At some point this sort of thing is going to engender a movement to disband police agencies. The reason is that it will occur to many people that the cure (cops) is worse than the disease (crime).
Ah. Already happening here in PA. More and more towns are quietly disbanding their local police and handing matters over to the State Police. Crime rates have stayed about the same or dropped.
Seems to me that police exist to enforce government edicts far more than protecting folks' lives and property.
If/when that occurs, it is time to disband them.
blinks I am unaware of any departments that believed otherwise, Rooster. I know individual officers that believe in protecting people over edicts, but exactly zero departments. I didn't think this was a new trend, I automatically assumed it was universal... because it has been the case everywhere that I've ever been.
Every law enforcement group I'm aware of is dedicated to protection of "the community", not and never individuals. And by community, they mean whoever pays them and to whom they are directly responsible. Buddies of mine in NCIS see themselves as protecting the Navy, not the individual sailors. Local cops enforce ordinances regardless of their legality or morality against citizens, because their paycheck comes from the municipality that sets these ordinances. You could argue that their paycheck ultimately comes from the citizenry, which is true, but that is a conceptional thing rather than the every day perception. And perception defines reality at the end of the day.
