Police Brutality...are they given too much power?

[Sol-Blade]

Okay, I just saw this story on the local news here and I was wondering what you would all think about this. Please note: It's not one about racial profiling or any crap like that.

Anyways, to sum up the headline:

Two officers responded to a Disturbance in Public call outside a local bar. There was a man, drunk, apparently yelling and screaming about how he lost everything in a bet (But apparently could still afford some drinks...:D...anyways) and had nothing else to lose and so on. Well the officers approached him and asked him to calm down, and he did. The man sat down on a bench while the one officer went to question local bystanders. Apparently, the drunken man muttered some words that offended the officer really, [i]really[/i], badly because next thing you know...according to everyone at the scene...the officer jabbed the man in the jaw, literally knocking him off the bench then tasing him with a taser for a very long period of time. The man begged for him to stop, so the officer began to shove his firearm in his mouth threating to blow his, quote-unquote: "F-ing head off!" if he didn't apologize. The man just began to sob apparently so the officer, apparently insulted by his cries of pain, broke out his club/nightstick and took the broad end and repeatedly shoved it into the man's stomach. The drunk, unable to resist, was still paralyzed by the taser before. By now, the other officer had run over and subdued his partner and told him to cool off. He then (The officer who was watching) went over to check on the man, who was now lying dead. Witnesses said that, the body of the man was so twisted, curled up in ball from the electricity, and lying in a pretty deep pool of blood. The officer could not say anything really and just called for an ambulance.

Anyways, later that night the officer who beat the man was asked WHAT exactly the man had said to him that set him off. He actually said, "None of your business..." and was thus suspended from the force until further notice. The investagation has no where to go really, since there is no footage of the event and witnesses are few and far. The other officer is also being questioned, dunno how that turned out yet.

Now my point is this...how the hell can they let this happen? I mean what would drive someone to do such a thing? You would figure they would not let people like this "Protect the community" but whatever...now I know the odds of a power-abusing cop are around 1 out of 1000 or even 1 out of 10000, but there are corrupt cops out there, and they need to do more to try and crack down on this in my honest opinion.

Anyone else heard about this? I think it made CNN. Care to comment?

[future girl]

I think the chances of a power abusing cop are [i]a lot[/i] higher than 1 out of 1000. I actually believe that the majority of cops are corrupt in some manner. I may be a bit biased in thinking this and perhaps it's just because of the area I live in and the race that I am, but in my lifetime I have yet to run into a cop that has helped me in some form or another or dealt with me in a respectable manner. Whenever I or any member of my family has been approached by one, the cop often does so with a sort of smugness, talking down to us, especially to my non-English speaking parents. It's like they have superiority complexes. I remember reading once in my sister's psychology book that according to certain studies police officers tend to be very abusive toward their loved ones. They're so used to people obeying everything they say that when it doesn't happen they just go crazy.

I remember a while back I was at the Youth Fair which is a very huge deal in Miami-Dade county. There were these two men sitting on a roller coaster ride and one of the people that worked there was forcing them to get off. The man said he wanted his ticket back so the girl went around back and picked up some random paper off the floor and offered it to the man. Now, what person would actually believe that these are actual tickets, especially considering that it was raining and everything on the gound was wet and muddy. The man refused them, asked for his real tickets and out of nowhere three men just jumped on him and started beating the very literal **** out of him. His friend tried to interject and he too was beaten up. By the end they were so bloodied up, one of the men's eye was bulging out at what I had thought was an impossible measure. His chain had been yanked off and he was searching around for it on the ground and the cop wouldn't stop. The most horrendous part of this is that there were people actually cheering them on and when it was all done one of the cops got on the roller coaster and rode it as if what had just gone on was no big deal.

I don't believe in cops, It's so bad down here that I'd much rather figure out some way to save myself than to call 9-1-1. As far as why people even allow this to happen, I don't think it's something that can be helped. I'm sure somewhere out there there is a good cop [I hope] but you rarely hear about those and people are so easily corrupted when given the amount of power cops are given. Bad cops are unavoidable catastrophe, it comes with the territory of putting your safety in someone else's hands.

[Baron Samedi]

[size=1]If they can't find any witnesses, how do they know what happened to the man?

Anyway, that is appalling. Just plain shocking, and disgusting.

That said, the majority of police [all the ones I know, anyway] are not so bad. You get the real honest, good ones. You get the in-between ones. And you get the a**holes, and the corrupt ones. More of the second group than any other though. There is a lot of corruption, even in the Australian Police Force [now 'Service', because Force was too...forceful], especially in the drug squads, and the gambling squads etc. I read a book written by a female police officer about her treatment inside the system, and the corruption which lead to the [NSW or Victorian...] police commission into the behaviour and actions of police. Anyway, my mum works at the local police station, and cops enough crap as it is. Two of the guys are good guys, two of them are the second group. The last copper can be a bit of both ~_^

Anyway, a lot of the time, police over here deserve more power...or rather, they require it to do their jobs fully. We don't tend to get much of the whole 'bad public face' that some Police Forces do. We have more of a problem with bouncers...but thats a different story, lol.[/size]

[Lunai]

[font=papyrus][color=goldenrod][b]Perhaps I've just been lucky, but the few poilce officers that I have known by name we're really bad guys.

But from what I understand, most police officers do have something of a superiority complex. And it seems that the worst in what the police force has to offer (at least in the US) tend to work in areas where there are a lot of us minorities. Once, I had a friend whose father was a police psychologist who works in the Juvenile Division. What he said was that most cops have such a hard time trying to catch the criminals who have enough money to evade the law, that they take it out on us minorities, no matter how small the infraction.

Personally, I think that the police forces in Northern California, especially here in the San Francisco Bay Area, do have too much power. There are numerous reports every year of officers going into schools and activities in which the participants are minors and doing serious harm and damage, with out thought to the fact that hte person they are beating up isn't even of age yet.[/font][/color][/b]

[Sol-Blade]

Oh sorry. To clarify that up: There [i]were[/i] witnesses to the beating, but only one or two actually spoke up about it. So they didn't really have alot to go off of...since the cops are being uptight about it, even to their superiors.

Anyways, maybe I wouldn't really know how many corrupt cops there really are out there, I haven't had a single meeting with a cop. Ever. So yeah, maybe 1 out of 1000 is off, but it was just a general estimate anyways.

[Pumpkin]

[QUOTE=Lunai][font=papyrus][color=goldenrod][b]Perhaps I've just been lucky, but the few poilce officers that I have known by name we're really bad guys.

But from what I understand, most police officers do have something of a superiority complex. And it seems that the worst in what the police force has to offer (at least in the US) tend to work in areas where there are a lot of us minorities. Once, I had a friend whose father was a police psychologist who works in the Juvenile Division. What he said was that most cops have such a hard time trying to catch the criminals who have enough money to evade the law, that they take it out on us minorities, no matter how small the infraction.

Personally, I think that the police forces in Northern California, especially here in the San Francisco Bay Area, do have too much power. There are numerous reports every year of officers going into schools and activities in which the participants are minors and doing serious harm and damage, with out thought to the fact that hte person they are beating up isn't even of age yet.[/font][/color][/b][/QUOTE]

[FONT=Verdana][SIZE=1] Omg you live around the Bay Area too? I live right near San Francisco. I have always had a problem with the cops around here, I dont know why but they are just too cocky. Just because you are a cop, doesnt give you the right to talk **** to someones face, even if you do have the law behind you. Since where in the law does it give someone the right to beat someone up for such a small crime? no where. I've known alot of people who got sent to Juvi for things they didn't even do. I sadly can't count how many times some cop questioned me about what i was doing, or about my personal life. I can't say much because well I've only had bad experiences with cops, I've come across many sad to say, they are nosy, rude, cocky, and most of all violent. They also ring hard punishments to crimes people haven't even done without even asking about it. I guess if they catch someone and call it a crime, $$ theres money right there! Sad but true. But thats how i see it :(

BTW my friend (who i wont name)'s brother was gay and ran away with his boyfriend when his parents found out. He's 18 so there wasnt much they could do, so they called the cops to go search for them since they hadn't heard from him in awhile. The cop actually had the nerve to joke about it when they were all worried and call him a ***. I think thats pretty rude behavior for a "defender of the law".[/FONT][/SIZE]

[Godelsensei]

[COLOR=Gray][FONT=Courier New]I think the real problem is that all that happens to a cop who abuses his or her power is they get suspended for a while, most of the time.

If a police officer is clearly abusing their power, or is obviously racist or sexist, he or she should not be allowed to remain part of the police force, plain and simple. If a police officer abuses his or her power in a way that causes a pretty-much innocent civilian a great deal of emotional or physical trauma, they should be subject to penalties more severe than if another person were to commit the same act.

The police's job is [i]To Serve and Protect[/i], as the doors of their cars dictate in this area, at least.

If they are incapable of as much, or go out of their way to do the opposite, they are not taking care of what society entrusts to them--its safety.
This is something that requires a zero-tolerance system of punishment.[/FONT][/COLOR]

[Gavin]

[SIZE=1]Interesting, most interesting.

I have to admit I was actually shocked when I read the end of the article though it's not the first time I've heard about such actions by cops going wild. I agree completely with Baron and Godel, police officers are there to protect the people, not to abuse their powers. Any officer who did something like that should have faced a murder trial and those who abuse their powers should be removed from the force altogether.

In Ireland our police force, [B]An Garda Siochana[/B] has been riddled by corruption charges in the last few years, the main problem is that the Gardaí are always covering up for one another. A case in Donegal Gardaí faked a bomb find in order to further their own careers, planted evidence on suspects and just had no respect for the law. It's only in the last few years since an independent commission to assess the Gardaí has there been any results.

Another case that happened in my local town as a bunch of itinerant girls (Irish Gypsies) just started beating one another in the middle of the street. It was vicious stuff as it was a three-on-one fight, to my knowledge three different people phoned the Garda station, which was about 150 meters away. Half and hour after the fight had ended a single Garda Squad Car drove by once and sped back to the station.[/SIZE]