Wenatchee airborne speed trap -- Troopers get a pass for +20MPH

We had a situation here in town that made national headlines about 5 years ago or so. This guy has a small but successful curbstone business and lives in a nice neighborhood. Clean-cut, kid is always playing outside with other kids on the street. (I'm there quite a bit). Police get a warrant for him because he's believed to be selling pot. They sit on the warrant for no reason for several weeks, then decide to use a SWAT team to make a night raid/arrest of the house where he lives with his girlfriend and 8 year-old son. Surprisingly they had the cameras running that night so you can watch it on youtube. The take the front door down, shoot one dog on sight, chase the other into another room to shoot it. Sure enough, I think they found trace amounts of pot. In the video you watch the guy throw his hands up and obey every command. At one point he's on the ground, handcuffed, one cop's boot already on top of him when another cop walks up and kicks him in the head. No repercussions at all.

I stumble across an article about a similar situation up in New England where the mayor of the town, Cheye Calvo, has his dog killed and the family handcuffed while they search his house, finding nothing. I bounced some email back and forth with him for a while and he feels much like I do - that the police have militarized themselves and the courts are giving them carte blanche.
 
Won't stop until cops start dying for their sins. Not advocating for that just pointing out how far down the fascist rabbit hole we've gone. I do think it funny that these police transgressions have trickled across to the good side of the tracks. Whitey ain't safe from the man no more. Liberty for all or no one gets any.
 
To me, the issue is that police officers, by putting on the uniform and badge, should be subjecting themselves to the same, or even a higher standard than the normal citizen. If an officer of the law break the laws they're supposed to be enforcing with no consequences, they're undermining their own authority.

Like probably everyone here, I speed on a regular basis. I realize that I may get a ticket by doing so and I'm prepared to face the consequences of those actions. It seems like a lot of officers around the country have come to believe they should never have to face the same music as the people they are supposed to be serving. And it's not a new phenomenon; I had a high school teacher over 10 years ago who had a cop rear-end her into a busy intersection where she got hit by multiple other cars who suffered no consequences for what he did because he knew all the cops who responded.

Whether people realize it or not, I believe the reason that so many people are losing respect for police forces across the country is because of behavior like this.

Personally, I believe cops should face the same punishments as anyone else for their actions. I appreciate the fact that you put your life on the line when you put on that uniform, but you knew that when you made the concious decision to become an officer. If you made that decision with the expectation that you could break the law with no consequences, you shoudn't be an officer of the law in my opinion.

And it's not just the officers breaking the law that are the problem, it's the ones who refuse to hold their colleagues to that standard as well. Every officer is charged with enforcing all the laws for everyone; if you let someone off because he's a fellow cop... you've lost the moral high ground.

TL;DR - The police are losing the moral authority to enforce the laws because they either refuse to follow the laws themselves or they won't enforce it with their colleagues.

Feel free to disagree, this is just my opinion.
 
As long as you don't play disc golf, you're fine.

(This cop actually did get in trouble, and his department publicly admitted their embarrassment by their officer's "foolish line of questioning.")

 
I've been trying to put my finger on exactly why this doesn't trigger any outrage on my part. It's certainly inappropriate and wrong. I think part of it is because I too want to be able to speed all the time with impunity. I think the other part is we just all kind of knew it goes on kind of expect it.... and really considering what goes on at the higher levels this is just about the lowest impact corruption issue out there.

To the interrogation tactics and overly militarized police issues and so on... this is the public's fault. Demand they stop people doing drugs, demand they stop drunk drivers, demand they catch all the criminals then complain when people get away. Well, there's only so much the cops can do. You demand they get tougher, they're going to get tougher and pulling people over, interrogating, raiding homes, etc are the tools they have in their toolbox to do this. We keep demanding to have everything be totally safe yet at the same time for the police to leave us totally alone. Guess what, that's not gonna work out.

I personally think we're more than safe enough and that we could stand to back off from our get tough stances. I don't really see morality and health being something for the police to be enforcing either... pot ought to be legal or at the least decriminalized down to a small fine for possession. We could also do with a lot less anti-terrorism security measures...
 
My current boss used to be the #2 of the largest sheriff's office in Wisconsin. One night his son was arrested for a DUI. One of the brown-nosers in the office called him up. Daddy showed up within the hour, took his son out of the jail, and had the arrest report "deleted". I really wish I knew about this during the selection period for his job and not a few years after.
 
TommyG said:
Isn't Washington the same state that made the law, that any state politician can't be given a speeding ticket. some crap because they might be on their way for a meeting or a vote. And it doesn't matter where in the state they are.
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Many states and the feds bar ARRESTING legislators on their way to the legislature because it had been abused to stop them from making it in the past. That doesn't mean they can't be found guilty for speeding or whatever you'd want to arrest them for, it just means you have to catch up with them at some other time.
 
JimNtexas said:
I used to think that it was one percent of LEOs, judges, and prosecutors who gave the rest a bad name.



I'm starting to think that now it's more like 10-20% of government enforcers and regulators have real mental problems that manifest as oppressive and corrupt actions towards citizens.



And I'm worried that the 80% of government enforcers who want to do the right thing can't or won't reign in their bad colleagues for fear of retaliation.



And certainly I share the impression that government authorities are much more interested in going after law abiding citizens that have fixed addresses, jobs, families, and community connections than they are against professional criminals who are much harder to find and deal with.
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I'm not sure your percentages are right. Government work that creates, enforces, or interprets law, *attracts* sociopaths who feel a need for power over others.

It's a core/root problem. The disdain with which most in power in government see the rest of the citizenry, is at epidemic proportions. Even those "80%" will scoff and throw their noses up if anyone outside of their chain of command questions their actions, usefulness, or efficiency, and just fall back on, "That's just how we do things!"

Think about it.
 
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