I think most people who “back the badge” don’t condone this type of behavior.
I’d say most of us here probably know or have known a lot of police officers over the years. In my opinion they generally fall into two camps. 1) People looking for a stable career and feel they’re doing a civic duty and 2) people who are bullies or were bullied and want to have some kind of power.
These types of incidents are probably almost all attributable to the latter type. But law enforcement personnel have a difficult job and they’re expected to handle all these run-ins with all types of criminals who harass and bait and curse at them, spit on them, threaten to kill their families, etc whether they signed up for civic duty or to have power over people.
Of course they know what they’re signing up for when they join the ranks, but a lot of these people are coming on in their early 20s thinking they’re going to be Crockett and Tubbs and then they’re either shuffling papers or breaking up domestic disputes or seeing horrible shit they can never forget that haunts them the rest of their lives.
By the time they really figure it out they’re far enough into their careers they feel trapped into remaining in law enforcement and that creates a vicious circle. The verbal abuse, the the constant threat to ones’ personal and family’s safety, the stress, anxiety, depression.
It’s a pretty shitty and thankless job they also attracts a certain element of shitty and resentful people. Considering the mental load these people carry day in and day our and the number of potentially violent run ins they have with all types of potentially dangerous people, mistakes are going to be made.
On the other hand things like this awful incident unfortunately end up as a political football pitting right vs left when it’s really a ridiculously tiny percentage of power hungry jerkoffs that end up doing something like this.
The conversation shouldn’t be about political affiliation, it should be about making sure police departments are properly vetting candidates, training their people properly, and giving them easy access to QUALITY mental health care to help them cope with the immense mental toll the job inherently entails.
Like Murph, I had a similar situation years ago when I was pulled over in Indiana for speeding fairly late at night. I was traveling to Indy for a meeting and the officer got me for 54 in a 35. I was incensed because I had clearly passed the 55 mph sign before I sped up to 54. I said go back and look at where you were sitting and where the 55 mph sign is. That just pissed him off so he wrote me a ticket. I went to court and pled my case with pictures showing where the 55 sign was and the driveway the cop was sitting in when he clocked me, and they threw it out.
As much as we don’t like it, the best policy when confronted with a real or imaginary wrong doing is probably to be calm and respectful and let justice do its job when the time comes. Whether we like it or not, getting shitty with a cop is almost always going to end up making things more difficult than they’d have been otherwise.
I also realize I am a white middle class male, and am less likely statistically to 1) Be pulled over 2) have some sort of citation or charges pressed against me than a black male would. But until we have police with no power and/or emotions, it’s probably best for everyone to act like a reasonable adult when there is a confrontation with law enforcement. Whether a person is innocent or guilty af just let it run it’s course and if and when there’s a court date let the evidence and your civility do the talking.
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