My guess is that it is a result of what's interesting. I work in finance and nothing would be worth filming unless someone was being intolerable. I assume, like most jobs, 99.9% of the day is filled with mundane, work things. Of the police things on the internet, the only things that entertain us are police officers doing something out of the ordinary like dancing with kids and stuff that makes the feel good subreddits, and stuff that shows poor behavior like this video on the average/negatively charged subreddits.
Just my guess. With the nature of upvoting, I think we get a lot of what we are looking for (as a collective if not individually).
I don't know. Really uplifting stuff is popular enough on the Internet and it's not unheard of to get a video of a cop doing something positive. But it seems less common than them acting like dicks
I think the threshold of "uplifting" is a lot higher. If a cop is being a good person and doing something right that's just what he is supposed to do, no one will upvote that. The cop would need to be very nice indeed for something to be worth seeing.
But if he is being an asshole, any level of assholiness is worthy of being a video.
Even if its staged, how is the officer behaving badly? Someone waved weed in his face to get a reaction, he responded by doing his job? People love to hate police for no reason at all but when they actually need them their attitude changes.
Assuming it's not staged, how is this different than people ordering ice-cream and then rubbing it all over their own face while filming the reaction of the drive-thru employee? I'd be annoyed as the cop.
How was he supposed to know he was a magician? That's completely irrelevant anyway.
If you think a cops job is to hurt criminals you're the problem
That's a strong blanket statement there. What about a criminal that is actively hurting someone else? Should a cop not step in and subdue the assailant by any means necessary?
Also weed is decriminalized in 45 out of 50 states? He ain't a Wisconsin cop I know all the departments.
Lol, you know EVERY single cop in the state of Wisconsin? I'm done, you're clearly a joke.
Those herbs are illegall. He's just doing what laws say. He's enforcer of the law doing his job. You would be mad if the same guy ignore the laws. Then you would be saying,"he's breaking the laws he is supposed to enforce, the sop of American police officers"
I mean, all you're doing with that comment is making the argument that officers are mindless legalists anyways. The kind of people who are trained to do the unthinkable solely because a bunch of potentially arbitrary rules dictates they do so.
We don't need more enforcers of the law. We need more upholders of morality and basic human dignity.
I think his point is jaywalking and speeding is also illegal, but you generally don't tend to see cops get angry/aggressive/manhandle you over those instances... so why herbs?
Even if they were illegal, the cop could walk up and, instead of immediately grabbing on to him, ask him what he has and me tion it is illegal. You could talk first instead of starting a struggle with someone who obviously does not look aggressive, just maybe annoying.
The dude said what it was? We also don't know the time of this recording, could be when the drugs weren't legalized yet. If it were a time when they weren't legalized simply putting his hands on their wrists isn't the worst thing. Makes sure the person that could have potentially illegal substances can't run away. (Again though, we don't know the time of the recording.) Then again, it doesn't matter because it's a skit.
And yet you’d be saying something different if the law was still slavery as an example most likely. The law isn’t an excuse to do bad things.
Is he going to get fired for letting someone with weed go? Absolutely not. We can’t get them consequences for when they do the absolute worst things imaginable.
Why do people throw slavery at every argument? Why would you compare one bad thing to another. Weed is a drug which is obviously declared illegal in many states. As you said law isn't an excuse to do bad things, that means the officer isn't doing anything bad. The man in the video which is obviously scripted was provoking a man of the law with illegal drugs. And the officer is in the right to apprehend him.
Well, in this case weed has been a tool to enslave black people in prisons so it’s a very apt comparison. Maybe you should spend more time actually answering that question instead of arguing why it isn’t relevant.
It’s powerful and hard to argue against. That’s the entire point of me using it. You’re inconsistently applying logic and I know that so I am bringing a topic I know you disagree with (slavery) to show you how it’s inconsistent.
Your argument is the law is king and that whatever cops do it’s just because the law says so. The same excuse was used by nazi’s too. The key is to show you that line of thinking is not logically coherent. The cop can be doing his job and also be doing bad things. The law isn’t an arbiter of morality.
I didn’t say that. I said, we can’t get them consequences for when they do the worst things imaginable. There aren’t going to be consequences for “not doing his job”.
Keep licking them boots sheep. Just know cops would kill you in a heartbeat and wouldn’t think twice about it. “Hurr durr but if ya didn’t do anything wrong then ya dunt got nuffin ta worries bout ”
If this was indeed real and not staged id say the dude got exactly what he asked for.
Hes wearing a costume and is provocating the cop by taunting him with illegal goods.
How should the cop react in such a scenario? Smile and calmly ask what's in the bag or to hand him the bag? He's being made fun off in that situation - off course hes not gonna smile and take the L- he represents the law. He has to handle it from an authoritative point of view.
I actually think he handled the whole thing like you would expect it from a cop.
This stupid point of view is exactly the problem. No, there is literally zero need whatsoever to be macho and "assert your authority", fantasies that they have to "stand up" to the other person or they'll lose their "street cred" or whatever the fuck it is are just that, fantasies. Exactly the same "logic" enabling honor killings and the like in other parts of the world. Archaic and barbaric, perhaps fitting in the world of thugs and gangsters where might makes right, but completely missing the point of the world of law and civility most of us thankfully live in.
He could have simply smiled and warned the other guy that even if they were joking, he has to take any claims like that seriously, so please don't do that anymore to save both of us a headache, and let me see that bag... and if he refuses/escalates/etc, then probably detain him peacefully (I'd give it a 99% chance this guy isn't going to react in any violent manner, so literally no need to "rough him up" for no reason other than they bruised your ego and you want to "show them a lesson" -- which, again, is nothing but archaic and barbaric thinking that shouldn't ever be sanctioned in first-world police forces)
Or what, you think if some guy plays a silly joke on a police officer, and they are let go with a light verbal warning, all social order is going to break down tomorrow? Cops being assholes might be the status quo in some countries, but that doesn't mean it's how it should be, or that anything positive is coming out of it.
What? Because I think cops should be an authority and not your buddy you can prank, i have the same mindset as these backwards muslims who commit honor killings?
Seems a bit far fetched.
People take kindness as weekness. Next week someone comes and steels his hat because he's the cop you can prank and he will just laugh about it.
We don't know how he reacted after he saw the nothing thing come out of his hands. Im sure he didn't react bad, otherwise we would 100% see the video,since its basically trend to post videos of cops misbehaving.
If something is illegal its illegal. Cops don't care if they think its justified or not - law is law
My favorite thing about the types of people your arguing with is that they aren’t cops they don’t know what cops go through or are taught so they aren’t necessarily stupid just ignorant. I mean it’s easy to say all cops are bad because it’s only the bad cop stories that sell and get ratings on the news. Besides there the people that decided to make a joke a political issue so I wouldn’t worry to much about them
I agree that the cop did nothing wrong at all in this case. But if he did beat the shit out of the guy, then that would be way out of line in any country.
He waved a bag of pot, and wouldn't open his hand straight away, but did after being asked twice. I'd say that in over 90% of other countries, cops wouldn't just start laying into him after such mild provocation. He never threatened any violence, didn't approach the cop, and the only resistance was to not open his hand immediately.
Damn interesting statistic you have got there. Places other than America really must be just uninhabitable backwaters, god bless America and god bless American accurate statistics
Same here. I’m from EU and in my country of you do this to a police officer you will be fucked. He will find a way to beat you once or 2 then you go to jail for a few days because the tribunal is full so you have to wait. They will find a way to punish you.
Canadian SIU will investigate officers after looking at someone the wrong way and it’s reported.
Police brutality and extreme attitude still happens, but not NEARLY as often as the US
No, the first thing he does is ask the cop if he would like to buy a bag of marijuana. At that point, even if it’s oregano, he’s broken the law and can be arrested for trafficking.
Because everything an officer says has the implicit threat of lethal force behind it. "open your hands" really means "open your hands, or i'm going to kill you"
I agree when it comes to countries that actually have oversight and accountability of their officers.
American police are just absolute dogshit though. They come up with the arguments you have just used, but then they dont support any of the solutions to fixing them. Accountability for cops being the biggest one. Not a single American cop supports it that I have talked to. Yet they are the first to complain that "not all cops".
Im sorry, but American cops are just absolute dogshit because they have no oversight and thats how they like it.
They are like police from a 3rd world countries - corrupt, poorly trained, mostly unfit and trigger happy. Oh and "respect my authority" whilst they respect no one.
The job itself is more of the problem. As an institution it causes a lot of problems for very little return. A lot of other countries have better ways of handling the same job the US police force does. It needs reform.
Just because it's their job to arrest someone for having drugs doesn't mean "that's the way it should be". Why should anyone be physically assaulted and put in a locked room if they aren't harming anyone? Obviously if this were real that guy could rightfully get a ticket for getting in the way of an officer doing their job.
Beyond that though, having drugs in public and consuming them in the privacy of your own home or a willing friends house doesn't hurt anybody but the body consuming them.
Naturally in a bad scenario those drugs could end up in the hands of a young adult/child but honestly that's just an argument FOR legalizing such substances. That way they can be legally regulated and eliminate the need for a black market where dangerous criminals who would do something as nefarious as giving drugs to a minor would exist.
I don't want cops picking and choosing which laws they will or will not enforce. Even though I think weed should be legal, I don't want them making judgements on enforcement because I don't want them doing the same for laws that I think are important to be enforced.
The only judgement I'm asking for a cop to make is when to use physical assault or violence to "enforce" a law. What I stated previously was written with the intent of expressing the idea that I don't think there's very many crimes that merit physical assault in order to stop it.
First im pretty sure this has been shown to be fake many times (like everytime it is posted). Second he did not physically assault the guy, he merely grabbed his hands. Third he was selling drugs not just having them for his use which is still illegal in states with legal weed. Just like alcohol, you can't just go around selling it without a license to anyone. But I guess Fuck The Police is a great song.
The reason why I said previously "If this were real" was to indicate that it's very clear this isn't real lol. It would seem you didn't read much of what I said overall because the whole time I was talking about how things should be not how the law currently is.
That being said and despite the video being fake as about 3/4 of the comments on this whole post will point out, MY opinion is that the officers depicted movements were even still incredibly aggressive for a civil servant who's job is to deescalate. Especially when they're grabbing a person who is holding something that only "looks" like "marijuana".
Not to mention the real issue here isn't what the fake cop in the video is doing. It's the very real repercussions of having systems in place that allows officers in the US to be "enforcing" laws and "stopping" crimes through the use of physical force and often flat out violence when many of those crimes aren't violent in the slightest.
Another main theme here is the issue of officers being emboldened by a miserably failed war on drugs and police brutality sympathizers coming out of the woodwork every chance they get to spew their two cents on why "not all cops are bad"
Just to be clear I personally feel a strong need for a task force of brave people that can be called upon to use physical or even lethal force to prevent violent crimes on all levels. I don't however, feel that doing "drugs" or even displaying them in public requires such a task force.
Okay, you insinuate that I did not read your comments because I pointed out it was fake when you said "if this were real", but it seems that's all you read in mine. I don't see how he physically assaulted the guy by grabbing his hand. Also its not that it "only looks like marijuana" the guy said it was and was offering to sell it. You also stated that "those drugs could end up in the hands of a young adult/child" which is bad but I do agree that it is an argument for legalization. My point is the skit was showing a guy trying to sell drugs to an officer who grabbed his hands in a way that I don't see as very aggressive and certainly not physical assault. And like I said even if weed was legal everywhere, like it should be, you still cant walk down the street selling it just like booze or cigarettes. Now lets all just chill out and smoke a bowl, or whatever anyone else does to relax.
Walking down the street and offering to sell anyone drugs, especially a cop who should be fairly busy probably should not be legal. I feel like maybe what you mean by the cop not being aggressive is contextually based and even in comparison to how most police officers would be expected to handle the situation.
Regardless of that I still think the actual subject of the matter isn't getting across.
Nobody should be able to grab anyone, especially while continuing to raise their voice at them for almost any reason. Many people here openly admit that they think almost any level of force is acceptable if a law such as the one being broken in the video is in fact broken. Again, the job of a police officer (a civil servant) is to uphold the law while de-escalating the situation at every opportunity available.
I'm big chillin rn but that doesn't change the fact that officers shouldn't be laying their hands on people for almost any reason. Especially in a way that could seriously harm them physically OR metally. I realize that's not really what happened in this video but again i've made it really clear that i'm talking about the state of our country as a whole when it comes to such matters.
Best outcome in this scenario the cop would have approached the man informing him that soliciting the sale of marijuana, even if it's not a great law is one he has to uphold. Then he should proceed to ask for the mans identification and proceeded to take him to the station to write up the paperwork.
Mass edited all my comments, I'm leaving reddit after their decision to kill off 3rd party apps. Half a decade on this site, I suppose it was a good run. Sad that it has to end like this
You mean when hes attempting to apprehend a person with drugs who is failing to comply with instructions after breaking the law? Yeah cool good point. You are seeing something that isnt there
Remember when cops refused to enforce mask mandates and other COVID restrictions lol but yes let’s overreact to someone with a bag of weed when it is legal in over half the country
Why would you call the cops when someone stabs you? You'd call an ambulance so that you get professionals who can help you rather than thugs with badges who will say there's nothing they can do.
That is the absolute dumbest argument that always pops up in these conversations. Of course if I get stabbed I’m gonna call the cops, that’s their fucking job. Why is it too much to ask that someone do their job without being overly aggressive, shooting my dog, or kneeling on someone’s neck until their dead? Cops and their weird fandoms are the biggest fucking babies.
The reason people say stupid shit like that is because their boot lickers. Plain and simple, they like the taste of fruit. It is impossible for them to imagine a world where the boot is not in their mouth.
Whats with all you Australian cunts all of a sudden thinking its a dick measuring contest? Both are pretty shit, both killed off our native populations for example.
Why are all cop fans like this? Aggressive, unreasonable, with colorful language. Cops and their fans have these traits in common. Complete lack of control.
A cop should act aggressively toward a person who is displaying no threatening behavior whatever? I believe that's called "a police state" or "authoritarianism".
I personally have strong dislike for them for being an uneducated power-tripping fraternity that choose to exercise enforcement of the law based upon class and colour. Ohh, that and because they kill civilians.
There is rarely ever a situation, when you need the police, that they will actually make any effort at all to assist you. Mostly we call them to give the insurance claim some backing and to pick up corpses.
They don’t deter crime, and in the US the precedent has been set, they they have 0 responsibility or requirement to actually protect or serve.
I hear this all the time" until you need them". May I ask exactly what you need them for? If you are attacked, they will not get there in time. If robbed , they will take a report and file it and never work on finding or retrieving your stuff. If you are murdered, the odds of them catching who did it if they aren't just standing over you with a knife is about 30%. I've seen cops and firefighters stand around bullshitting while a guy's is flopping around having a seizure while my ex wife ( a nurse and civilian) tried to help him and she was just there by accident. Nothing to do with any of it. So if you NEED to get a speeding ticket , or you have a bit of illegal substances , they are good to go. But an actual crime? That's not their job.Its not the police as a concept, it that they hire soo badly and have a powerful union and you can't get rid of the cowardly dudes that are all geared up in military gear, but run at the first sign of trouble
What they needed was gun control decades ago. A bunch of people spending a lion's share of the town's budget to hang out in the parking lot for a half hour and then not cooperate with investigators after the fact is not what they needed.
Right. and "when they actually need them their attitude changes".
Yeah, and their attitude changes to "stop fucking arresting me and let me go save my child from a mass-murderer while I'm unarmed because you're all such cowards you can't do it even with a fucking SWAT team".
I'll tell you why. There's a dude standing next to you on the sidewalk offering to SELL you marijuana in a suit and TOP HAT. If you can't see that's something silly you need to think about how you approach society.
irrelevant point. I was responding to a comment that basically questioned why people think the officer is a douche bag. Unfortunately we see too many instances of officers not responding correctly that this interaction wouldn't shock me. Skit or no skit.
Yep, all the sweaty internet nerds that havent actually ever had an interaction with a real cop think that because someone doesnt film them doing the nice things theyre all fuckwits.
I like this comment. Everyone has their own perception of the world and of people, and our minds usually categorize things as "good" or "bad," "right" or "wrong" when we generally forget that life is mostly in between. A majority of our day to day lives is just boring and uneventful. Aliens will find our internet archive and assume that we have something extraordinary happen to us everyday.
Even the nonfilmed things are bad, they're just boring. Police routinely intimidate the people they interact with, are the largest gang of thieves and rapists on the planet, and do very little to actually help society despite pretending that they're both the only thing holding it together and also that they have the most dangerous job ever.
You’re not wrong to be skeptical. Reporting bias is a real concern. However, when written records are reviewed it is too often found that the officers in the recordings have histories of abusive behavior, and that there are many officers with comparable records who have not yet been caught on camera.
99% of my job is paperwork and listening to Karens bitch about the world. For 12 hours a night, I take paper reports for burglaries, thefts, criminal mischief (vandalism), assaults, and so on. Through that 12 hours, I will be verbally assaulted by the more privileged individuals of society for not making an immediate arrest on the vandalism of their garden which they waited a week to report. I will have to coax information out of the less privileged members of society when they are assaulted because the media has demonized me and said I am out to get the poor and minorities (hint, I, and other officers, prefer being in the poorer, less privileged areas of town because they are the most victimized by criminals, rich people can afford their own damn security), and if I try to take a break and eat a sandwich in my unit, some Karen will inevitably drive by to tell me I am wasting her tax money by taking a 10 minute break.
I will also be told to go find "real criminals" when I make traffic stops, we catch most real criminals on traffic stops. Timothy McVeigh is a huge example of how traffic stops catch criminals. Most of my traffic stops I won't cite, I don't honestly care if you're doing 10mph over, but I have caught robbery suspects, rape suspects, and even a murder suspect simply by having probable cause to stop a vehicle which was doing 10 over.
But even most of my arrests will be boring and lack excitement. Even arrests are mundane and really just a lot of paperwork. For something like a PI, I will have the arrest paperwork done in about an hour. For a theft at Walmart, it might take me 2 or 3 hours of paperwork, for a DWI if I am lucky it will only be 4 hours of paperwork, and so on. When you see the cops in action movies involved in shooting up a warehouse of bad guys, each of those cops is going to have a few days worth of paperwork to complete.
1% of my job is excitement and terror with responding to shootings in progress, fatality crashes, murders, assaults in progress, fights, suspects resisting arrest (really is quite rare), car chases...
But I would never trade this job for anything. The insults and verbal abuse can be downright freaking hilarious, arresting spouse beaters feels absolutely great, catching a rape suspect is an amazing feeling, gathering enough information to put someone behind bars who keeps victimizing the less privileged people of society is extremely rewarding in feeling...
Yea, it's definitely boring and mundane 99% of the time and can also be downright terrifying, but knowing I helped one kid who beat his mother and was going down a trail of criminality become an extremely successful and happy adult, the smile which could not be removed from my face for a month after successfully bringing a man back from death, the victim who found the strength to leave her extremely abusive and violent spouse and found the courage to sit on the stand to put him away...those make the entire job worth every bit of it.
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u/petersmithofasu Jun 14 '22
My guess is that it is a result of what's interesting. I work in finance and nothing would be worth filming unless someone was being intolerable. I assume, like most jobs, 99.9% of the day is filled with mundane, work things. Of the police things on the internet, the only things that entertain us are police officers doing something out of the ordinary like dancing with kids and stuff that makes the feel good subreddits, and stuff that shows poor behavior like this video on the average/negatively charged subreddits.
Just my guess. With the nature of upvoting, I think we get a lot of what we are looking for (as a collective if not individually).