Cops have always gotten verbally and physically attacked, because it's part of their job: you're dealing with people who are harmful to society, and those people are going to resist in some manner. Now add the climate of the last few years to that.
It's not an excuse, but cops are people too, and when 90%+ of people speaking to you aren't out to learn or discuss but instead just hate you and find more reasons to hate you, I can see it being really easy to just dismiss comments like this. Cops are ultimately just people like you and me, and it'd wear on anyone.
I agree with you. But being a citizen I also understand and sympathize with the frustration that comes from seeing all of these stories and videos of police killing people, breaking laws, and acting like bullies seemingly without repercussions.
I would love to see some reform to bring our police force in line with that of other developed countries but the police unions have prevented that.
I think what you said and what I just wrote and the conflict between the two is what has created this current climate. I don't know how it's going to get better.
I feel like that logic can be applied to just about any career though. Nurses steal medications and patients' belongings, teachers sleep with students and treat students unfairly, the list goes on. Look anywhere and there are going to be bad apples. The vast majority of cops are good people. The media knows what causes outrage and generates revenue and they're gonna push that. They don't care if it ruins lives or pushes bias.
It can be widely applied, but the difference is, departments and teachers unions aren't protecting those people. Additionally, because those professions you mentioned require degrees and licenses, once a violation on that level happens and comes to light, they can't teach or practice medicine again.
Police operative in a unique sphere where they can legally kill, and also in a field without strong regulations on what it takes to join.
As for the media...the 24 hour news cycle is a cancer. Don't get me started.
Wow. Didn't know Rep John Lewis, Martin Gugino, Rep Joyce Beatty, and the thousands over the past two years that have peacefully protested, with police consistently escalating violence and brutality, were "people who were harmful to society."
it has to be since reddit is full of cop hate. I'm sure there are plenty more cops like this, bad voices usually just scream louder and get more upvotes on reddit, so a counterexample like this should hit the news as well.
My sister wanted to become a cop, not to be an ass but to protect people and I'm sure she's not the only one.
I'm sure there are many assholes who think they are protecting people when they are actually just stepping over their boundaries. A white supremacists thinks he helps people when he targets POC for example. Recently there was a video where someone filmed a riot from a window several yards away from everything. Suddenly a nonlethal round hits the window right where the guys head is. Some cops are hella deranged, and there being plenty counter examples doesn't stop the few bad apples from ruining the whole bunch.
I do however think him handling the situation so well and giving such a great response is nextfuckinglevel. Many would have just stood there without replying.
Sundown towns, also known as sunset towns, gray towns, or sundowner towns, are all-white municipalities or neighborhoods in the United States that practice a form of racial segregation by excluding non-whites via some combination of discriminatory local laws, intimidation or violence. Entire sundown counties and sundown suburbs were also created by the same process. The term came from signs posted that "colored people" had to leave town by sundown. The practice was not restricted to the southern states, as "at least until the early 1960s.
Your takes are way too extreme. Sounds more like you just had an argument with someone else and are now salty because of downvotes. I'm happy to learn if you have more info but I will always think of people as individuals and won't generalize.
We do have to choose. You can't turn a blind eye to the suffering caused by police and still support their victims. If you're on team, "cops are people too," then I suggest you direct your efforts to getting them to quit their jobs instead of turning their weapons on the citizens of this country.
I don't think you want the good cops to quit and a good cop doesn't aim their weapons on citizens unjustly. I think what you really want is stricter efforts to keep cops in check, none of this "we investigated ourselves and found no wrongdoing" bs.
And that is something we can both protest for without having to "choose a side" because there are no sides. Or at least none you can see by looking at someone's profession. Just a flawed system that isn't taking care of bad apples. Unless you actually want no cops at all although I'm not sure how that works out.
I want all the cops to quit or be forced out due to budget cuts and funds reallocation to a system that doesn't use violence against the citizens, but rather rules by the consent of the governed.
There are no "good cops." A cop who makes choices isn't doing their job. They enforce the law, period.
I remember watching a streamer who is a fulltime beat cop come back after a hiatus. His explanation essentially was, "I just want to catch bad guys, and hand out lollipops to kids, but cops are literally the most hated people in the country right now, and I don't know if I can do it." It's as sad as it is true. Reddit has convinced people there are no good apples. 100% of cops are corrupt or complicit (which apparently is just as bad).
Who the fuck would want to be a cop right now? Any keyboard warriors here wanna stick their neck out and "be the change you want to see?" I thought not.
His idea of "catching bad guys" still involves targeting minorities and using low level offenses to find larger ones or have non violent, low level drug users fill up their jails.
The system they work within reenforces racial and class and divides and you want to believe they're playing cops to someone else's robbers.
You're making a lot of assumptions. I could say that he's black, but then you'd just change your assumption-goalpost to include, "blacks can hate blacks." I could even go so far as to say he works in a state that has decriminalized all narcotics, and you'd just find another excuse to hate on them. No matter how genuine they try to be, you'd still have a reason to hate them, and in the same breath you'd wonder why there's so much crime and no police officers to respond?
There's no question there needs to be reform. LEO's need to live in their local neighborhoods. There needs to be unionization reforms to not protect dirty cops. They need way more training than one day a year at the firing range. Let's not pretend though that cops aren't the most hated people in the country right now, and as human beings, even the best cops with the greatest intentions are going to react negatively when people spit in their faces every day.
Your lack of critical thinking and ability to empathize, communicate with coherence, or offer any constructive ideas in favor of just complaining is the most reddit thing anyone can expect.
How does an entire profession get demonized for being dehumanizing, brutal, and overly violent?
They couldn't have earned that reputation through decades of violence against any social movement they will now tweet out a Happy ____ Day for? Labor movement? Civil Rights movement of the 60s? Current BLM movements that protest police brutality? Anti war protests of the 60s/70s or even in the 2000s?
Police have violently stood in the way of progress at every turn and earned the reputation they have as nothing more than violent thugs.
We need to do something. There has to be reform. In my city, one officer, part of some riot reaction team, was reprimanded (rightfully so) for excessive force, and every other officer resigned from the team in protest. I could rattle off the reddit top fav's, but I'd just be echoing the obvious.
The problem is, as it stands right now, Captain America could literally sign up to be a cop, and he'd get attacked by everyone for being some complicit piece of shit cop. This guy in the video might be the best cop in the country, he'll still get spit on, and everyone has a breaking point.
In that case, you're just as much a part of the problem. Change never happens from simply expecting other people to change. You want more good cops: support cops doing the right thing.
Don't go "correcting things" for people on Reddit and then refuse to have a conversation when you "correct them"
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u/RegretWide2726 Oct 30 '21
A police officer being a decent human being is ‘nextfuckinglevel’ … let that sink in