alt Hacker NewsDo you only derive anything about police officers, from any kind of footage?
I bet you don't watch police bodycam footage where they go about their duties, help people or detain dangerous criminals risking their own lives and limbs.
Replies
Bad cops aren’t necessarily bad on every call or interaction. They pick their moments or sometimes maybe just make bad decisions.
Back to the example at hand, this woman alone in her car at night in a rural/isolated area. This is a comparable situation as a baby gazelle separated from the herd and surrounded by lions. They really have no power to control the situation if the officers want to do whatever they want.
Anecdotally, a story we see on the news often enough to justify the nervousness. I had a distant family member, a step-uncle I think, when I was younger. He was a constable or something. He drove a cop car and had the uniform but my understanding was he just had a desk job. This was late 80s/early 90s, so different tech landscape and basically was no record of his behavior. But I guess after 50+ complaints, there was an investigation and he lost his job. Turned out he would perform traffic stops with his car, to only single female drivers, then would coerce them into a sexual act. Basically, give me a BJ and I won’t give you a ticket. I don’t know if it was fully consensual but I know back then it was just his word versus theirs and only when the volume of complaints was high enough his superiors decided to fire him. No criminal investigation, or I would say nothing more than just quietly letting him go. The family only found out because it ended with a divorce and my aunt and cousins had to live with the fallout from that. I think it was buried from the media but I was young so maybe it was public and I just don’t know. We were in a big city so it wasn’t big enough to be a tv news story.
Their boots must be tasty.
I have seen such footage, and I’m glad some officers take their job seriously.
But unless you know a way to tell apart those who abuse their power from those who don’t, I have to consider all officers as antagonistic and potentially dangerous.
You see, if I’m wrong, then I could end up in jail or injured or dead while they get paid leave.
> help people or detain dangerous criminals risking their own lives and limbs.
As we’ve seen them feeling afraid for their life is justification enough to kill you. It makes the risking life and limb part less admirable.