Judging the Police

Let's see...where to start with the uninformed opinions and claims.

* Cops do not have the right to murder. They can be called upon to use force in the line of duty and that force is supposed to be calibrated to the situation at hand.

* Cops are not allowed to use "excessive force". They are only allowed (and trained) to use the force necessary to deal with the threat.

* When pointed out by a witness as being the suspect, running *will* get you chased. If it's a violent crime and you aren't found laying on the ground around the next corner with your hands ready to be handcuffed behind your back, you *will* be taken down. Sometimes that takedown will be gentler than others. It all depends on the situation.

* I have never met a cop that got into police work so they can kill people.

* Yes some cops lie. Cops are human after all (we ask humans to do a job we can't or won't do). If we catch them in a lie, we should end their careers -- period.

* Cops can and do make mistakes, but most of the posts I see here criticizing police actions spew from the mouth of an uninformed (sometimes deliberately so) person who isn't interested in becoming informed. If a cop makes a mistake we train them to remove that mistake. If they continue to make the same mistake (especially if it is a serious one), we should end their careers -- period.

and finally...

*) Who do you expect to chase a possibly violent stabbing suspect...you? You wife? How about your grandma? When you call 911 who do you want to respond? If you didn't have 911, what would *you* do?

The simple fact is, we ask them to do a dangerous job that we (as citizens) can not, or are unwilling to do. We train them, give them weapons and ask them (as a society) to solve our problems for us. This way we don't have to look at the criminals, the druggies, the filthy whores, the pimps, the violated children, the dead bodies, any more than we have to.

I think the least we can do, as members of our society, is to try to understand the job we require of them.

After all, we ask them to do it.