Cop asked to leave cafe because he made a customer "uncomfortable"

[bae]

We had two screw-ups here last year as well, only rising to the level of a grumpy deputy yelling at some people doing a hay-ride. As a result, we have a newly-elected Sheriff (one of the deputies who blew the whistle on the yelling and the poor handling of the incident), and the old Sheriff is now a junior deputy handing out parking tickets. And the troublesome deputy under that old Sheriff who did the yelling was sent to some retraining, and is now assigned to a different location where he mostly looks for lost goats.

It worked this way because the local community likes its officers, and won't tolerate misbehavior. People spoke out, wrote letters to the newspaper, helped out with the new Sheriff's campaign (he was endorsed by almost every single civic organization in the county, and hundreds of influential individuals), and so on. Nobody cowered in a restaurant, afraid to eat their lunch.

I guess we could call that "civic involvement privilege".

[Yossarian]

Any of us could be that elderly man from India who is now partially paralyzed thanks to police brutality. Any of us. I am unable to gloss that fact over and I am unable to forgive America for this reality. Once more, any of us could be the partially paralyzed victim. Rob

This is one of the reasons why I asked you about what you have had responsibility for in the past. My guess was not much given your fundamentally illiterate view of responsibility and organizations. As I have moved up in management I spend more and more of my time dealing with people problems. People make mistakes. People who have to deal with difficult situations make them more frequently than others. Quit being a pansy and blaming everyone else. Step up and do it right yourself or try to be constructive in how you support those that are. It's fair to try to identify and fix problems b ut your hyperventilating melodrama isn't helping.

[gimmethesimplelife]

This is one of the reasons why I asked you about what you have had responsibility for in the past. My guess was not much given your fundamentally illiterate view of responsibility and organizations. As I have moved up in management I spend more and more of my time dealing with people problems. People make mistakes. People who have to deal with difficult situations make them more frequently than others. Quit being a pansy and blaming everyone else. Step up and do it right yourself or try to be constructive in how you support those that are. It's fair to try to identify and fix problems b ut your hyperventilating melodrama isn't helping.

I'm going to agree to disagree with you also, Yossarian. In my book you have went a little too far here and going forward I will not respond to posts such as this. Rob

[bae]

I'm going to agree to disagree with you

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thought...ng_clich.C3.A9

[Lainey]

An attempt to clarify things in this thread to see what we agree on:
Police officers are human and as such not only "make mistakes" but can engage in bad behavior up to the level of any others which can include engaging in criminal behavior of their own;
When this happens they are typically not held accountable to the level of regular citizens because of having a badge.

Citizen videos have been eye-opening to those who would not otherwise believe this, along with books like Matt Taibbi's which demonstrate with statistics how the poor can be the easy prey of those wielding a badge. I include crooked prosecutors and judges in this category.

But acknowledging this is what's happening does not mean that most people do not have basic respect for their police, firefighters and other first responders, including those who post here. Witnessing and calling out what is wrong and what needs to change does not denigrate everyone in that line of work.

[Yossarian]

I'm going to agree to disagree with you also, Yossarian. In my book you have went a little too far here and going forward I will not respond to posts such as this. Rob

That's fine, but as a parting thought I wonder if people get the policing they deserve. If you live in a dysfunctional community that has a high crime rate but ineffective community or political leadership then my guess is the odds are higher that you will have policing problems than say a place in a low crime area or one with responsive civic oversight. Policng is a communitty act. Put people in a no win situation, like where there is no effective community, and well, it's not surprising there are no winners. I'm sure fixing the probelm is much harder than bitching about a nation, but hey, whatever floats your boat. Just trying to help you get from neurosis to solutions.

[Yossarian]

But acknowledging this is what's happening does not mean that most people do not have basic respect for their police, firefighters and other first responders, including those who post here. Witnessing and calling out what is wrong and what needs to change does not denigrate everyone in that line of work.

Absolutely, and I think that is the point of some of the discussion here-- everyone thinks the bad people should be caught and punished but the difference is to how far you extraplolate the bad acts of individuals and how you seek redress. To give you some contrast, I frequent a number of pro-gun rights forums where people are very concerned about constitutional rights and many times the discussions focus on redressing police abuses. But the tone and approach is more constructive. While there is general preference to limit interaction with police, there are no blanket statements that police are evil or that the country sucks because of what some cop did. There is a general recognition that most cops are decent people and when there is a perceived rights violation there is a lot of proactive involvement to make sure the system addresses the wrong. Sometimes there can be litigation where there isn't the response from an institution that people want, but it isn't a suit happy stick it to the taxpayers mob. People are also active in the politcal process to try and get systemic problems fixed. So rather than bitching that the country sucks, cops are evil, and dreaming up ways to make police/citizen interactions even more hostile and ineffective there is a productive local and grass roots organizational effect to get things working correctly. But I've already pointed all this out to Rob so sorry to repeat.

[Packy]

I'm going to start a Pro-establishment eating establishment, and call it: "Benito's Authentic Authoritarian Food". Law enforcement personnel will not only be Welcome, but receive 50%-off discounts on their check, and once they're on our mailing list--they get coupons good for deep discounts on pastries and pizza and other cop food items. We will fly Flags out in front, and have a nice little shooting range downstairs that officers can use. How do you kids like that?

[Lainey]

Policing and the local justice system is a community act. But sometimes it takes intervention at a higher level to correct wrongs. I'm thinking of the two judges in Pennsylvania who were sentencing juveniles to a new privatized detention center for extremely minor offenses at a very high cost to taxpayers. Then it was revealed that the judges were getting kickbacks from the detention facility operator. It took the state and fed gov't to clean up the mess and prosecute the judges.

Same with Ferguson Missouri: the pattern and practice of policing for profit had rewarded overly aggressive police behavior. The federal gov't study which included review of police interactions including computer records and emails was what finally convinced people there was a serious problem.

[Yossarian]

The federal gov't study which included review of police interactions including computer records and emails was what finally convinced people there was a serious problem.

People may differ on the amount of stock they put in the Federal report, but if there was in fact a problem in Ferguson I would say it supports the idea that problems are more likely to exist where there is a civic disconnect.