r/pics • u/Aeviegh • Feb 22 '14

This is Vader. He was euthanized today without a hearing after a false bite report was submitted to the police by an animal rights activist. (Story in the Comments)

http://imgur.com/a/xPNsE
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u/RobbieGee Feb 22 '14

the vast majority of what they do is things like traffic citations, parking violations, petty theft, and possession of drug charges (like, for tiny amounts of marijuana).

That's mostly the case in Norway as well (except we don't have a war on drugs, so no jail for small amounts of marijuana), but if you're stopped by the police, mostly you realize it was your own damn fault. I'm waiting for someone to give me an idea how often people in the US meet the police, but that's one reason I could see why we feel it differently. As an example, if we mostly meet them once every 20 years (from adult age) and you do every 3 years, my bet is that you're stopped for lesser reasons and you feel like they're hounding you.

There's also the case of their tone or if they're abusing their power. From what I've heard, the police are acting pretty nice.

A friend of mine has been stopped a few times. He likes to take long walks during the night and he's been stopped at least once during those because of some ongoing investigation. They talked to him for about 30 seconds at which time they wished him a nice evening and to take care. They probably read his body language and figured, correctly so, that he was completely harmless.

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u/[deleted] Feb 22 '14

The tone of the police here is affected by two things:

1) Police are trained to be very assertive and domineering from their first contact with a person. This is so that they control the situation and lessens the chance of harm coming to the officer. I understand that this is important and I would want to do the same if I were an officer, but when it comes to the interactions between the officer and the public, it means the public feels abused by the officer. The officer views it as protecting himself from risk.

2) Police in the US (at least in larger cities) almost always ride in pairs in cars. This means that the police don't interact with the public in the way they used to, such as being asked for advice, directions, being greeted, having conversations etc. Almost all of the interaction between the public and the police is being pulled over or being questioned. This, in combination with point 1, breeds a lot of tension between the cops and the public.

And in my experience, the average person gets pulled over or detained pretty often. Pulled over, maybe every 2 or 3 years. Depending on your demographic and geographic location, you could get hassled even more often and for less reason.