New York Cops Are Bloated and Out of Shape

[SoDesuKa]

The cops have enjoyed ten years of public support after 9/11. You don't dare talk back to them because that shows you're a terrorist. Cops used to have more savvy in dealing with public demonstrations - they didn't just go off when somebody said something impolite.

As a result of the ten-year snooze since 9/11, today's cops don't know what to do when they're not being worshiped. The white shirt cops are especially indignant about having their authority questioned. They're completely unused to any resistance at all.

It's a learning process for the cops just as it is for citizens who take part in public demonstrations. Eventually the police will learn how to restore public order without macing women trapped behind a barricade. They'll have to learn that because cops can't afford to be seen as thugs.



Chicago Cops in 1968

[coalition_unwilling]

1. Out here in Los Angeles, it's often said that the LAPD is just another

'gang' (albeit one operating under color of authority) among the many gangs operating here.

As the Ramparts Division Scandal and the May Day 'police riot' in MacArthur Park have demonstrated, things here really haven't changed that much since the days of Darryl Gates and Rodney King.

N.B. TPTB here managed to sweep the Ramparts Scandal under the rug with only a couple of low-level officers doing any time. A full inquiry was never allowed.

[SoDesuKa]

3. Blunt Instrument

We're seeing a police force with no real sense of what's appropriate and what's not. The white shirt cops are especially neurotic because they've never had their moral authority questioned. They go apeshit because they're not unaccustomed to any challenge.

Mayor Bloomberg isn't helping things by telling police commanders that they've got to hold the line before New York turns into Cairo. The Wall Street demonstrations aren't interfering with Wall Street operations, but the cops are responding as if they're dealing with terrorists. It's wildly inappropriate.

It will be interesting to see whether the white shirts are allowed to get away with excessive force. White demonstrators are higher class than the usual victims of police violence, and aren't as likely to tolerate a cover-up.

[Odin2005]

2. Take away their donuts!

[LuvNewcastle]

4. Good idea.

Then they would have to call in the National Guard to put down the police rebellion.;)

[frazzled]

7. Here (Chicago) they'll just be paying more for health insurance

Here, the public employee sector was given the option of joining in with "wellness" programs for preventative health issues--and if not, they'd have to pay an extra 50 bucks a month on insurance. The CPD were the only public employee group to refuse--they said they were okay.

You've never met cops till you've come up with some of these Chicago guys. There are inevitably some good ones, but every day there is a story of them beating up some young people in a bar because they didn't cede the pool table, or indiscriminately killing some innocent kid. I'm really worried about when the G-8 meeting is held here next year. Hopefully, the new Chief of Police is going to instill some discipline.

[tama]

6. On the contrary

Be nice to them, especially regular guys in blue shirt, and give them all the donuts they can eat. Happy cop with a belly full can't hit much even if he wanted to, and why would he want to hit the hand that feeds him?

[ChandlerJr]

5. New York Cops Are Bloated and Out of Shape

And maybe it's time to take away their union protections. It's almost impossible to fire one of these bastards. Eff 'em.

[Dawson Leery]

8. The time to break up the FOP has more than arrived.

[SoDesuKa]

9. Fired Cops

The cops in the Abner Louima case were all fired, and some of them did time in the penitentiary. Officer Chuck Schwarz, for instance, was not as directly involved as Officer Justin Volpe, but he did plead guilty to lying to investigators. The police union tried to make a cause celebre out of Schwarz, claiming that he was a victim of political pressure, but the effort failed.

NYPD's aggressiveness against white protesters will almost certainly provoke a backlash. Eventually one of the white shirts will be caught on videotape in some unambiguous violation of the law. Then we'll find out if there's any policy giving the white shirts more authority to use force.



Abner Louima

[provis99]

10. not just metaphorically bloated and out of shape...

those cops in the NYPD brutality videos are a bunch of middle-aged fat asses.
Trivia question of the day: who in the pictures below is a cop, and who is a criminal?





Surprise! they are all indicted cops!

[DrunkenBoat]

16. are they all on steroids, too? bunch of no-necks.

[sabrina 1]

11. Actually they lost a lot of respect among NYers right after

9/11 when Giuliani, thug that he is, ordered the Firemen who were still searching for bodies, many of them their colleagues, to leave Ground Zero when he found out that Gold had been found and they needed to dig for it. The Firemen refused to leave, and Giuliani sent his thugs, the NYPD in to force them out. Many NYers were infuriated and disgusted at what happened, and Giuliani had to pull the NYPD back.

The Firemen have never forgiven him for that and there is not a very good relationship between them and the NYPD.

The NY Firemen are real heroes. They went in to SAVE people and over 300 of them died due to the faulty equipment they had which Giuliani had refused to replace, a controversy that had been going on for months before 9/11. Many Firemen hold him responsible for those deaths and do not want him at their memorial services.

Don't forget also that Bernie Kerrik, corrupt former Chief of the NYPD, installed by Giuliani and his close friend, who Bush wanted to put in charge of Homeland Security, ended up in jail.

I am not sure that all that many people ever viewed the NYPD as heroes. They have a long history of corruption and brutality and under Giuliani, who loved them and used for much thuggery against the homeless and the poor, they were defended in the death of Amadou Diallo among other despicable behavior.

There are some good cops there, but it's hard to be a good cop in that Dept as many have found out.

[patrick t. cakes]

12. meat heads

The same thugs who pushed the "uncool" kids in school and chuckled after. Bullies perfect for the job.

Fuck 'em.

[msongs]

13. does public order really need restoring there right now? cept for out of control police that is? t

[Rex]

14. Some are, to say they all are is profiling and makes you no better

then the cops you are criticizing.

[SoDesuKa]

15. Profiling the NYPD

One way to tell how corrupt New York's cops are is how they respond to the well-documented criminal assault we've seen on the videotape. The cowardly officer who maced the penned-in women is easily identified by people who work with him. If his name never comes to light, we'll know that the cops are more interested in protecting each other than enforcing the law. That's corruption, in my book.

First indications aren't hopeful. Paul Brown, official spokesman for NYPD, is already taking a see-no-evil approach. If this remains NYPD's response, it will reflect poorly not just on the cops but on the entire city government. New York's cops have much to answer for. I expect that we're going to hear long sad excuses about the constant presssure, the danger, the lonely nights . . . all the film noir stuff we hear all the time.



Film Noir

[Dawson Leery]

17. Cops who complain about the "danger" and "lonely nights"

are not tough, they are weak.

[Ex Lurker]

18. Lumberjacks, coal miners and commercial fishermen have more dangerous jobs than cops

but they don't get called heroes.

[Dawson Leery]

19. Without question, TRUE.