I was standing in line to buy a coke today at 7-11 today and there was a uniformed police officer in front of me buying a sandwich or something. So I’m looking around and I look at him and I say, “The traffics pretty bad around here today, isn’t it”? He smiled a little and said, “Yeah, you’re right”, I said “Especially with all this roadwork being done.” And so we had a friendly conversation and than I walked out.
You make think this is not a big deal at all but I was thinking to myself later, "Man, that’s the only friendly conversation I’ve had with a cop in my 54 years.All my other interactions with cops consisted of me lying to get out of trouble, or being angry and them being angry. I know some of us have had bad experiences with cops before and the cops even became physical with some of us. But I’m not really afraid of cops now that I quit drugs. I don’t break any major laws and they leave me alone.
Some are okay. I find that some are a bit, pushy. I don’t like em going through my stuff or acting like they are my “friend.” I know better. However, I have met some nice cops who just put on the tough guy attitude when working.
The environment is not good for cops in many places. They get quotas that force them to try to find crime, even when there’s not any, which makes them aggressive and pushy. Then they don’t get special rewards/pay for taking on especially dangerous areas or assignments, which means you typically wind up with a bunch of quota cops in nicer towns, and a bunch of cops who probably wouldn’t have been hired if not for the desperate turnover in more dangerous towns. There are some special exceptions, but they tend to get burnt out quickly. Cops who don’t like corruption tend to get bullied and harassed into leaving the force. The good ones who want to do good get bullied out, burnt out or wind up with PTSD trying to take on the dangerous gigs. The bad ones remain, avoid the real work and fill their quotas picking on homeless people or handing out a bunch of tickets at the end of the month over people doing 5mph over the speed limit. The sorts that turn their lights on just so they can blow through a red light, so they can get home faster.
I thought that they stopped the practice of having quotas. I thought I heard that somewhere. I thought they stopped it for the very reasons you listed.
I was gonna post this yesterday but ended up forgetting, but when I was leaving my house yesterday 2 cop cars rolled down my street and one of them saw me, pulled over and asked me if I had seen a man walking around my neighborhood with a 12 gauge shotgun. I was kinda of drawn back by such a strange question, but eventually said no. He looked at me and kind of slyly said, okay have a good day, almost like he didn’t believe me, but I had been inside most of the day on this forum.
I got to talk to one today. Road bans just went into effect so they’re pulling trucks over to inspect our loads. Apparently my ‘driving very carefully’ today merited extra attention. Oy. Seriously? I’m going to get ignored if I do 30 kph over the speed limit carrying 10K litres of ‘boom’?
Sigh.
I was polite, my papers were in order, and I escaped without getting dinged for anything. So there’s that.
I hate those kinds of cops. One cop pulled me and my Dad over on the back from my karate training when I was 6. The Officer said the truck was stolen. Which it wasn’t because my Uncle gave my Dad the truck a year before, and it was only reported stolen for a month. The cop said the license plate matched. Still BS because my Dad replaced my Uncles plates way before. So my Dad lost the truck to the impound and had to drive my Grandma’s car to get to work and court so he could stay out of jail and get his truck back.
And thanks to all that missing work and court fees, my Dad couldn’t pay for karate anymore. Thanks for literally ruining my life for the second time.