5 ms·

Everyone Has the Right to Mouth Off to Cops

56 points by frostmatthew 11y ago

keithblaha 11y ago
And every cop has the right to punish you for it. Not a real legal right of course, but one forged through generations of corruption, insecurity, and abuse of power!
- pille 11y ago
  Insulting a cop is actually a crime in Germany. But ironically, you're probably in less danger for doing it than you would be in the US, where it's technically your right, but effectively not. In Germany, you'd get a citation and a fine. In the US you roll the dice on a beating, a night or two in jail, and/or a thought-up charge as retaliation.
  - yoo1I 11y ago
    This is a common myth. There is no such thing as a "Beamtenbeleidigung" ("Insulting a civil Servant") in German law. Insulting a cop is handled by the same laws as insulting everyone else. It's just that public prosecutors will be more likely to actually criminally prosecute, instead of deferring the insulted party to a civil suit on the matter.
    - Mithaldu 11y ago
      That's not a very great explanation of it. In the base of it, insulting someone breaks StGB §185 and a lawsuit over it can be initated by a civilian as per StPO §374. Civil servants are different because their superiors have the ability to sue in their stead as per StGB §77a. http://dejure.org/gesetze/StGB/185.html http://dejure.org/gesetze/StGB/185.html - http://dejure.org/gesetze/StPO/374.html http://dejure.org/gesetze/StPO/374.html - http://dejure.org/gesetze/StGB/77a.html http://dejure.org/gesetze/StGB/77a.html
URSpider94 11y ago
I don't believe that we do have that right. I believe that the law says we do, but practically, cops have near-absolute authority to detain and arrest you, and you'd be hard-pressed to prevail in a civil case of unlawful arrest (and at that point, you've already been dragged down to the station, had your fingerprints uploaded to the Federal database, been strip-searched and spent time in a cell). I also believe that upper-middle-class white males will have much more success in exercising that right than members of other societal groups will.
- mikeash 11y ago
  As the saying goes, you can beat the rap, but you can't beat the ride.
- mhuffman 11y ago
  I believe anyone that has obvious visible wealth can easily exercise that right -- police like that are bullies and only pick on those they know cannot defend themselves. If you take a upper-middle-class white man and dress him as if he were homeless, he will get the asshole treatment. Likewise p-diddy is renowned for talking shit to cops and having them meekly walk away many times in the past.
  - patcheudor 11y ago
    Not necessarily. I drive a Mercedes roadster. Several years ago I was pulled over by a cop who started ranting about how "rich people like you think they are above the law." I pushed back hard which the officer didn't appreciate so he told me he'd make it the job of his deputies to pull me over every day for the next week, which he delivered on. In fact, when I wanted to get somewhere in a reasonable amount of time I'd take the SUV. Of course because of his escalation of the issue I did walk away from my court date with a dismissal and the officer being quite literally restrained by his colleagues. So okay, maybe it helps but certainly doesn't prevent abusive behavior. There are many officers out there with economic chips on their shoulders.
- waqf 11y ago
  What makes you think males are less likely to be detained and arrested? Personally my money is on upper-middle-class old ladies.
AdeptusAquinas 11y ago
In NZ, if a police officer arrested someone because they were verbally abusive to that officer, he or she would not remain an officer for long. Though here it might be different? Police always work in pairs and so there is sort of a peer driven enforcement of proper professional behaviour. Not sure if thats the same in the states.
prawn 11y ago
I said in a previous thread that police should make it a point of pride to be able to ignore irritated or verbally abusive people. Just play it straight and robotically to slowly calm people down. I believe a lot of police actually do this already, but is there on-going training to keep the rest on track?
rhino369 11y ago
And the cop has the legal right to not give you the benefit of the doubt when you do. The majority of the time you have a hostile interaction with police is because you broke the law in some minor way. This is exactly what happened to Sandra Brand. She exercised her right to mouth off and she got arrested, totally legally for something the police typically ignore. You gotta be 100% sure you are clean when you try this. And even then a shitty cop could just make something up.
- wtallis 11y ago
  > "arrested, totally legally for something the police typically ignore" That's not totally legal any more, because it violates the fourteenth amendment. The exercise of your rights does not justify police charging you with unrelated offenses they would normally let slide; they have to treat all citizens fairly regardless of the extent to which they choose to do legal things.
  - sokoloff 11y ago
    But no cop (or few cops) are dumb enough to outright say, "I arrested Mr Foo because he was a mouthy little bastard." Instead, you become just one of the N drivers for whom an expired inspection sticker or failure to stay in marked lanes becomes a citation (and maybe a tow) instead of a warning. Good luck proving a causality between your specific attitude or choice to exercise your rights and the outcome of the traffic stop. For the wide variety of cases where there is discretion afforded the officer in the field, you can antagonize someone who has a great deal of discretion in how the rest of your day will unfold, or you can be polite and civil. I choose polite and civil and have had overwhelmingly neutral-to-positive outcomes from my encounters with police. And I'm talking getting stopped for passing people across an intersection, 25 over on a highway, expired registration/inspection, open exhaust, a suspended license, and once even being caught smoking the tires and doing donuts in a public parking lot. (I often drove like a jackass a decade ago.) You can exercise your rights to their fullest extent and take what you get, or you can "hack" the system to your advantage by being quiet, civil, and respectful.
    - 11y ago
NeutronBoy 11y ago
In reality, you have the right to mouth off to everyone. But, generally not a good choice because if you're mouthing off to everyone, there's a good chance you're just a dickhead. Why not just be civil?
- MBlume 11y ago
  > Sometimes people use “respect” to mean “treating someone like a person” and sometimes they use “respect” to mean “treating someone like an authority” > and sometimes people who are used to being treated like an authority say “if you won’t respect me I won’t respect you” and they mean “if you won’t treat me like an authority I won’t treat you like a person” > and they think they’re being fair but they aren’t, and it’s not okay. http://stimmyabby.tumblr.com/post/115216522824/sometimes-people-use-respect-to-mean-treating http://stimmyabby.tumblr.com/post/115216522824/sometimes-peo...
  - NeutronBoy 11y ago
    > and sometimes people who are used to being treated like an authority say “if you won’t respect me I won’t respect you” and they mean “if you won’t treat me like an authority I won’t treat you like a person” And sometimes, people who think "I'm not going to treat you like an authority" are in fact not treating that authority like a person. It's a very fine line between not respecting authority and not respecting a person. If you disagree with a policeman's authority, the correct way to challenge that is to acknowledge that you disagree with them, and respond in a professional manner - formal complaints, courts, whatever. Not by being difficult to them on the side of the road. If you disagree with their treatment of you (respect like a person), the correct way to deal with that still isn't to argue on the side of the road. If they aren't treating you with respect (as a person), why would you think that getting into a confrontation with them in that environment is going to change their mind? (Have you ever seen a sporting referee change their decision after a player argued with them?)
  - jessaustin 11y ago
    The word "respect" is problematic, partially because of this ambiguity. Another problematic aspect is that it inherently sets up a relation between people: it's a transitive verb. To respect someone is to make them somehow important to one's own thought process. (There are cases in which that importance has been earned; a random interaction with police is not such a case.) I try to respect no one, but to be courteous with everyone. Courtesy is a goal to which I can direct myself. Rereading what I just wrote, I recognize it as a very privileged statement. Just the same, we'd live in a better world if everyone could feel that way, if they chose.
jqm 11y ago
So what? We probably also have a legal right to walk up to random people in the mall and tell them to go fuck themselves. But why would we? There is a police problem in the country sure. A startling proportion of police are probably abusive, racist, violent, power hungry and probably stupid to boot. They are maybe often lazy and dishonest and protected by corrupt unions. But how does flipping them off make them any less so or do anything in any way to improve the situation? Here's the bottom line.. Police officers are people too. They have a pretty tough job and see a lot of trash. So they likely are a bit jaded already. Cut them a break and treat them with civility. Work in your community to insure that police act civilly as well (or else find other professions). Basic manners on all sides are an important feature of human relations that seems to be forgotten about in the modern world.
- eropple 11y ago
  > Cut them a break and treat them with civility. Nobody with the power to kill citizens with impunity deserves a break of any kind. That policing is not the most heavily scrutinized job in America is a bug, and while I believe you have good intentions in entreating that we treat them nicely, I think that the systemic failures of their culture and their practice have demonstrated that, if anything, we should be doing the exact opposite. I don't assume a cop is going to hassle me, but I'm a well-to-do white male and I do know how to both play the game and how to correctly assert my legal rights, just in case. I do assume that that cop will hassle any number of my friends without those check-marks of privilege and foreknowledge, because, systematically, they do exactly that. That makes more than the barest of civility a very big ask.
  - jqm 11y ago
    Oh, don't misunderstand me. I'm not suggesting bad cop behavior should be "cut a break". I'm just saying cops are humans... just like you and I. For this alone they are worth a certain measure of respect. Also, they have job that requires them to interface with human trash for much of their working day. Although in a perfect world it shouldn't, this might tend to make someone a little grumpy and hostile toward others. I'm not excusing the fact that the job probably attracts more than it's share of psychopathic bullies. Nor any of the misdeeds. But in order to improve the situation we should take a realistic and humane look at what cops are seeing. And we should demand the type of cops that take exactly the same approach towards their "clients".
zw123456 11y ago
I think that whole incident shows that dash cams and other types of cop cams don't necessarily curb police abuse. I think the main reason is that they all feel pretty confident that even if they completely break the law there is likely to be no consequences for the police. Until we start holding the police accountable for breaking the law. The problem is that the only people who are willing to do that type of work (policing) are often people who are attracted to the idea of being able to exert power over other people (sociopathic inclinations in many cases). If we start prosecuting them and holding them accountable then it will be really hard to find people to do the job because there is no advantage to beating and killing people as a police officer if the consequences for doing it are the same as an ordinary citizen. If that were the case, the violent sociopaths might as well just go out and take their chances without the uniform. It is the same reason that pedophiles are attracted to the priesthood, they know that they can victimize people and be protected while doing it. Violent sociopaths are attracted to policing for the same reason, they know that they can exert power over others and be protected.
- TazeTSchnitzel 11y ago
  Also, people who are not violent sociopaths may develop such tendencies by doing the job (Stanford prison experiment).
rokhayakebe 11y ago
Please, please do not "Mouth Off," or whatever people call it, a cop. I understand this is much easier said than done, specially when someone is being disrespectfully and you feel your dignity is at play. I suggest every time a cop stops you you try to record the entire scene, and have it be automatically recorded somewhere else in case they try to delete it. Even if you do not record, be polite, keep as quiet as you can and take your time later to complaint and spread the information via every channel you know/want. In the moment, anything you say or do, is likely to work against you.
guiambros 11y ago
One of the cases linked is pretty shocking and absurd: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SGSrGmHsT8s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SGSrGmHsT8s What drives me crazy is the corporativism of police union and syndicates, turning a blind eye even when there's a 3 min video (!) recording the absurdity of the case. Here's what Michael Palladino, president of the Detectives' Endowment Association, said about the case: "Detective Cherry is a person of good character and an excellent detective. He really should not be judged by one isolated incident." Except, it wasn't at all isolated: "Over the course of his 14-1/2 years on the force, Det. Cherry has has received a total of 13 civilian complaints against him according to a person with knowledge of the latest complaint." [1][2] And, even if it was his first abuse, why should he get a free pass? [1] http://gothamist.com/2015/04/02/cherry_jammed_up.php http://gothamist.com/2015/04/02/cherry_jammed_up.php [2] http://blogs.wsj.com/metropolis/2015/04/01/nypd-officer-who-berated-taxi-driver-in-youtube-video-placed-on-desk-duty/ http://blogs.wsj.com/metropolis/2015/04/01/nypd-officer-who-...
- spacehome 11y ago
  > "Detective Cherry is a person of good character and an excellent detective. He really should not be judged by one isolated incident." Is this how they treat suspects? You have to marvel at the cognitive dissonance.
  - angry_octet 11y ago
    https://popehat.com/2015/04/29/cops-we-need-rights-more-than-you-citizen/ https://popehat.com/2015/04/29/cops-we-need-rights-more-than...
mixmastamyk 11y ago
I don't think this is a good idea even if it is your right. Sure, stand up for yourself, don't grovel, but rudeness doesn't particularly improve any situation, especially one where you are at a total disadvantage.
justwannasing 11y ago
I was always taught to respect others and respect authority. In a civilized world, you should be civil to everyone. I would no sooner mouth off to a cop as I would mouth off anyone else. It's disrespectful and speaks volumes about the person spouting off and nothing about who he's going off on. Respect and civility to everyone is a higher cause. To even think of doing otherwise is beyond right thinking.
- zzalpha 11y ago
  And yet, that doesn't make it legal for a cop to arrest you for being uncivil. There's a big big difference between what's polite and what's legal.
  - justwannasing 11y ago
    My point is, every decent, moral, law-abiding citizen is unconcerned about the need for any article such as this.
    - Vendan 11y ago
      Every decent, moral, law-abiding citizen should be outraged that the people responsible for safeguarding us and upholding the law are violating it on a regular basis.
      - zzalpha 11y ago
        This, right here, is exactly the point.
  - ende 11y ago
    Your positio fails from the same fallacy as "if you do no wrong you have nothing to hide" arguments against privacy rights.
- JadeNB 11y ago
  Part of right thinking, I feel, is recognising the rights others have even outside your own philosophical framework. I completely agree with being civil to everyone, as far as possible—though, at a certain point, I think that an emotional response to uncivil provocation can be excused. With that said, I also feel that I should recognise others' rights to exercise their, well, rights, even when I disagree with them. As GBS said, "The reasonable man adapts himself to the conditions that surround him; the unreasonable man adapts surrounding conditions to himself. All progress depends on the unreasonable man."
ageofwant 11y ago
Cops are people. If you cannot behave like a human you should expect to be treated like a rabid dog. Yes of course there are bad cops, the number of precious little entitled uncivil little snowflakes vastly outnumber those.
tonyarkles 11y ago
If you'd like to see an excellent example of professionalism: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8IPct574o4w https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8IPct574o4w I'm not convinced that I wouldn't have just punched that kid in the face...
- ap22213 11y ago
  Wow. If that was in the U.S., the cop would have pulled a weapon on the kid the moment he stepped out of the car.
tzs 11y ago
At a traffic stop there are a few things to keep in mind before deciding to mouth off. 1. More than half of traffic stops result in a warning, not a ticket. When the violation is too severe for a warning, in many cases the ticket will be for a lesser level of offense. For instant, in many states the fine and effect on insurance rates for speeding is higher if the speed was more than some threshold over the limit. Often if you are over the threshold, the officer will write the ticket for just under. Being rude and obnoxious will greatly increase the chances that you'll get the ticket, and that it won't be written down to a lesser level offense. 2. You don't know what the prior stops that day have been like. Maybe the officer has just dealt with a string of drivers who were rude and obnoxious, and were trying to pushing him to his limits, and he's managed to barely kkep his calm. Not knowing this, you could easily push him farther than you intended. 3. You don't know who the next person stopped will be. You are putting the officer in a bad mood for them, which could make it less likely they will get a warning, or more likely something they do will get them in trouble.
- coldtea 11y ago
  >2. You don't know what the prior stops that day have been like. Maybe the officer has just dealt with a string of drivers who were rude and obnoxious, and were trying to pushing him to his limits, and he's managed to barely his calm. Not knowing this, you could easily push him farther than you intended. In which case he should be fired. Prior incidents are not an excuse for a supposed professional, and doubly so if he is paid by the taxpayers. Would you give the same courtesy to a waiter, a bus or taxi driver, a sales clerk, etc?
  - ericclemmons 11y ago
    Actually, yes. I expect them to be human and capable of running out of patience as much as the next person. For instance, when I have a waiter that gets verbally abused by a neighboring table, I go out of my way to swing the pendulum in the other direction by being very polite, understanding, and more patient than normal. Trying to balance out the universe often works out in your favor as well. Idealistically, I'd like people in high-intensity situations behave almost like robots, but that's simply not realistic.

56 points by frostmatthew 11y ago

And every cop has the right to punish you for it. Not a real legal right of course, but one forged through generations of corruption, insecurity, and abuse of power!

pille 11y ago
Insulting a cop is actually a crime in Germany. But ironically, you're probably in less danger for doing it than you would be in the US, where it's technically your right, but effectively not. In Germany, you'd get a citation and a fine. In the US you roll the dice on a beating, a night or two in jail, and/or a thought-up charge as retaliation.
- yoo1I 11y ago
  This is a common myth. There is no such thing as a "Beamtenbeleidigung" ("Insulting a civil Servant") in German law. Insulting a cop is handled by the same laws as insulting everyone else. It's just that public prosecutors will be more likely to actually criminally prosecute, instead of deferring the insulted party to a civil suit on the matter.
  - Mithaldu 11y ago
    That's not a very great explanation of it. In the base of it, insulting someone breaks StGB §185 and a lawsuit over it can be initated by a civilian as per StPO §374. Civil servants are different because their superiors have the ability to sue in their stead as per StGB §77a. http://dejure.org/gesetze/StGB/185.html http://dejure.org/gesetze/StGB/185.html - http://dejure.org/gesetze/StPO/374.html http://dejure.org/gesetze/StPO/374.html - http://dejure.org/gesetze/StGB/77a.html http://dejure.org/gesetze/StGB/77a.html

URSpider94 11y ago

I don't believe that we do have that right. I believe that the law says we do, but practically, cops have near-absolute authority to detain and arrest you, and you'd be hard-pressed to prevail in a civil case of unlawful arrest (and at that point, you've already been dragged down to the station, had your fingerprints uploaded to the Federal database, been strip-searched and spent time in a cell). I also believe that upper-middle-class white males will have much more success in exercising that right than members of other societal groups will.

mikeash 11y ago
As the saying goes, you can beat the rap, but you can't beat the ride.
mhuffman 11y ago
I believe anyone that has obvious visible wealth can easily exercise that right -- police like that are bullies and only pick on those they know cannot defend themselves. If you take a upper-middle-class white man and dress him as if he were homeless, he will get the asshole treatment. Likewise p-diddy is renowned for talking shit to cops and having them meekly walk away many times in the past.
- patcheudor 11y ago
  Not necessarily. I drive a Mercedes roadster. Several years ago I was pulled over by a cop who started ranting about how "rich people like you think they are above the law." I pushed back hard which the officer didn't appreciate so he told me he'd make it the job of his deputies to pull me over every day for the next week, which he delivered on. In fact, when I wanted to get somewhere in a reasonable amount of time I'd take the SUV. Of course because of his escalation of the issue I did walk away from my court date with a dismissal and the officer being quite literally restrained by his colleagues. So okay, maybe it helps but certainly doesn't prevent abusive behavior. There are many officers out there with economic chips on their shoulders.
waqf 11y ago
What makes you think males are less likely to be detained and arrested? Personally my money is on upper-middle-class old ladies.

AdeptusAquinas 11y ago

In NZ, if a police officer arrested someone because they were verbally abusive to that officer, he or she would not remain an officer for long. Though here it might be different? Police always work in pairs and so there is sort of a peer driven enforcement of proper professional behaviour. Not sure if thats the same in the states.

prawn 11y ago

I said in a previous thread that police should make it a point of pride to be able to ignore irritated or verbally abusive people. Just play it straight and robotically to slowly calm people down. I believe a lot of police actually do this already, but is there on-going training to keep the rest on track?

rhino369 11y ago

And the cop has the legal right to not give you the benefit of the doubt when you do. The majority of the time you have a hostile interaction with police is because you broke the law in some minor way. This is exactly what happened to Sandra Brand. She exercised her right to mouth off and she got arrested, totally legally for something the police typically ignore. You gotta be 100% sure you are clean when you try this. And even then a shitty cop could just make something up.

wtallis 11y ago
> "arrested, totally legally for something the police typically ignore" That's not totally legal any more, because it violates the fourteenth amendment. The exercise of your rights does not justify police charging you with unrelated offenses they would normally let slide; they have to treat all citizens fairly regardless of the extent to which they choose to do legal things.
- sokoloff 11y ago
  But no cop (or few cops) are dumb enough to outright say, "I arrested Mr Foo because he was a mouthy little bastard." Instead, you become just one of the N drivers for whom an expired inspection sticker or failure to stay in marked lanes becomes a citation (and maybe a tow) instead of a warning. Good luck proving a causality between your specific attitude or choice to exercise your rights and the outcome of the traffic stop. For the wide variety of cases where there is discretion afforded the officer in the field, you can antagonize someone who has a great deal of discretion in how the rest of your day will unfold, or you can be polite and civil. I choose polite and civil and have had overwhelmingly neutral-to-positive outcomes from my encounters with police. And I'm talking getting stopped for passing people across an intersection, 25 over on a highway, expired registration/inspection, open exhaust, a suspended license, and once even being caught smoking the tires and doing donuts in a public parking lot. (I often drove like a jackass a decade ago.) You can exercise your rights to their fullest extent and take what you get, or you can "hack" the system to your advantage by being quiet, civil, and respectful.
  - 11y ago

NeutronBoy 11y ago

In reality, you have the right to mouth off to everyone. But, generally not a good choice because if you're mouthing off to everyone, there's a good chance you're just a dickhead. Why not just be civil?

MBlume 11y ago
> Sometimes people use “respect” to mean “treating someone like a person” and sometimes they use “respect” to mean “treating someone like an authority” > and sometimes people who are used to being treated like an authority say “if you won’t respect me I won’t respect you” and they mean “if you won’t treat me like an authority I won’t treat you like a person” > and they think they’re being fair but they aren’t, and it’s not okay. http://stimmyabby.tumblr.com/post/115216522824/sometimes-people-use-respect-to-mean-treating http://stimmyabby.tumblr.com/post/115216522824/sometimes-peo...
- NeutronBoy 11y ago
  > and sometimes people who are used to being treated like an authority say “if you won’t respect me I won’t respect you” and they mean “if you won’t treat me like an authority I won’t treat you like a person” And sometimes, people who think "I'm not going to treat you like an authority" are in fact not treating that authority like a person. It's a very fine line between not respecting authority and not respecting a person. If you disagree with a policeman's authority, the correct way to challenge that is to acknowledge that you disagree with them, and respond in a professional manner - formal complaints, courts, whatever. Not by being difficult to them on the side of the road. If you disagree with their treatment of you (respect like a person), the correct way to deal with that still isn't to argue on the side of the road. If they aren't treating you with respect (as a person), why would you think that getting into a confrontation with them in that environment is going to change their mind? (Have you ever seen a sporting referee change their decision after a player argued with them?)
- jessaustin 11y ago
  The word "respect" is problematic, partially because of this ambiguity. Another problematic aspect is that it inherently sets up a relation between people: it's a transitive verb. To respect someone is to make them somehow important to one's own thought process. (There are cases in which that importance has been earned; a random interaction with police is not such a case.) I try to respect no one, but to be courteous with everyone. Courtesy is a goal to which I can direct myself. Rereading what I just wrote, I recognize it as a very privileged statement. Just the same, we'd live in a better world if everyone could feel that way, if they chose.

jqm 11y ago

So what? We probably also have a legal right to walk up to random people in the mall and tell them to go fuck themselves. But why would we? There is a police problem in the country sure. A startling proportion of police are probably abusive, racist, violent, power hungry and probably stupid to boot. They are maybe often lazy and dishonest and protected by corrupt unions. But how does flipping them off make them any less so or do anything in any way to improve the situation? Here's the bottom line.. Police officers are people too. They have a pretty tough job and see a lot of trash. So they likely are a bit jaded already. Cut them a break and treat them with civility. Work in your community to insure that police act civilly as well (or else find other professions). Basic manners on all sides are an important feature of human relations that seems to be forgotten about in the modern world.

eropple 11y ago
> Cut them a break and treat them with civility. Nobody with the power to kill citizens with impunity deserves a break of any kind. That policing is not the most heavily scrutinized job in America is a bug, and while I believe you have good intentions in entreating that we treat them nicely, I think that the systemic failures of their culture and their practice have demonstrated that, if anything, we should be doing the exact opposite. I don't assume a cop is going to hassle me, but I'm a well-to-do white male and I do know how to both play the game and how to correctly assert my legal rights, just in case. I do assume that that cop will hassle any number of my friends without those check-marks of privilege and foreknowledge, because, systematically, they do exactly that. That makes more than the barest of civility a very big ask.
- jqm 11y ago
  Oh, don't misunderstand me. I'm not suggesting bad cop behavior should be "cut a break". I'm just saying cops are humans... just like you and I. For this alone they are worth a certain measure of respect. Also, they have job that requires them to interface with human trash for much of their working day. Although in a perfect world it shouldn't, this might tend to make someone a little grumpy and hostile toward others. I'm not excusing the fact that the job probably attracts more than it's share of psychopathic bullies. Nor any of the misdeeds. But in order to improve the situation we should take a realistic and humane look at what cops are seeing. And we should demand the type of cops that take exactly the same approach towards their "clients".

zw123456 11y ago

I think that whole incident shows that dash cams and other types of cop cams don't necessarily curb police abuse. I think the main reason is that they all feel pretty confident that even if they completely break the law there is likely to be no consequences for the police. Until we start holding the police accountable for breaking the law. The problem is that the only people who are willing to do that type of work (policing) are often people who are attracted to the idea of being able to exert power over other people (sociopathic inclinations in many cases). If we start prosecuting them and holding them accountable then it will be really hard to find people to do the job because there is no advantage to beating and killing people as a police officer if the consequences for doing it are the same as an ordinary citizen. If that were the case, the violent sociopaths might as well just go out and take their chances without the uniform. It is the same reason that pedophiles are attracted to the priesthood, they know that they can victimize people and be protected while doing it. Violent sociopaths are attracted to policing for the same reason, they know that they can exert power over others and be protected.

TazeTSchnitzel 11y ago
Also, people who are not violent sociopaths may develop such tendencies by doing the job (Stanford prison experiment).

rokhayakebe 11y ago

Please, please do not "Mouth Off," or whatever people call it, a cop. I understand this is much easier said than done, specially when someone is being disrespectfully and you feel your dignity is at play. I suggest every time a cop stops you you try to record the entire scene, and have it be automatically recorded somewhere else in case they try to delete it. Even if you do not record, be polite, keep as quiet as you can and take your time later to complaint and spread the information via every channel you know/want. In the moment, anything you say or do, is likely to work against you.

guiambros 11y ago

One of the cases linked is pretty shocking and absurd: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SGSrGmHsT8s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SGSrGmHsT8s What drives me crazy is the corporativism of police union and syndicates, turning a blind eye even when there's a 3 min video (!) recording the absurdity of the case. Here's what Michael Palladino, president of the Detectives' Endowment Association, said about the case: "Detective Cherry is a person of good character and an excellent detective. He really should not be judged by one isolated incident." Except, it wasn't at all isolated: "Over the course of his 14-1/2 years on the force, Det. Cherry has has received a total of 13 civilian complaints against him according to a person with knowledge of the latest complaint." [1][2] And, even if it was his first abuse, why should he get a free pass? [1] http://gothamist.com/2015/04/02/cherry_jammed_up.php http://gothamist.com/2015/04/02/cherry_jammed_up.php [2] http://blogs.wsj.com/metropolis/2015/04/01/nypd-officer-who-berated-taxi-driver-in-youtube-video-placed-on-desk-duty/ http://blogs.wsj.com/metropolis/2015/04/01/nypd-officer-who-...

spacehome 11y ago
> "Detective Cherry is a person of good character and an excellent detective. He really should not be judged by one isolated incident." Is this how they treat suspects? You have to marvel at the cognitive dissonance.
- angry_octet 11y ago
  https://popehat.com/2015/04/29/cops-we-need-rights-more-than-you-citizen/ https://popehat.com/2015/04/29/cops-we-need-rights-more-than...

mixmastamyk 11y ago

I don't think this is a good idea even if it is your right. Sure, stand up for yourself, don't grovel, but rudeness doesn't particularly improve any situation, especially one where you are at a total disadvantage.

justwannasing 11y ago

I was always taught to respect others and respect authority. In a civilized world, you should be civil to everyone. I would no sooner mouth off to a cop as I would mouth off anyone else. It's disrespectful and speaks volumes about the person spouting off and nothing about who he's going off on. Respect and civility to everyone is a higher cause. To even think of doing otherwise is beyond right thinking.

zzalpha 11y ago
And yet, that doesn't make it legal for a cop to arrest you for being uncivil. There's a big big difference between what's polite and what's legal.
- justwannasing 11y ago
  My point is, every decent, moral, law-abiding citizen is unconcerned about the need for any article such as this.
  - Vendan 11y ago
    Every decent, moral, law-abiding citizen should be outraged that the people responsible for safeguarding us and upholding the law are violating it on a regular basis.
    - zzalpha 11y ago
      This, right here, is exactly the point.
- ende 11y ago
  Your positio fails from the same fallacy as "if you do no wrong you have nothing to hide" arguments against privacy rights.
JadeNB 11y ago
Part of right thinking, I feel, is recognising the rights others have even outside your own philosophical framework. I completely agree with being civil to everyone, as far as possible—though, at a certain point, I think that an emotional response to uncivil provocation can be excused. With that said, I also feel that I should recognise others' rights to exercise their, well, rights, even when I disagree with them. As GBS said, "The reasonable man adapts himself to the conditions that surround him; the unreasonable man adapts surrounding conditions to himself. All progress depends on the unreasonable man."

ageofwant 11y ago

Cops are people. If you cannot behave like a human you should expect to be treated like a rabid dog. Yes of course there are bad cops, the number of precious little entitled uncivil little snowflakes vastly outnumber those.

tonyarkles 11y ago

If you'd like to see an excellent example of professionalism: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8IPct574o4w https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8IPct574o4w I'm not convinced that I wouldn't have just punched that kid in the face...

ap22213 11y ago
Wow. If that was in the U.S., the cop would have pulled a weapon on the kid the moment he stepped out of the car.

tzs 11y ago

At a traffic stop there are a few things to keep in mind before deciding to mouth off. 1. More than half of traffic stops result in a warning, not a ticket. When the violation is too severe for a warning, in many cases the ticket will be for a lesser level of offense. For instant, in many states the fine and effect on insurance rates for speeding is higher if the speed was more than some threshold over the limit. Often if you are over the threshold, the officer will write the ticket for just under. Being rude and obnoxious will greatly increase the chances that you'll get the ticket, and that it won't be written down to a lesser level offense. 2. You don't know what the prior stops that day have been like. Maybe the officer has just dealt with a string of drivers who were rude and obnoxious, and were trying to pushing him to his limits, and he's managed to barely kkep his calm. Not knowing this, you could easily push him farther than you intended. 3. You don't know who the next person stopped will be. You are putting the officer in a bad mood for them, which could make it less likely they will get a warning, or more likely something they do will get them in trouble.

coldtea 11y ago
>2. You don't know what the prior stops that day have been like. Maybe the officer has just dealt with a string of drivers who were rude and obnoxious, and were trying to pushing him to his limits, and he's managed to barely his calm. Not knowing this, you could easily push him farther than you intended. In which case he should be fired. Prior incidents are not an excuse for a supposed professional, and doubly so if he is paid by the taxpayers. Would you give the same courtesy to a waiter, a bus or taxi driver, a sales clerk, etc?
- ericclemmons 11y ago
  Actually, yes. I expect them to be human and capable of running out of patience as much as the next person. For instance, when I have a waiter that gets verbally abused by a neighboring table, I go out of my way to swing the pendulum in the other direction by being very polite, understanding, and more patient than normal. Trying to balance out the universe often works out in your favor as well. Idealistically, I'd like people in high-intensity situations behave almost like robots, but that's simply not realistic.