Newark, NJ Cop: "I can do whatever I want."

Comments

rita's picture
rita, posted on September 20, 2010

Unfortunately, tragically, in fact, this kind of thing goes on every day, all across the nation. Police officers are a power unto themselves; they terrorize and Taser our children, murder our husbands and wives, kill our family pets and their own canine "partners," and they do it with impunity. Even when their reckless stupidity kills other officers, some civilian takes the fall. Oh, the families of the victims might eventually get a settlement, which the rest of us victims pay for, but individual officers are rarely held accountable for the atrocities they commit.

The most important duties of police officers are protecting the public and upholding the law, preferably in that order. "Enforcing" the law should take a way-distant third place. Any bully with a badge and a gun can enforce; it takes a certain amount of honor and courage to "protect." And you can't "uphold" anything by holding yourself above it.

Paul's picture
Paul, posted on September 20, 2010

You are not cynical enough yet. The most important duty of police officers is to keep the sheep quite and submissive. Their advertised role is to "serve and protect", but they only serve and protect the ruling class, not you. In fact they serve and protect the ruling class from you.

Suverans2's picture
Suverans2, posted on September 21, 2010

The Police: No Duty To Protect Individuals (Warren v. D.C.)
http://gunowners.org/sk0503.htm

The three women sued the District of Columbia for failing to protect them, but D.C.'s highest court exonerated the District and its police, saying that it is a "fundamental principle of American law that a government and its agents are under no general duty to provide public services, such as police protection, to any individual citizen."

Police Have No Duty To Protect Individuals by Peter Kasler
http://www.firearmsandliberty.com/kasler-protection.html

Professor Don B. Kates, Jr., eminent civil rights lawyer and criminologist, states:

Even if all 500,000 American police officers were assigned to patrol, they could not protect 240 million citizens from upwards of 10 million criminals who enjoy the luxury of deciding when and where to strike. But we have nothing like 500,000 patrol officers; to determine how many police are actually available for any one shift, we must divide the 500,000 by four (three shifts per day, plus officers who have days off, are on sick leave, etc.). The resulting number must be cut in half to account for officers assigned to investigations, juvenile, records, laboratory, traffic, etc., rather than patrol. ~ Guns, Murders, and the Constitution (Pacific Research Institute for Public Policy, 1990)

"None but an armed nation can dispense with a standing army." ~ Thomas Jefferson (1803)

 

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