nothing of most other countries, Americans are much more pro self defense, I myself suggest people arm themselves, this whole "how can you tell te gunman from an armed citizen" arguement is retarded. the gunman is the one who doesn't put down his gun/stop pointing it at me when I ask him.

It is actually impossible to taser someone "to death" all deaths so far attributed to the taser x26 ecd
Which I do carry and have been subjected to it several times while others are being certified(I enjoy demonstrating the taser).

For the record, there is no bigger advocate of the taser Ecd than myself, the taser works in situations where I'd otherwise have to use lethal force, such as people with knives who refuse to comply but also aren't actively trying to kill me. Persons on pcp, drunks, a guy with a blunt instrument, in the past, the only option was a firearm, now there is a damn near 100% effective intermediate method which does not lasting harm.

The taser can defuse a situation by it's mere presence. There is no finer tool in the law enforcement arsenal at this time.

On the flipside, you have taser abusers among your ranks. That's one thing that keeps me from ever wanting to have anything to do with cops.

It's possible, I abuse the taser in the sense other people abuse alcohol, I enjoy it. I will tell you the taser has saved an incredible number of lives.

http://www.itstactical.com/warcom/a.....w-enforcement/ Something concerning the taser you may like to read. There's also this article you may find handy for your job: http://www.itstactical.com/intellic.....r-and-zombies/

I haven read the links, this is from my iPhone, I just want to say you had me at "zombies"

Well, the one is a home made breaching tool made by modifying a Stanley Fatmax Fubar.

In my opinion, it's because people have a natural disdain for authority figures, as well as may've had bad experiences with them in the past.

My own mother has been harassed by police for speed traps and two-faced speed signs before. A sign which was a listed speed limit on one side and another listed limit on the other. The cop patroling it would roar up and pull you over no matter what speed you were going on either side of the trap.

Then he tried to intimidate her outside the court room into dropping her case with the town/state and make her admit she was speeding.

Hehe, 2 faced signs, that's and old one, technically those are uni-directional, meaning going one way the speed limit is going up, going the other way its going down, we have those on the interstate here where it goes into town, heading east out of town it says 75, heading west into town it says 65. I think that cop might HONESTLY have realized he totally screwed it up and was trying to intimidate your mother into dropping it so that he wouldn't look like an idiot, did the court rule in her favor?

It may sound stupid, but the law enforcement culture is one of constant hazing by coworkers, seriously, I know people with 25 years in, and they're still ruthlessly mocked if they do something silly, and some people will do really idiotic things to try to avoid that. Me, I just buy donuts when I screw up.

This dude STALKS that sign and those like it. It was no "honest mistake", it was one of those instances where an asshole acts like an asshole and then when they're called on it, "lol sorry I have aspergers I can't help it."

He knew what he was doing.

fun fact: My state is one of the few states which it's a felony to record a police officer during a routine traffic stop. They can and will confiscate your device, and you will be prosecuted for it, no matter what. I don't actually know if this allows the courts to rule the evidence inadmissible, but in any case, one would think that if for whatever reason, you don't have a proper working trust relationship with your public defenders, that it be allowed to be antagonized by something like that.

While Chicago has a long history of public corruption at many levels, I'm sure most police officers are friendly enough when they're not pulling you over. I find it frustrating, however, that the option of "trust, but verify" is taken off the table, and that immediate escalation of the situation is actually enshrined into state law. For most people, this frames any situation as inherently distrustworthy, since the law comes off as having the presumption that one party can't be trusted (either the police, or the person with the recording device).

I know there are several pending legal challenges to that law, I encourage you to record anything you see as wrongdoing by the police and then take it to court if they try to press charges, if you feel it's
Unconstitutional, I do, then you should have nothing to fear.

Except the cost of the lawyer.

I believe there are several excellent legal defense funds for this issue now.

Good to know. Hope this issue gets dealt with at a Federal Level so there's less confusion soon.

Trust me, it's not worth possibly spending the night in jail and someone thumbing through my contacts. But I certainly believe it's unconstitutional. The notion here is that the law prevents any unauthorized recording of a conversation between 2 individuals without both individuals giving consent, but of course there is no reason to bother asking if some other abuse is going on. Even asking can be construed as antagonistic by nature. Furthermore, even though the law sounds sensible on its face, it was created in response to (and is normally only applied in) situations where a police officer was recorded during routine traffic stops by the driver of the other vehicle...

http://www.prisonplanet.com/appeals.....lm-police.html


I realize its Prison Planet reporting this, but its an actual ruling, and hopefully will clear this issue up.

FTR, it does specify on duty.

I'm in the 7th circuit. This ruling only applies to the 1st circuit, and furthermore, you should know that the person who was arrested under this law was an actual lawyer, who was doing the recording on public property (a public park). It's little comfort to me that the law remains on the books in other states, including my own, and even if the 1st circuit court of appeals had jurisdiction to set precedents here, the decision was most likely construed in such a way that the law could be rewritten to simply step around the specific circumstances where it occured (the aforementioned public venue).

Sorry, the fact this issue even exists in the first place should've been enough to reasonably explain a certain amount of distrust in law enforcement (not to mention politicians in general, who I don't think would be healthy to trust beyond a certain degree in any case). It is unfortunate, and I don't like it, but it's not the people's fault there exists an adversarial reputation with the police in many aspects. These sorts of laws are just one example. One example I hope can be put behind us, but again that remains yet to be seen. (I'll be following where this goes...)

IMO, cops are like furries: a few assholes are ruining the image for the rest of 'em.

I've had a little more exposure to law enforcement than most; my father is a retired federal agent, my uncle Al is chief of police, and a friend of mine in Ohio longs to be one of the po-po as well. Most policemen are dedicated to their jobs. It's a calling; the truly live to "Protect & Serve." We are lucky to have them.

There are some people who unfortunately become cops because they like being in a position of power & authority, and abusing both, and that fouls things up for the rest of those on the force who treat people with courtesy & respect.

Thank you ma'am, that's kind of my aim to communicate that here, as well as explain some of the wierd stuff we do,'why we do it.

I will say with my opinion of police is that I know there's good ones, but ones that do push their authority like this cop: http://www.theblaze.com/stories/you.....-traffic-stop/ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/.....y_King_Beating

and this one:
http://archive.chicagobreakingnews......bartender.html

It's my opinion that cops of that type who abuse their power should be either stuck at a desk for the rest of their career, fired and lose all their benefits or even get a stricter punishment for their crime. The reason I would like to see a stricter punishment for a cop for breaking the law is because they are supposed to be role models and protectors. How can they effectively protect and serve if the people they are supposed to protect and serve fear and hate them?

When my sister got married, one of the guests on his way home was speeding. He got pulled over and so he showed the cop his badge. Cop said that he should know better and let him off with a warning. Unless it was an emergency, if I had been pulled over, I would have gotten a ticket, so I don't think that was right that he got off with a warning because he's a cop. I've seen cops speeding on the interstate without their sirens running or lights flashing. They are just speeding. I've even seen them do illegial u-turns at intersections and never turn their lights or sirens off. Those are instances of cops breaking the law that irritate me.

I agree wholeheartedly and "badging" you way out of a ticket is something you can be severly disciplined for at most departments

What did you think of the cop who threatened the guy who had a legal concealed carry permit and tried to tell the officer but kept being interupted, and when he finally got to tell the cop, the cop went ballistic? What surprises me is his partner didn't stop him and pull him away. Hell, can a cop even arrest his own partner if his partner breaks the law, what does a cop do in that situation?

I am not aware of the precise situation, but it is the opinion of myself and those Agents I choose to associate with, that one of the most important things you can do is be there to tell your partner when he needs to back down, calm down, or stop when (not if) they do something in excess of what they should or do it in a way that is wrong, we are not perfect, we WILL make mistakes, we will lose our tempers, we are human beings, that is when it becomes the most important to have a good guy who you know has your back, and who you know cares enough to tell you "WHOA... Calm down there bro.. "

Yes, if your partner breaks the law, and I don't mean goes ballistic or too far or is just being an asshole, but seriously breaks the law, you can arrest them.

What surprises me with the police video the most is that when the one cop starts making death threats against the guy, even saying "When you told me you were armed, I should have stepped back, pulled my glock and unloaded ten rounds into you! And I wouldn't have lost any sleep over it!" Or even when he said to the guy "Do you want me to pull my gun out and put it against your head?" the partner didn't say anything or do anything to stop him when at that point he had severely crossed the line with those death threats.