Police are always right. Do what they say. Trouble is never their fault.

[Mc Mike]

108. Respecfully disagree, pb.

It's a matter of perspective. I tuned in to see the reporting on actual instances of illegal thuggish police repression of peaceful pro-democracy voters. I always enjoy word from Fire and S - 1, though u4 still might be p.o.ed at me re a pro-spring 99er post I made earlier this spring.

The op said some seem to believe, and I never felt personally indicted from that. I believe the proper way to read the title is not to say 'cops are always wrong' (like rand construed it in one of his\her many posts), but 'cops are not always right, here are some specifics'.

My perspective is that some of us want to see reports of what the bad cops are up to, as they back the 1% swine. A couple of people here posted a ton of times, with down-right derision. Just getting in the way of those of us who want to hear what's going on, and learn something, or add their 2 cents worth of info or experience.

Your #107 is your perspective. My stat analysis has me agreeing with fire's perspective. Some people here don't want to hear about instances where the cops are clearly acting outside the law, and they keep tuning in to say 'shut up. we already know about it.' I tuned in because I DON'T already know about it. They could make their own o.p.s, but that's no fun, and too much trouble, evidently.

My perspective is that the law enforcement members who are crooked \ on the take, turn out to be the ones who are most violent and illegally thuggish vs. peaceful pro-democracy demonstrators, and non-criminally-connected civilians. That's not all cops, but the good ones don't want to get the Serpico treatment, so they have to tread lightly around the enterprises of the bad ones. In my area (Pittsburgh), I'll go around some municipalities (we have 130 in the county) rather than through them, because the mobbed up cops are the problem. It seems to me like the ones that are on the take are used to being bad, so hurting innocent civvies means nothing to them. Maybe mentally they're extra mad because they can't go after the real criminals they know, so they overzealously use their 'crime fighting' capabilities against soft targets, like people willing to take a peaceful protest arrest, or innocent non-politicals that are in the wrong place at the wrong time.

I remember that J.E. Hoover spent all his time going after pro-democracy activists, simultaneously denying that the mafia even existed, while the tv show 'The Untouchables' was a big hit in the US.