Freddie Gray & Baltimore, MD

[Henry Hawk]

[The Troll]

  And they are doing it without SWAT gear, guns and tear gas.     

[Y]

Nobody has said it it alright to kill an unarmed person.  But, you act as if this is a problem that is out of control.  It happens, and if and when it does, we need to throw the book at those guys.  Cops are by and large, FANTASTIC human beings.

It sickens me to read comments like the Troll leaves....I find it very disturbing that people actually think that way.

I'd say you don't know many LEOs, if any.

To start off, yes, we need LEOs.

Secondly, let's face the truth.  The people drawn to the job are usually not 'fantastic human beings' or even normal.  They are primarily authoritarians, adrenaline junkies, power junkies, or all three.  No truly normal person wants to boss/bully/herd other people around, have their nose so firmly in other people's business, or have the absolute power of life and death over other people.

Thirdly, as much as we hear about the dangers of the job - and there are inherent dangers to the job, it doesn't even fall within the top ten most dangerous jobs.


Now, the main problem that keeps us from having real and meaningful dialog about the function of LEOs in our society, their lack of necessary oversight, and their use of deadly force is the penchant of so many to mythologize both the job and the public employees on the job - just like we do with public emergency employees and the military.

We have to demythologize this so we can create the public oversight to stop this senseless abuse of deadly force across the nation.  This nation is facing a long hot summer if we can't start having the necessary conversations/actions.