Police Brutality

[quote]Sloth wrote:
Gregus wrote:

I see. I grew up in the Eastern Block under Communism. Im sensitive to the issue of trigger happy cops and a general attitude of the police just needing that one little bit of an excuse to go all out.

Ahhh, that makes sense. And, I can understand your suspicions. A reasonable person is going to develop a healthy level of distrust coming from such an enviroment.

However, I simply can’t understand the level of distrust and dislike for our police that is expressed on this board. Now, I’m not happy with the Drug War, and the confrontations between the citizenry and police it produces.

Yet, even in the presence of bad policy, there is a level of dislike that makes no sense to me. Supposedly my fellow private citizen is my comrade against the evil jack-booted police officer. Yet, my comrades are much more likely to kill or rob me than a cop. Nor, would I have faith in my fellow citizen-bus passengers to help me if some nutty asian fellow began to stab me to death, ultimately decapitating my body. Or, to help me in a pizza joint, if some big fella attacked me. Or, if I was a woman, while I was getting my head caved in on the sidewalk, in broad daylight.

[/quote]

Maybe you have no point of reference.

That however can be changed.

Fly to Europe and talk to some cops.

In my city you find them quite easily, you only have to wait until kids go to school, then you will see one on every major crossing without traffic lights that is close to a school.

Or you just go into a police station and say something like “Hi, just wanted to know what an Austrian police station looks like”. Maybe they show you around.

A few weeks ago one black teacher was roughed up because they thought he was a drug dealer. He himself said that he had never seen people get so pale as when they found out who he was, which was 10 min later at their station. That immediately made all the news, there was a public discussion on television and an investigation is taking place right now.

This is the kind of relationship a police can have with the citizens it has sworn to protect and serve.

[quote]Sloth wrote:
I have far more reason to fear from my fellow citizens than any cop.[/quote]

I find that one is more likely to encounter jerk-off police officers than thugs on any given day.

I fear the pigs and not the thugs.

[quote]orion wrote:
Sloth wrote:
Gregus wrote:

I see. I grew up in the Eastern Block under Communism. Im sensitive to the issue of trigger happy cops and a general attitude of the police just needing that one little bit of an excuse to go all out.

Ahhh, that makes sense. And, I can understand your suspicions. A reasonable person is going to develop a healthy level of distrust coming from such an enviroment.

However, I simply can’t understand the level of distrust and dislike for our police that is expressed on this board. Now, I’m not happy with the Drug War, and the confrontations between the citizenry and police it produces.

Yet, even in the presence of bad policy, there is a level of dislike that makes no sense to me. Supposedly my fellow private citizen is my comrade against the evil jack-booted police officer. Yet, my comrades are much more likely to kill or rob me than a cop. Nor, would I have faith in my fellow citizen-bus passengers to help me if some nutty asian fellow began to stab me to death, ultimately decapitating my body. Or, to help me in a pizza joint, if some big fella attacked me. Or, if I was a woman, while I was getting my head caved in on the sidewalk, in broad daylight.

Maybe you have no point of reference.

That however can be changed.

Fly to Europe and talk to some cops.

In my city you find them quite easily, you only have to wait until kids go to school, then you will see one on every major crossing without traffic lights that is close to a school.

Or you just go into a police station and say something like “Hi, just wanted to know what an Austrian police station looks like”. Maybe they show you around.

A few weeks ago one black teacher was roughed up because they thought he was a drug dealer. He himself said that he had never seen people get so pale as when they found out who he was, which was 10 min later at their station. That immediately made all the news, there was a public discussion on television and an investigation is taking place right now.

This is the kind of relationship a police can have with the citizens it has sworn to protect and serve. [/quote]

That’s a shame. But, in my country, I’m far more likely to be brutalized by one of my fellow citizens.

[quote]LIFTICVSMAXIMVS wrote:
Sloth wrote:
I have far more reason to fear from my fellow citizens than any cop.

I find that one is more likely to encounter jerk-off police officers than thugs on any given day.

I fear the pigs and not the thugs.[/quote]

Hasn’t even been close to my experience, so I don’t know.

[quote]Sloth wrote:
Hasn’t even been close to my experience, so I don’t know.[/quote]

My reasoning is that there are more police officers than actual thugs thus more possibility to encounter said dick-hole police officers.


Big-ups to the SPPD!!  You guys rock.

[quote]LIFTICVSMAXIMVS wrote:
Sloth wrote:
I have far more reason to fear from my fellow citizens than any cop.

I find that one is more likely to encounter jerk-off police officers than thugs on any given day.

I fear the pigs and not the thugs.[/quote]

I fear cops more than thugs

Well, I don’t do any drugs, so that might give me a different outlook.

But even so, in general, if we were looking at stats and numbers, I’m sure violent crimes are more likely to be carried out by my supposedly angelic fellow private citizen.

I personally feel we have way too many cops,? why?? you ask, Simple the War on Drugs

[quote]LIFTICVSMAXIMVS wrote:
Sloth wrote:
Hasn’t even been close to my experience, so I don’t know.

My reasoning is that there are more police officers than actual thugs thus more possibility to encounter said dick-hole police officers.


Big-ups to the SPPD!!  You guys rock.[/quote]

As of 2006 there were roughly 800,000 full time state, city, university and college, metropolitan and non-metropolitan county and federal law enforcement officers employed in the US.  The prison population is about 3 times that.  

Now should I include the amount of people not caught committing crimes.  As long as I am not doing something wrong I think I have more to fear from the average citizen than the average police officer.

Now I know in your lawless world you have more to fear from police officers since you feel laws, rules, regs and civil order don't apply to you.

[quote]snipeout wrote:
LIFTICVSMAXIMVS wrote:
Sloth wrote:
Hasn’t even been close to my experience, so I don’t know.

My reasoning is that there are more police officers than actual thugs thus more possibility to encounter said dick-hole police officers.


Big-ups to the SPPD!!  You guys rock.

As of 2006 there were roughly 800,000 full time state, city, university and college, metropolitan and non-metropolitan county and federal law enforcement officers employed in the US.  The prison population is about 3 times that.  

Now should I include the amount of people not caught committing crimes.  As long as I am not doing something wrong I think I have more to fear from the average citizen than the average police officer.

Now I know in your lawless world you have more to fear from police officers since you feel laws, rules, regs and civil order don't apply to you.
[/quote]

But snipe, how many people are in prison for simply violating mala prohibitum laws?  The prison industry is an industry like any other.  There's a profit to be made by private companies in getting as many people behind bars as possible.  Many folks deserve to be in jail, but certainly not as many as are currently there. 

mike

EDIT:

I own a Saiga-308.  It's basically an AK chambererd in .308.  I'm trying to sell this rifle.  I also converted it to take a pistol grip some time ago.  In doing so I've opened myself up to prosecution under import laws.  I'm allowed no more than 10 imported parts on the rifle from an arbitrary list put forth by some BATF flunkie.  Now I was  certain I was 922 compliant after converting my rifle.  I find out not very long ago that I wasn't.  The 8-round mag that comes with my rifle counts as 3 imported parts.  So in the interests of compliance I have to use US made 20-round mags.  How does that make things safer?  I'd been going to the range for years with a rifle that could have landed me in the clink had the wrong person noticed me.  

I've since sold off the magazine so it isn't even my house thereby assuring compliance on my part.  But imagine had I sold this rifle to someone who just wanted a rifle before the ban goes into effect and I unknowingly sold the 8-round mag with it.  We both could have very easily gone to prison over it. There are people currently in prison on such SNAFUs. 

Interesting note: CCW holders nationwide have a lower rate of criminal activity than police officers.

mike

[quote]snipeout wrote:
Now I know in your lawless world you have more to fear from police officers since you feel laws, rules, regs and civil order don’t apply to you.
[/quote]

First off, an anarchist society is not lawless, it is stateless. Secondly, order and laws are necessary to any civil society. My argument is that the private sector can oversee enforcement of those laws better than when it is controlled by a government agency. Government isn’t necessary to provide security services.

As an example: I just got back from stimulating the Mexican economy at a lovely resort in Peurto Morelos. The hotel had security on staff to enforce their “laws” and ensure their property went undamaged by drunken Canadians and Americans. This to me is how an anarchist society would work.

Not once while I was down in Mexico did I see a single uniformed, government police officer and yet commerce flourished and people were able to cope. Maybe this is only typical for resort towns in Mexico because they don’t want to harm their biggest industry. Go figure.

Oh, and the Mexican imigracion officers were way more polite and friendly than I typically experience coming over American boarders AS A US PASSPORT HOLDER.

As to the statistics you posted, you leave out some very glaring details that do not paint the whole picture. You do not tell us how many people are actually in prison for violent offenses not related to the WoD.

How many actual violent robbers and thugs exist in comparison to the number of government paid police officers?

I’ll use Los Angeles statistics to illustrate my point more clearly:
http://www.disastercenter.com/californ/crime/976.htm

In 2005 there were an average of 32K total violent crimes committed in LA proper.

There are a total of about 10,000 LAPD officers. Los Angeles Police Department - Wikipedia

To understand these statistics better we need to distill the number of offenses per person not related to drug trafficking. On average there is a 70% recidivism rate, nationally. I’ll assume the same is true in LA as well. This means of those 32K crimes committed all but about 10,000 of them were committed by repeat offenders. If we can say that of those remaining 20K crimes the average offender committed 2 (at the most conservative estimate) then that gets the number of violent offenders down to 20K, on average. I am willing to bet it is even less than that considering that violent offenders typically use violence on any given day, meaning that those arrested are arrested on multiple charges of violence.

Now comes the fun part: How many of those violent criminals are related to drugs in some way that wouldn’t have happened not for the WoD – i.e., trafficking?

The US Bureau of Justice Statistics reports that approximately 25% of all the violent crimes committed were drug related. 10% of these 25% were related to drug usage so the other remaining 22.5% must be related to trafficking (usage related violence includes armed robbery to get money for drugs, etc). This means on average only 15K violent offenders exist who would commit a violent crime in a given year in LA not related to drug trafficking (and is probably much less than that considering the recidivism rate). This means there are only 1.5 potential violent offenders waiting to be arrested per police officer per year in the city of LA.

If nothing else this really makes the LAPD look bad because they are really inefficient at catching violent people. Imagine! only 1.5 violent criminals apprehended per year per police officer. That doesn’t even justify a pay check.

And like I said, it is probably way worse than that considering the number of repeat offenders that are actually committing these crimes. Yes, I fear the cops more than the violent thugs – and with statistics like that why wouldn’t I?

[quote]Sloth wrote:
Well, I don’t do any drugs, so that might give me a different outlook.

But even so, in general, if we were looking at stats and numbers, I’m sure violent crimes are more likely to be carried out by my supposedly angelic fellow private citizen.[/quote]

Is it a crime to stop someone and badger them?

[quote]pittbulll wrote:
Sloth wrote:
Well, I don’t do any drugs, so that might give me a different outlook.

But even so, in general, if we were looking at stats and numbers, I’m sure violent crimes are more likely to be carried out by my supposedly angelic fellow private citizen.

Is it a crime to stop someone and badger them?
[/quote]

Depends on if the badger has been defanged and declawed. What an odd question.

[quote]Sloth wrote:
pittbulll wrote:
Sloth wrote:
Well, I don’t do any drugs, so that might give me a different outlook.

But even so, in general, if we were looking at stats and numbers, I’m sure violent crimes are more likely to be carried out by my supposedly angelic fellow private citizen.

Is it a crime to stop someone and badger them?

Depends on if the badger has been defanged and declawed. What an odd question.[/quote]

Your angelic fellow private citizens will not stop you and badger you, the cops will. They can do it because it is not against the law.

I started a thread awhile back that I labeled Cops. For some reason the moderators changed it to An Episode of Cops. Any how, I stated that all you had to do is watch one episode of Cops and you would see that most Cops are out harassing people all in the name of ? The War On Drugs ?
If we would take away the war on drugs we could employ a few strong, kind people that would go catch bad people .

[quote]pittbulll wrote:
If we would take away the war on drugs we could employ a few strong, kind people that would go catch bad people.
[/quote]

In fact, imagine that the majority of these people could be employed in the private sector by insurance agencies – especially, for property related crimes.

Yes imagine a world with no crime.

[quote]snipeout wrote:
Yes imagine a world with no crime.[/quote]

I am willing to settle for LESS crime.

http://www.lyrics007.com/John%20Lennon%20Lyrics/Imagine%20Lyrics.html