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As more and a wider variety of stories emerge about police malfeasance around the U.S., it should become increasingly difficult to credibly say it's just a few

As more and a wider variety of stories emerge about police malfeasance around the U.S., it should become increasingly difficult to credibly say it's just a few bad apples here and there responsible for isolated incidents. It is ubiquitous? I don't know. But empirically it does seem to be pervasive.

bootlooped 8y ago
The biggest refutation of the few-bad-apples theory in my mind is that for each bad apple there are a dozen other officers that either did nothing or actively covered for them, plus the policeman's union which will zealously assert that basically no policeman is ever to blame for anything. It would be a whole different story if the police rooted out bad actors within their ranks on their own, but it seems like it takes a lot of kicking and screaming and, most importantly, public scrutiny, to get anything done.
- XJOKOLAT 8y ago
  True. Fuck em.
- digi_owl 8y ago
  Their theory seems to be that if i don't back him, then him or his cohort will throw me to the wolfs at a bad moment. Sadly this line of thinking just reinforce the mentality that the police is at war with the public, in that the only people they can "trust" (in a tit for tat sense) are fellow officers.
Barrin92 8y ago
>difficult to credibly say it's just a few bad apples here and there responsible for isolated incidents the point of the metaphor is that a few rotten apples spoil the entire bunch, so this isn't really an excuse to begin with.
- staticautomatic 8y ago
  It's funny you should bring that up because, come to think of it, I've never actually seen a bunch of apples spoiled by a bad one. They seem to rot from the outside in, maybe on account of their relatively thick skins. Softer skinned fruits like berries and those which tend to mold on the outside (like citrus) do tend to spoil the whole bunch, though.
  - Barrin92 8y ago
    I think it's in many ways about precaution. We're pretty damn cautious when it comes to signs of decay in food for good reasons, even if many apples are still edible. It's just not worth ruining your stomach with a rotten one. And I think that mindset ought to apply to civil servants as well. It's not just enough for them to be just okay at their jobs, they have the right to exercise deadly force so we can demand that they are more dutiful and more restrained than the people they protect. The 'servant' is in the name for a reason. When it looks more like a group of people on a power trip then something has gone very wrong.
teilo 8y ago
It is inevitable that malfeasance will spread, for the simple reason that as the police are required, in big ways and small, to violate the rights of the people they are supposed to protect, those who do not wish to do so will leave the force, leaving behind those who do.
mnm1 8y ago
Even the metaphor used is wrong. A few bad apples in a barrel will make the whole thing rot. A cop that covers for another is equally rotten so I simply do not believe there are any non-rotten cops. They might not commit the torture, rape, and murder of unarmed people themselves, but they'll do anything to defend those cops that do. That's somehow ethical in the mind of many and thus they applied the phrase "a few bad apples" about as well as they apply their ethical principles: terribly. So "a few bad apples it is": aka all police are rotten scum. Their logic, not mine.

bootlooped 8y ago

The biggest refutation of the few-bad-apples theory in my mind is that for each bad apple there are a dozen other officers that either did nothing or actively covered for them, plus the policeman's union which will zealously assert that basically no policeman is ever to blame for anything. It would be a whole different story if the police rooted out bad actors within their ranks on their own, but it seems like it takes a lot of kicking and screaming and, most importantly, public scrutiny, to get anything done.

XJOKOLAT 8y ago
True. Fuck em.
digi_owl 8y ago
Their theory seems to be that if i don't back him, then him or his cohort will throw me to the wolfs at a bad moment. Sadly this line of thinking just reinforce the mentality that the police is at war with the public, in that the only people they can "trust" (in a tit for tat sense) are fellow officers.

Barrin92 8y ago

>difficult to credibly say it's just a few bad apples here and there responsible for isolated incidents the point of the metaphor is that a few rotten apples spoil the entire bunch, so this isn't really an excuse to begin with.

staticautomatic 8y ago
It's funny you should bring that up because, come to think of it, I've never actually seen a bunch of apples spoiled by a bad one. They seem to rot from the outside in, maybe on account of their relatively thick skins. Softer skinned fruits like berries and those which tend to mold on the outside (like citrus) do tend to spoil the whole bunch, though.
- Barrin92 8y ago
  I think it's in many ways about precaution. We're pretty damn cautious when it comes to signs of decay in food for good reasons, even if many apples are still edible. It's just not worth ruining your stomach with a rotten one. And I think that mindset ought to apply to civil servants as well. It's not just enough for them to be just okay at their jobs, they have the right to exercise deadly force so we can demand that they are more dutiful and more restrained than the people they protect. The 'servant' is in the name for a reason. When it looks more like a group of people on a power trip then something has gone very wrong.

teilo 8y ago

It is inevitable that malfeasance will spread, for the simple reason that as the police are required, in big ways and small, to violate the rights of the people they are supposed to protect, those who do not wish to do so will leave the force, leaving behind those who do.

mnm1 8y ago

Even the metaphor used is wrong. A few bad apples in a barrel will make the whole thing rot. A cop that covers for another is equally rotten so I simply do not believe there are any non-rotten cops. They might not commit the torture, rape, and murder of unarmed people themselves, but they'll do anything to defend those cops that do. That's somehow ethical in the mind of many and thus they applied the phrase "a few bad apples" about as well as they apply their ethical principles: terribly. So "a few bad apples it is": aka all police are rotten scum. Their logic, not mine.