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Has anyone noticed how stupid some police officers are? by Commander Tansin A. Darcos 09/29/2022, 4:44am PDT
In Abbie Hoffman's (1969) book, Steal This Book there is a cartoon showing two guys tripping out on LSD, when one of them who only came by because his friend always has has new and interesting "recreational pharmaceuticals," notices a bag of pills his friend had and didn't offer him any.
Visitor: What's that?
Pusher: It's a new designer drug I came upon. It's called "Cop." It makes you feel euphoric, like you're invulnerable, can do anything you want, and superior to everyone else. The problem is, it lowers your I.Q. by 30 points.
Why do I have the impression that police have been "drinking the Kool-Aid", laced with this?

When police killings, either through negligence or willful misconduct, started being recorded and publicized, you would have thought police in general would "walk on eggshells," and be "as cautious as a mouse at a cat show", in making sure they scrupulously followed safety rules, not engage in excessively risky, unnecessarily violent, or dangerous takedowns of suspects, and make sure they're acting responsibly. At least until the bad publicity these incidents generated died down. But, like the guy who repeatedly bangs his head against the wall because it feels so good when he stops, it's like nobody's learned anything.

They're still doing asinine brain-dead moronic stunts, like choke holds on suspects who have been overpowered, using life-threatening detainment acts, and arrogantly assuming that if a human being tells you that you're holding them in a position where they can't breathe, you presume that is the case, not always assume every guy is a "perp," and lying. A lot of them get jaded from seeing way too many crimes and thus assume everyone that isn't another cop, a prosecutor, or a judge, is a criminal, and lying to them. It's attitudes like this that raise calls to "defund the police," or disband them, or other extreme efforts to stop police misconduct.

Remember the saying, "whenever you 'assume' something, you make an ass out of you and me."

Then there are cops who are stupid enough to plant incriminating evidence while wearing a running body cam! Then there are the ones who seem to have forgotten that every person they meet, everywhere, is carrying a device that can record audio and video of any encounters they have at the touch of a button, and do stupid things where someone's phone has conveniently recorded the entire encounter. So while planting incriminating evidence by anyone, even a police officer, is a felony crime of "Obstruction of Justice," some of them seem to forget that you can't just plant evidence and assume you won't get caught. I own a couple of spy cams myself. They take a charge with a USB cable, can use a micro SD cards up to 128 GiB, can be set to sleep until someone moves in front of them, then start to record in glorious living color and sound, at resolution as high as 4K, and can be purchased for as little as $10. They are the size of a food service single use jelly bucket, about an inch long and half an inch width and depth. They can be placed almost anywhere in a car, and in some incidents can be better than a dashcam.

In fact, everyone should have a dash cam installed in their car. If you can afford it, you want to get the top pf the line: 5 camera version; front, rear, and inside with two side cameras that can be pointed at the window, with GPS and speed display. Yes, I know this is about $300, but it can be a lifesaver when you get pulled over for what the officer claims was a failure to stop at a stop sign, an unsignalled lane change, or speeding, the evidence that shows the speed at the sign was zero, the sound of your turn signal ticking, or your actual speed was at or below the speed limit. Or you are involved in an accident, and both of you claim it was the other's fault. "Let's go to the videotape," and see. This can be the sort of evidence that makes a prosecutor agree to drop the charges or get a not guilty in court. And save you from potential higher insurance rates. Consider it a one-time insurance cost. Even if all you can afford it a forward-facing camera, it's better than nothing.

But anyway, police misbehavior is becoming markedly too frequent, and every time there is a botched operation, a traffic stop gone bad, or an interaction with a civilian, and someone gets injured or killed, it makes all police look bad, and has a corrosive effect on civil society. Once it's believed that police are acting like it's open season on civilians, society will fail, and there will be mass retaliation and killing of police officers, even decent ones who do follow the rules.

I have gotten the impression that these incidents are putting the country on a knife edge, and the next time one of those incidents where someone innocent was killed by police error, it could push us off the edge.

Police officers have apparently forgotten, this is the 2020s, it isn't the 1970s, and there are things you can't get away with and remain one.
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Has anyone noticed how stupid some police officers are? by Commander Tansin A. Darcos 09/29/2022, 4:44am PDT NEW
    Some of us, yah NT by George Floyd,Ed Gein 09/29/2022, 8:48pm PDT NEW
 
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