I've been watching cops the last few weeks

[HoreTore]

....And I have to say that I'm beginning to see where CR's vigilantism comes from.

To me, the show is about almost everything I don't want cops to do. Again and again I see them escalating situations and using force where it's not necessary. For example, a woman was arrested, shackled, handcuffed and taken to the police station for not giving the cops false ID after being pulled over on the road. She was calm and not in any way aggressive, and I simply can't understand why on earth she had to be shackled.

Back in Norway, I had an interesting situation last night while working at Shell... A car had been pulled over by the cops, and they were six persons in a car where only 5 is allowed, and one guy had to walk and came to me. He was absolutely furious, and abused the 911-number to "report the abusive cops"... Just after the call finished, the cops who had stopped them came by the station for their daily coffee bribe, and the man went postal on them. He start by calling the officer a baby, then a son of a youknowwhat before proceeding to terms I'd get warning points for.... What did the officer do? He remained calm, only gave a few short answers every once in a while, while his partner asked the man to calm down, and eventually she succeeded... They had every right to arrest the man, the police shouldn't have to take such abuse. But they didn't, they simply tried to calm him down, and left when their food was done.

I was surprised, and even more puzzled by the brutish behaviour of the american officers shown on cops...

[Vuk]

lol, it's not real. :P

[Major Robert Dump]

COPS is very much real in as much as they are restrained. The show doesn't really disturb me because the cops are, by most measures, behaving well. Of course, a camera is present, but I think getting shackled for fraud is a far cry from having the crap beat out of you for no reason and charged with assaulting a cop.

One show that really upset me, saw it recently although I dont know how old it was:

Cops set up a curbside marijuana sale bust. They had a guy who was going up to windows and soliciting people to buy weed, then when the people would buy the cops would swoop in and arrest them for "purchasing drugs from a police officer." They were informed their cars were now police property and taken to jail. Most of these people were dirt poor and drove clunkers, which makes it all the more amusing.

I'm curious how cops pull this off without it being entrapment, or maybe they just go after poor people they know wont get an attorney.

Brilliant crime fighting, makes me proud.

[Sasaki Kojiro]

Yeah, the last episode I saw they busted this homeless guy on the street for "gambling" and having a can of beer. Pathetic.

-edit-

"world's wildest police videos" on the other hand, is brilliant.

[Vuk]

COPS is very much real in as much as they are restrained. The show doesn't really disturb me because the cops are, by most measures, behaving well. Of course, a camera is present, but I think getting shackled for fraud is a far cry from having the crap beat out of you for no reason and charged with assaulting a cop.

One show that really upset me, saw it recently although I dont know how old it was:

Cops set up a curbside marijuana sale bust. They had a guy who was going up to windows and soliciting people to buy weed, then when the people would buy the cops would swoop in and arrest them for "purchasing drugs from a police officer." They were informed their cars were now police property and taken to jail. Most of these people were dirt poor and drove clunkers, which makes it all the more amusing.

I'm curious how cops pull this off without it being entrapment, or maybe they just go after poor people they know wont get an attorney.

Brilliant crime fighting, makes me proud.

Personally, I feel no pity for drug abusers. I think they should all be executed in fact.

[Sasaki Kojiro]

Personally, I feel no pity for drug abusers. I think they should all be executed in fact.

Sarah Palin was busted recently:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/20/us...ty.html?ref=us

[Louis VI the Fat]

Personally, I feel no pity for drug abusers. I think they should all be executed in fact.

What a spiteful, hateful comment.


[...]

Okay, I counted to ten and deleted the rest of this post.

[Fragony]

Personally, I feel no pity for drug abusers. I think they should all be executed in fact.

Oh you just know you love me really. Had a little run in with them coppers lately, all I did was hit someone in the face with an axe, not the sharp side naturally but sometimes you just have to make a point and I think it kinda worked. Can't do anything these days.

[Major Robert Dump]

So Rush Limbaugh should be executed. I think I'd trade some potheads for that.

[Crazed Rabbit]

Personally, I feel no pity for drug abusers. I think they should all be executed in fact.

I'm going to assume that's a joke, because the other possibility is almost unfathomably wrong.

Also; I'm not a vigilante. And some of the lengths the police go to arrest drug users or prostitutes is pathetic.

CR

[Ice]

Sarah Palin was busted recently:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/20/us...ty.html?ref=us

That's a dead link, and I'd agree with MRD.

[Megas Methuselah]

Personally, I feel no pity for drug abusers. I think they should all be executed in fact.

"Ecstasy, oxycotton, pills, let's get rollin'! Let's get high, let's get high, let's get high, let's get high!" ♫♪♫♪

[a completely inoffensive name]

Did you start sweating HoreTore?

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

It's a "Step Brothers" reference.

[Centurion1]

cops are just men who dont even need to go to college (this is a broad statement) they aren't making great money and aren't necessarily the smartest guys around alot of them see some nasty stuff and they just get sick and tired of it.

the vast majority of officers are decent good human beings ive seen many officers take tons of abuse and remain polite in spite of it all.

[Megas Methuselah]

the vast majority of officers are decent good human beings ive seen many officers take tons of abuse and remain polite in spite of it all.

Yeah, sometimes I see them not making U-turns, or actually stopping to let me cross the street before they zoom off.

But that's only the good minority.

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

Yeah, sometimes I see them not making U-turns, or actually stopping to let me cross the street before they zoom off.

But that's only the good minority.

The majority you probably don't see at all. Most people are decent, most Police are like most people. However, all US Police are armed and most people don't have the mentality to be responsible when equipped with death-dealing weaponry.

[Zim]

Ah, COPs, hundreds of hours of footage of boring encounters (or just nothing happening at all) distilled to a 21 minute (after commercials) T.V. show. Interesting how the footage deemed entertaining enough to show tends to focus on people actually being hooked up and far less often on that of officers being polite and professional in the face of verbal abuse.

Honestly my biggest problem with the show isn't whether or not I agree with the decision made to arrest or not (something I can't often judge given how the way video tends to be cut to leave out half of each encounter), but the bad officer safety habits I see on it....

[Centurion1]

psh death dealing, im not worried about guns, its those damn tasers they're a little too loose with those babies.

[Louis VI the Fat]

....And I have to say that I'm beginning to see where CR's vigilantism comes from.

To me, the show is about almost everything I don't want cops to do. Again and again I see them escalating situations and using force where it's not necessary.



I was surprised, and even more puzzled by the brutish behaviour of the american officers shown on cops...

America has a law enforcement problem. There's a thread devoted to that, so no point in me expanding on it here.

And America has a War on Drugs problem. What a waste of resources. You watch Cops, and you see some poor sod, always a two-bit punk, arrested and thrown in jail for dealing some marihuana. What difference does that make? Who's sense of justice is served by that?
Six cars, twenty police officers, judges, clerks, jails. Sheesh. what does it cost to bust and lock up some guy with some drugs?

Then you these people. The front door is kicked in, there's a teenage mother with a baby on her arm screaming in fright in the living room, some guy quickly tries to flush something in the toilet, the backdoor slams and you see some imbecile trying to run away. They are always such complete losers.
Spend half the money on some social workers, solves more problems.



Having said that, I always dislike criminals more than I do cops. Watching programs like Cops is very good for my sense of justice.

[Idaho]

Law and order is much more about order than law. In all countries police enforce the appearance of order, rather than having any rational plan of what laws should be enforced.

In the US, from what I have seen, the police seem to very concerned with seeming to be in control of the streets, rather than tackling infractions of the law.