cop killing cops

[Michael]

Why can't you stay on topic?

[grzegorz]

One debate at a time.

[Michael]

One debate at a time.

You're contradicting yourself. You are unable to stay with "one debate at a time", instead bringing up several other topics when I asked you a simple, straight question.

[grzegorz]

I answered your question brother. What makes a good ESL teacher? You thought I was joking but I'm not. What makes for a good cop is the same stuff that makes for a good employee at any job. I know lots of cops and even have a lot in my family, they are no different than you and I. Like ESL some take it very seriously and work hard at serving the public and for some it's just a job they took because they like the benefits.

So no one is contradicting themselves, if you have anything you want to say to me directly then PM me.

[Steve James]

Um, how about agreeing that there are "good" cops, or at least cops who aren't "bad." If that's true, then we can also agree that there are "good" and "bad" citizens too. In fact, since no one is born a cop, well ... we could start there.

[Michael]

I answered your question brother. What makes a good ESL teacher?

You're avoiding the question and confusing the issue. If you don't want to answer, that's fine. I wasn't trying to be confrontational, but you, as usual, have just muddied the water instead of declining in a less quixotic manner.

[Michael]

Um, how about agreeing that there are "good" cops, or at least cops who aren't "bad." If that's true, then we can also agree that there are "good" and "bad" citizens too. In fact, since no one is born a cop, well ... we could start there.

Like I said, I gave my opinion about that in another thread. I was just curious what Greg thinks, but of course I agree with you both that cops are people, too.

[Steve James]

Well, by accepting Orwell's categorization, you realize that there are very few "good" people for the cops to save, and that even the evilest of cops are fighting psychopaths or people who don't care about them.

[Andy_S]

SNIP
the shooter is an ex-LA police office and veteran. He seems very sane, and he feels that the LAPD is racist , abusive and that officers in the department deliberately ruined his career. So, he feels justified in assassinating them, and their families, and their associates. He has vowed to hunt down the cops he worked with.
SNIP

FFS. Let me get this straight:
This actually happened?
Or:
This is the draft script for Sensei Seagull's latest potboiler?

[Michael]

Well, by accepting Orwell's categorization, you realize that there are very few "good" people for the cops to save, and that even the evilest of cops are fighting psychopaths or people who don't care about them.

Regardless of which categorization used, I think we're all three in agreement about the fact that cops are people, too. I wish to examine how normal people can use their power in such ways that most agree are wrong, and then escape the consequences. Greg says the media only focuses on the bad stories, but I really don't think that's true. Especially now with the ability to record police and upload in real time, finding those videos where police are well-behaved, particularly in the top 25 populated cities in the USA, is extremely difficult. There's probably a lower frequency of uploading those, but I think there's an even lower frequency of their actual occurrence.

Greg, were the cops who emptied their clips in L.A. last year at the two tiny Mexican-American women delivering newspapers, were they good cops? I think it's certain they were following illegal shoot-on-sight orders against Dorner. Wouldn't good cops disobey?

[Michael]

SNIP
the shooter is an ex-LA police office and veteran. He seems very sane, and he feels that the LAPD is racist , abusive and that officers in the department deliberately ruined his career. So, he feels justified in assassinating them, and their families, and their associates. He has vowed to hunt down the cops he worked with.
SNIP

FFS. Let me get this straight:
This actually happened?
Or:
This is the draft script for Sensei Seagull's latest potboiler?

Andy, it was real and the absolute best part was when the LAPD police chief TWICE went on record in live, televised press conferences and said that the single individual Dorner, had completely neutralized the 13,000 man police force of the City of Los Angeles.

Don't forget the awesome plot point, fully scripted, where they found Dorner's wallet and ID in three different places in Southern California in about a 24 hour period. Got that? The Arch-Villain Dorner, who killed two people without a shred of evidence and evaded a huge man hunt, was dumb enough to lose his wallet three times. Go, Hollywood!

If anything is possible in America, it's because Americans will believe anything.

[Steve James]

So, you want youtube videos of cops not doing what exactly? beating people? Would running into a burning building and dying of smoke inhalation count for a good deed?

Anyway, if all cops as a category are defined as "bad," it's useless to try to convince anyone who accepts it that m/any cops are not bad. Being a cop becomes a pathology, a disease that they somehow contracted that must be cured. Blue becomes just like Black. No single act by the group changes the opinion of the group.

Hey, did you notice Graham's icon? It's the philosopher Diogenes who carried a lamp through the streets searching for an honest man. I think it'd work on a public street as much as in a police station.

[Dajenarit]

Its more how cops are trained to police thats the overall problem.

Its insitutional. Good cops get desk jobs or wash out.

[Michael]

So, you want youtube videos of cops not doing what exactly? beating people? Would running into a burning building and dying of smoke inhalation count for a good deed?

People do post videos of police doing their job well, such as this one
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NSoGwQvMLK0

Anyway, if all cops as a category are defined as "bad," it's useless to try to convince anyone who accepts it that m/any cops are not bad. Being a cop becomes a pathology, a disease that they somehow contracted that must be cured. Blue becomes just like Black. No single act by the group changes the opinion of the group.

Sounds like a strawman to me. Who said all cops were bad? I gave one specific example, asking whether the group of cops in LA, afraid of Dorner, who emptied their clips into the trucks of three people, were they good cops?

Hey, did you notice Graham's icon? It's the philosopher Diogenes who carried a lamp through the streets searching for an honest man. I think it'd work on a public street as much as in a police station.

Police have the job, allegedly, of enforcing the laws. If true, why were there no criminal charges against the police who shot at those three people in LA?

[Steve James]

Sounds like a strawman to me. Who said all cops were bad? I gave one specific example, asking whether the group of cops in LA, afraid of Dorner, who emptied their clips into the trucks of three people, were they good cops?

Yeah, my mistake. I agree some cops are bad.