Police want too much discretion

(written by lawrence krubner, however indented passages are often quotes). You can contact lawrence at: lawrence@krubner.com, or follow me on Twitter.

Interesting:. Cop says we should do whatever a cop says:

Even though it might sound harsh and impolitic, here is the bottom line: if you don’t want to get shot, tased, pepper-sprayed, struck with a baton or thrown to the ground, just do what I tell you. Don’t argue with me, don’t call me names, don’t tell me that I can’t stop you, don’t say I’m a racist pig, don’t threaten that you’ll sue me and take away my badge. Don’t scream at me that you pay my salary, and don’t even think of aggressively walking towards me. Most field stops are complete in minutes. How difficult is it to cooperate for that long?

But of all history teaches us that when the police are given this much discretion, it becomes difficult to maintain a liberal society.

Jordan Sargent has more:

Even though it might sound harsh and impolitic, here is the bottom line: if you don’t want to get shot, tased, pepper-sprayed, struck with a baton or thrown to the ground, just do what I tell you. Don’t argue with me, don’t call me names, don’t tell me that I can’t stop you, don’t say I’m a racist pig, don’t threaten that you’ll sue me and take away my badge. Don’t scream at me that you pay my salary, and don’t even think of aggressively walking towards me. Most field stops are complete in minutes. How difficult is it to cooperate for that long?

There is an implication here that informs the entirety of Dutta’s argument, which is that cops never are the aggressors in situations, and instead only operate from a place of reaction. A really bad time to make this argument would be right this very second, when every night America gets to watch Missouri policemen shoot endless canisters of tear gas at peaceful crowds of protestors and journalists.

It also would have been a bad time to make this argument two weeks ago, after America watched Eric Garner get strangled to death by a NYPD officer for selling untaxed cigarettes off the street, which is in no way harmful to the safety of police or the public. (That is, unless Dutta would like to argue that selling cigarettes is harmful and those that do so must be attacked, in which case I have an idea of where police could start.)

It’s a bad time to make this argument when the death of Eric Garner has brought the deaths of people like Patrick Dorismond—who was killed by an undercover NPYD officer who badgered him for drugs—and Sean Bell—who was killed after the NPYD sprayed 50 bullets into his vehicle the night before his wedding—back into the spotlight.

Dutta’s language here—”in most cases it’s less ambiguous”—gives him as much wiggle room as he needs—#NotAllCops!—but he seems to fail to acknowledge that the incidents that fall outside of “most cases” are more than enough to engender the suspicion of police that he is so quick to dismiss as childish.

As he says, cops need to deal with people being mean to them. If a cop gets hurt feelings because someone says something mean to him, then it is very important to our society that the cop find some other profession. Because police like that are a much greater danger to our society than any criminal.

Post external references

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    http://gawker.com/cop-pens-touching-op-ed-do-everything-i-say-and-i-wont-1623985263
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