re: Breaking: Black Suspect Shoots Cop in Missouri During Traffic Stop

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would totally support substantial increases to police officer pay in order to attract more/better candidates. Police are necessary, but the system is a god awful mess right now. Pretending that there aren't problems doesn't make them go away.

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Oh, there are problems alright. Whenever someone doesn't know if he/she will be backed by his/her department for defending his/her life - that's a problem. Whenever someone doesn't know if he/she will see his/her kids at the end of shift - that's a problem. My apologies again, but $ isn't going to fix that problem. $ isn't going to make someone roll over and die for stats. $ isn't going to be a father to your kids. Plain and simple: if an officer is defending his/her life, or the lives of others - it's justified. I don't care what stats say, but going home at EOS is what matters most. In all my days, I NEVER met anyone who wanted to kill someone. NEVER! The ones who did, carried it as a sin from there on out.
It's easy to be a textbook hero. It's easy to play Devils Advocate. What's not easy is real life. I've seen strong men and strong women humbled by the job. We are all human. Sometimes, you miss real life when you just look at the numbers.

I guess the constitution comes with terms & conditions.

Guess you misinterpreted my post.

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Bit of an apples to oranges comparison there.

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Right, teachers unions are evil (apples). Police unions are good (oranges).

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Lazy strawman argument by you, and fraught with hyperbole (your staple, apparently ). Please don't put words in my mouth. I never implied that police were perfect. Not in the slightest. This "police state/citizens in abject peril 24/7" narrative is ridiculously overblown.

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I haven't put any words in your mouth. You are operating under the assumption that I'm responding to only your words. That assumption is incorrect. You have chosen a side, the pro-police side. I am arguing against that side, a side that has some ridiculous beliefs.

I am not pro-police or anti-police. I am anti-corruption.

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How many encounters did police have with citizens last year? Enough to make that figure become a fraction of a percentage point.

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Americans have an even lower chance of being killed by a terrorist, but that hasn't stopped us from spending trillions on anti-terrorism.

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Is there room for improvement? Of course, there always is.

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There is no room for improvement. Even suggesting that there is room for improvement proves that you actually hate the police.

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Are there bad cops? Of course. In a force that spans the nation and whose JOB is to deal with the dregs of society as well as protect the law-abiders, you're going to have a few who abuse their authority, and they should be roundly excoriated. As I've already stated itt.

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No one expects there to be zero bad cops. The problem is that bad cops are rarely punished, and even when they are punished, it's a slap on the wrist.

Any citizen who might do what Timothy Loehmann (Cleveland police officer) did would be charged with murder. Loehmann wasn't even charged with manslaughter. He did something incredibly stupid (charging into a situation before he had the slightest clue what was even going on), and Tamir Rice paid with his life. Rice is dead because a stupid cop was too stupid and afraid to do the smart thing, take 15 seconds to survey the situation before charging in like a complete and utter moron. That's dangerously reckless stupidity.

There's the cop in Independence, MO, Tim Runnels, who recently got four years in prison for tazing a 17-year old white kid until he was unconscious. He then handcuffed him, dragged him several feet before deliberately dropping him face first into the pavement. You can hear the thump in the video. The kid's heart stopped and he has permanent brain damage. If you want to make yourself sick, watch the video.

LINK

Runnels permanently disabled someone who wasn't a danger, whatsoever. He got angry because the kid was acting a bit snotty. The kid wasn't being violent, he was just being a snotty teenager and the cop effectively ended his life. If you or I did that, we would have gotten at least 20 years. But Runnels was protected by his department. Runnels and his department lied about what happened. The only reason there was even an investigation is because the kid's father (who happened to also be a cop) was able to get the FBI involved. This is not a case of a single "bad cop". The entire Independence, MO police department was covering up Runnels criminal behavior and it took FBI intervention to expose the truth.

I don't know about you, but if my child was brutalized by the police like that, I doubt I would be able to get the FBI to take up the case. I don't have those types of connections. Instead, the "official story" is all the public would ever hear. They would hear about how my child was so violent that the officer had no choice but to kill him. I would protest, but the public would laugh and mockingly call my child another "gentle giant".

I find it odd and annoying that a nation that believes harsh criminal penalties deter crime, and light penalties encourage crime, doesn't apply that reasoning to the police.