I'm done supporting cops, deputies, detectives, Law Enforcement in general. Here's TODAYS video...

[nadinbrzezinski]

94. We have been following local police issues with care

and here is where the attitude you are seeing is coming from. We had a perfect example in Council by the way, it was textbook.

First off, I am glad you had an average, somewhat boring police career. Indeed, most officers will never draw their weapons outside the range. Policing has never been safer either, which is a paradox. As crime rates have crashed and police work has actually become much safer, police officers feel more and more under siege.

That said, we have a problem with the institutional culture. I do not know if we are seeing more of it because cameras are everywhere, or we are seeing more of it becuase it has somehow become acceptable. That is not an idle question.

What I know is that some departments have a reputation for this. For example, LAPD, Chicago PD, NYPD, hell, even my locals these days.

To the example... my local police department started to gather stop data for vehicular stops after they stopped doing it. After a year, their own internal data revealed a shall we say racial profiling problem? The Chief sat there in committee and said she did not see a problem and it was not tolerated. She was challenged on this by a former cop, Lt to be exact, from another department who now is serving her first term in City Council. She is also black.

It was the kind of exchange that my local news reporters, from larger networks refused to speak off (which goes back to the culture of media which refuses to mostly go there due to access.) We transcribed quite a bit of it from the MP3 file.

So going back to your statement... I would not say that every department has a problem, but I am betting more than just the few I mentioned do. And until police agencies stop with the siege mentality, and this has to start at the top, and actually use quite a bit of introspection, these problems will just continue to worsen. The problem of civilian perception might be that more of these events are surfacing due to recordings, but perception IS reality.

Here, the relevant part of that article between the chief and the council member.

The most interesting back and forth came between Councilmember Myrtle Cole and the Chief. Cole is a former Police Lieutenant, not with SPDP. Cole faced the Chief, “this weighs heavy on my heart. Being a seasoned African American woman this weighs heavy on my heart.”

Cole also thanked the community for keeping this at the forefront. After that Cole got very emotional, “racial profiling, it exists. Data is saying that it exists. The stats show that when blacks are stopped there is a one in four chance that they will be searched when stopped.”

According to Chief Zimmerman the majority of the stops of those who are black were “fourth waivers,” meaning parolees who had no fourth amendment protection against unreasonable search and seizure. Cole countered by asking both Jones and Harvey if either of them were parolees; they both denied this. Yet, as Harvey pointed out, he has been stopped repeatedly for walking while black. A few times in front of his home.

Cole then asked, “in your opinion Chief do the statistics reflect racial profiling? In your opinion, does it? Because it does to me.”

Zimmerman said that the statistics do show that those of color, both black and Hispanic, “were stopped in greater proportion. We do not teach racial profiling, nor do we condone racial profiling. But I will tell you also, that everyone has biases… police officers have biases, community members have biases.” She said that a new class for advanced officer training is precisely on this subject. She said, “that although everyone has biases,” this cannot enter the performance on duty. “You must be fair and impartial.”

http://reportingsandiego.com/2015/02/25/a-discussion-of-race-at-city-hall-san-diego-pd-releases-stop-data-for-2014/

For the record the issues with law enforcement are also serious issues at the courts and prison system. We really need to have a very in depth conversation about the war on drugs, the prison system, how many are railroaded and sent to jail due to poor representation... and all that.

I will grant you this... it is not just that cops start careers wanting to become bad cops, but the lack of accountability that people like Frank Serpico encountered over two generations ago, has only gotten worst. I have the feeling that either it is like it has always been, but now it is surfacing everywhere since we all have a fairly capable video recording device on us at all times (which is not good if you are a cop), or it has indeed gotten worst. My theory is the latter, and it has to do with 911. Oh and this is starting to change, as more and more people realize that a police beating will no longer be limited where it has always been acceptable, the hood.