Bells
Staff member
It's an open forum Balerion. You respond to things that aren't addressed to you as well.. All the time.
One day, you will not respond as though you believe everyone is against you.
No one is saying that all police officers are all corrupt. I am saying the system itself is corrupt and those who participate in it are tainted as a result.
You're so busy jumping up and down about what isn't actually being said that you are missing what has actually been said. And really, applying issues like racism and abused women to this as examples of why saying that the police is shit is the same thing. Straws.. Grasping.. It's not even remotely the same. It's not a stereotype when people say police are shit. The whole department is twisted. Look at Rodney King.. The other police who watched it and did nothing and said nothing. Didn't even report it. This is acceptable to you? The station that defended them? This is good? As for your domestic violence example:
In fact, domestic violence is two-to-four times as prevalent in police officer families as it is in the general population. Yikes.
The National Center for Women & Policing report that two studies have found that at least forty percent of police officer families experience domestic violence, in contrast to ten percent of families in the general population.
This is scary for many reasons, but perhaps most especially because police officers have privileges and accessibility that the average citizen does not.
Domestic violence is always a terrible crime, but victims of a police officer are particularly vulnerable because the officer who is abusing them:
1. has a gun,
2. knows the location of battered women's shelters, and
3. knows how to manipulate the system to avoid penalty and/or shift blame to the victim.
One of the most disturbing parts is that police departments often handle cases of police family violence informally; without an "official report, investigation, or even check of the victim's safety."
The National Center for Women & Policing report that two studies have found that at least forty percent of police officer families experience domestic violence, in contrast to ten percent of families in the general population.
This is scary for many reasons, but perhaps most especially because police officers have privileges and accessibility that the average citizen does not.
Domestic violence is always a terrible crime, but victims of a police officer are particularly vulnerable because the officer who is abusing them:
1. has a gun,
2. knows the location of battered women's shelters, and
3. knows how to manipulate the system to avoid penalty and/or shift blame to the victim.
One of the most disturbing parts is that police departments often handle cases of police family violence informally; without an "official report, investigation, or even check of the victim's safety."
This is the reality. Hence why the organisation is, to quote Tiassa, "shit".
They protect their own.
The final obstacle is police officers' reluctance to treat domestic violence as a crime when it is perpetrated by one of their own.
Their strong sense of the police family dissuades them from considering police domestic violence a criminal offense, not unlike their attitude toward civilian domestic violence twenty years ago. Victims of police officers not only challenge the image of the personal family, they challenge the concept of the police family as well.
When domestic violence occurs in a police home, police departments choose to keep the incident a family secret and deal with it in-house. By treating the crime of domestic battery as a private matter or a marital problem, police departments regress to the approach of twenty years ago. The department hesitates to interfere in an employee's private life, and is extremely uncomfortable with the legal requirement to treat the offending officer like a common criminal. The victim, not the abuser, is identified as the traitor. The forces gather to silence her and to protect him.
Misuse of Institutional Power
Police abusers differ from other abusers only in that they are tougher and more dangerous. They have training, a badge, a gun and the weight of the police culture behind them. Smart police do not hit, slap, kick, or choke their partners. It is not necessary. They exercise their power and control by intimidating, isolating and terrifying the victim. These forms of abuse need to be addressed when the perpetrator is an officer. They are misuses of institutional power — the badge, the gun, the support of the department — and there is the constant threat that he will use them all against her.
Police are trained to walk in and take control of any situation. Their mere presence, voice and stance are used to establish their authority. They learn a full range of information-gathering techniques ranging from interviewing and interrogating to vigilant surveillance. The proficient use of these investigative techniques requires the ability to be manipulative and deceptive.
Training includes much instruction on the use of escalating degrees of force and the use of deadly force. The use of force by a police officer is a serious matter and force is to be used only when necessary to enforce his position of authority. Police know which situations justify the use of force and how to adequately explain it should they have to defend their actions in a court of law.
Tactics of Abuse
The characteristics and skills developed in training to produce competent officers are those that, when used in an intimate relationship, make police officers the most dangerous abusers.
The problem occurs when the officer walks through the front door of his home with the same mind-set he has in his professional life. His sense of entitlement to authority and respect from civilians carries over to his intimate partner. He cannot conceive of an egalitarian relationship. He must always be dominant and in control. Even a minor disagreement is perceived as a challenge to his authority which he will not tolerate. He uses his many finely honed skills and tactics to impress upon the victim that he has total control over her life.
Police officers use professional skills, police equipment, and the mobility of the job to keep their partners under surveillance. They run license plates of her friends and have access to information about anyone with whom she associates. They follow in their squad cars, park their squads or unmarked cars outside the victim's home for hours on end. They install recording devices in the victim's home or on her telephone. They use binoculars to observe the victim's activities from a distance. These methods serve as a constant reminder to the victim that she is always within the abuser's reach. He comes to be seen as omniscient and omnipotent, almost god-like.
The abuser uses verbal intimidation and degradation to communicate to the victim that she has no power in their relationship. He uses words as weapons to embarrass and humiliate her. He screams at her as if she was a criminal on the street — his voice and face changes; he uses vile language. He tells the victim she is no better than the whores and scumbags he deals with on the job every day.
Sometimes the verbal attack is used to provoke a confrontation for which he can then retaliate. If the verbal intimidation fails to gain control or earn the appropriate level of respect desired, the police abuser uses his training in the use of physical force. He then blames the victim for pushing him too far and making him batter her.
Physical abuse in police-perpetrated domestic violence is extremely brutal. It includes punching, choking, kicking, choke holds and body slams as well as techniques that inflict great pain yet leave no bruises or broken bones. He may hold a loaded gun to the victim's head or a fire a shot in close proximity to her sleeping child.
The abuser reinforces the victim's sense of isolation and hopelessness by frequently reminding her that there is no escape. He tells her she can call the police, but asks her who she thinks they will believe — him, or her? He tells her she can leave, but wherever she goes he will hunt her down. She can press charges against him, but she does not have enough evidence or credibility to make them stick. If she does manage to get him convicted, he will lose his job and then she will have no financial support for their children. He threatens that if he loses his job, she will lose her life.
Community Response Missing
If the victim has ever tried to escape before, she knows the truth in what he is saying. The victim knows that he will find her if she goes to a shelter because he knows or can easily find out where shelters are located. Most of her family and friends are afraid of him and afraid to be involved.
In general, the smaller the town, the fewer options she has; and the higher his rank, the fewer people who are willing to help her.
If the woman calls the police, she sees that when the police arrive at the scene and learn that the alleged perpetrator is a police officer, a shift takes place. The responding officers are now responding not to the victim of a crime, but to an officer in need.
Because most police departments do not have a policy addressing police-perpetrated domestic violence, the responding officers, who are the abuser's colleagues, use their discretion in handling the call. The responding officers are likely to discourage the victim from signing a complaint. They urge her to consider his career, to think about all the good things they share, to think about their kids. They assure her that he's a good man and a good police officer, that he's just under a lot of stress. They promise to talk to him off the record and invoke the code of silence. The responding officers do not inform their superiors and life goes on, for the abuser, as if nothing ever happened.
This kind of crap is rampant and common. It is the norm. The blue wall. They are above the law. Police perpetrated domestic violence victims can't even report the crime for fear of their lives and because they know they will just be ignored and made into the perpetrator. This is the reality of the blue wall.
Who is to blame here? Who creates this kind of culture where a cop beating his spouse gets a free pass and no one will do anything to stop him and instead, blames his wife? Those who know this is going on and see it and hide and protect him because he's one of them, a cop, what are they? This is what it's like Balerion. This is the reality. So what are they? What are those who willingly and openly take part in this kind of culture? Good cops?
So perhaps next time, when you are going to make wild comparisons, you should do some reading and see just how wrong you are.
