Indeed!!

I thought the FBI and DHS already did that in their notes to Fusion Centers naming vets returning from Iraq and Afghanistan as possible Domestic Terrorists.

You mention that only a small minority of police are criminals. I'd agree with you to a point, but that point is extremely important, in my opinion.

While only a small percentage of cops use unnecessary violence or steal or whatever, the overwhelming majority of police will look the other way. When was the last time you heard or saw one cop outing another cop for the unnecessarily brutalizing someone? When was the last time one cop took the stand to say that, no, Mr. So and So didn't really resist arrest. He merely asked question or two.

When the rank and file will support pretty much anything and everything including the unnecessary use of force resulting in a needless death, then color me a bigot.

I see the police as little more than a legally sanctioned, heavily armed street gangs wearing government issued costumes who would rather lie to protect another officer than to tell the truth to help a citizen. If there is ever an us or them situation, the rank and file cop will always choose the us, regardless of the truth.

If that makes me a bigot, then I will wear that label with pride.

True. The civil asset forfeiture laws, along with all the victimless crime enforcement, would work to corrupt almost any honest, well meaning person who was in law enforcement.
I guess that leaves us with the typical bully attracted to, recruited for, or even allowed in law enforcement today.

and I am looking for a fight (strictly verbal, of course). This SOB just pulled me over with no probable cause whatsoever, had tried to intimidate me into submission with his attitude, and had lied right to my face. To say the least, I am pissed.

Does he want to show me the faulty light? Hell no. Do NOT get out of your car, sir, or he will arrest me for (fill in the blank - resisting, obstruction, disorderly conduct, whatever). Now, I am spoiling for a fight. I know I am right, and he does too.

He hits me with a bunch of horse manure about a hundred things I might be doing. I might be on my way to a street race. I might be dealing drugs. I might be drunk. I might be a Cornish Game Hen dressed up in a human suit. Who knows what I am up to? Therefore, it is up to Roscoe to screw with us and watch the goings on in his fair city. He hits us with all the usual garbage about rapists and murderers and child molesters and Cornish Game Hens that cops always use to justify their actions whenever they break the law, because there is just no possible way that I could understand what he is doing or how hard his job is. Basically, it was the kind of usual talking point baloney they use to get the average starry eyed citizen that "backs the blue" to not look too closely at what they are doing.

As you have probably imagined by now, I was completely underwhelmed with this nonsense, and I having none of it. I demanded that he either write the ticket for her absent DL card AND show up in court so that I could undress this scumbag in front of a jury of our peers or to piss off and go chase after some chicken thieves of whatever. I only wish that we had smart phones back then, because I would have made this moron famous on YouTube.

He did mention in his comments once he'd had his lies thrown back in his face that my car, ten year old '87 Trans Am, was just the kind of thing that he would expect some weed dealing teenager to be driving. He was not expecting a recently college graduated guy in his mid 20s who knew his his rights and was willing to fight for them.

Some would argue that I should have simply cooperated with this guy and politely answered all his questions and thanked him for wasting my time. I, for one, think that is exactly the wrong approach to take when someone takes my Constitutionally guaranteed civil rights and wipes his ass with them.

So what did I take from this?
1. If the police are going to just assume that people are criminals by profiling them in one way or another, is it any wonder that people that are being profiled do not trust them either? I'm just an every day, ordinary white guy who was minding my own business, but I got jacked up because he profiled my car, not because of any law that I (or Donna) had broken.

2. If I can be profiled for my car, then is it really so hard to believe the stories about black folks being pulled over for driving while black? By the way, go to YouTube and watch the video titles "corruption in Kaufman County" if you want a decent idea of Roscoe's conduct during my stop. He never got physical with me, but he acted the same way.

3. After watching that video, ask yourself how many minorities get jacked up the same way. How many have been beaten down and arrested for resisting arrest, failure to comply, disorderly conduct, etc.? I am not suggesting that the cops never have to deal with this kind of thing, but how much of the bullshlt they deal with is of their own making? How much is a self fulfilling prophecy? They look for crime, and by God, they will find it whether it exists or not. They will make a criminal out of you one way of the other.

4. With the NYPD's stop and frisk policy (a blatant violation of the 4th Amendment), how many people have been beaten for resisting that tyranny? How many arrested? How many people were made to be criminals because of how a police report was written that weren't criminals when they were approached by the police.

On conclusion, color me unsympathetic to Lt. Furseth's case. When he starts arresting the criminals in his own department, I may have some respect for him, but unless/until he cleans up his own backyard, his whining rant will fall on my deaf ears.

When was the last time you ever saw one cop step in to arrest another cop for anything? When Officer Palateo choked Eric Garner to death, did ANY of the other cops there do anything to stop him? Did ANY of the cops there do anything to help him breathe when he complained about not being able to for several minutes? How many of those cops made excuses after the fact about Mr. Garner's weight being what killed him instead of the obvious chokehold applied when Officer Palateo initiated the violence against him. the average cop will stand there and defend Palateo no matter what.

How about Tamir Rice? Have you heard ANY cop say that gunning that idiot kid down in the way that they did was wrong? I get the stress of a "man with gun" scenario, but if there was no one else in the park that day, there was no imminent threat to anyone. Why, then, does it make sense for a cop to drive up within a couple feet of a suspect with a gun? That seems like a guaranteed way to make sure someone is going to die. It could be the cops themselves, for Pete's sake. If there is no one nearby, then why not pull up 50 yards away, take cover behind the squad car and address the situation with an aimed AR-15 AND a bullhorn? It would be a helluva lot safer for the cops, for sure. It would also give them an opportunity to address the issue of an idiotic kid with a pellet gun without blowing him away 2 seconds after arriving on scene. Also, regarding that situation, why was there only one shot fired by the rookie cop who killed that kid? Wouldn't you keep shooting until the threat was completely eliminated? One shot only sounds like he recognized his mistake only after fatally shooting that kid. Why didn't the other officer shoot if the situation was life threatening? Even better, why did neither officer lift a finger to render any kind of first aid while Tamir Rice laid there dying? It likely wouldn't jave helped, but they didn't even try to help that kid. By driving up within 10 feet, getting out screaming with guns drawn, the cops guaranteed that someone was going to die that day, and it could just as easily have been them. More to the point, why is it that NOT A SINGLE COP has questioned how they handled that situation? Every single one of them that I have heard has defended their handling of that call and the use of deadly force. I am not the kind of idiot that expects a cop to discern the difference between a pellet gun and a real gun or anything stupid about shooting it out of his hands. I am the kind of guy that wonders why you wouldn't address the situation from a safer distance than 10 feet away using a better weapon than a handgun from behind cover.

When Lt. Furseth is willing to address this kind of thing in his own department, I might start to give a flying crap about his opinion, but unless/until he does, he can save his screed for someone that doesn't know better.

Sorry, but I don't get it.
What is this attributing to the entire police forces the actions of a small minority? Is this endemic to the people of the Gulch? This boils down to a collectivist mentality, or to use a simpler term, prejudice. Maybe because of my age and shrinking brain I've missed something. Would someone care to elucidate me?

the end of part one came Quickly to Mind

His statement doesn't need FACTS ... it is totally understandable, without 8 paragraphs of Politically Correct exemptions. I saw from his post...
"I'm Leaving it as I found it ..."

I am not really buying his rant although I understand his frustration. The slogan "To Protect and Serve" sound awesome but the police can do neither. I often have that discussion with my friend and retired NYC Police Officer. Only the individual can and should take the responsibility to protect themselves. In order for the Police to protect there would need to be a cop in every home and vehicle............WOW talk about "Police State". I believe in the Police and their thankless job of attempting to keep the peace in ALL communities. But when a Judge is caught driving while impaired the cops are demonized and if they miss the thugs shortly before an home invasion they are demonized. For the Police it is never a win-win but always a lose-lose!

Your profession stopped caring a long time ago. Police are just a paid extortion arm of the government. If you were serious you would have retired in protest over Civil asset forfeiture laws.

when 0 campaigned the first time he said he wanted a civilian police equipped like the military. never thought he meant at the expense of the military but we now know that is what he intended.

I remember the exact moment that I lost all respect for the police. It would have been sometime in 1997. I had just moved from N. Dallas over to Bedford to be closer to my new job and my girlfriend at the time (wife now) who lived in Bedford. It was less than a month after I had made that move.

I drove a 1987 Black Pontiac Trans Am GTA with tinted windows and a very throaty Flowmaster exhaust. It was a cheap sports car that looked mean, but in reality it was a used, 10 year piece of junk that had been rode hard and put up wet when I got it. I mention that because it is integral to this story.

I had taken Donna to dinner at Dave & Buster's over in Dallas to eat, play games and shoot the bull with some friends. Neither of us had a single drop of alcohol to drink at any point. It was about 2 a.m. and I was whooped, so I asked her to drive us home. She liked that idea because she was always down to drive that car. Since I drove her and was paying on our date, she did not bring her purse which included her driver's license, but there was no reason for concern because we were both stone sober AND she knew her DL # off the top of her head. For what it's worth, I do too.

We get to Cheek Sparger Rd. and Hwy. 121. To get to the part of Bedford where she lived, you had to drive about 3 and a half miles on Cheek Sparger at a maddeningly slow 20 MPH. That road also serves as the boundary line between Bedford and Colleyville (a very wealthy suburb). The cops from both department routinely infest that road with radar guns hidden just off the side streets all up and down that thing constantly looking for people speeding. They did then and they still do.

We knew this, so we crept along at 20 MPH or below the entire freaking way. The speedometer NEVER hit 21 MPH for so much as a nanosecond. We used turn signals, came to complete stops, and all of the other straight out of the driving textbook stupidity that we all ignore every day. We did it all, 100% in accordance with the letter of the law. What's my point, you ask? We never gave the cops any kind of probable cause for ANYTHING. There was no reason at all to hassle us that night.

By now, I am sure you can figure out that is exactly what they did. Johnny Law pulls up behind us and rides the bumper for a full mile and a half. At 20 MPH, that's 4 and a half minutes, plus the stop sign at Central Dr. So, 5 minutes into this nonsense, I told Donna to turn onto on of the residential streets that fed into and off of Cheek Sparger to let him by, so he'd quit screwing with is. What does he do, you ask? He crawls further up our butts and lights us up to pull over. This is where the fun starts.

He comes to the window, hand on his gun, flashlight directly in our faces and starts demanding paperwork. Donna gives him her DL number in lieu of the card and the insurance card that I pulled from the glove box. Outside of her not having the actual card to give him, everything is current. Her DL was too, she just didn't have the hard copy card with her.

I asked from the passenger seat why he pulled us over knowing full well that we hadn't broken any traffic laws at all.

He ignores me, of course, and demands to know, " What are you doing in my fair city, this time of night, Boy?" in his best redneckified southern sheriff, Buford T. Pusser wannabe voice. That, by the way, is the actual quote that I remember as if it had happened yesterday. Put simply, this jackbooted jagov was trying to intimidate me.

With that question fresh in my mind, I am getting pissed now. I demanded again to know why he had pulled us over. I told him that we knew he was there the entire time, so we broke no laws.

This time around, he tells me that he ran the license plate and had seen that this car was registered to someone who lived in Dallas, and again, he asks, "I said, what are you doing in my fair city, this time of night, Boy?"

I responded with another question. I wanted to know what business it was of his to know my comings and goings AND why in the hell had he pulled us over for a third time.

This time, let's call him Roscoe, goes into great detail about how the light that illuminates my license plate was out, thereby creating a situation where he was not clearly able to read the plate without pulling us over. It was a highly illegal situation, you see, and he needed desperately to get to the bottom of it. I know you Gulch readers are all smarter than the average bear and have just figured out the same thing I did in that instant. If he read my plates in order to run them thereby determining that the car was registered in Dallas, how did he manage to do that if the plate was dark. After all, there are no street lights on Cheek Sparger and it was 2 in the morning. I offered to let him show me the faulty light on my car which, by the way, had literally passed inspection that week.

I had just caught him in a lie, and he knew it. I am am freaking livid (continued)

Yes, yes to personal responsibility. The responsibility of the police is not to arrive before a crime has been committed, but to respond to a call about a crime in progress. The police are not a "detergent" that will wash away something, but also not a "deterrent" to prevent a crime from happening.

A small minority of police officers break the law.
Compared to the general public that break the law the percentage is TINY.

That's why it's news - because it's UNUSUAL.
You never hear about the shootings of minorities in urban settings. It's not news - it's statistics.

From that minority, like any bigots, we generalize to ALL police.

Yes, you heard me - bigots.

That's what bigotry boils down to: Generalizing from the individual to the entire group, or group to the individual, unjustly attributing qualities that they may not have, whether good or bad.

It's bigotry, and police have become one of those professions, like teaching, where good-hearted people are have decided it's not worth the effort and more and more of them are leaving, avoiding the judgement of the public for things they never did and would never support.

No crime committed by a police officer gives us cause to "despise a profession". That's something we choose to do by extending their acts unjustly onto all the other other officers.

The officer in this article has finally given in and joined the bigotry.

And those of us who stop and say, "Thank you," when we see an officer are forgotten, as are those officers who haven't given up and who see the haters of police, the officers who give up, for the minority they are.

And it's up to us to point them out as a minority, or the bigotry will grow.

Choose.

Excellent observation.

I didn't read it as an opinion, but more of his expression of frustration with what's getting the media attention. Think about having a job they pay you to do but don't want you to do it. Damn, it's a good thing I didn't take that job with the LA County Sheriff's Department in '69.. Most (some) of us would shoot a whole lot more bad guys as our adrenaline goes up. I'm not saying there aren't bad cops, and there are bad soldiers, bad mothers, bad fathers, bad kids, and bad criminals too.

I think it is tragic that a police officer has to write an article of this nature. His reality is he is damned if he does and damned if he doesn't. here is proof of the statement. I told a liberal friend about the police office who stopped the black women who stole a dozen eggs. the officer was white. in stead of arresting her he listened to her as she said she needed for her 4 or 5 children. so he used common sense in my opinion and paid for the eggs and I think other groceries. then many more people contributed food. the liberal friend didn't see it as I did a wonderful gesture by a human who happened to be a police office by profession. they said well it is only one that doesn't show all of the bad that they do. I do believe that there are thousands of police officers who do comparable things that do not make it to FOX news. the point is it does not matter to the liberal, it is always NOT ENOUGH. Not all cvops are bad guys.

Would it be inappropriate to say, perhaps, today's criminals are not the criminals of my childhood?

When they can't recruit enough police will they be able to draft them into service? What happens when we do the same thing to our military, make them out to be the bad guys?

I live in a small town and I see it in my local Police Department. I deal mostly with the Sheriff's Department as I live just outside the city limits. However every year the Police and other local law enforcement departments put on a show of all their gear. I see Police with their camo gear in front of their humvee and MRAP, showing off to all the kids. The local AFB has their helicopter and Osprey on show along with drones that they train with here. The State Police are right there with their helicopter and other toys also. It seems as if the different departments all try to outdo each other, but they all work with each other in the local drug enforcement operations. I spent 21 years in the military and sometimes I wonder where all this equipment was when I was in as they are better outfitted than we were in the 90's. As for cops, not all are with that attitude. My local Sheriff is great and his deputies are awesome. Definitely in tune with what their duties are. Maybe it has to do with the Sheriff being elected instead of appointed.

khalling, today's police are not the police
of my childhood says it all.

Lt. Furseth's speech sounds like it could have been a "shrug" speech. It reads as if it were right out of AS.

My wife is a nurse, and so "caring" is a critical part of her profession. Most of her colleagues have either recently shrugged or are about to do so. We are not quite able to afford to have her retire, although it wouldn't be too hard for her to find a position that she would get paid less for, but be able to provide a better quality care.

Five years ago her floor won a nationwide award for being in the top 2% of its kind in the country. Their reward: an increase in patient load from 4 to 5. Now occasionally she has to take care of 6 patients. Then yesterday came the straw that may have broken the camel's back. To minimize the likelihood of bed sores, two nurses on her floor at a time spend one hour per 14-hour shift turning patients. Why the hell is this not being done by techs? Over 50% of the techs have shrugged. This could easily be done by a couple of homeless guys just down the street from her hospital, but no, the hospital can't charge for that, and the homeless wouldn't do it anyway because they get their three squares via government welfare and their medical care paid via Medicaid. 15% of her patients are unappreciative Medicaid patients who act like they are entitled to cruise ship service.