09-22-2016, 12:44 AM
(09-22-2016, 12:26 AM)Vas Deferens Wrote: Ok. I'm sure you're on the good side of LEO's, but 'peace officer' is enormously ironic given the content of the thread.
The vast majority of LEO's are upstanding cream of the crop citizens. The shitty ones give them all a bad name and I personally think that is just the result of inadequate hiring and underpaying this profession. I've been the victims of said shitty policing and I can tell you my view going into encounters with LEOs will always be slightly confrontational as a result. You just don't know if you're dealing with the 95% or 5%. And that saddens me greatly.
Believe me, I completely understand that. Sometimes I read a report or deal with someone that makes me ashamed of my profession. No, I'm not talking criminal or censurable conduct, just plain idiocy or willful incompetence. It's hardly a problem confined to this profession and good hiring and screening does weed out some insanely undesirable candidates. The problem is, once out of the probationary process civil service protection makes getting rid of a bad officer difficult. It does this by design and I think the system works more than it doesn't but your point is taken.
I'd end by pointing out that even a good officer can be a real POS on the wrong day. LEO's are humans with lives and problems. They also have a job where they deal with the dregs of humanity and sometimes it's hard to disconnect yourself from that mindset and not throw every civilian you deal with into the same basket. The point I've made all along is that law enforcement does a very good job the vast majority of the time. By the nature of the job the mistakes that are made are going to be magnified over most other professions. It's the wholesale attack on the profession and the assertion that many LEO's are crooked that has always bothered me. Fred thinks "pant gun" immediately and uses the fact that it's happened before as the sole evidence for it happening again. It's frustrating, it's unfair and frankly it's bullshit.
