Seattle Police Agrees to Reforms on Use of Force

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Seattle police Teddy bears compared to most big city cops. Illegals are well organized in the city and scream everytime one gets busted.

These kinds of criminal acts by fellow officers are *part* of the reason I left law enforcement to become an investigative reporter. Even when I worked Internal Affairs, I was mostly powerless to stop even truly criminal fellow officers. Much of this is related to attitude. Here's the perfect example. Most full-time municipal, county and state law enforcement officers refer to the citizens they police as "civilians." It's a false distinction, but it sets up an "us vs. them" scenario that leads to a siege mentality among many officers. But those officers - unless the are members of the United States Armed Forces Reserves or National Guard - are also "civilians." They are civilians who happen to hold jobs in law enforcement, but they are civilians, none the less. One of the first things I would do as chief or sheriff of a department would be to "ban" the use of the word "civilian" to refer to citizens who are not sworn law enforcement personnel. The second thing I would do would be to eliminate the military-style rank structure of having sergeants, lieutenants, captains, etc. They are NOT military personnel. Treating them as such further separates them from the society they are supposed to serve and perpetuates the "us vs. them" mindset. The only way to make any kind of serious dent in abusive and/or criminal behavior by cops is to make the investigations SO impartial and the punishments SO severe that cops are scared to even get close to the line, much less cross it. Here's the simple formula: If you are a cop and you are found to have abused your authority or used excessive force - by a preponderance of the evidence, the civil standard, not the more difficult to prove criminal standard "beyond a reasonable doubt" - you... 1. Lose your job, immediately. 2. Lose your law enforcement certification, for life. 3. Are banned for life from working any job in law enforcement, private investigations, security, or any other position of public/private trust (polygraph examiner, nightclub bouncer, for example). And... 4. Upon criminal conviction for any offense involving excessive force, even if the conviction is a misdemeanor, you forfeit your Second Amendment right to own or possess a firearm ... for life. In other words, if you want to be a cop, you will obey every rule, every time, so enthusiastically that there's no doubt that you were in the right ... or you can go drive a garbage truck in a third world country. If you want to exercise the authority of OUR government over your fellow citizens, you will willingly and completely submit to the authority of our elected officials over you, all the time, every time, period. Is this harsh? You damn well better believe it! Cops have the position, power and resources to ruin people's lives... to END people's lives. And - as has already been mentioned - a judge is highly likely to believe them in court, even if they're lying through their teeth. So they need to be held to an astronomically higher standard. And - before you respond and tell me how hard a cop's job is and how I "just don't understand" - let me save you some time: Shut up, you don't know what the hell you're talking about. I put in five years before the job physically crippled me. I have the bullet wound, the broken bones, the ex-wife and the handicap parking placard to prove that I know EXACTLY what I'm talking about when it comes to the job, how hard it is, what it does to people, AND how to stop criminal cops. If you've never been behind the badge, you are incapable of understanding. If you are behind the badge now and you think my proposal is "excessive" you're part of the problem. WHY do we think drunk driving is the socially unacceptable scourge of the earth, but carrying out a little "street justice" should be ignored? Arrggghhhh! The ONLY possible convincing argument against my proposal is that cops will be so "gun shy" that they will let guilty people get away. And it's true. That would probably happen ... maybe even frequently. My response? So what?  I would rather have 100 guilty people walk free than to have one innocent person sentenced to prison for a crime they didn't commit (as a result of false testimony or planted evidence), OR beaten to a pulp by some adrenaline-junkie redneck with a badge, or taken away from their family forever because some cop-coward pulled the trigger too fast. Don't guess any law enforcement agencies are going to be asking me to serve as their public information officer anytime soon, huh? #heartbroken #not

Now just wait a friking minute. If they mess with you and it's not within department guidelines...It's against the F**king law and should be sued in a court. No and's if's or but's...It's against the law.