12 ms·

Let's see.. in the 20 odd years here in Chicago, the sum of my police interactions are: Hit by a white shirt (supervisor) who came out of an alley on clark st

by bbarn 11y ago

Let's see.. in the 20 odd years here in Chicago, the sum of my police interactions are: Hit by a white shirt (supervisor) who came out of an alley on clark st while in a bike lane - somehow my fault, detained. Hit on foot, by a car with no lights on in a residential neighborhood while crossing at a crosswalk - somehow my fault for being outside while there was "a suspect being hunted" Watching officers on foot in 7-11's, local shops, etc, just walk in, take what the want, and leave. Helping a friend move to another city because he ended a relationship with a cop who made his life a living hell after they broke up. Being accused of trying to "make the neighborhood look bad" when I called the fire department because my neighbor had smoke coming out of the door in his apartment (turns out he was just passed out drunk and left a pizza in the oven, but what else do you do when you bang on a door pouring smoke and no one answers?) So yeah, once my S/O finishes what she needs to to change jobs, we're out of here I think. The police force here is really the icing on the cake of so much else that's overpriced, corrupt, or just plain sucks about Chicago. All the good things it's supposed to have just seem completely irrelevant to me anymore.

rickdale 11y ago
Helping a friend move to another city because he ended a relationship with a cop who made his life a living hell after they broke up. I was dating this girl a couple of years ago and we were pretty early on, but she wanted to spend the night. And we were cool so it wasn't an awkward thing, but what I figured out as that she didn't necessarily want to stay the night as much as she was afraid to go home at night. Her reasoning, "My mom just broke up with a police officer and they harass us now." Shes from a super small town with a police force with a reputation for having nothing to do, but staying busy. But even when she said it I thought she might be being dramatic. Now I get it. This type of behavior is ridiculously childish and it might not be the norm, but it seems like something someone could stop.
- jcromartie 11y ago
  Police officers abuse their romantic partners at about twice the average rate. Domestic violence occurs in about 40% of households with police officers.
  - JoeAltmaier 11y ago
    Note: those rates span a lifetime. It doesn't mean that every current relationship has a high rate of abuse.
    - jpambrun 11y ago
      Whatever the temporal basis of comparaison, it kind of means that any relationship involving a cop is more likely to result in abuse. no?
      - WaxProlix 11y ago
        Yes. But it doesn't mean that, given a random sampling of 100 cops in relationships, you could expect ~40 of those to be currently abusive of their partners.
        jpambrun 11y ago
        This is also what I initially understood. But still, it means that if I get 100 cops in a room, about 40 have been or will be in an abusive relationship. That is still very telling/surprising.
        drdeca 11y ago
        Does this also mean that of 100 randomly selected people (of whom an ordinary proportion are cops), that about 20 of them have been or will be in an abusive relationship? I don't mean to downplay the 40 number in the police case (which is very high and kind of terrifying), but, 20% is still a lot! (and so, 40% is even more). That's, for every 5, 1, on average! That is shockingly high. wow?
        meric 11y ago
        Yelling is domestic violence. I think 20% is a bit low.
        11y ago
- frandroid 11y ago
  > ridiculously childish "crmiminally abusive" comes more easily to my mind.
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
MCRed 11y ago
Unfortunately, where to move? The situation is like that all over the USA. The increasing militarization of the police in the past 20 years (one thing about being "old" is you can see these things happen before your eyes) have produced a very bad scene. I spent a couple years in Chile. They cops there walk around with machine guns (they're called "carabineros") but are professional, uncorrupt and trustworthy. The difference is palpable. Also felt much safer around the Polezi in Germany. But leaving the country has its own costs. I'm thinking maybe remote work will become more of a thing and a small town somewhere relatively rural might be better... but then small town cops in Louisiana were pretty bad in my youth.
- bbarn 11y ago
  Honestly, if I have to deal with corruption, and all the other stuff, I'll at least have nice weather with it at this point. Central coast California, Boulder, CO, etc.
- goda90 11y ago
  I lived in Chile for a couple years too, and while I knew cool carabineros and didn't have much trouble with them myself I've seen points of view that are way different. I think every system has good and bad eggs, but sometimes the organization and system established can either discourage or encourage poor behavior to some degree. Funny anecdote I heard in a poor part of Santiago. A guy stabbed another guy during a futbol match. When the carabineros arrived they got the victim to a hospital and everything, but then they pinned the guy to the fence and let every other player in the game give him a good punch.
- alistairSH 11y ago
  In my limited experience, the larger suburban areas are better (though far from perfect) with respect to police interaction than either cities or small towns (including rural areas). Big cities tend to have similar problems as Chicago. Small towns and rural areas seem to ripe for petty abuses and also generating revenue via excessive traffic stops.
  - rayiner 11y ago
callinyouin 11y ago
I'm moving to Chicago in a few months. Are there certain neighborhoods that should be avoided on the basis of corrupt police activity? I wonder because I could see neighborhoods that are relatively safe in terms of civilian crime, but cops posted in that area might have nothing better to do than mess with its inhabitants.
- rayiner 11y ago
  I lived in Streeterville for more than three years, and I'm not sure if I ever saw a cop. Maybe at the food court the mall.
- drzaiusapelord 11y ago
  Lifelong Chicagoan here. I've never, ever had these issues and all my run-ins with cops have been fairly uneventful, if not pleasant. Chicago cops have better things to do than give traffic tickets usually and the last time I got pulled over (blew through red from a fast yellow) and I was just let go with a warning. Recently, there is a mentally unstable person in my neighborhood and he decided to sit on my porch and light pieces of paper on fire one day. I called and they were there in 15 minutes and said they could do what they can to help this guy. The cops seemed geniunly concerned about his and my safety. I was floored by how well this call went. I live in one of the decent, but not wealthy neighborhoods. Chicago is about 1/3rd horrible ghetto and 1/3rd marginal and 1/3rd decent. Life in those other 2/3rd's is very, very different. If you're outside of the typical "northside" neighborhoods the cops are much tougher and much more paranoid about being hurt or killed. I lived in one of those neighborhoods and there's a completely different vibe there. Cops pull up with 3+ squads at every call, take up defensive positions, hands close to weapons, etc. A dog attacked mine when I lived in Humboldt Park and the cops came out and were cool about it, but clearly on edge as I lived in gang territory. In other neighborhoods, I don't see this edge, or the defensive tactices. So yeah, there's something here about cop safety in marginal neighborhoods. I imagine provoking these guys in these neighborhoods leads to bad outcomes. Also, not to attack the GP, but there is a Chicago cyclist personality I see frequently. They do dick moves with their bikes, cause accidents, never obey any traffic law, scream at pedestrians, have unbelievable senses of entitlements, kick/punch cars, and constantly pretend to be innocent and are often incredibly confrontational when criticized. I can't imagine cops being nice to these people and the GP sounds like one of these people, which may explain many of his experiences. Chicago cyclists have a bad rep for a reason. That said, I have next to zero fear of the police and lots of fear in regards to the high criminality and massive gang population here. I've been intimidated and threatened on the train multiple times, car/house robbed, had to walk lady friends to their homes/cars many times not out of courtesy but because there was a known rapist loose or the gang kids were clearly looking to start trouble that night, have been uncomfortably close to a gang shooting at least once, hit 3x by DUI drivers, etc. I suspect Chicago cops are tough because Chicago has so much serious crime. This isn't the suburbs. Wikipedia: Chicago has more gang members than any other city in the United States: 150,000. The city had 532 murders in 2012. Chicago tribune: Chicago police officers shot 22 people in 2015, eight of them fatally. 532 vs 8, guys. Oh, 150,000 gang members is 5% of the population. That's right, this is a major city where 1 in 20 are gang members. That said, the powerful Chicago police union is pretty horrible. It exists to protect the worst of the worst, out of some misplaced sense of pride. I would love to see public sector unions eliminated in the city, if not nationwide. They just make things worse for everyone. Society needs an alternative to the union system in the public sector. I find it bothersome that all the recent ant-police sentiment still has not percolated to the police unions. I suspect this is a political thing where liberals can't attack their own institutions. So expect zero real reform. FWIW, I am darker skinned and do not pass as "white." I'm typically clocked as a Latino. I've always owned older cars , dress very casually outside of work, and live way below my means. I doubt I was treated in any special way because of status/race. I don't fall into the preferred categories.
branchless 11y ago
I have to say America just seems like a dreadful mess.
- sailfast 11y ago
  It seems that way, but... it's not. I don't have any real data or concrete thoughts on why, but in general I much prefer some chaos and the potential for change to a whole bunch of stability bordering on stagnation even if it seems like a big hot mess. Don't believe the messy hype :P
- vlunkr 11y ago
  The thing about America is it's huge. I believe these stories, but they don't reflect the behavior of cops where I live.
- sosborn 11y ago
  If all you go by is media reports, then sure, it sounds awful. But let me tell you something about the media: in general they look for the stories that inspire outrage and that are extraordinary. They do not reflect the normal life.
- rhino369 11y ago
  Americas biggest problem in the inner cities. They are literally ghettos were gangs and violence run rampant. The schools are pure shit. The kids have no future. The cops crack down hard (half because they have to in order to maintain any semblance of peace, half because they become jaded). But that part of America is shockingly isolated from the rest of us. Chicago is a great example. There are blocks where on side of an intersection it's gang territory and the other is totally safe. There are huge swaths of Chicago that are rich, peaceful, and probably the best city living in America. There are also huge swaths of pure poverty and gang warfare. If you are born on the right side of the tracks, it's a great place. If you aren't, well, good luck.
  - branchless 11y ago
    > If you are born on the right side of the tracks, it's a great place. If you aren't, well, good luck. And I'd regard that as a total failure. It's sad. It was the new land and here we are thanks to the lack of land value tax with the very rich and a large underclass with little social mobility.
JumpCrisscross 11y ago
Keep in mind that is the same police department that "operates an off-the-books interrogation compound, rendering Americans unable to be found by family or attorneys while locked inside what lawyers say is the domestic equivalent of a CIA black site." http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/feb/24/chicago-police-detain-americans-black-site http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/feb/24/chicago-polic...
sixothree 11y ago
The worst years of my life were living next door to an Orleans Parish Sheriff. He would follow my friends home, he would spit out his gum onto my sidewalk, he let my dogs out of the yard every day for a week, he would blow his leaves onto my yard, he would let his dog bark all day and all night, he would hang his running leaf blower on the fence at 8:00 in the morning on a weekend. I really could go on and on. There was no use getting help from the city. One night at maybe 1:00 AM I called the police because of the barking. He told me maybe I should just move. I look at the police in a totally different way now. He was so clearly in the wrong and such a menace to all of the neighbors. Yet somehow he had an entire department on his side - a department he didn't even belong to. I told his wife my next step was the FBI. They moved shortly after that. I'm sure wherever he is that he is harassing everyone around him. I can only imagine how his lack of ethics translates into his professional life.
- uremog 11y ago
  Funny, I lived next to a police officer once. He was the only one with illegal fireworks every New Year's Eve (in Hawaii, where aerial fireworks are illegal).
  - fapjacks 11y ago
    Now that's true, but I will say that HPD on Oahu are the most professional and legit police officers I've ever had to deal with. I lived in town for six years and had run-ins with the law and no complaints about their behavior, including a couple of times when I thought that surely I would end up being taken advantage of.
    - throwastone 11y ago
      Seconded, HPD in my experience have been extraordinarily professional and helpful. 10 year resident of O`ahu.
    - uremog 11y ago
      Fair point, I think they're mostly professional too and have friends who went into HPD, but I've seen enough that are not (grew up there 20 years, Ewa and downtown).
neves 11y ago
First world problem there. In Brazil we had the "Caso Amarildo": https://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caso_Amarildo https://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caso_Amarildo They locked a humble worker without proofs, tortured him, killed him during the interrogatory, erased the cameras recording, turned off the GPS of the police cars that got rid of the body, and bribed a woman to commit perjury.
- leoc 11y ago
  It's not as bad as that, but New Mexico did have the man who was "forgotten about" in police custody for two years: http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/03/06/17212442-man-left-in-solitary-confinement-for-2-years-gets-155-million-settlement http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/03/06/17212442-man-left...
- neves 11y ago
  Just to get clear: "They" is the police.
marincounty 11y ago
I like the list. It's easier than debating. Between 15.5 and 40, pulled over for no apparent reason at least 20 times. I'm giving them the benefit of memory with the number. I was guilty of driving an older car, hair slightly below my ears, and the ultimate sin; driving after 10 p.m. Friday-Saturday. Told to empty out my pockets because I was talking to a homlessness person. At least three tickets, where I honestly didn't know what law I broke. I once kindly asked the officer to diagram what I did wrong. He did and even initialed it. Street wrong, wrong color car. He didn't show up n court. (Highway Patrol harldy ever shows up, and they are well coached. Local cops will always show up--there's not much to do in the burbs.) Watch my dad get out of a DUI, because he as giving a get out of jail card. His buddy gave him his detective's business card, with some scribbling on back. Done Coke at two different parties, and the supplier were both in law enforcement. Great Coke--I guess? (I was much younger, and honestly, really didn't even like the Coke effects. I think I was drinking too much at the party? I'm no angel.) In college, I worked as a life guard. The lonely Sherriff would hang with us. He would leave a party if mariguana was in the air, but would get stinky drunk, and drive us around. When we got pulled over, he would Just pull out the Bagde. Yes--I went along. Never like the hypocracy of the dude. Watched a Francisco cop drive my high school sister, and her model friend to the north side of the bridge, actually they escorted her. They allowed her to drive drunk. One then asked for her phone number. Yes--it's great they didn't ticket/arrest her, but only because she was young, and attractive. Listen to my dad complain about his cop best friend who just played chess in the basement of the corner building. My dad thought they should be out cruising for the bad guys. I asked my father, "Wouldn't you rather them playing chess, over looking for cheezy tickets?" Father, "Well yes." (I see nothing wrong with doing nothing while on shift, especially in low crime areas. And I don't expect cops to risk their lives. Honestly.) What has this thought me; buy two cheap dash cams from China. $15 a piece. Just don't drive certain nights. If you are going to go to the evil bar/hootenanny, buy a $19 breath analyzer at Costco. I can't imagine what minorites have been through, as I am a white dude. Am I an angel--hell no. I guess I'm just unlucky? When I was younger, I honestly didn't think slightly longer hair, and a VW would equate with being harassed, but it did. Do I get harrrased as much now--no. I don't go out like I did, and I drive a car that's inconspicuous, with no bumper stickers. I once put a Police Officers Association sticker on my rear window; trying to invoke reverse psychology. Well it just bought in a red brick. Do I see people being treated like they had no rights--hell yes, more than ever. The image of a women being forced to empty her purse because she was sitting on the sidewalk is my latest imprint. She was bum rushed by five cops, and a particularly eager female cop whom frisked her too agressively. They left her alone after finding nothing suspicious in her purse, but took her picture. Love to take those pictures? Again I know they have a tough job, but don't make up tickets. Get to know the law--other than on the job. Oh yea, we all don't get roaring drunk when we go out? You might, but most of us don't. We are not, "Just like you on our days off?". As to the danger of the job; I do morn the death of an honest cop, but actually deaths are higher in construction/taxi cab drivers. I guess what I'm trying to say is don't stereotype, and make up drama. I'm wondering if I'll live to see the day where I don't cringe when a cruiser is behind me? Done!

by bbarn 11y ago

rickdale 11y ago

Helping a friend move to another city because he ended a relationship with a cop who made his life a living hell after they broke up. I was dating this girl a couple of years ago and we were pretty early on, but she wanted to spend the night. And we were cool so it wasn't an awkward thing, but what I figured out as that she didn't necessarily want to stay the night as much as she was afraid to go home at night. Her reasoning, "My mom just broke up with a police officer and they harass us now." Shes from a super small town with a police force with a reputation for having nothing to do, but staying busy. But even when she said it I thought she might be being dramatic. Now I get it. This type of behavior is ridiculously childish and it might not be the norm, but it seems like something someone could stop.

jcromartie 11y ago
Police officers abuse their romantic partners at about twice the average rate. Domestic violence occurs in about 40% of households with police officers.
- JoeAltmaier 11y ago
  Note: those rates span a lifetime. It doesn't mean that every current relationship has a high rate of abuse.
  - jpambrun 11y ago
    Whatever the temporal basis of comparaison, it kind of means that any relationship involving a cop is more likely to result in abuse. no?
    - WaxProlix 11y ago
      Yes. But it doesn't mean that, given a random sampling of 100 cops in relationships, you could expect ~40 of those to be currently abusive of their partners.
      - jpambrun 11y ago
        This is also what I initially understood. But still, it means that if I get 100 cops in a room, about 40 have been or will be in an abusive relationship. That is still very telling/surprising.
        drdeca 11y ago
        Does this also mean that of 100 randomly selected people (of whom an ordinary proportion are cops), that about 20 of them have been or will be in an abusive relationship? I don't mean to downplay the 40 number in the police case (which is very high and kind of terrifying), but, 20% is still a lot! (and so, 40% is even more). That's, for every 5, 1, on average! That is shockingly high. wow?
        meric 11y ago
        Yelling is domestic violence. I think 20% is a bit low.
      - 11y ago
frandroid 11y ago
> ridiculously childish "crmiminally abusive" comes more easily to my mind.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]

MCRed 11y ago

Unfortunately, where to move? The situation is like that all over the USA. The increasing militarization of the police in the past 20 years (one thing about being "old" is you can see these things happen before your eyes) have produced a very bad scene. I spent a couple years in Chile. They cops there walk around with machine guns (they're called "carabineros") but are professional, uncorrupt and trustworthy. The difference is palpable. Also felt much safer around the Polezi in Germany. But leaving the country has its own costs. I'm thinking maybe remote work will become more of a thing and a small town somewhere relatively rural might be better... but then small town cops in Louisiana were pretty bad in my youth.

bbarn 11y ago
Honestly, if I have to deal with corruption, and all the other stuff, I'll at least have nice weather with it at this point. Central coast California, Boulder, CO, etc.
goda90 11y ago
I lived in Chile for a couple years too, and while I knew cool carabineros and didn't have much trouble with them myself I've seen points of view that are way different. I think every system has good and bad eggs, but sometimes the organization and system established can either discourage or encourage poor behavior to some degree. Funny anecdote I heard in a poor part of Santiago. A guy stabbed another guy during a futbol match. When the carabineros arrived they got the victim to a hospital and everything, but then they pinned the guy to the fence and let every other player in the game give him a good punch.
alistairSH 11y ago
In my limited experience, the larger suburban areas are better (though far from perfect) with respect to police interaction than either cities or small towns (including rural areas). Big cities tend to have similar problems as Chicago. Small towns and rural areas seem to ripe for petty abuses and also generating revenue via excessive traffic stops.
- rayiner 11y ago

callinyouin 11y ago

I'm moving to Chicago in a few months. Are there certain neighborhoods that should be avoided on the basis of corrupt police activity? I wonder because I could see neighborhoods that are relatively safe in terms of civilian crime, but cops posted in that area might have nothing better to do than mess with its inhabitants.

rayiner 11y ago
I lived in Streeterville for more than three years, and I'm not sure if I ever saw a cop. Maybe at the food court the mall.
drzaiusapelord 11y ago
Lifelong Chicagoan here. I've never, ever had these issues and all my run-ins with cops have been fairly uneventful, if not pleasant. Chicago cops have better things to do than give traffic tickets usually and the last time I got pulled over (blew through red from a fast yellow) and I was just let go with a warning. Recently, there is a mentally unstable person in my neighborhood and he decided to sit on my porch and light pieces of paper on fire one day. I called and they were there in 15 minutes and said they could do what they can to help this guy. The cops seemed geniunly concerned about his and my safety. I was floored by how well this call went. I live in one of the decent, but not wealthy neighborhoods. Chicago is about 1/3rd horrible ghetto and 1/3rd marginal and 1/3rd decent. Life in those other 2/3rd's is very, very different. If you're outside of the typical "northside" neighborhoods the cops are much tougher and much more paranoid about being hurt or killed. I lived in one of those neighborhoods and there's a completely different vibe there. Cops pull up with 3+ squads at every call, take up defensive positions, hands close to weapons, etc. A dog attacked mine when I lived in Humboldt Park and the cops came out and were cool about it, but clearly on edge as I lived in gang territory. In other neighborhoods, I don't see this edge, or the defensive tactices. So yeah, there's something here about cop safety in marginal neighborhoods. I imagine provoking these guys in these neighborhoods leads to bad outcomes. Also, not to attack the GP, but there is a Chicago cyclist personality I see frequently. They do dick moves with their bikes, cause accidents, never obey any traffic law, scream at pedestrians, have unbelievable senses of entitlements, kick/punch cars, and constantly pretend to be innocent and are often incredibly confrontational when criticized. I can't imagine cops being nice to these people and the GP sounds like one of these people, which may explain many of his experiences. Chicago cyclists have a bad rep for a reason. That said, I have next to zero fear of the police and lots of fear in regards to the high criminality and massive gang population here. I've been intimidated and threatened on the train multiple times, car/house robbed, had to walk lady friends to their homes/cars many times not out of courtesy but because there was a known rapist loose or the gang kids were clearly looking to start trouble that night, have been uncomfortably close to a gang shooting at least once, hit 3x by DUI drivers, etc. I suspect Chicago cops are tough because Chicago has so much serious crime. This isn't the suburbs. Wikipedia: Chicago has more gang members than any other city in the United States: 150,000. The city had 532 murders in 2012. Chicago tribune: Chicago police officers shot 22 people in 2015, eight of them fatally. 532 vs 8, guys. Oh, 150,000 gang members is 5% of the population. That's right, this is a major city where 1 in 20 are gang members. That said, the powerful Chicago police union is pretty horrible. It exists to protect the worst of the worst, out of some misplaced sense of pride. I would love to see public sector unions eliminated in the city, if not nationwide. They just make things worse for everyone. Society needs an alternative to the union system in the public sector. I find it bothersome that all the recent ant-police sentiment still has not percolated to the police unions. I suspect this is a political thing where liberals can't attack their own institutions. So expect zero real reform. FWIW, I am darker skinned and do not pass as "white." I'm typically clocked as a Latino. I've always owned older cars , dress very casually outside of work, and live way below my means. I doubt I was treated in any special way because of status/race. I don't fall into the preferred categories.

branchless 11y ago

I have to say America just seems like a dreadful mess.

sailfast 11y ago
It seems that way, but... it's not. I don't have any real data or concrete thoughts on why, but in general I much prefer some chaos and the potential for change to a whole bunch of stability bordering on stagnation even if it seems like a big hot mess. Don't believe the messy hype :P
vlunkr 11y ago
The thing about America is it's huge. I believe these stories, but they don't reflect the behavior of cops where I live.
sosborn 11y ago
If all you go by is media reports, then sure, it sounds awful. But let me tell you something about the media: in general they look for the stories that inspire outrage and that are extraordinary. They do not reflect the normal life.
rhino369 11y ago
Americas biggest problem in the inner cities. They are literally ghettos were gangs and violence run rampant. The schools are pure shit. The kids have no future. The cops crack down hard (half because they have to in order to maintain any semblance of peace, half because they become jaded). But that part of America is shockingly isolated from the rest of us. Chicago is a great example. There are blocks where on side of an intersection it's gang territory and the other is totally safe. There are huge swaths of Chicago that are rich, peaceful, and probably the best city living in America. There are also huge swaths of pure poverty and gang warfare. If you are born on the right side of the tracks, it's a great place. If you aren't, well, good luck.
- branchless 11y ago
  > If you are born on the right side of the tracks, it's a great place. If you aren't, well, good luck. And I'd regard that as a total failure. It's sad. It was the new land and here we are thanks to the lack of land value tax with the very rich and a large underclass with little social mobility.

JumpCrisscross 11y ago

Keep in mind that is the same police department that "operates an off-the-books interrogation compound, rendering Americans unable to be found by family or attorneys while locked inside what lawyers say is the domestic equivalent of a CIA black site." http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/feb/24/chicago-police-detain-americans-black-site http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/feb/24/chicago-polic...

sixothree 11y ago

The worst years of my life were living next door to an Orleans Parish Sheriff. He would follow my friends home, he would spit out his gum onto my sidewalk, he let my dogs out of the yard every day for a week, he would blow his leaves onto my yard, he would let his dog bark all day and all night, he would hang his running leaf blower on the fence at 8:00 in the morning on a weekend. I really could go on and on. There was no use getting help from the city. One night at maybe 1:00 AM I called the police because of the barking. He told me maybe I should just move. I look at the police in a totally different way now. He was so clearly in the wrong and such a menace to all of the neighbors. Yet somehow he had an entire department on his side - a department he didn't even belong to. I told his wife my next step was the FBI. They moved shortly after that. I'm sure wherever he is that he is harassing everyone around him. I can only imagine how his lack of ethics translates into his professional life.

uremog 11y ago
Funny, I lived next to a police officer once. He was the only one with illegal fireworks every New Year's Eve (in Hawaii, where aerial fireworks are illegal).
- fapjacks 11y ago
  Now that's true, but I will say that HPD on Oahu are the most professional and legit police officers I've ever had to deal with. I lived in town for six years and had run-ins with the law and no complaints about their behavior, including a couple of times when I thought that surely I would end up being taken advantage of.
  - throwastone 11y ago
    Seconded, HPD in my experience have been extraordinarily professional and helpful. 10 year resident of O`ahu.
  - uremog 11y ago
    Fair point, I think they're mostly professional too and have friends who went into HPD, but I've seen enough that are not (grew up there 20 years, Ewa and downtown).

neves 11y ago

First world problem there. In Brazil we had the "Caso Amarildo": https://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caso_Amarildo https://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caso_Amarildo They locked a humble worker without proofs, tortured him, killed him during the interrogatory, erased the cameras recording, turned off the GPS of the police cars that got rid of the body, and bribed a woman to commit perjury.

leoc 11y ago
It's not as bad as that, but New Mexico did have the man who was "forgotten about" in police custody for two years: http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/03/06/17212442-man-left-in-solitary-confinement-for-2-years-gets-155-million-settlement http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/03/06/17212442-man-left...
neves 11y ago
Just to get clear: "They" is the police.

marincounty 11y ago

I like the list. It's easier than debating. Between 15.5 and 40, pulled over for no apparent reason at least 20 times. I'm giving them the benefit of memory with the number. I was guilty of driving an older car, hair slightly below my ears, and the ultimate sin; driving after 10 p.m. Friday-Saturday. Told to empty out my pockets because I was talking to a homlessness person. At least three tickets, where I honestly didn't know what law I broke. I once kindly asked the officer to diagram what I did wrong. He did and even initialed it. Street wrong, wrong color car. He didn't show up n court. (Highway Patrol harldy ever shows up, and they are well coached. Local cops will always show up--there's not much to do in the burbs.) Watch my dad get out of a DUI, because he as giving a get out of jail card. His buddy gave him his detective's business card, with some scribbling on back. Done Coke at two different parties, and the supplier were both in law enforcement. Great Coke--I guess? (I was much younger, and honestly, really didn't even like the Coke effects. I think I was drinking too much at the party? I'm no angel.) In college, I worked as a life guard. The lonely Sherriff would hang with us. He would leave a party if mariguana was in the air, but would get stinky drunk, and drive us around. When we got pulled over, he would Just pull out the Bagde. Yes--I went along. Never like the hypocracy of the dude. Watched a Francisco cop drive my high school sister, and her model friend to the north side of the bridge, actually they escorted her. They allowed her to drive drunk. One then asked for her phone number. Yes--it's great they didn't ticket/arrest her, but only because she was young, and attractive. Listen to my dad complain about his cop best friend who just played chess in the basement of the corner building. My dad thought they should be out cruising for the bad guys. I asked my father, "Wouldn't you rather them playing chess, over looking for cheezy tickets?" Father, "Well yes." (I see nothing wrong with doing nothing while on shift, especially in low crime areas. And I don't expect cops to risk their lives. Honestly.) What has this thought me; buy two cheap dash cams from China. $15 a piece. Just don't drive certain nights. If you are going to go to the evil bar/hootenanny, buy a $19 breath analyzer at Costco. I can't imagine what minorites have been through, as I am a white dude. Am I an angel--hell no. I guess I'm just unlucky? When I was younger, I honestly didn't think slightly longer hair, and a VW would equate with being harassed, but it did. Do I get harrrased as much now--no. I don't go out like I did, and I drive a car that's inconspicuous, with no bumper stickers. I once put a Police Officers Association sticker on my rear window; trying to invoke reverse psychology. Well it just bought in a red brick. Do I see people being treated like they had no rights--hell yes, more than ever. The image of a women being forced to empty her purse because she was sitting on the sidewalk is my latest imprint. She was bum rushed by five cops, and a particularly eager female cop whom frisked her too agressively. They left her alone after finding nothing suspicious in her purse, but took her picture. Love to take those pictures? Again I know they have a tough job, but don't make up tickets. Get to know the law--other than on the job. Oh yea, we all don't get roaring drunk when we go out? You might, but most of us don't. We are not, "Just like you on our days off?". As to the danger of the job; I do morn the death of an honest cop, but actually deaths are higher in construction/taxi cab drivers. I guess what I'm trying to say is don't stereotype, and make up drama. I'm wondering if I'll live to see the day where I don't cringe when a cruiser is behind me? Done!