How much do you trust the police?

That might be one of the best answers in the thread

Foxface

 

I actually trust most individual policemen in my country. However, I don't trust groups of policemen. Group thinking and bad orders can lead to really bad desisions. I've seen a group of policemen on horses charge a mass of people during a demonstration without provocation who had no escape (they placed fences in bad places not thinking about crowd control).

 

Foxface,
Wake up. The facts are there in front of us every day, or do you get your news from Fox? The militarization of local police has been going on for some years now--with tanks and armored vehicles even in small towns. SWAT teams are regularly used for what used to be routine police work. There have been more people killed by police in the U.S. in the last 5 years than military personnel in Afghanistan. Political dissenters of every sort--even pacifist Quakers, are on lists of "potential terrorists." The U.S. surveilance of citizens rivals that of STASI or the USSR. There are more people in prison in the U.S. per-population than any country in the world. If you are a male living in an urban black neighborhood, you have been stopped and frisked for nothing, over and over. Last week in Philly an honors student going to practice basketball on a day in the single digits, was stopped and arrested for having his face covered with a scarf--and hospitalized with genital injuries. Then, of course, charged with 'resisting arrest,' which is what the cops ALWAYS do when they beat the shit out of someone. I've seen that, been eyewitness to it. It happens EVERYDAY in Philly. And the cops get away with it.
Maybe you live in 'nice' white neighborhood where you don't see this. That doesn't mean it doesn't happen, nor is it difficult to document if you want to live outside your comfortable hologram.

---------- Post added 16th Jan 2014 at 02:00 PM ----------

Yep . I was knocked down by a police horse sent charging into a group of people who were on the sidewalk! on the night of the eviction of the Occupy Philly camp.