Stop calling all cops heroes: Baltimore police corruption case isn't shocking to me

[trunks2k]

When your assembly line is justice, the stakes are automatically higher.

Not to mention is that the problem with bad cops isn't so much that some bad cops exist. We would expect bad actors in any field, regardless of how high a bar we should be set for them. The bigger problem is that all too often, the "good" cops don't say anything about the bad cops. There's a culture of police forces closing ranks and protecting their own.

EDIT: And at times it goes beyond the Police Department itself. In Philly, the new DA just exposed that under the previous DA, the office had kept a secret list of police officers that they felt were too problematic (lying under oath, possibly engaging in criminal behavior, etc) to testify in trials. If the DAs office can't trust those cops, why should the public? There's something clearly wrong there.

 

[Ana the Ist]

Not to mention is that the problem with bad cops isn't so much that some bad cops exist. We would expect bad actors in any field, regardless of how high a bar we should be set for them. The bigger problem is that all too often, the "good" cops don't say anything about the bad cops. There's a culture of police forces closing ranks and protecting their own.

To be honest, I don't know if that's a fixable problem. It's not as if we expect the parents of a drug dealing teenager to turn them into the police, even if all the signs are there...right? We kind of just understand that's not likely to happen...even if its a far worse crime.

Yet there's an expectation that people will turn in the people who they depend upon in possibly dire or life threatening situations...for the benefit of a total stranger. Is it what they should do? Of course it is. Is it ever going to be more common than simply looking the other way? Probably not.

 

[wilco]

Not my worldview, its called statistics and actual facts. I tend to go by those over assumptions. Cops do their duty thousands of times a day across the USA. So given we have an occasional story of a bad cop means its not common place. The media is also very good at controlling the population. If they report on something that makes people annoyed, they will post any bad news about that subject to increase viewers and at the same time make people hate that subject.

Such as after a big school shooting, suddenly news stations across the country will have stories about any little thing that happened at a school. Thus people panic thinking the worlds ending and kids are all out to kill each other.

I think the best example of this is 9/11. Look at what a negative hateful view of muslims since then because the media is always reporting the bad and never any of the good. Also doesn't help that when younger sometimes peoples parents or grandparents feed them a false narrative of how the world works.

The old adage of the media comes to mind here, if it bleeds it leads.

 

[SummerMadness]

How many people actually believe high crime areas have crime happening in them over 50% of the time? Most people do not commit crimes, a majority of citizens are law abiding... to argue that most people are good, thus we should not focus on crimes in a particular area is a ridiculous argument. And when the area of focus is government, we need to have higher standards. Comparing government corruption to citizens committing crimes and arguing that we should not worry about the government corruption because it is lower ignores the factor of power and its widespread effects when government is corrupt.

@trunks2k, in Philly, there is a lot of doom and gloom coming from the police about Krasner, the doom and gloom is about the corruption that will hopefully be rooted out. I suspect they'll use the same argument as the NYPD and claim that changing things (e.g., ending stop and frisk), will cause blood to run through the streets and lead to a new era of wanton crime.

 

[trunks2k]

@trunks2k, in Philly, there is a lot of doom and gloom coming from the police about Krasner, the doom and gloom is about the corruption that will hopefully be rooted out. I suspect they'll use the same argument as the NYPD and claim that changing things (e.g., ending stop and frisk), will cause blood to run through the streets and lead to a new era of wanton crime.

Tell me about it. They don't even have to argue that changing things is going to cause blood to run through the streets; people have been claiming that Krasner merely being the DA is causing blood to run through the streets. Pretty much any crime that makes the news, no matter how often it happened in the past, gets met with comments of "This is all because of Krasner". He hasn't even done much yet other than fire a bunch of ADAs (of which I have no opinion on).