Which law enforcement agencies do you trust?

[traininthedistance]

Trust. Reality dictates it. Bluntly put, I have worked professionally with 100x as many cops as the rest of the Forum combined, and with 100x closer contact than the victims of traffic stops and the occassional uncle/friend of the family who is a cop, including during several years i was a defense attorney.

Are all cops trustworthy? of course not, and i've both prosecuted and represented cops (former and current). There are litterally hundreds of thousands of law enforcement in the country, so there are bound to be bad people. But they are statistically very rare.

The worst problem some individual cops have isn't overzealousness, or overly testosterone-fueled actions. There are a small minority of cops who are guilty of laziness and not following up. The end result is much MUCH more likely to result in the guilty going free rather than then innocent being convicted.

FTR, i can't swear there aren't ANY jurisdictions in the country which are an exception, but having worked with many departments of varying sizes, cops having a "ticket quota" is a total myth.

I guess this is just nine "bad apples", then.    And in liberal bastion San Francisco, no less!  This isn't something you can merely chalk up to ambient racism like the Dothan incident.

(FTR: My SO works in a prosecutor's office.  Her opinion of prosecutors has gone up massively as a result of this experience.  Her opinion of cops... has not.  Fun fact: apparently they will reject you for the force if you score too highly on the exam.  Don't want the enforcers too smart, I guess.)

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

How about this: who do you trust more, tiny local Hick police or the huge forces in the cities like the NYPD?

[dead0man]

Fun fact: apparently they will reject you for the force if you score too highly on the exam.  Don't want the enforcers too smart, I guess.)

This happened once, and the excuse they gave is that smart cops would get bored and quit and they would have wasted money training him/her.  I don't know if that holds water, but the courts think so.  It's certainly not common practice for local departments to not hire a person that is too smart.

As for the OP, I would trust a random cop (local, state or fed) slightly more than I'd trust a random non-cop.

[MK]

Fun fact: apparently they will reject you for the force if you score too highly on the exam.  Don't want the enforcers too smart, I guess.)

This happened once, and the excuse they gave is that smart cops would get bored and quit and they would have wasted money training him/her.  I don't know if that holds water, but the courts think so.  It's certainly not common practice for local departments to not hire a person that is too smart.

As for the OP, I would trust a random cop (local, state or fed) slightly more than I'd trust a random non-cop.

This nugget has some truth to it.    The phys test is actually a IQ test (though the mental part is just a 10 min interview).   The rumor/theories is that a high IQ cop will over think things to his or others detriment.   Not to say that they want dumb cops as it is even worse (see incidents like Charleston).   

If I have seen and heard of a few people failing the phys test after scoring too high.   Of course they don't flat out tell you that but instead come up with something like you failed the polygraph or something in your background etc. 

[Sasquatch]

I don't trust any of them.

[Tender Branson]

I generally trust the Austrian police - they are people like you and me.

Much like 85% of the population trusts them, according to the latest poll.

But we don't have the problems you have (reckless & murderous police officers, psycho killers, a stressed out PTSD-infested society due to constant wars and easy access to weapons of mass destruction which leads to daily mass shootings, race riots, etc.), so it's much easier to trust them.

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

The feds have absolutely no respect for the 4th amendment, but I suppose the local law enforcement issues manage to be even worse.

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

I generally trust the Austrian police - they are people like you and me.

Much like 85% of the population trusts them, according to the latest poll.

But we don't have the problems you have (reckless & murderous police officers, psycho killers, a stressed out PTSD-infested society due to constant wars and easy access to weapons of mass destruction which leads to daily mass shootings, race riots, etc.), so it's much easier to trust them.

Well...