5 ms·

>Heroin is big business, but not for the Mexican immigrant Reagan is tailing today. He’s just a suspected courier who might make $500 or so. The real money flow

>Heroin is big business, but not for the Mexican immigrant Reagan is tailing today. He’s just a suspected courier who might make $500 or so. The real money flows to the gangs that control distribution, and to the drug cartels back in Mexico. >When they finally pull him over, police rip up the floor boards and dig through the driver’s back pack. They check the bumpers and the trunk and look for secret compartments in the doors. >Nothing. >Reagan is frustrated. There have to be drugs in that car, he thinks. Wait, they pulled someone over and destroyed their car over nothing? I hope they had some really solid evidence, but the article didn't say. >The agents don’t have time to dwell on what went wrong. About 7,000 kilograms of heroin are seized in the United States every year, three times as much as a decade ago. They will be hunting someone new tomorrow. Oh, okay then. They don't have time to dwell on what went wrong.

BoiledCabbage 9y ago
> They don't have time to dwell on what went wrong. But damnmit the bigger issue and what I'm really mad at is people protesting Police abuse! /s It's absurd how skewed this country has become in the "Police can do no wrong" mentality. When spoken in the abstract people are quick to say of course there is corruption and things can be improved in policing. But when it comes to specifics or even specific instances popular opinion and the justice system never fails to side with the police. And no, it's not just the conflict of interest for prosecutors that's at issue. We have a serious issue with the role of Police as public servants in this country. The (deliberate) pendulum swing to overly idolizing soldiers post-Vietnam, the declaration that police were now in a war against an inanimate object (drugs) including equipment and tactics, and the "otherization" / racial aspect have really made a perfect storm that is has now begun to spread out to society at large.
- aklemm 9y ago
  It IS absurd and I'm with you in thinking it is a perfect storm. Possibly even a fundamental crisis of freedom. My latest tactic is to label these people "copsuckers". It makes me feel good anyway.
  - BoiledCabbage 9y ago
    Labeling people does nothing to help change the situation other than alienate people from agreeing with you and understanding that things need to improve.
    - aklemm 9y ago
      That's often very wise, but sometimes a well-placed label or even insult gets a person thinking. In this case, it's a thought like, "Why do I have this cop in my mouth?"
- codyb 9y ago
  Hmm, I do agree with you but when I read that I read that as literally meaning "these police officers have no time to dwell on whats wrong". With that many deaths and overdoses in just one week a lot of these departments are pretty taxed. A lot of these guys are doing the best they can with what little time they have and showing compassion where they can. Fortunately for those battling these addictions I suspect, this epidemic is touching people the police know and care about. When it's not quite literally a black and white issue (or latino and white), and when the victims look like the officers or their friends or family, I think you see a bit more compassion. But boy are a lot of these places just plain overrun with calls these days. Hopefully one day we'll see more compassion for every citizen and I'm hopeful we're slowly but surely moving in that direction. I dunno what it is I just have a decent amount of faith in America's ability to generally move forward over time. Man, some of those stories were really heartwrenching.
  - codyb 9y ago
    Also, in a lot of places officers are carrying narcan and saving lots of lives. Maybe that's the best thing these guys have done in a long time.
  - leggomylibro 9y ago
    Yeah, it's just a terrible situation all around. I'm sure the cops don't go after innocent people just to spite us, but they are clearly overworked and lacking acvountability. And it shouldn't be their job to deal with all of this, anyways. It's a public health issue.
  - BoiledCabbage 9y ago
    > I dunno what it is I just have a decent amount of faith in America's ability to generally move forward over time. So with this, you just happened to touch upon an only tangentially related strongly held opinion of mine. So I'll rant for a sec: It is my strongly held belief that society and life does not just get better over time. All of the improvements we've seen in society have been from people fighting incredibly hard against entrenched systems in order to improve live for future people. Rights to vote for women and minorities, child labor laws, ending slavery, workplace improvements, anit-discrimination laws. Absolutely none of those improved "with time". All of them involved difficult, confrontational and frankly uncomfortable fights to improve society for everyone. I think your view (and i'm not selecting you) is endemic in a lot of people in this country (particularly younger generations) that think life will improve if we just sit back and do nothing and give it time. This has never been the case in American society. People have been pushing hard to improve society and I really feel like a lot of people now have a view of "just wait and it will just happen". I personally believe this is an extremely misguided and hazardous view. I'm definitely not looking to start an argument about it, but I do ask people to think of any major social improvements of the last century+ that didn't involve a large associated active social fight for it. Without people pushing us forward systems and societies calcify and then begin to rot. --- On the topic at hand I absolutely think the majority of police mean well and are trying to help. However I do think as an broad generalization - as an organization police departments (and their unions) don't take feedback well, often work to defend/justify their actions rather than find ways to improve, and have a view of being above the law or that they should be granted exceptions because of their circumstances. This makes it difficult to root out those offices who condone and commit bad behaviors. There is a reason why teachers choose goodie-two-shoes types to be hall-monitors. When given power over others, people need to be held to an even higher standard of behavior, vs be granted exemptions from rules/laws/accountability because of their job. Everyone should feel 100% at ease and trusting of their encounters with police. For whatever reason in today's society a lot of people justifiably don't feel that way. And we as Americans should make it a priority to fix that. Police and society should be on the same side - both against criminals.

BoiledCabbage 9y ago

> They don't have time to dwell on what went wrong. But damnmit the bigger issue and what I'm really mad at is people protesting Police abuse! /s It's absurd how skewed this country has become in the "Police can do no wrong" mentality. When spoken in the abstract people are quick to say of course there is corruption and things can be improved in policing. But when it comes to specifics or even specific instances popular opinion and the justice system never fails to side with the police. And no, it's not just the conflict of interest for prosecutors that's at issue. We have a serious issue with the role of Police as public servants in this country. The (deliberate) pendulum swing to overly idolizing soldiers post-Vietnam, the declaration that police were now in a war against an inanimate object (drugs) including equipment and tactics, and the "otherization" / racial aspect have really made a perfect storm that is has now begun to spread out to society at large.

aklemm 9y ago
It IS absurd and I'm with you in thinking it is a perfect storm. Possibly even a fundamental crisis of freedom. My latest tactic is to label these people "copsuckers". It makes me feel good anyway.
- BoiledCabbage 9y ago
  Labeling people does nothing to help change the situation other than alienate people from agreeing with you and understanding that things need to improve.
  - aklemm 9y ago
    That's often very wise, but sometimes a well-placed label or even insult gets a person thinking. In this case, it's a thought like, "Why do I have this cop in my mouth?"
codyb 9y ago
Hmm, I do agree with you but when I read that I read that as literally meaning "these police officers have no time to dwell on whats wrong". With that many deaths and overdoses in just one week a lot of these departments are pretty taxed. A lot of these guys are doing the best they can with what little time they have and showing compassion where they can. Fortunately for those battling these addictions I suspect, this epidemic is touching people the police know and care about. When it's not quite literally a black and white issue (or latino and white), and when the victims look like the officers or their friends or family, I think you see a bit more compassion. But boy are a lot of these places just plain overrun with calls these days. Hopefully one day we'll see more compassion for every citizen and I'm hopeful we're slowly but surely moving in that direction. I dunno what it is I just have a decent amount of faith in America's ability to generally move forward over time. Man, some of those stories were really heartwrenching.
- codyb 9y ago
  Also, in a lot of places officers are carrying narcan and saving lots of lives. Maybe that's the best thing these guys have done in a long time.
- leggomylibro 9y ago
  Yeah, it's just a terrible situation all around. I'm sure the cops don't go after innocent people just to spite us, but they are clearly overworked and lacking acvountability. And it shouldn't be their job to deal with all of this, anyways. It's a public health issue.
- BoiledCabbage 9y ago
  > I dunno what it is I just have a decent amount of faith in America's ability to generally move forward over time. So with this, you just happened to touch upon an only tangentially related strongly held opinion of mine. So I'll rant for a sec: It is my strongly held belief that society and life does not just get better over time. All of the improvements we've seen in society have been from people fighting incredibly hard against entrenched systems in order to improve live for future people. Rights to vote for women and minorities, child labor laws, ending slavery, workplace improvements, anit-discrimination laws. Absolutely none of those improved "with time". All of them involved difficult, confrontational and frankly uncomfortable fights to improve society for everyone. I think your view (and i'm not selecting you) is endemic in a lot of people in this country (particularly younger generations) that think life will improve if we just sit back and do nothing and give it time. This has never been the case in American society. People have been pushing hard to improve society and I really feel like a lot of people now have a view of "just wait and it will just happen". I personally believe this is an extremely misguided and hazardous view. I'm definitely not looking to start an argument about it, but I do ask people to think of any major social improvements of the last century+ that didn't involve a large associated active social fight for it. Without people pushing us forward systems and societies calcify and then begin to rot. --- On the topic at hand I absolutely think the majority of police mean well and are trying to help. However I do think as an broad generalization - as an organization police departments (and their unions) don't take feedback well, often work to defend/justify their actions rather than find ways to improve, and have a view of being above the law or that they should be granted exceptions because of their circumstances. This makes it difficult to root out those offices who condone and commit bad behaviors. There is a reason why teachers choose goodie-two-shoes types to be hall-monitors. When given power over others, people need to be held to an even higher standard of behavior, vs be granted exemptions from rules/laws/accountability because of their job. Everyone should feel 100% at ease and trusting of their encounters with police. For whatever reason in today's society a lot of people justifiably don't feel that way. And we as Americans should make it a priority to fix that. Police and society should be on the same side - both against criminals.