Re: Cops 5: Barney Fife, Now in Real Life!
These are both absolutely true stories:
Someone ripped my father and I off when we ran a business out of the house for many thousands of dollars. They forged my signature and his signature on company checks and cashed them. We had the cancelled checks, the proof of the fraudulent signatures and even pretty much caught the thief red handed. We walked into the police department (an affluent suburb) and talked to two detectives. We literally handed them an open and shut case. That was 10 years ago, to this day they have never charged the criminal. It was deemed a "waste of resources".
I worked for a company where a high up official embezzled 250K. We knew who did it, we knew how he did it, we knew where he did it and we even had pictures of him doing it. The police have all the evidence. The police knew where he lived, even had proof of him trying to commit further acts of fraud in the name of the company during the investigation. He has been in prison previously for fraud as well For 6 months they literally did nothing except "build a case". The only reason he is in jail now was he was picked up by a different department on unrelated charges. The case is still open.
These are also both true:
The cop in Cleveland, Timothy Loehmann, who shot 12 year old Tamir Rice in 2014 (and violated all sorts of procedures and policies in the process) resigned from his previous police department because he was emotionally and mentally unstable, and his chief felt he was unfit to be a police officer. He also repeatedly failed in his attempts to qualify for his firearm proficiency. When he applied, literally up the road from the Independence, Ohio police department that he resigned from (he resigned knowing he was going to be fired if he did not leave willingly), the Cleveland Police Department did not make one check on his record. When I was offered the position I have here in Northeast Ohio, my employer verified my education, did two extensive interviews with me, had me take tests to assure I had the aptitude for the work they wanted me to do, and interviewed not one but three of the references I listed. My job, by the way, doesn't allow me special privileges to shoot anybody. How many people believe Timothy Loehmann is the only one of Cleveland's 1600 sworn police officers who was NOT properly vetted? If you believe he was the only one, you're an idiot. And before anyone tries to tell me that Tamir Rice is at least partially responsible, because he was carrying a toy gun that had the little orange plug pulled off, get over yourselves. Unless you wanna ban toy guns completely. 9-1-1 callers said it was probably a fake or toy gun and the cops committed numerous violations of policy and their own training. A young boy paid with his life. Fvck both of those cops.
One of my best friends used to be a cop. He was a good cop. Open minded. Thoughtful. Was a cop because he thought it would be an exciting way to make a difference, to help a community. He embodied the motto on many police cars that is a cruel joke in many places in 2017, "To Serve And Protect." I occasionally accompanied him on midnight shifts as a civilian ride-along. If he saw someone driving erratically or committing an obvious violation, he'd pull them over. If they were impaired, he'd make the arrest. Sometimes people would give him lip or argue. He never raised his voice or resorted to treating anyone poorly. He rarely though wrote an actual ticket. "What's the point?" he'd tell me. "I made my point with them, they'll drive home safe. And they won't resent me later if I need to get their help with something in the neighborhood." One night when I trekked up there to ride with him for a shift a superior officer chewed him out because he never wrote tickets "to the homeboys." (the town, in southeast Michigan, was overwhelmingly black) He offered the same reasoning to his superior as he offered me. "It ain't about developing relationships, its about showing them who the boss is in this town," the shift commander said. That is a quote. His shift commander did not know I was in the next room, waiting for my friend to grab his things and hit the road. If you believe that shift commander was the only cop out there who thinks their job is to show "the homeboys" who the boss REALLY is, and the rest of them are appalled at that notion and attitude, you're an idiot.
