How do you feel about your local police department?

I guess like the fire department. I'm glad they're there, and hope that they're good in case of emergency, but have no first hand experience other than being pulled over twice.

 

I feel for the undermanned local department that does not have enough officers to patrol a city of 80,000 with an ever-growing criminal element moving in.

 

For professional reasons, I have dealings with the local policia.

There's some I know and friendly with and will say hello if I see them working private security or just out and about.

As far as regular interaction, I've been pulled over once in the last nine years and as a white, middle class guy in a gated neighborhood and who drives a reasonably nice Passat, I don't expect to have much dealings with cops and don't think about them much.

That's about as much interaction I've had with the fire department as well, as I've also called them once in the last nine years.

 

I live in the nicer part of a small town. Technically, it's a separate town for the purposes of police and fire, just so the old upper-middle-class people here can pay for a really nice police force that drives around keeps an eye on any scary poor or young or minority people who happen to wander down from the north side of town.

I don't mind at all. But I'd probably dislike them a lot more if I actually knew them and their Facebook feeds or whatever.

 

This seems like a very fair and reasonable take. I've dealt with quite a few members of the local department and the one in the neighboring town for work and found most of them to be good guys trying to do the job the right way. I have had the good fortune not to run into many of the "authoritarian douchebags," as you so eloquently put it, but I am well aware that they exist.

You are going to find good people and bad ones in any profession. The problem is that the bad ones in law enforcement can be particularly dangerous if they choose to be, so they tend to stand out a little more.

 

I know several guys on the force. I like them. They're good people. But the stories they tell me about the political BS and junk that happens behind the scenes makes me really consider the level of assholes in the PD to be very high.

 

I'm fine with our police but I do think some of the departments where I live "nickle-and-dime" law-abiding citizens over things like blowing a stop sign or wearing a seat belt while driving safely.

I do find this whole dynamic between the TV people on FOX, MSNBC and CNN and police in a lower-class area like Ferguson to be laughable. Most of the anchors are rich kids and they're trying to get into the minds of police officers, who, generally, didn't have the mobility options of a Chris Cuomo.

 

I live on the outskirts of a city of 25,000 not far from a big metro area. City cops spend a lot of time lying in wait for speeders. I think their priority is revenue collecting. County sheriff's department guys are OK for the most part.

 

Some of my best friends are black! cops!

No really. One who patrols our neighborhood is one of my closest friends, one is the father of one of my son's best friends, one is my next-door neighbor, and a half-dozen others I'd consider myself close enough to that I would see them at parties and feel like I could call them for help if needed.

They deal with a lot of shit. We have real gang and drug problems here. My kids can't wear any red or any team sports jerseys to school because of the gang problems. I am mostly sympathetic to the cops' outlook. But the ones I've seen share a common trait of wanting to (or feeling like they need to) escalate every situation to the point where they can show who's boss. I don't think it's necessary most of the time.

The other part of this is that a lot of police forces are in the middle of a pension/benefits fight, and when the public votes against them in those matters they feel like it's because the public is against them in everything they do. That's a completely wrong outlook IMO but one that plays a big role in the us-vs.-them mentality, at least out here.

 

I know most of the cops in my small ruby-red enclave. They had one on the force in the last 8 years or so who would write his great-grandmother a ticket, but he vamoosed long ago. The African-American cop who worked the night shift was the coolest one of the lot.

 

I live in China and will recuse myself from this thread.