Well said,True. But I truly believe that there is a time and place. The side of the road with an over-zealous ******* JBT is NOT the place, no matter how bad any of us wishes it otherwise.
Be smart guys. Be polite, be firm but if it comes down to it, take badge numbers and names and let your lawyer make an example out of said JBT. I'm not gonna blow smoke up your ass -- you may or may not cost said JBT his/her/it's job and pension -- but you WILL walk away with your life (not hyperbole in this day and age) and if you let your lawyer do his/her/it's job ... well, cities/counties/states often pay handsomely to make certain problems go away.
I know what some of you are gonna say but you know what, it's not a perfect world, and I'd rather live on the outside of a jail cell and soothe my ego with a few hundred thousand or so dollars, than inside a jail cell, broke because of legal fees, or worse, be in that rowboat to Hell because some JBT saw an opportunity to use me for target practice and later articulate to his superiors how I somehow made him/her/it fear for his life or the safety of the general public.
) that I only encountered one bad cop. Wear your labels proudly, my friend!I was fortunate enough in the last 35 years as a LEO (or JBT as @THAT Gurl calls em
He wasn't "bad" as in the sense to really be dangerous, he was just over zealous and wasn't above committing perjury on the stand to land a conviction. That's bad enough in and of itself, but like I said, he didn't have an itchy trigger finger.
Then there was another cop I worked with who was just basically a thief. Whener a person is arrested and incarcerated, we always had to take their personal property: ie belt, wallet, pocket knife, cigarettes, etc. for safe keeping until they were released.
This particular cop would sit at the PD to do his arrest report and log in the subjects property. If the subject had a brand new, unopened pack of cigarettes, he would open them and help himself to a smoke or two while finishing the paperwork.
He did the same thing with minors who he caught with beer. He would confiscate it and take it home. He even went so far as to taking it to a convenience store and trading it for the kind/brand he liked if it wasn't his favorite.
It slightly worries those trying to get under your skin. 
That pisses me off.I was fortunate enough in the last 35 years as a LEO (or JBT as @THAT Gurl calls em
He wasn't "bad" as in the sense to really be dangerous, he was just over zealous and wasn't above committing perjury on the stand to land a conviction. That's bad enough in and of itself, but like I said, he didn't have an itchy trigger finger.
Then there was another cop I worked with who was just basically a thief. Whener a person is arrested and incarcerated, we always had to take their personal property: ie belt, wallet, pocket knife, cigarettes, etc. for safe keeping until they were released.
This particular cop would sit at the PD to do his arrest report and log in the subjects property. If the subject had a brand new, unopened pack of cigarettes, he would open them and help himself to a smoke or two while finishing the paperwork.
He did the same thing with minors who he caught with beer. He would confiscate it and take it home. He even went so far as to taking it to a convenience store and trading it for the kind/brand he liked if it wasn't his favorite.
Wear your labels proudly, my friend!
Grumpy worked with a guy who by all accounts had a significant drinking problem. This guy has left the Capitol and gone to work for a small city PD by the time I'm met Grumpy but I heard stories and was grateful I'd never met him. Maybe you've heard of him. He ****ed up the Carina Saunders case. I believe that was about the same time they figured out he was stealing narcotics out of the evidence room at Bethany PD. Jack Jencks, ring a bell??
Oh ... And I have another one. This guy I did meet -- And had lunch with any number of times. He used to be a funeral home director, which is what I thought accounted for his rather ... Ahem ... "Unusual" sense of humor. (Srsly, guys, even I know that if **I** think something is off, you've got some marbles running wild.) Anyway, they were going through some training and this guy was wound a bit tighter than usual for some reason. He and his TO had some words I guess and that night he went and found his ex-wife, raped her (beat her, too, I think, but don't quote me on that) and threatened to go find his TO and kill him. She called the cops after he left, they found him and he is now hanging with the guys at ... Ummm ... Gosh, it's been a while since I looked ... Maybe he's down at Lawton?? Anyway, he caught quite the laundry list. He's still got quite a while left on his sentence because they had him serve them consecutively. The most troubling thing about him is he wasn't a bad cop. He just snapped for some reason. I want to say he had been drinking heavily that night, but again, don't quote me because it's been a while. Look up William Manship.
I often wonder how many more he has crossed paths with that I haven't heard about. Or didn't realize what they were capable of. And I also think things like this may be why Grumpy is a tee-toltaller. Because we are ALL capable of some pretty heinous things, deep in the back of our minds. **** that hides from even us, until something happens to open that dungeon door. (And anyone who says otherwise has either lived a charmed life or is a liar.) In the end our police officers are human beings, just like the rest of us. Not making excuses, not expecting anyone to give a bad cop a pass, just pointing out a fact.
