I think that whole incident shows that dash cams and other types of cop cams don't necessarily curb police abuse. I think the main reason is that they all feel pretty confident that even if they completely break the law there is likely to be no consequences for the police. Until we start holding the police accountable for breaking the law. The problem is that the only people who are willing to do that type of work (policing) are often people who are attracted to the idea of being able to exert power over other people (sociopathic inclinations in many cases). If we start prosecuting them and holding them accountable then it will be really hard to find people to do the job because there is no advantage to beating and killing people as a police officer if the consequences for doing it are the same as an ordinary citizen. If that were the case, the violent sociopaths might as well just go out and take their chances without the uniform. It is the same reason that pedophiles are attracted to the priesthood, they know that they can victimize people and be protected while doing it.
Violent sociopaths are attracted to policing for the same reason, they know that they can exert power over others and be protected.
I don't believe that we do have that right. I believe that the law says we do, but practically, cops have near-absolute authority to detain and arrest you, and you'd be hard-pressed to prevail in a civil case of unlawful arrest (and at that point, you've already been dragged down to the station, had your fingerprints uploaded to the Federal database, been strip-searched and spent time in a cell).
I also believe that upper-middle-class white males will have much more success in exercising that right than members of other societal groups will.
"...large gender gaps favoring women throughout the sentence length distribution (averaging over 60%), conditional on arrest offense, criminal history, and other pre-charge observables. Female arrestees are also significantly likelier to avoid charges and convictions entirely, and twice as likely to avoid incarceration if convicted."
I believe anyone that has obvious visible wealth can easily exercise that right -- police like that are bullies and only pick on those they know cannot defend themselves. If you take a upper-middle-class white man and dress him as if he were homeless, he will get the asshole treatment. Likewise p-diddy is renowned for talking shit to cops and having them meekly walk away many times in the past.
I think that this is a misuse of 'right' in an important way. Rights are things that you have innately, not things that you are given; your rights can be abused or abrogated, but not taken away. Thinking of rights as things that are given to you, I believe, makes it easier on some subtle, even just linguistic, level to stop fighting for them when a purely philosophically committed person might fight on.
With that said, I agree that it is important to distinguish the practical consequences of exercising your rights from their philosophical consequences, though: while you should be able to behave in a lawful manner to police officers without fear of reprisal, it is important to realise that you probably can't.
Facing an angry police officer is one of the first examples in How to Win Friends and Influence People. I remember once where I turned the wrong way into a construction area late at night and accidentally drove on the tar. The officer was pissed at me and suspected I was drunk (I hadn't had a drop). Calmly explaining that I was tired and lost and had screwed up out of confusion rather than malice got me out of there with only a lecture.
Of course we have the right. The question is whether or not it is wise to exercise that right. In many (most?) cases, that would be an unwise choice, for the reasons you mentioned. And yes, that is problematic.
I believe it is important to understand that having a right, but choosing not to exercise it is a philosophically different scenario than not having the right in the first place.
What drives me crazy is the corporativism of police union and syndicates, turning a blind eye even when there's a 3 min video (!) recording the absurdity of the case.
Here's what Michael Palladino, president of the Detectives' Endowment Association, said about the case:
"Detective Cherry is a person of good character and an excellent detective. He really should not be judged by one isolated incident."
Except, it wasn't at all isolated:
"Over the course of his 14-1/2 years on the force, Det. Cherry has has received a total of 13 civilian complaints against him according to a person with knowledge of the latest complaint." [1][2]
And, even if it was his first abuse, why should he get a free pass?
In NZ, if a police officer arrested someone because they were verbally abusive to that officer, he or she would not remain an officer for long.
Though here it might be different? Police always work in pairs and so there is sort of a peer driven enforcement of proper professional behaviour. Not sure if thats the same in the states.
In reality, you have the right to mouth off to everyone. But, generally not a good choice because if you're mouthing off to everyone, there's a good chance you're just a dickhead. Why not just be civil?
> Sometimes people use “respect” to mean “treating someone like a person” and sometimes they use “respect” to mean “treating someone like an authority”
> and sometimes people who are used to being treated like an authority say “if you won’t respect me I won’t respect you” and they mean “if you won’t treat me like an authority I won’t treat you like a person”
> and they think they’re being fair but they aren’t, and it’s not okay.
I agree that you shouldn't be rude to Police (or better put, you should treat them with the same respect you'd treat anyone else), but it's important that you can be rude. "The freedom of individuals verbally to oppose or challenge police action without thereby risking arrest, is one of the principal characteristics by which we distinguish a free nation from a police state." - Justice William J. Brennan Jr.
I said in a previous thread that police should make it a point of pride to be able to ignore irritated or verbally abusive people. Just play it straight and robotically to slowly calm people down. I believe a lot of police actually do this already, but is there on-going training to keep the rest on track?
And the cop has the legal right to not give you the benefit of the doubt when you do. The majority of the time you have a hostile interaction with police is because you broke the law in some minor way.
This is exactly what happened to Sandra Brand. She exercised her right to mouth off and she got arrested, totally legally for something the police typically ignore.
You gotta be 100% sure you are clean when you try this. And even then a shitty cop could just make something up.
> "arrested, totally legally for something the police typically ignore"
That's not totally legal any more, because it violates the fourteenth amendment. The exercise of your rights does not justify police charging you with unrelated offenses they would normally let slide; they have to treat all citizens fairly regardless of the extent to which they choose to do legal things.
Please, please do not "Mouth Off," or whatever people call it, a cop. I understand this is much easier said than done, specially when someone is being disrespectfully and you feel your dignity is at play.
I suggest every time a cop stops you you try to record the entire scene, and have it be automatically recorded somewhere else in case they try to delete it.
Even if you do not record, be polite, keep as quiet as you can and take your time later to complaint and spread the information via every channel you know/want.
In the moment, anything you say or do, is likely to work against you.
At a traffic stop there are a few things to keep in mind before deciding to mouth off.
1. More than half of traffic stops result in a warning, not a ticket. When the violation is too severe for a warning, in many cases the ticket will be for a lesser level of offense. For instant, in many states the fine and effect on insurance rates for speeding is higher if the speed was more than some threshold over the limit. Often if you are over the threshold, the officer will write the ticket for just under.
Being rude and obnoxious will greatly increase the chances that you'll get the ticket, and that it won't be written down to a lesser level offense.
2. You don't know what the prior stops that day have been like. Maybe the officer has just dealt with a string of drivers who were rude and obnoxious, and were trying to pushing him to his limits, and he's managed to barely kkep his calm. Not knowing this, you could easily push him farther than you intended.
3. You don't know who the next person stopped will be. You are putting the officer in a bad mood for them, which could make it less likely they will get a warning, or more likely something they do will get them in trouble.
>2. You don't know what the prior stops that day have been like. Maybe the officer has just dealt with a string of drivers who were rude and obnoxious, and were trying to pushing him to his limits, and he's managed to barely his calm. Not knowing this, you could easily push him farther than you intended.
In which case he should be fired.
Prior incidents are not an excuse for a supposed professional, and doubly so if he is paid by the taxpayers.
Would you give the same courtesy to a waiter, a bus or taxi driver, a sales clerk, etc?
I don't think this is a good idea even if it is your right. Sure, stand up for yourself, don't grovel, but rudeness doesn't particularly improve any situation, especially one where you are at a total disadvantage.
Cops are people. If you cannot behave like a human you should expect to be treated like a rabid dog. Yes of course there are bad cops, the number of precious little entitled uncivil little snowflakes vastly outnumber those.
I was always taught to respect others and respect authority. In a civilized world, you should be civil to everyone. I would no sooner mouth off to a cop as I would mouth off anyone else. It's disrespectful and speaks volumes about the person spouting off and nothing about who he's going off on.
Respect and civility to everyone is a higher cause. To even think of doing otherwise is beyond right thinking.
Part of right thinking, I feel, is recognising the rights others have even outside your own philosophical framework. I completely agree with being civil to everyone, as far as possible—though, at a certain point, I think that an emotional response to uncivil provocation can be excused. With that said, I also feel that I should recognise others' rights to exercise their, well, rights, even when I disagree with them. As GBS said, "The reasonable man adapts himself to the conditions that surround him; the unreasonable man adapts surrounding conditions to himself. All progress depends on the unreasonable man."
You can believe what you want and believe it is a moral stance, but as a response to the article posted your statement counts as an endorsement of the violent conduct exercised in response to those who do not share your perspective. That fact poses a damning implication on the morality of your beliefs.
Unless you would like to clarify that you respect the rights of those who disagree with you?
And every cop has the right to punish you for it. Not a real legal right of course, but one forged through generations of corruption, insecurity, and abuse of power!
Insulting a cop is actually a crime in Germany. But ironically, you're probably in less danger for doing it than you would be in the US, where it's technically your right, but effectively not.
In Germany, you'd get a citation and a fine. In the US you roll the dice on a beating, a night or two in jail, and/or a thought-up charge as retaliation.
So what? We probably also have a legal right to walk up to random people in the mall and tell them to go fuck themselves. But why would we?
There is a police problem in the country sure. A startling proportion of police are probably abusive, racist, violent, power hungry and probably stupid to boot. They are maybe often lazy and dishonest and protected by corrupt unions. But how does flipping them off make them any less so or do anything in any way to improve the situation?
Here's the bottom line.. Police officers are people too. They have a pretty tough job and see a lot of trash. So they likely are a bit jaded already. Cut them a break and treat them with civility. Work in your community to insure that police act civilly as well (or else find other professions). Basic manners on all sides are an important feature of human relations that seems to be forgotten about in the modern world.
Nobody with the power to kill citizens with impunity deserves a break of any kind. That policing is not the most heavily scrutinized job in America is a bug, and while I believe you have good intentions in entreating that we treat them nicely, I think that the systemic failures of their culture and their practice have demonstrated that, if anything, we should be doing the exact opposite.
I don't assume a cop is going to hassle me, but I'm a well-to-do white male and I do know how to both play the game and how to correctly assert my legal rights, just in case. I do assume that that cop will hassle any number of my friends without those check-marks of privilege and foreknowledge, because, systematically, they do exactly that. That makes more than the barest of civility a very big ask.
[+] [-] zw123456|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] TazeTSchnitzel|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] URSpider94|10 years ago|reply
I also believe that upper-middle-class white males will have much more success in exercising that right than members of other societal groups will.
[+] [-] xiaoma|10 years ago|reply
There is overwhelming evidence that women are treated more leniently, not men. Here is one example: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2144002
"...large gender gaps favoring women throughout the sentence length distribution (averaging over 60%), conditional on arrest offense, criminal history, and other pre-charge observables. Female arrestees are also significantly likelier to avoid charges and convictions entirely, and twice as likely to avoid incarceration if convicted."
[+] [-] mhuffman|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] JadeNB|10 years ago|reply
With that said, I agree that it is important to distinguish the practical consequences of exercising your rights from their philosophical consequences, though: while you should be able to behave in a lawful manner to police officers without fear of reprisal, it is important to realise that you probably can't.
[+] [-] waqf|10 years ago|reply
Personally my money is on upper-middle-class old ladies.
[+] [-] Natsu|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mikeash|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] codingdave|10 years ago|reply
I believe it is important to understand that having a right, but choosing not to exercise it is a philosophically different scenario than not having the right in the first place.
[+] [-] guiambros|10 years ago|reply
What drives me crazy is the corporativism of police union and syndicates, turning a blind eye even when there's a 3 min video (!) recording the absurdity of the case.
Here's what Michael Palladino, president of the Detectives' Endowment Association, said about the case:
"Detective Cherry is a person of good character and an excellent detective. He really should not be judged by one isolated incident."
Except, it wasn't at all isolated:
"Over the course of his 14-1/2 years on the force, Det. Cherry has has received a total of 13 civilian complaints against him according to a person with knowledge of the latest complaint." [1][2]
And, even if it was his first abuse, why should he get a free pass?
[1] http://gothamist.com/2015/04/02/cherry_jammed_up.php
[2] http://blogs.wsj.com/metropolis/2015/04/01/nypd-officer-who-...
[+] [-] spacehome|10 years ago|reply
Is this how they treat suspects? You have to marvel at the cognitive dissonance.
[+] [-] AdeptusAquinas|10 years ago|reply
Though here it might be different? Police always work in pairs and so there is sort of a peer driven enforcement of proper professional behaviour. Not sure if thats the same in the states.
[+] [-] NeutronBoy|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] MBlume|10 years ago|reply
> and sometimes people who are used to being treated like an authority say “if you won’t respect me I won’t respect you” and they mean “if you won’t treat me like an authority I won’t treat you like a person”
> and they think they’re being fair but they aren’t, and it’s not okay.
http://stimmyabby.tumblr.com/post/115216522824/sometimes-peo...
[+] [-] frostmatthew|10 years ago|reply
I agree that you shouldn't be rude to Police (or better put, you should treat them with the same respect you'd treat anyone else), but it's important that you can be rude. "The freedom of individuals verbally to oppose or challenge police action without thereby risking arrest, is one of the principal characteristics by which we distinguish a free nation from a police state." - Justice William J. Brennan Jr.
[+] [-] prawn|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tonyarkles|10 years ago|reply
I'm not convinced that I wouldn't have just punched that kid in the face...
[+] [-] ap22213|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rhino369|10 years ago|reply
This is exactly what happened to Sandra Brand. She exercised her right to mouth off and she got arrested, totally legally for something the police typically ignore.
You gotta be 100% sure you are clean when you try this. And even then a shitty cop could just make something up.
[+] [-] wtallis|10 years ago|reply
That's not totally legal any more, because it violates the fourteenth amendment. The exercise of your rights does not justify police charging you with unrelated offenses they would normally let slide; they have to treat all citizens fairly regardless of the extent to which they choose to do legal things.
[+] [-] rokhayakebe|10 years ago|reply
I suggest every time a cop stops you you try to record the entire scene, and have it be automatically recorded somewhere else in case they try to delete it.
Even if you do not record, be polite, keep as quiet as you can and take your time later to complaint and spread the information via every channel you know/want.
In the moment, anything you say or do, is likely to work against you.
[+] [-] tzs|10 years ago|reply
1. More than half of traffic stops result in a warning, not a ticket. When the violation is too severe for a warning, in many cases the ticket will be for a lesser level of offense. For instant, in many states the fine and effect on insurance rates for speeding is higher if the speed was more than some threshold over the limit. Often if you are over the threshold, the officer will write the ticket for just under.
Being rude and obnoxious will greatly increase the chances that you'll get the ticket, and that it won't be written down to a lesser level offense.
2. You don't know what the prior stops that day have been like. Maybe the officer has just dealt with a string of drivers who were rude and obnoxious, and were trying to pushing him to his limits, and he's managed to barely kkep his calm. Not knowing this, you could easily push him farther than you intended.
3. You don't know who the next person stopped will be. You are putting the officer in a bad mood for them, which could make it less likely they will get a warning, or more likely something they do will get them in trouble.
[+] [-] coldtea|10 years ago|reply
In which case he should be fired.
Prior incidents are not an excuse for a supposed professional, and doubly so if he is paid by the taxpayers.
Would you give the same courtesy to a waiter, a bus or taxi driver, a sales clerk, etc?
[+] [-] mixmastamyk|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ageofwant|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] justwannasing|10 years ago|reply
Respect and civility to everyone is a higher cause. To even think of doing otherwise is beyond right thinking.
[+] [-] JadeNB|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] zzalpha|10 years ago|reply
There's a big big difference between what's polite and what's legal.
[+] [-] ende|10 years ago|reply
Unless you would like to clarify that you respect the rights of those who disagree with you?
[+] [-] panarky|10 years ago|reply
Should disrespectful people be intimidated, arrested, injured or killed because they're not respectful, obedient citizens like you?
[+] [-] keithblaha|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pille|10 years ago|reply
In Germany, you'd get a citation and a fine. In the US you roll the dice on a beating, a night or two in jail, and/or a thought-up charge as retaliation.
[+] [-] jqm|10 years ago|reply
There is a police problem in the country sure. A startling proportion of police are probably abusive, racist, violent, power hungry and probably stupid to boot. They are maybe often lazy and dishonest and protected by corrupt unions. But how does flipping them off make them any less so or do anything in any way to improve the situation?
Here's the bottom line.. Police officers are people too. They have a pretty tough job and see a lot of trash. So they likely are a bit jaded already. Cut them a break and treat them with civility. Work in your community to insure that police act civilly as well (or else find other professions). Basic manners on all sides are an important feature of human relations that seems to be forgotten about in the modern world.
[+] [-] eropple|10 years ago|reply
Nobody with the power to kill citizens with impunity deserves a break of any kind. That policing is not the most heavily scrutinized job in America is a bug, and while I believe you have good intentions in entreating that we treat them nicely, I think that the systemic failures of their culture and their practice have demonstrated that, if anything, we should be doing the exact opposite.
I don't assume a cop is going to hassle me, but I'm a well-to-do white male and I do know how to both play the game and how to correctly assert my legal rights, just in case. I do assume that that cop will hassle any number of my friends without those check-marks of privilege and foreknowledge, because, systematically, they do exactly that. That makes more than the barest of civility a very big ask.
[+] [-] justwannasing|10 years ago|reply