Who frightens you most: cops or robbers?

March 1, 2009 2:28 PM

We've had a lot of police brutality threads lately, and those have gotten pretty heated. It might be good for each of us who are interested in talking about this to make it clear where we're coming from. hermitosis suggested a poll -- let's do that. Here's a quick and highly unscientific survey about how crime and law enforcement have affected each of us (I hope this is the right place to do this -- it's not really an askMeFi question).

The Survey

Quantitative:

Violence:
List the number of times in the past you have suffered an unprovoked, violent attack
A) by a police officer
B) by someone who is not an on-duty police officer.

(including, say, pushing and shoving)


Time and Money:
List the number of times when you have lost a significant amount of time or money due to the unlawful actions of
C) a police officer
D) someone who is not an on-duty police officer.

(getting a parking ticket should not count, though getting a parking ticket when you don't own a car should count. This question is about the prevalence of bad cops, not the prevalence of bad laws.)


Fear:
Your subjective assessment of the likelihood (% chance) of something really bad being done to you this year by
E) a bad cop.
F) an uniformed criminal.


Qualitative:

Say something about what it's like where you live.
- what kinds of crime are commonplace?
- what kind of reputation do the police have?
- are certain groups of treated particularly poorly by the police?
- do you face discrimination yourself?
- etc.

Anything else:
- What is your overall impression of the police
- What has shaped your impression?
- What could be done to make things better?

posted by justsomebodythatyouusedtoknow to MetaFilter-Related at 2:28 PM (81 comments total)

There is not enough money in the world to entice me to answer these questions on MetaFilter let alone in a reviewed, private, sociological setting.
posted by Science! at 2:35 PM on March 1, 2009 [6 favorites]

I think I phrased that wrong. In a controlled, monitored study, I would be apprehensive but may answer these questions. On MetaFilter, no way.
posted by Science! at 2:36 PM on March 1, 2009

Are uniformed criminals the ones with the striped pyjamas? I probably won't have anything bad done to me by them, although I might get hit by rock chips flying from their sledgehammering.
posted by DU at 2:42 PM on March 1, 2009

I think you mean "even in a reviewed, private, sociological setting, let alone on MetaFilter." But yeah, I don't think too many people are going to want to fill out a whole lengthy questionnaire, and it's usually pretty clear from people's responses in the cop threads what their preconceptions/attitudes are. Me, I've never had any violent run-ins with cops (personally, one on one, though I've been involved in protests where confrontations took place), and I respect those individual cops who try their best to deal fairly with the public, but in general I focus more on the malignant aspects of the system (the culture of covering up for each other, the readiness to use verbal and physical violence against random members of the public, the impulse to view all civilians as potential criminals unless they are of such obvious high status that they fall into the "protected" category), and I have little patience for people whose first impulse is to come to the defense of cops accused of pretty much anything and to accuse the rest of us of not respecting the danger these men face every day in order to protect our ungrateful asses from criminals.
posted by languagehat at 2:43 PM on March 1, 2009 [2 favorites]

("I think you mean" was aimed at Science!, but I see he figured it out himself.)
posted by languagehat at 2:44 PM on March 1, 2009

DU: "Are uniformed criminals the ones with the striped pyjamas? I probably won't have anything bad done to me by them, although I might get hit by rock chips flying from their sledgehammering."

Burn!

languagehat: "I think you mean "even in a reviewed, private, sociological setting, let alone on MetaFilter." But yeah, I don't think too many people are going to want to fill out a whole lengthy questionnaire, and it's usually pretty clear from people's responses in the cop threads what their preconceptions/attitudes are. Me, I've never had any violent run-ins with cops (personally, one on one, though I've been involved in protests where confrontations took place), and I respect those individual cops who try their best to deal fairly with the public, but in general I focus more on the malignant aspects of the system (the culture of covering up for each other, the readiness to use verbal and physical violence against random members of the public, the impulse to view all civilians as potential criminals unless they are of such obvious high status that they fall into the "protected" category), and I have little patience for people whose first impulse is to come to the defense of cops accused of pretty much anything and to accuse the rest of us of not respecting the danger these men face every day in order to protect our ungrateful asses from criminals."

Thanks, you are better at teh many letters than me.
posted by Science! at 2:45 PM on March 1, 2009 [1 favorite]

I've hardly had any dealings with the police whatsoever, but this survey doesn't seem like a good idea. Partly because I don't know what a "uniformed criminal" is.
posted by katillathehun at 2:46 PM on March 1, 2009

I think we can all agree on what an uninformed criminal is though right? That guy that walks into a sodium nitrate plant expecting to steal sodium nitrite, what a rube.
posted by Science! at 2:48 PM on March 1, 2009 [7 favorites]

I question the premises of drawing a distinction between on-duty and off-duty police officers here, as one of the primary traits of bad cops is their own inability to draw such a distinction.
posted by Navelgazer at 2:51 PM on March 1, 2009

Usually, long questionnaires like this come with incentive gifts like pencils, pennies, keychains, free magazine subscriptions, or Blockbuster coupons. There wasn't anything in my envelope.
posted by terranova at 2:56 PM on March 1, 2009 [3 favorites]

Oh goodie, a MeTa thread about police brutality so that all the cop apologists can remind us how they're not posting in the MeFi threads about police brutality because we're too dim and idiotic and marxist to even bother responding to!
posted by birdie birdington at 2:56 PM on March 1, 2009

G) start a fire.
posted by gman at 2:59 PM on March 1, 2009

I'll be honest; I think this is a bad idea.

When discussing any subject, the burden is on the poster of a given comment to provide context. Well-behaved MeFites should know that when a comment is provocative, asking that person for additional context (in-thread or via MeMail) is a better response than responding immediately to the comment. Of course, if that person responds with hostility or further provocation, you can always flag the comments or stop feeding the troll.

Also, this "poll" will be frozen, but people's attitudes and experiences change over time. This reinforces the need to provide context in their comment, to accurately reflect their state of mind when writing it. I believe this MeTa thread is more likely to fuel "you said X here, but Y there, you hypocrite!"-type derailing than provide useful context to a person's comment(s) elsewhere in the future.

So, I respect what you're trying to accomplish, but I personally believe this is absolutely not the right way to go about it.

Side note: this is the internet. A "quick" poll is four options and a radio button group.
posted by davejay at 2:59 PM on March 1, 2009 [4 favorites]

Best Beats Of The Web
posted by turgid dahlia at 3:01 PM on March 1, 2009

Dude. I have a life.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 3:04 PM on March 1, 2009 [1 favorite]

My answers:

A/B = 0/0

C/D = 0/4

E/F = 2% / 5%


Where I live:

I'm in Vancouver, which is one of the most dysfunctional cities in Canada as far as crime and law enforcement go.

The murder rate isn't too too high, but we do get a lot of gang related murders. Vancouver's pot culture combined with our current drug laws means that organized crime is very profitable.

Property crime is through the roof. You see, Vancouver has both a very large homeless population and plus a rather shocking slum in the downtown east side; local government has done little to improve conditions for either. Notably, they've only begun enforcing the building code on slumlords in the past few weeks. In short, this is a very bad city in which to be poor or mentally ill, bad by Canadian standards, at least. Since it's a very wealthy city which also includes a lot of desperately poor people, theft is commonplace.

We are policed by the VPD in the heart of the city and the RCMP in the suburbs. The police are basically out of control. e.g. the RCMP's tasering Robert Dziekanski to death, three racist police officers randomly beating up a newspaper deliveryman.

I've always been treated well by the police whenever I've been in contact with them. This may (may) be related to my being white, middle class, and dispositionally deferential.

Given my history with them, I tend to be a sympathetic with regards to the pressures that turn people into bad cops. For want of psychiatrists, affordable housing, effective social services, etc., their job is basically impossible. What happens to a group of people who are given an impossible job and get raked through the coals when they fail? They circle the wagons.

Having said that, police officers accused of crimes should be investigated with greater scrutiny than ordinary people, and should receive maximum penalties for their crimes if convicted. Ha! Someday...
posted by justsomebodythatyouusedtoknow at 3:08 PM on March 1, 2009

Well, uniformly negative response. Sorry -- apparently this was a bad idea.
posted by justsomebodythatyouusedtoknow at 3:10 PM on March 1, 2009

At least someone took the time to fill out the survey.
posted by gman at 3:11 PM on March 1, 2009 [2 favorites]

I think the problem is that they have to be celibate and i'm not too sure if that helps them relate to the folks in the real world theyre meant to be helping.
posted by sgt.serenity at 3:11 PM on March 1, 2009 [3 favorites]

I think we can all agree that if criminals wore uniforms it would be a lot easier to not be attacked by them. At the same time, the proportion of police attacks as a subset of uniformed criminal attacks would skyrocket.
posted by blue_beetle at 3:12 PM on March 1, 2009

Well, I don't think it's a bad idea exactly, it's just that people prefer to simply have opinions rather than qualifying them (not that they can't, it's just a hassle). For me, I live in Brisbane, Australia and I've never been roughed up by a cop and don't know anybody who has. In fact, whenever I'm staggering around inside a pub at three in the morning and the blue-and-reds start flashing outside, generally what I tell people is "Hey, my ride's here!"
posted by turgid dahlia at 3:13 PM on March 1, 2009

In Rwanda, prisoners who took part in the genocide have to publicly work in pink uniforms. It's great.
posted by gman at 3:18 PM on March 1, 2009

Are you hypothesizing a predictive relationship between our experiences and our views?

As a social scientist, I'd be happy to take you through the nine kinds of fail inherent in the premises of this exercise.

But for the record, I've been the victim of violent crime, and I've been detained by police (though not arrested) and I have known a dozen or so cops or friends who became cops, and far more children of cops.

And I don't trust cops as far as I can spit unless I have to.
posted by fourcheesemac at 3:19 PM on March 1, 2009

*There are exceptions. I fall into the "a majority of cops are basically bad people" camp; but a significant minority seem to be human.
posted by fourcheesemac at 3:20 PM on March 1, 2009

Fear:
Your subjective assessment of the likelihood (% chance) of something really bad being done to you this year by
E) a bad bank
F) a business-uniformed criminal.
posted by kuujjuarapik at 3:20 PM on March 1, 2009

Um, how is this supposed to help discussions in future police threads, again?
posted by mediareport at 3:23 PM on March 1, 2009

Oh yeah, man. Those robber crabs scare the hell out of me.
posted by Fiasco da Gama at 3:27 PM on March 1, 2009

Hey, I'll play.

a.) Suffered two unprovoked beatings personally and witnessed one unprovoked beating of somebody that I was with. Three seperate incidents.

b.) Never

c.) The first beating referred to in question a resulted completely invented charges being brought. ABH, obstruction, etc. Led to legal costs, time defending case, etc. Result was acquittal at trial.

Once had drugs planted on a coat that belonged to me, in order to justify the execution of a search warrant that resulted in nothing being found. The charges in that case were dropped before the case made it to trial.

d.) Never

e.) and f.) No idea. No point in speculating, IMO.

Also: I'm not black. Guess I'm just lucky.
posted by PeterMcDermott at 3:35 PM on March 1, 2009 [1 favorite]

My uncle used to love me but she died.

In other words, wtf?
posted by You Should See the Other Guy at 3:35 PM on March 1, 2009

an uniformed criminal

Do you mean like the Beagle Boys, or like Electro?
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 3:41 PM on March 1, 2009

Oh, and for my part:

A/B: 0/0

However, I am white, which makes a difference here, it seems.

C/D: 0/2

Same as above.

E/F: 2%/?

I don't really know how to answer that. I don't think it was necessarily a bad idea to get a feel for where people are coming from, but I think the questions would definitely need to be phrased differently than this. Harassment or outright refusal to assist, for instance, are probably the biggest things to fear from the police, but they neither necessarily are violent nor result in loss of significant amounts of time or property, and even the "unlawful" part is hazy.

Cops need to be held to a higher standard than criminals (and I don't know what the hell "uniformed criminal" means.) When they commit civil rights violations, it destroys faith in the system, which destroys the peace. The wrongs they commit are generally of a different breed than the ones other criminals commit, but this survey pushes the mind towards gang-member types of crimes, and then asks if cops are doing those. You might as well also ask the number of times MeFites have been pulled over by the Bloods and Crips on account of their skin color.

The questions present a false dichotomy akin to asking an Bush administration critic why they want the terrorists to win. I don't think you planned it that way, but that probably has a lot to do with the reactions your post has gotten.
posted by Navelgazer at 3:52 PM on March 1, 2009

Also, at 6'1" and over 200 lbs, I don't usually get hassled by anyone, police included. But that doesn't mean I trust them. A system that protects rogue police and a culture that worships the ground they walk on is a recipe for disaster.
posted by DU at 3:59 PM on March 1, 2009

Oh goodie, a MeTa thread about police brutality so that all the cop apologists...

By 'cop apologist' do you mean anyone that refuses to indict a million or so people in a given profession based upon anecdotal evidence and the behavior of individuals? Or do you mean anyone who doesn't agree with you?

I can understand those who view dysfunction on the part of law enforcement as a result of institutionalized negligence. This is a legitimate point of view and there are few in law enforcement who would argue that reform is desperately needed.

What I don't understand is those who say, "I was jacked by a nasty cop for no good reason so all cops suck!"
posted by cedar at 3:59 PM on March 1, 2009 [5 favorites]

Sometimes cops are mean. Some cops are nice. Some people join the police force for the wrong reasons, some for the right reasons.
If someone is trying to hurt me and I call 911 for help they will come and try to stop them from hurting me, including if the person has a gun. I like that.
posted by vapidave at 4:03 PM on March 1, 2009

This thread is a terrible idea. Not because it's merely an excuse to drag an awful debate that brings out the ugly side of so many MeFites into yet another thread on another area of the site—wait a second while I upload my bluegrass version of "Cop Killer" to MeFi Music—with absolutely no prospect of doing anything to change anything, but because I never fill in surveys without some kind of bribe. I would suggest pancakes, but I'm more in the mood for waffles.
posted by nowonmai at 4:06 PM on March 1, 2009

so that all the cop apologists

STUFF WHITE PEOPLE LIKE
posted by dhammond at 4:08 PM on March 1, 2009 [1 favorite]

so that all the cop apologists can remind us how they're not posting in the MeFi threads about police brutality because we're too dim and idiotic and marxist to even bother responding to!

I'm sorry, did you say something? All I'm getting over here is pops, clicks and buzzes, with the occasional Rage Against the Machine guitar riff ...
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 4:15 PM on March 1, 2009

As I said in the thread, I didn't get a beat down, but I was about 30 seconds away from one. (Changing a tire at night on a major highway sucks and sorry officer, but I was trying to not get run over when some STRANGE MAN WHO DID NOT IDENTIFY HIMSELF wanders across the large median to shine a flashlight in my face. What the fuck did you think I was going to do? Lie on the ground? No, I'm going to put my arm in front of my eyes and raise the other hand holding a tireiron and prepare to kneecap a bitch.)

Note: I am a young white female and this was in a fairly affluent area. It was around 10pm and I was driving a Civic with tinted windows and headlights and flashers on. Fuck you and your 'oh I didn't see you there' bullshit.
posted by sperose at 4:16 PM on March 1, 2009 [1 favorite]

refuses to indict a million or so people in a given profession based upon anecdotal evidence and the behavior of individuals?

Who else would we base it on the behavior of? Scientific evidence would be nice, if it were possible to gather such in the face of self-serving secrecy and "internal affairs" "investigations".
posted by DU at 4:21 PM on March 1, 2009 [1 favorite]

Here comes the good shit.
posted by gman at 4:22 PM on March 1, 2009 [1 favorite]

Here comes the good shit.

I love this argument, we should have this argument every Sunday that doesn't have football on.
posted by vapidave at 4:37 PM on March 1, 2009 [1 favorite]

Oooh, oooh, "Leading Questions," I love this game! Can I play? I'm sure you can find the right categories for these:

List the number of times a police officer has stopped or questioned you for no good reason, versus a uniformed criminal doing the same.

List the number of times a police officer has attempted to intimidate you, versus a uniformed criminal doing the same.

Would you say that part of your fear is based on police officers visibly carrying mace, batons, and loaded guns?

Would you say that part of your fear is based on a perception that, in a court of law, the police officer would be more likely to be believed than you, rather than you versus a uniformed criminal?

Would you say that part of your fear is based on a perception that police officers can freely add charges of "disorderly conduct" and "resisting arrest"?

Would you say that part of your fear is based on a perception that you could physically defend yourself against a uniformed criminal and not automatically go to jail, versus physically defending yourself against an on-duty police officer and automatically go to jail?

How many television shows do you know of which glorify intimidation and violence:
By police?
By uniformed criminals?

I'm just getting warmed up. I'll return later with more important questions!
posted by adipocere at 5:17 PM on March 1, 2009 [2 favorites]

these drugs..can I find them?
posted by dawson at 5:23 PM on March 1, 2009

A-Never
B-Once in 1st Grade
C-Do speeding tickets count? I've gotten two of those and one under age drinking ticket which I don't think I should have gotten. Me and a friend stayed around to be witnesses to a car accident and when the cops showed up they gave us drinking tickets.
D-Wow, probably too many times to count. Getting charged bullshit fees by Cable/airlines/banks/university. My univeristy is charging me 300$ for a course I didn't take b/c I dropped it one week in, kinda my fault but you'd think they could cut me some slack. Also being forced to pay them 5000 in dorm fees freshman year is bullshit, especially when they charged 1.15$ for a pack of Ramen.
E-Not really afraid of cops, I'm not black
F-What kind of criminal. A murdering rapist? Yea I'm pretty afraid of those. A guy who sells weed? Not really afraid of them, I actually like most of them.

l live in a sheltered college town so my run in's with cops are usually as follows

Cop "why are you so drunk, get the hell out of here and go home"
Me "ok officer"
posted by BrnP84 at 5:28 PM on March 1, 2009

One more from last month

cop "why are you peeing on that building"
me "I really had to go"
cop "get the hell out of here and go home"

pretty nice of him considering
posted by BrnP84 at 5:30 PM on March 1, 2009

When I was a girl, my family had some reason to go into a police station in Massachusetts. I don't remember why we were there (it wasn't anything stressfu) but I do remember one of the cops was wearing a T-shirt that said "Police brutality -- the fun part of law enforcement."
posted by The corpse in the library at 5:32 PM on March 1, 2009

A few years ago, I lived in a building with an odd structure on top. My landlady had ours screened-in one day, and the guys who did it (and hauled away two truckloads of pigeon poop) accidentally trapped a pigeon in there. She called them, and they said they'd be by the next day to deal with it.

That evening two cops showed up and rang the doorbells to both apartments. We (me, my husband, and the landlady) were told by the cops that the crazy pigeon lady across the street wouldn't stop calling to complain about our trapped pigeon, and would we please all look ashamed and guilty while they stood there and told us gossip about her and the pigeons she kept in her bathtub.

After a few minutes the cops walked away, then one turned and yelled "And don't do it again!" and we all looked scared and shouted "Sorry, officers!"

What? I thought we were sharing cop stories.
posted by The corpse in the library at 5:44 PM on March 1, 2009 [23 favorites]

You should hang out with public defenders if you want to hear stories about cops. One time the police car videotape that showed them stopping the defendant also later included that cop having sex with another officer in the car while both on duty. Good stuff.
posted by salvia at 6:09 PM on March 1, 2009

I like the cop threads, in the same way I really enjoyed that videotape of the NYU protesters last week. But I'm not sure we need to have one every week.
posted by Bookhouse at 6:15 PM on March 1, 2009

Only two things come to mind.
1. It takes three patrol cars, and officers out of the cars, at various vantage points to the offending vehicle, to give a ticket for an expired inspection sticker in the minority neighborhoods in Austin.

2. In 2005, I sub-leased 6000 square feet of commercial property. The alarm system was supposedly divided between the two sections of the building, but there was one master system. The landlord neglected to inform me that if no one set the alarm, it would auto-set at 10:00 PM. We only had motion detectors in the front office. The siren on our side of the building was broken... you can see where this is going. Suffice it to say that I worked long into the evening one night in the back of the building, walked up front about 15 minutes before leaving, and tripped the alarm, giving the police enough time to arrive on the scene about the time I was actually exiting the building, with no idea I had tripped the alarm. I walked out the front door, dead-tired after a 16-hour day, to two service pistols in my face. Fun feeling, that. Fortunately, I froze when instructed to, and they then gave me a chance to ID myself, and we worked out what must have happened, though they were dicks about me not knowing the alarm auto-set, and they were dicks about having been called out to a false alarm. I'm really glad they didn't shoot me.

My landlord (not really a landlord -- just the jerk next door who was sub-leasing) didn't even apologize for his oversight when I told him the next day I'd nearly been shot -- he just said "Oh, yeah, it auto-sets at 10:00. You didn't know that? I'll see about getting the siren fixed."

Other than that, I just don't mess with the police, and fortunately, they don't often mess with me. All my other vehicular violations -- speeding, whatnot, --probably 5 or 6 -- have been utterly trouble-free, and the cops have been polite. I've gotten warnings twice, when going more than 10 miles over the limit. "Yessir, nossir, thankyousir." That's all I ever say, unless asked a pointed question.
posted by Devils Rancher at 7:05 PM on March 1, 2009

This is a very poorly thought-out survey. Sorry, but it's true.
posted by tzikeh at 7:07 PM on March 1, 2009

A Policeman is a disgrace to his country, not alone to the mother that suckled him, in the first place he is a rogue in his heart but too cowardly to follow it up without having the force to disguise it...
posted by Fiasco da Gama at 7:20 PM on March 1, 2009

Seems like this is just a way to do that thing where people who disagree with other people go back into their comment history and use someone's own comments against them.

More importantly, it doesn't make a difference how one's opinions are formed. Being beaten by cops at some point in the past might be a reason why someone is anti-cop, but it's not an excuse.
posted by gjc at 7:49 PM on March 1, 2009

We're getting to the point where "cop injures citizen, WTF??????" posts are the new Israel posts in terms of trainwreck potential, MeTa liklihood and all-around usefulness to MeFi.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 7:52 PM on March 1, 2009 [2 favorites]

Man, I totally first read that as uninformed criminals.
posted by klangklangston at 8:31 PM on March 1, 2009

ps. Bookhouse— Homicide was totally great, though Simon's prose got a little frothy at the end. Know if there was any follow-up with those cops?
posted by klangklangston at 8:38 PM on March 1, 2009

Other than the stuff with Ed Burns, I don't know of any follow-up with the other detectives (my copy of Homicide has an afterward written much later, does yours?). Agreed about the froth; The Corner is much worse in that respect. If you don't remember, the follow-up I recommended was The Shrine of Jeffery Dahmer. Very different than Homicide, but a really intelligent true crime book nonetheless.
posted by Bookhouse at 8:55 PM on March 1, 2009

Nah, it just ends with him fresh off writing the book.

I'll take a look for that book—Ideally, I'll be able to get it through the library.
posted by klangklangston at 9:04 PM on March 1, 2009

These posts may seem useless to you, Jessamyn, but I believe they're saving lives.
posted by Crabby Appleton at 9:20 PM on March 1, 2009

Nah, it just ends with him fresh off writing the book.

On reflection, I could be wrong. My copy is on loan, so I can't check.
posted by Bookhouse at 9:38 PM on March 1, 2009

These posts may seem useless to you, Jessamyn, but I believe they're saving lives.

I think your estimate of the reach and influence of a post on MetaFilter is . . . rather optimistic.
posted by jason's_planet at 10:05 PM on March 1, 2009

I was pulled out of bed and had my head put through some drywall once by Vancouver cops because they were raiding the wrong apartment (you know, mine).

But then once they realized what they'd done and before they got permission to take off the cuffs, one of them lit a smoke for me and put it in my mouth.

I also had a run in with the Mexican police. That turned out better than it ought to have, all things considered.

So I don't hate cops. I just think they're as likely to be semi-competent as anyone else.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 11:58 PM on March 1, 2009

how is this supposed to help discussions in future police threads, again?

I'd hoped that we'd be less likely to shout at each other if we were each talking about our own lives. As it turned out, we shout at each other less when we have someone to laugh at.

This is a very poorly thought-out survey.

It was a mistake to call it a survey at all. "How often has X happened to you" seemed like a good way to get stories out of people, but it certainly sounded as though I was handing out 2B pencils. It ended up being a massive, utterly useless distraction.

davejoy explained exactly why the second half of the "survey" is also useless.

Are you hypothesizing a predictive relationship between our experiences and our views?

If anything, I'd expect a stronger correlation between addresses and views. I was asking about experiences out of honest, hopelessly misguided curiosity.

Harassment or outright refusal to assist, for instance, are probably the biggest things to fear from the police, but they neither necessarily are violent nor result in loss of significant amounts of time or property, and even the "unlawful" part is hazy...a false dichotomy akin to asking an Bush administration critic why they want the terrorists to win.

Here's where I just have to hang my head in shame. Thanks Navelgazer, that needed to be said. At least, it needed to be said because I didn't say it. Sigh.

The questions present a false dichotomy akin to asking an Bush administration critic why they want the terrorists to win...You might as well also ask the number of times MeFites have been pulled over by the Bloods and Crips on account of their skin color.

That's...fair. I'm honored to be on the receiving end of such high quality snark, but embarrassed to have deserved it.

Would you say that part of your fear is based on police officers visibly carrying mace, batons, and loaded guns?

The funny thing is that I'm actually not in the cops-can-do-no-wrong camp. I'm kind of terrified of cops. They're dressed in black, heavily armed and not known for having a sense of humor. That's fear I feel toward good cops, and as I said earlier the cops in my city are out of control.

uniformed criminal...Do you mean like the Beagle Boys, or like Electro?

That's a typo. I'm afraid of unformed criminals, like Clayface.


Um, so... best of the web? Do I get a gold star now?
posted by justsomebodythatyouusedtoknow at 12:08 AM on March 2, 2009 [2 favorites]

Quantitative, zeros all the way down.

Qualitative, I'm not in a discriminated class, I have friends and relatives who are, and I also have buddies who are cops.

I have two friends who've alleged discrimination or disproportionate violence by police. Their stories make me a lot less wary of police officers than the stories that my police buddies have passed on to me about on or off duty police brutality that they've heard about but not directly witnessed (although in one case, a buddy made a point of not being around to witness a fellow officer pepper spraying a homeless guy).

We're getting to the point where "cop injures citizen, WTF??????" posts are the new Israel posts in terms of trainwreck potential, MeTa liklihood and all-around usefulness to MeFi.

So what you are saying is that you are anti-cop and antisemitic? Just kidding, no not the banhammer, ouch, ow ow ow, come see the brutality inherent in the system, help I'm being oppressed.
posted by BrotherCaine at 12:14 AM on March 2, 2009 [2 favorites]

This is a bad thread, and you're a bad person for posting it.
posted by empath at 1:20 AM on March 2, 2009

More importantly, it doesn't make a difference how one's opinions are formed.

Yeah, despite having been on the receiving end of a couple of beat-downs and a fit-up, I don't think it's changed my attitude towards the police at all. I knew that some cops were capable of doing this stuff long before it ever happened to me. However, I've also had cops who were arresting me go way out of their way to be generous and gracious about the way they handled the arrest -- probably operating on the basis that you catch more flies with honey than vinegar

While I don't have (and never have had) any family or friends who were cops, I've had some dealings with them professionally, and my experience of them in that context is this:

The less intelligent cops -- of whom there are many -- tend to be bullies with a ludicrous sense of entitlement. Canteen culture teaches them that if a suspect so much as farts in their general direction, then that's cause for 13 weeks leave of absence for medical reasons, while they push through a claim for criminal injuries compensation. The entitlement thing is grounded in this notion that 'we risk our lives every day...blah, blah, blah', but the reality is, when most of them are likely to be allocated to a task that might result in them facing genuine risk -- ie, pursuing some of the armed, take-no-prisoners gangsters that run the drug trade in this city, they're *also* likely to take extended leave of absence for medical reasons. (PTSD is very popular, I hear.)

The further up the command chain you go, the smarter they are likely to be and the smarter they are likely to be, the greater the sense of duty and a responsibility to the communities they serve they seem to have. Lowly Plod neither gets nor respects that -- they just tend to resent it.

Somebody on that MeFi thread linked to a blog that they said was the best of the UK police blogs. If true, I'd hate to see the worst. It was your archetypal, Daily Mail-reading, ex-army rozzer, who seems to think that the poofs and the lesbians are conspiring with the brass to prevent honest coppers like him from catching criminals. It's very typical of the self-serving bullshit you tend to get among that segment of the force.

'What, there are problems with the police? Somebody else's fault, guv. Not mine. Even in the army-- as most of us were -- we'd never *dream* of calling someone a nigger or a paki.'

Not when you'd have to fight them in a fair and equal fight, you wouldn't. But when you've got all the power and they've got none? Sorry pal, I've seen it with my own eyes far too often to fall for this kind of crap.

Although Liverpool, writ large, was an international seaport city, it was not true that the city as a whole was this cosmopolitan. Anything but. Downtown Liverpool was off limits to Blacks, who would be routinely terrorized for trespassing there.

City police did the terrorizing, which culminated in the Toxteth Riots. Since then though, there's been a genuine attempt on the part of the brass to try to make the force responsive to the needs of all of its citizens -- with varying degrees of success, but they can't be faulted for effort.
posted by PeterMcDermott at 6:35 AM on March 2, 2009

This is a bad thread, and you're a bad person for posting it.

Is this why daddy has to drink?
posted by Devils Rancher at 6:40 AM on March 2, 2009

I am afraid of any stranger carrying a firearm.
posted by Faint of Butt at 6:56 AM on March 2, 2009 [1 favorite]

I wish I had a sockpuppet for naughty things...then I would answer this question.
posted by schyler523 at 7:21 AM on March 2, 2009

Faint of Butt : I am afraid of any stranger carrying a firearm.

We should be ok then; I don't carry any of my guns.

I've moved on to grenades.
posted by quin at 8:36 AM on March 2, 2009

but in general I focus more on the malignant aspects of the system (the culture of covering up for each other, the readiness to use verbal and physical violence against random members of the public, the impulse to view all civilians as potential criminals unless they are of such obvious high status that they fall into the "protected" category),

This.

Venting about bad treatment...that's just trees in a big forest. The problem is that police culture is diseased.
posted by desuetude at 9:16 AM on March 2, 2009

I think your estimate of the reach and influence of a post on MetaFilter is . . . rather optimistic.

Maybe so, although I think there are a lot of lurkers on MeFi. And it might be more a matter of preventing broken noses or "melon hands". Even so, it's important to get the message out that it's necessary to be very careful around cops. MeFi attracts a lot of, uh, unworldly people, who assume that others are as reasonable as they. Or maybe it's just people who are taken in by the incessant pro-cop propaganda on TV. (Just how many versions of "Law and Order" are there, anyway?) They need repeated real-life object lessons such as these to drive home the reality of the situation.
posted by Crabby Appleton at 9:25 AM on March 2, 2009

Police officers who have been complete dicks to me for no good reason: 40%
DMV employees who have been complete dicks to me for no good reason: 0% (having to work at the DMV is reason enough)
Realtors who have been complete dicks to me for no good reason: 100% (NYC), 0% (elsewhere)

DO YOU SEE A PATTERN HERE!?!?
posted by ook at 10:47 AM on March 2, 2009

I'm a liberal who is a liberal who was mugged. I have seen a police riot. I have seen billy clubs and tear gas used to close down a party. But then I remember the 60s. However, after endured the blow back, chemically speaking, of the WTO festivities, I wonder just how much, when it comes to cracking heads, has changed. When you see police taping over their badges, look out. And blacked out badges were a feature at WTO.

On a sidenote--you ever notice how, when there's a demonstration or poltical action, how the chief of police or mayor always talk about the bags of urine and feces being thrown at the police. I find this claim very dubious. There are some many why's and how's involved. Peeing in a container is easy enough but making a water balloon with it. Water balloons break so easily--who would want to expose themselves to that ? Defecating into a bag is possible enough and even the preferred method in overcrowded neighborhoods in the third world. But the same problems of packaging, leaks and spills are there as with the alleged bags of urine.

And then there is the whole problem of delivery. To be delivered anonymously, it would have to be thrown from back of the front line. Who would want to be between that and the target. I am calling shenanigans and propaganda on this. You always hear about these things but I don't recall items actually being produced. And, even if produced, how easy it would be to do this. As easy as planting dope on a person.

As for the problem in general, I tend to think that this another argument for David Brin's Transparent Society. With cameras everywhere and a public access feed, you'd think it would have the effect of lessening police violence. The Transparent Society certainly seems a lot closer with the advent of YouTube. With a camera in every phone and every phone a laptop, makes the space for private and privileged violent acts a lot smaller. Think Abu Ghraib. Would we have been a tenth as outraged without the pictures ?
posted by y2karl at 10:51 AM on March 2, 2009 [2 favorites]

Even so, it's important to get the message out that it's necessary to be very careful around cops. MeFi attracts a lot of, uh, unworldly people, who assume that others are as reasonable as they.

I still agree with jessamyn's point above -- that these posts tend to turn into unproductive shouting matches that don't showcase the best of the web or build community.

But that is a pretty good argument, I have to say.
posted by jason's_planet at 11:49 AM on March 2, 2009

Newly arrived to New York CIty about 10 years ago, I was encourged to attend the St Patricks Day parade. As someone who lived for 15 formative years in Ireland, this is not normally the sort of thing I would do, but whatever. My Oirish-American in-laws bought a few beers, put them in brown paper bags, and we walked up to Central Park to see their buddies in the Ancient Order of Hibernians walk by, wearing Clancy Brothers sweaters, berets and sunglasses (for that chic terrorist look). A cop took some of us aside, and made us pour out our beers, warning us that This Is Not Allowed. OK - he was enforcing the local law, and was perfectly fine about it.

Moments later, another cop came by to apologise about his fellow officer's actions, called him a "Spic" and said he'd get revenge for us at the next Puerto Rican day parade.
posted by Nick Verstayne at 1:33 PM on March 2, 2009 [1 favorite]

With cameras everywhere and a public access feed, you'd think it would have the effect of lessening police violence.

We've had several examples of Police Brutality being recorded on CCTV lately, leading to acquittals of those wrongly accused, and convictions of police concerned.

Here's one of the more egregious examples.

And another.
posted by PeterMcDermott at 1:34 PM on March 2, 2009 [1 favorite]

While I think there are real problems with police violence and accountability, at the same time, as I've gotten older I've really learned to respect people who choose to become police officers, because they're really just a hair-breadth away from day every time they go to work.

Think about a cop directing traffic at an accident on the highway on a dark, rainy night. All they have is their faith that people will slow down and see their reflective jackets and not slam into them.

Or think about a cop pulling over a car with expired plates, never knowing if he or she will be on the receiving end of a shotgun blast.

As I said, there are a lot of problems with the policing system. But there is also a lot of mayhem out there, and I'm glad I can pick up the phone and call the police station if I'm ever in trouble.

Yeah, I know, it's a little wide-eyed and unrealistic, but I'm really glad the cops came around and got the teenage methhead who was terrorizing our neighbourhood, smashing windows and stealing stuff.
posted by KokuRyu at 1:48 PM on March 2, 2009

MeFi attracts a lot of, uh, unworldly people, who assume that others are as reasonable as they.

I totally agree with this assertion, yet this is also an argument for turning AskMe into the worst sort of nannying JudgeMe site and also for a lot of "sign my petition things are getting really bad guys!!" posts. These threads don't just "fail to thrive" they go terribly, resulting in a lot of MetaTalk thread, a lot of ill will, a lot of truly terribly behavior from people who otherwise seem to be able to keep it under control. They also have this weird tendency to start with people basically predicting their demise in that "oh wait til the cop apologists show up and start being assholes..." way. We'd make the effort to aggressively moderate these threads, maybe, if they weren't sort of far afield of what MeFi is for, nominally, and if they weren't so frequent and so predictable.

I don't think, after all this, they're helping anyone get along better with cops.

If people want to help people get along better with cops, they'd be better off putting links to Copwatch and the ACLUs "what to do if you are stopped by the police" on their profile pages and mentioning these reources in civil tones whenever the topic comes up.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 1:48 PM on March 2, 2009

I've talked my way out of an embarrassing number of speeding tickets, and Officer McNally once knocked on the door to tell me the kids were breaking bottles down by the pier. Oh, and one time a kitten was treed in the yard, and The New Cop (in town 6 years) took a long look and said, Well, I've never seen a kitty skeleton hanging off a tree, so let's not worry about it. That's all I've got!
posted by thinkpiece at 2:04 PM on March 2, 2009

This isn't over!
posted by Passillododorconquail Buttonquivorybidododorbacon at 5:32 PM on March 2, 2009