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* So When Would You Call The Police?

  
  

Page: 1234(5)

 
 
bitchiekittie
14:30 / 16.01.02
maybe what hes saying (sorry if Im wrong, buk) is that the concept is a good one. hey - someone with your best interest in mind, with the power and ability to enforce the laws and public safety. fantastic! without the added burden of personal bias, legal discrimination, power-hungry idiots in uniform and red tape, its a magnificent idea

and if you are personally unaware (impossible to imagine, but it happens) of the injustices that occur at the hands of the police, coupled the regularity of these events, its quite easy to buy into the idealization of the cop=good guy stereotype. the only bad guy cops we ever see are the movie renditions, who, like most villains, are so cartoonishly evil that its hard to relate them to real life (not that Im suggesting that you should use the portrayal of fictional characters to define your views on a group, or that this is what buk has done, only that media plays a surprising factor in our perceptions of things we aren’t readily familiar with)
 
 
Fist Fun
15:11 / 16.01.02
quote:Actually, you were not asking questions at all. You were *stating* that you had never encountered anything at first or second hand to suggest that the police did anything other than treat every citizen equally. Have you now altered that perception to "The police are in general a good thing"? Very different proposition.

Fair point. Well made. Though I have asked questions earlier and the response was...*silence*. Anyway, I suppose it depends how you define secondhand.
...so anyone want to answer a question I find difficult. If not this, what?

[ 16-01-2002: Message edited by: Buk ]
 
 
bitchiekittie
15:42 / 16.01.02
thats a good point, too. Ive always scoffed at those calling for anarchy - the first one to burn their bridges is often the first one left agape when they are failed. but there has to be a solution somewhere, and it has to start with the current, immensely flawed system - changes need to be made, and now.

edited to add that no, I dont have any solutions. I can barely think of a way to keep my tub cleaner longer. damn porous old thing....

[ 16-01-2002: Message edited by: bitchiekittie ]
 
 
Tuna Ghost: Pratt knot hero
17:38 / 16.01.02
To answer the original question, I've called the police once in my life. Not when my house was broken into (I was pretty sure I knew who did it anyway), but when I locked my keys in my car and there was no spare within 500 miles and I had maybe thirty bucks to last me across the country to get home. I was very glad when a policeman managed to unlock my door.

I was on a tennessee school campus, and apparently the less authority a policeman has, the more of an ass he is. I hated the campus police (which doubled as the city's police force. They could go anywhere). I've voiced my opinion to a few cops, usually louder and with lots of obscenities, but that day I was really hoping that the cop didn't recognize me.

Anyway, after that, I really didn't think I could complain too loudly. Yes, there is corruption and plenty of it, but I don't have any ideas on how to fix it. I don't think electing policemen would work, and I don't think finding the right person to be in charge would work either. I guess we're stuck with it. Then again, I'm a white male between the ages of 18 and 45. I think the only reason the police ever hassle me is because I look like a stoner most of the time.
 
 
Disco is My Class War
23:46 / 16.01.02
quote:Originally posted by Buk:
Are we going to decide to banish disease?

I'm all up for that. See all the articles on anarchy at http://slash.autonomedia.org.
 
 
Shortfatdyke
02:23 / 17.01.02
the police (in this country at least) need serious reform, from the top down. as a child, one of my neighbours had a nephew who joined the police. he was a lovely, gentle man, who i think had very genuine reasons - wanting to protect the community - and i would've trusted him. when he went for training, he said he was horrified at the thugs he was surrounded by.

my brother used to work for the civil staff of the metropolitan police. one day he came home with a copy of a memo from one of the chief officers in the capital, a real bigwig, which stated that police officers needed to be cautious in their dealings with gays "because, as you know, homosexuals were responsible for the fall of rome...." bruv wanted to get the memo to a newspaper, but lost his nerve and destroyed it, unfortunately.

the media often refer to the canteen culture of the police, where laddish, white, straight men rule and anyone who doesn't fit in those categories are excluded. female officers have suffered horrendous treatment. an asian sargent has just recieved compensation for a 5 year fight with his own employers after he found racist hate mail and they accused him of sending it to himself. i knew a bloke who was at the southall riots where blair peach was killed. he said the spg officers had swastikas on their riot shields.

i have met some decent police officers, but too many thugs are accepted in to the police. that doesn't mean that i don't think there should be a police force; but surely there should be more stringent tests to see who's really suitable and who just wants a ruck.

as it stands, it is no wonder that minority groups - often most in need of help and protection - are fearful or cynical of the police.
 
 
Shortfatdyke
02:26 / 17.01.02
[typical! you wait ages for your post to appear, then two come along at once. edited to delete double posting]

[ 17-01-2002: Message edited by: shortfatdyke ]
 
 
Shortfatdyke
06:06 / 22.01.02
i called the police last night. there was a gang of young men in the street having an arguement. as i got on a bus i could see a man being chased by one of the gang. so i went to a callbox and reported it, because it looked serious - arguments around where i live are often settled with guns, and if the bloke had been hurt without me even trying to do something about it, i would never have forgiven myself.
 
 
Shortfatdyke
11:29 / 22.01.02
at the risk of talking to myself on this post now, stuff like this really doesn't help inspire confidence:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Archive/Article/0,4273,4337592,00.html
 
 
alas
12:08 / 23.01.02
bk--sorry you got blamed for my post, i think....

personally, i'm much more of a revisionist than a revolutionary, because i believe that the power vacuums created by revolutions often result in worse forms of tyranny than the original corruption. so i don't IRL advocate vigilanteism (sp??). and I didn't really mean to advocate it in my earlier post, so much as to feel out how other people felt about the idea (which was rather taken up to disastrous effect on "slash your tyres/tires" i know . . .)

HOWEVER, as a feminist i see the police as a patriarchal institution, and patriarchal=bad, too. (likewise taking justice into one's own hands=bad) And it's particularly BAAAAD in its attempt to deal with crimes like rape, which historically was a crime against whichever male was perceived as "owning" the female in question, because she became, as a result of the crime, damaged goods.

while that overt misogyny is perhaps no longer the explicit focus of rape law today, it IS true that the structure of law enforcement and legal justice in relation to rape is ESPECIALLY problematic, and that situation has led to an equally problematic (i'll even say possibly more problematic) desire by some citizens to take the law into their own hands.

but historically, i also know that the right wing in the US also made the same kind of argument to support lynchings: "if the criminal justice system worked better and faster, we wouldn't have to go into jails and publicly lynch black men who threaten white womanhood . . . " Arrgh. don't want to join their party--no sirreee.

SO it's a conundrum.

(there, hope that's not too totally useless.)
 
 
grant
16:49 / 23.01.02
Today's Miami Herald

quote:Published Wednesday, January 23, 2002
Community seeks answers
BY GAIL EPSTEIN NIEVES, ELAINE DE VALLE, LISA ARTHUR AND ANDREA ROBINSON
gepstein@herald.com

The Miami-Dade police officer who shot and killed a 20-year-old man driving a stolen Lincoln Continental fired his weapon after the car accelerated and struck him first, both the police chief and the officer's lawyer said Tuesday.

But the dead man's brother -- who says he was sitting in the car's front seat Monday night -- insisted that Officer James Johns jumped onto the car hood on his own accord and fired one round into the windshield, killing Eddie Lee Macklin of West Palm Beach.

Skepticism about the shooting spread throughout Liberty City on Tuesday. The head of the NAACP called it ``a senseless killing,'' and at a nighttime meeting at the Joseph Caleb Center, several hundred angry people shouted down Miami-Dade Police Director Carlos Alvarez.

``We want to know if it was a good shoot, a bad shoot, or if there shouldn't have been a shoot at all,'' Miami-Dade Commissioner Dorrin Rolle said during the meeting, called by black civic leaders. ``We're concerned, because it seems to be happening too often.''

quote:In Liberty City on Tuesday, community leaders spent the day fielding calls from irate residents and walking the streets to make sure calm prevailed.

Brad Brown, president of the Miami-Dade NAACP, joined a group of angry residents near the crime scene to share in their frustration at yet another police shooting.

``I hope the people who are angry today will continue to be angry tomorrow and the next day and next week -- until we get change,'' Brown said, adding that while most officers care about the community, others are ``overzealous.''

The shooting happened Monday night after the conclusion of the annual Martin Luther King Jr. Festival, a celebration honoring the slain civil rights leader.

Hundreds of people filled the streets, and traffic was bumper-to-bumper on many of Liberty City's main thoroughfares.

Police said Johns and other members of his robbery-prevention team ran the license tag of the 1999 Lincoln and found that it had been reported stolen in Palm Beach County. The car was headed south on Northwest 22nd Avenue, close to 64th Street.

This shit makes people with memories really nervous.

[ 23-01-2002: Message edited by: grant ]
 
 
Bill Posters
17:13 / 24.01.02
On that note, the worst anecdotes (in my mind) from the UK, just in case we need any more are as folows.

A while back I read a report in a paper about a cop who'd finally gone down for raping a number of female suspects in the cells; bad enough you might think, but what I don't think i'll ever forget was what he (allegedly) said to one immediately afterwards: "Well, what are you gonna do now, call the police?"

The other was fairly well-reported quite recently: a man chased an intruder out of his house brandishing a knife (not good admittedly) and a passing police car ran him down (deliberately or otherwsie). Not only that, but the officers then proceded to kick him in his broken leg for fourty-five minutes. During this time, oddly enough, the guy begged them to call him an ambulance. To which one of the officers responded, "You're an ambulance." (Let it never be said that they don't have a sense of humour.) The matter came to light because - get this - the stupid fuckkkers were on CCTV!!!! Oh, what fun they'll have if they go to prison... Ha!

Personally, I've been the victim of homophobic stuff in Soho (nothing heavy, but frightening at the time when there's fuck all you can do and no one in the world who can help) and no shortage of psycho policing at demos courtesy of the Retropolitan Police Force here in dear old London town. (Police officers refusing medical attention to a woman when a GP was virtually begging them to let to the medics.)

I guess I may be the only one here who has personal experience of 'the other side' of this. I once did a job which while not being part of the police force, did involve a. liasing with 'them', and b. being perceived as one of 'them'. Technically I was working for British Telecom; what I was doing was answering 999 calls (er, that's 911 to you guys across the pond). The vast majority of time on that job was spent dealing with non-emergencies. However, it is I think worth noting that getting three "fucking pig, we're gonna come round and fuck you right up"-style death threats before breakfast, then inevitably listening in to a domestic assault lasting minutes, minutes during which we had to frantically trace the call 'cos the sodding phone got knocked out of the poor wretch's hand by her assailant before she could supply location, and then having an afternoon consisting of taking a call re: the discovery of sudden death of close loved one from traumatised relative and one cigarette break after that someone calling for an ambulance and you knowing that you were gonna be the last human voice they ever heard 'cos they were bleeding to death or whatever can, funily enough, drive you a bit screwey. And the lousy £6 p/h doesn't compensate much either. Luckily I got another job and didn't have to stick it long, but my point is, if the police weren't psycho before they start the job, they will be by the time they've done it a few years. They have to take what I took on the phone IRL. They can't stay that sane, really, it wouldn't be normal to do so IMHO. (That's not very helpful, but it happens to be the case.)
 
 
Fist Fun
18:01 / 24.01.02
...and how can we forget the terrible case of Harold Shipman. A doctor murdering his patients.
Or what about that fireman who made fake 999 calls just so that he could get overtime.
 
 
Bill Posters
08:37 / 25.01.02
Ahh but they were elderly patients; he was operating within the bounds of the Hippocratic oath and "ease[ing] suffering" by putting them out of their misery. And the fireman was just making sure his collegues didn't get complacent and out of shape lounging round the fire-station reading the paper all day. He had everyone's best interests at heart.
 
 
Rose
06:47 / 26.01.02
I live in Canada in a rather small town. One night I was out with three friends, we stopped at a restaurant around ten on a Wednesday night. When we came out there where two drunken men who started to beat on one of my friends. We called the police and they told us that they were to busy to help, when we asked if we should take the law into our own hands they said, “well, I can’t say that you should”.
After a moment my friend slipped their drunken grasp and came over to my truck. At this point I was going to knock them over with my vehicle, hoping they were to drunk to remember my license plate number. In the end we just left though.

Anyhow, the point is I live in a small town. All this happened on a Wednesday night.
When we needed the police they were not there. And what happens when we are walking down the street, the police stop us to ask us where we are going. Busy eh?

So, I am not sure what to think about the force here. I had to tell my little story. I’m sorry for the lack of input, but I really have no idea how to react to something like 911 telling you they can’t help you.

Beh.
 
  

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