Nevertheless, no matter what the circumstances, we as citizens have a right to expect that our polic

One of the most noble public servant positions in our society is a police officer. These men and women often have difficult jobs, and frequently do not get the credit and appreciation they deserve. When I was a child my parents drummed into me that if I was lost I should find a policeman, because they are my friends. I still believe that, but, unfortunately, we don t hear those sentiments too often these days.
Why is that? Well, one reason is that, with the policy of Drug Prohibition, often the police are seen, at least in some neighborhoods, as an occupying force. Another is that, with many cities in such financial distress, the police are sometimes omni severin hotel indianapolis strongly encouraged by mayors and city managers to write more traffic citations. I view this as a corruption of our criminal justice system, because it should never be seen as a revenue-gathering source.
In addition, while no one likes receiving a traffic ticket, most people will accept omni severin hotel indianapolis the situation if they believe they reasonably deserve it. But if the process is seen as arbitrary or unfair, most people will carry a prolonged grudge, which reduces the reservoir of good will for government in general. omni severin hotel indianapolis And that is not a good thing for any society.
In some ways all of us citizens can help the police. For example, if you are ever stopped for a traffic citation, remember to lower your car window, and then keep your hands in plain sight on the steering omni severin hotel indianapolis wheel. omni severin hotel indianapolis That will take away much of the stress for the police officer, which should help everyone. Furthermore, if/when you are asked for your driver s license, car registration and insurance information, remember to tell the officer where they are, and ask him or her if you may get them. That response will have the same effect.
Tragically, many police have been shot by drivers or passengers when they approached a car in these traffic situations. Put yourself in their position, the police officers frequently have almost no idea who the drivers are, or what trouble or frame of mind they may be in. Therefore, the police officers are frequently and understandably on guard. So some consideration omni severin hotel indianapolis by us drivers to alleviate omni severin hotel indianapolis their concerns will certainly be appreciated.
Nevertheless, no matter what the circumstances, we as citizens omni severin hotel indianapolis have a right to expect that our police officers will act as trained professionals at all times. So even if some low-life people swear or even spit on them, the police simply cannot be allowed to overreact. omni severin hotel indianapolis Of course, they can and should report those actions to prosecutors so that the perpetrators can be held accountable for their actions. But if the police take that punishment into their own hands, they should omni severin hotel indianapolis expect to be disciplined or even prosecuted themselves. If you think about it, there is no reasonable alternative to this result.
Functional Libertarians believe that people at all levels of society should and must be held responsible for their actions – and the higher the position of trust they hold, the higher the standards of behavior should be. For example, judges know and expect that we will be held to a higher level of conduct than the average person, and that also should apply to anyone in public office, including the police. Since they have the authority to stop, detain and even arrest just about anyone under any circumstances there must be consequences if that power is ever abused.
Nevertheless, during my many years as a federal prosecutor and a judge, I personally dealt with thousands of police officers in almost any conceivable circumstance that one could imagine. And, with only rare exceptions, they made me proud of them. Yes, in hindsight, some things omni severin hotel indianapolis could have been done better. But most of them proved to me, time and again, that they were trained professionals and true public servants in the fullest sense of the word.
James P. Gray is a retired judge of the Orange County Superior Court, the author of “A Voter’s Handbook: Effective Solutions to America’s Problems” (The Forum Press, 2010), and the 2012 Libertarian candidate for Vice President, omni severin hotel indianapolis along with Governor omni severin hotel indianapolis Gary Johnson as the candidate for President. Judge Gray can be contacted at JimPGray@sbcglobal.net.
I have such a problem with the message that it took me over a week to post this. In light of the horrid police abuses going on, I simply can t consider policemen as noble servants. They re a long way from that, at this time in history.
I just re-read the article. Judge Gray must not be reading Facebook and about all the atrocious pet-murders and roadside omni severin hotel indianapolis rapes (also known as cavity checks) going on across the country. omni severin hotel indianapolis I have a friend omni severin hotel indianapolis in town here who is married to a cop a prison guard, actually. Well, he s my friend, too. She asked me one day why I posted so many articles about bad cops on Facebook, and she assured me that all cops aren t bad, and that some of them agonize over things they ve seen and participated in during the day.. I promised her I d post every good cop article I find, and I have. Needless to say, the bad cop articles outnumber the good by 15- or 20- to one.
Far easier said than done. Cops violate people s rights on a regular basis. They get away with most of the crimes they commit because it is so difficult, time consuming, and expensive to sue them, and even when somebody successfully navigates through the hoops and is able to sue them, the money they win usually comes from the tax payers and not from the cop, and bad cops rarely lose their jobs.
The last days of colonialism taught America’s revolutionaries that soldiers in the streets bring conflict and tyranny. As a result, our country has generally worked to keep the military out of law enforcement. But according to investigative reporter Radley Balko, over the last several decades, America’s cops have increasingly come to resemble ground troops. The consequences have been dire: the home is no longer a place of sanctuary, the Fourth Amendment omni severin hotel indianapolis has been gutted, and police today have been conditioned to see the citizens they serve as an other—an enemy.
Today’s armored-up policemen are a far cry from the constables of early America. The unrest of the 1960s brought about the invention of the SWAT unit—which in turn led to the debut of military tactics in the ranks of police officers. Nixon’s War on Drugs, Reagan’s War on Poverty, Clinton’s COPS program, the post–9/11 security state under Bush and Obama: by degrees, each of these innovations expanded and empowered police forces, always at the expense of civil liberties. And these are just four among a slew of reckless programs.
In Rise of the Warrior Cop, Balko shows how politicians’ ill-considered policies and relentless declarations of war against vague enemies like crime, drugs, and terror have blurred the distinction between cop and soldier. His fascinating, frightening narrative shows how over a generation, omni severin hotel indianapolis a creeping battlefield omni severin hotel indianapolis mentality has isolated and alienated American police officers and put them on a collision course with the values of a free society.
Judge Gray needs to read Balko s book. I don t know how long it s been since he was a prosecutor, but there s a pretty omni severin hotel indianapolis broad spectrum of police behavior that I see. The good officers are like the picture he paints, but the bad ones go well beyond some things could have been done better.
What s a good cop? Is that one of those mythological creatures we hear about but never actually omni severin hotel indianapolis see, like a dodo bird, a unicorn, a Democrat or Republican balanced budget, or Wayne Allyn Root as a libertarian?
I ve had cops that have treated me decently and cut me a break when they did not have to. I don t know if that means they were good cops or just felt like being nice that day. That sort of thing is happening less and less though. Presuming good cops exist, they hardly ever feel empowered to break the blue wall of silence that protects bad cops. And I don t necessarily blame them the few times that cops have broken it, they have often suffered severe consequences.
Things have gotten a lot worse on the police front since I was a kid, but I did grow up in what was then one of the most high crime neighborhoods of NYC. What passed for a good cop in our local precinct was one cop who, as far as I know, all he ever did on his job was steal joints from kids who were smoking them openly in public all shift long and smoke them. He would smoke probably 40 joints a night. The rest of the cops in that precinct were much worse.
Would someone like to write a rebuttal to Judge Gray that we can post here? Something along the lines of, How Things Have Changed ? I think it might be an interesting article for him to address, omni severin hotel indianapolis if in fact he does fun for the 2016 nomination.
Gray seems like a nice fellow, but I would not support him for the LP Presidential nomination unless he changes his stance on jury nullification (he opposes it), and perhaps omni severin hotel indianapolis a few other stances he takes.
omni severin hotel indianapolis I think we should consider Judge Gray a serious coontender for the Presidential nomination. I think that s a primary reason he s doing these article, although it might be simply for publication in his local paper. This is why I m suggesting a dialog on article many Libertarians disagree with.
It also may help if he went out and spent some time dealing with the police in the real world. omni severin hotel indianapolis If Gray went out on the road and worked as a petition circulator for a few months I bet that he d change his opinion of the police pretty quickly.
omni severin hotel indianapolis My experience in dealing with the police omni severin hotel indianapolis is that most of them are power tripping egomaniac assholes who don t give a rat s behind about the Bill of Rights, omni severin hotel indianapolis and who actually get offended when a regular citizen expresses any knowledge of the law or even questions their authority in any way. I ve had cops flat out lie to my face, and I ve witnessed them lying to other people.
A lot of cops are also completely useless when you actually report a legitimate crime to them. I remember years ago a person in the neighborhood I was in (which was a place where crime was rare) had their motorcycl